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> Imagine how much good you could do with that money. With £10M? I mean, some good, surely. But not really a lot. Is there something you have in mind, spec
by ajross 3y ago
> Imagine how much good you could do with that money.
With £10M? I mean, some good, surely. But not really a lot. Is there something you have in mind, specifically?
This kind of logic is just jealousy. "They have money I don't and spend it on things I don't value" is true of every entity wealthier than you. It's true of your consumption too: how many $7 lattes have you purchased that could have fed a whole family, as it were? It's true of corporations and bureaucracies and governments too, which is why libertarianism is so tempting.
But there's no world where everyone agrees on what stuff we should value, just like there's no world (or at least no feasible world) where people aren't able to spend wastefully, because both of those are at their core subjective decisions.
- rhaps0dy 3y ago> With £10M? I mean, some good, surely. But not really a lot You could outright transfer it to some of the poorest people in the world (via https://www.givedirectly.org/ https://www.givedirectly.org/, you'd add ~5% to their total cash transfer amount). They could then invest it in whatever they need.
- ajross 3y agoSurely the billionaire in question does a ton of charity and philanthropy already, though, right? They all do. Is your point that they don't do enough, or that they shouldn't be allowed to spend 10M of what they don't give on a ridiculous dog house? Those are numerical arguments, so shouldn't you have to come to them with numbers to present? Again, my point is that this is all subjective. You're simply saying that you don't value the ridiculous dog house and that they should spend that on something else, but they probably do spend on the thing you want already, or something very similar. You don't get to tell people how to spend their money for the same reason they don't get to direct your own wasteful spending (which surely exists, right?). That's just standard western liberalism, you don't seriously disagree?
- hermitcrab 3y agoYou can build a small school in a third world country, such as Nepal, for £10k. So you could build somewhere around 1000 small schools (or a lesser number of bigger ones).
- mercutio2 3y agoAre there 1000 Nepali villages who have asked for a school and the local community thinks that’s what they’re really short on? Or is that a thing you like seeing pictures of westerners building/staffing? Most development programs like this are donations to westerners to have exotic experiences that end up providing very little value to the communities they purport to help. Your fellow respondent who mentioned GiveDirectly was at least advocating for a use of resources that has a strong chance of being net positive for the ostensible recipients.
- hermitcrab 3y ago>Are there 1000 Nepali villages who have asked for a school and the local community thinks that’s what they’re really short on? Quite likely. Certainly if you include other developing countries, as well as Nepal. There are small communities in Nepal that get very little help from the central government. Also much work still to be done to repair damage from the last earthquake, especially outside the tourist areas. >Most development programs like this are donations to westerners to have exotic experiences that end up providing very little value to the communities they purport to help. Many of them are. However there are organizations like https://thejunipertrust.org https://thejunipertrust.org that spend 98% of donations helping the intended recipients. Also they employ local to do the work. Which means money goes into the community which also makes the local community more invested in the project. I understand GiveDirectly is also an excellent charity. But (egotistically) it is nice to be able to point at a picture of a school and think 'I did that' (or, at least, financed it).
- akomtu 3y ago10k must be the cost of materials and labor. But arranging this project, getting the local authorities on board, is extra.
- marnett 3y agoI agree jealousy can be present when the Have Nots look at the purchasing decisions of the Haves. And I also agree that there is subjectivity in the decisions in whether the wealthy are self-indulging kings of the globalized era, or examples of the spoils the geniuses or innovators can achieve as they bring value to earth. But the billionaires can justify their despotism and self-indulgence to the masses as they are marched to the guillotine. And the intellectual discourse on the subjectivity of hedonistic decisions be silenced. The French aristocracy learned the lessons of royal restraint the hard way.