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The reason for the cessation in funding is because of recent political changes. Incidentally those recent political changes also led to a cessation in governmen

The reason for the cessation in funding is because of recent political changes. Incidentally those recent political changes also led to a cessation in government charitable donations. I don't think we can claim that either is strictly more reliable than the other. I'm surprised at how readily people will support government intervention while bearing in mind which government would currently be implementing said intervention.

ggm 1y ago
Yea.. I should have qualified my words "in the world as we used to understand it" or something.
JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> reason for the cessation in funding is because of recent political changes The reason is Zuckerberg and Chan have no backbone. These are individuals who command the resources of small nations. Yet their insecurities win out every time, rendering them powerless to take a stand on anything and instead wander to the beats of others’ drums.
- lasc4r 1y ago
  Or more plausibly they never cared and it was just PR all along.
  - soulofmischief 1y ago
    Zuckerberg will never outrun his "they 'trust me'. dumb fucks" chat log. He's a terrible person.
    - BLKNSLVR 1y ago
      He doesn't seem to be trying very hard to outrun it either. Facebook is a toxic dump of human unintelligensia and Mark/FB/Meta only ever seem to resist any attempts to disinfect even small pockets.
    - bee_rider 1y ago
      He has hundreds of billions of dollars. I think he could go do whatever he wants.
      - soulofmischief 1y ago
        Sure, but like some other founders he's doing little to morally redeem himself for his sizeable role in the normalization of engineering addiction while simultaneously creating a massive surveillance firm in the name of ad-tech. Every bit of lip service about connecting people is overshadowed by "they 'trust me'. dumb fucks".
      - foogazi 1y ago
        Apparently he could not raise math scores at the school So what does money have to do with doing what you want ?
    - deadbabe 1y ago
      Why is that a terrible statement? Aren’t you in fact dumb if you just trust some rando’s website on the interent with all the details of your personal life? It’s not even wrong.
      - soulofmischief 1y ago
        Honesty doesn't absolve ill intent.
    - mindslight 1y ago
      Many of us did stupid anti-social shit when we were young, especially with computers. The mood of that chat felt like plenty of chats I had with friends, grandstanding and boasting. The sad part is that he hasn't grown as he's gotten older.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > more plausibly they never cared and it was just PR all along That’s still capitulation. When it’s fashionable, they’re one way. When it’s not, they’re the other. It’s not savvy, it’s cowardice.
    - quartesixte 1y ago
      A thought just struck me, but I wonder if the difference between the Billionaires of Today and the Monopolists of Yesteryear is that the wealth and power of the Billionaires are tied up in publicly exposed assets (stocks, etc) as well as networked wealth. Make the wrong political move, and people tank your stock into oblivion. But what are you going to do to Carnegie? Not have steel? Rockerfeller says something antithetical to Elite Beliefs? Good luck getting oil.
      - korse 1y ago
        This is relatively well known. Monopolists had very real wealth with a high floor value and controlled large portions of the supply chains needed to build big things that lasted. The Silicon Valley 'elite' of today has wealth predicated on theoretical value calculations of things the world isn't even convinced it needs. Monumental difference, and it significantly changes how these guys operate and what legacy they leave.
    - Nevermark 1y ago
      Or the school was just a cynical tool for generating good PR, where “good” means good for Zuck as he sees it in any moment. Did anyone really think Zuck cares about people? After all the past and ongoing ethical issues with his companies? He is consistently looking out for himself. There is no capitulation.
  - dmix 1y ago
    Or they looked at the results and weren't seeing much progress vs their science investments, which also coincided with these billionaire social projects becoming politically unpopular. For ex, from the article re the school: > But former leaders of the school who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private information said Chan had grown distant in recent years as the school’s academic performance faltered. > In 2017, a Harvard study funded by CZI found that by 2015 the growth rate of student achievement in English had significantly improved — but that there had been no significant change for math. > the school met stumbling blocks. Two principals left in its early years, which three former school leaders said made it difficult to establish stability for students. NYTimes said the refocusing on science investment vs social happened slowly over 5yrs and they haven't invested in any social ones in a few years. So this change has been in the works for a while...
- rayiner 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - mindslight 1y ago
    Blindly following a hollow con artist who makes every indication that his plans will be bad for you, yet because he speaks the right emotional intonations to your hind brain you rationalize that it will somehow be good for you. Yup, that certainly sounds like religion!
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - rayiner 1y ago
      The hind brian is deeply attuned to physical reality. Religion comes from the forebrain which thinks the human animal can be transcended.
      - mindslight 1y ago
        Man, you're just primed to respond to anything with rationalization, huh? What your implied narrative is missing is that being attuned to "physical reality" means being quite misaligned with our modern technological world, and that incentives diverge when those forebrains and hindbrains are in different skulls.
        rayiner 1y ago
        It’s not “rationalization,” your point just makes no sense. I agree Trump appeals to the lizard brain—that’s the brain that’s in touch with physical reality. The folks who have magical ideas about all sorts of “human rights” are the religious ones. That’s the opposite of lizard brain.
        mindslight 1y ago
        It's rationalization because you've taken the analysis just far enough to feel edgily insightful, and then framed the hanging thoughts in feel-good terms (eg "physical reality"). I don't actually disagree about the factual things you've said! Traditional religions, cultlike religions, progressivism, and Trumpism are all "forebrain" attempts steering the behavior of the "lizard brain". These goals often help the individual self interest of the forebrains espousing them. But modulo this, they can still be societally constructive (for instance it's hard to deny the progress that Christianity historically brought to western society), and sometimes they can be societally destructive. Trumpism, with its rejection of most of what makes our society successful (eg its rejection of being bound by intellectual reason, and your welcoming embrace of returning to the "lizard brain" behavior based on "physical reality"), is quite destructive.
- eastbound 1y ago
  There is a sociologic experiment to do with “The revolution eats its children”. For as long as I’ve seen Bill Gates donate to all causes that would please the most leftist proponents, the only reaction I’ve seen was indifference/hate. It’s a sociological reality: Nothing pleases a mob. On one side, leftist characters always end up in a situation where they were not left enough, which, in revolutionary environments, justifies their termination. In France when the left was elected the president was described as “a capitalist, simping for billionaires”. On the other side, if you are rich and perform acts promoted by leftism, such as donating your entire salary, increasing your employees by 30% a year, or like Bill Gates, donating your entire wealth for the world’s hunger and health before your death, your actions are construed as malevolent, probably there’s a “get rich” scheme behind it for Bill Gates, or probably “you had to treat your employees bad if you had to increase their salary.” For a good person, there is no winning. But we have countless counterexamples of bad people liked by the same population. A lot, lot, lot of people reach this conclusion by their 40ies. After all, it’s not “spine” that people should have, but just mutual love, including some from the bottom to the top. And perhaps it explains the current trends.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- karmakurtisaani 1y ago
  > The reason is Zuckerberg and Chan have no backbone. More likely, the wealthier you are the more tied you are to the system. The US government could make it very difficult for Zuck to conduct his business, which would tank his wealth. This is in particularly true when there's a pseudo-dictator in power.
  - gatlin 1y ago
    So, in other words, he has no backbone.
    - amy214 1y ago
      >So, in other words, he has no backbone. Pretty fair if you take Eli Musk as a counterexample. Eli stood with the government and the whole left groaned that he sold out. Then he backed off due to his principles and the whole right groaned that he's not a team player, also the left still hates him too for some reason. Basically, in this hyper-polarized political environment, apparently all sides agree that they don't like Eli Musk, ironically the power commander of the Twitter propaganda network node.
lasc4r 1y ago
>I don't think we can claim that either is strictly more reliable than the other In the article it was schools that were defunded. Does the government have a history of consistently funding schools?
- martijnvds 1y ago
  Sadly, yes.
make3 1y ago
the difference is that one is from elected officials (however flawed, clearly, there is some measure of representing the people's interests in theory at least), and the other is just an individual's decision, not even pretense of representing the people's opinion
DrScientist 1y ago
Governments have a degree of democratic accountability - the current US government could be kicked out or not in 4 years depending on the will of the people. Billionaires paying very little tax are forever ( certainly more than a lifetime as the wealth is handed down over generations ).

ggm 1y ago

Yea.. I should have qualified my words "in the world as we used to understand it" or something.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago

> reason for the cessation in funding is because of recent political changes The reason is Zuckerberg and Chan have no backbone. These are individuals who command the resources of small nations. Yet their insecurities win out every time, rendering them powerless to take a stand on anything and instead wander to the beats of others’ drums.

lasc4r 1y ago
Or more plausibly they never cared and it was just PR all along.
- soulofmischief 1y ago
  Zuckerberg will never outrun his "they 'trust me'. dumb fucks" chat log. He's a terrible person.
  - BLKNSLVR 1y ago
    He doesn't seem to be trying very hard to outrun it either. Facebook is a toxic dump of human unintelligensia and Mark/FB/Meta only ever seem to resist any attempts to disinfect even small pockets.
  - bee_rider 1y ago
    He has hundreds of billions of dollars. I think he could go do whatever he wants.
    - soulofmischief 1y ago
      Sure, but like some other founders he's doing little to morally redeem himself for his sizeable role in the normalization of engineering addiction while simultaneously creating a massive surveillance firm in the name of ad-tech. Every bit of lip service about connecting people is overshadowed by "they 'trust me'. dumb fucks".
    - foogazi 1y ago
      Apparently he could not raise math scores at the school So what does money have to do with doing what you want ?
  - deadbabe 1y ago
    Why is that a terrible statement? Aren’t you in fact dumb if you just trust some rando’s website on the interent with all the details of your personal life? It’s not even wrong.
    - soulofmischief 1y ago
      Honesty doesn't absolve ill intent.
  - mindslight 1y ago
    Many of us did stupid anti-social shit when we were young, especially with computers. The mood of that chat felt like plenty of chats I had with friends, grandstanding and boasting. The sad part is that he hasn't grown as he's gotten older.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > more plausibly they never cared and it was just PR all along That’s still capitulation. When it’s fashionable, they’re one way. When it’s not, they’re the other. It’s not savvy, it’s cowardice.
  - quartesixte 1y ago
    A thought just struck me, but I wonder if the difference between the Billionaires of Today and the Monopolists of Yesteryear is that the wealth and power of the Billionaires are tied up in publicly exposed assets (stocks, etc) as well as networked wealth. Make the wrong political move, and people tank your stock into oblivion. But what are you going to do to Carnegie? Not have steel? Rockerfeller says something antithetical to Elite Beliefs? Good luck getting oil.
    - korse 1y ago
      This is relatively well known. Monopolists had very real wealth with a high floor value and controlled large portions of the supply chains needed to build big things that lasted. The Silicon Valley 'elite' of today has wealth predicated on theoretical value calculations of things the world isn't even convinced it needs. Monumental difference, and it significantly changes how these guys operate and what legacy they leave.
  - Nevermark 1y ago
    Or the school was just a cynical tool for generating good PR, where “good” means good for Zuck as he sees it in any moment. Did anyone really think Zuck cares about people? After all the past and ongoing ethical issues with his companies? He is consistently looking out for himself. There is no capitulation.
- dmix 1y ago
  Or they looked at the results and weren't seeing much progress vs their science investments, which also coincided with these billionaire social projects becoming politically unpopular. For ex, from the article re the school: > But former leaders of the school who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private information said Chan had grown distant in recent years as the school’s academic performance faltered. > In 2017, a Harvard study funded by CZI found that by 2015 the growth rate of student achievement in English had significantly improved — but that there had been no significant change for math. > the school met stumbling blocks. Two principals left in its early years, which three former school leaders said made it difficult to establish stability for students. NYTimes said the refocusing on science investment vs social happened slowly over 5yrs and they haven't invested in any social ones in a few years. So this change has been in the works for a while...
rayiner 1y ago
[flagged]
- mindslight 1y ago
  Blindly following a hollow con artist who makes every indication that his plans will be bad for you, yet because he speaks the right emotional intonations to your hind brain you rationalize that it will somehow be good for you. Yup, that certainly sounds like religion!
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - rayiner 1y ago
    The hind brian is deeply attuned to physical reality. Religion comes from the forebrain which thinks the human animal can be transcended.
    - mindslight 1y ago
      Man, you're just primed to respond to anything with rationalization, huh? What your implied narrative is missing is that being attuned to "physical reality" means being quite misaligned with our modern technological world, and that incentives diverge when those forebrains and hindbrains are in different skulls.
      - rayiner 1y ago
        It’s not “rationalization,” your point just makes no sense. I agree Trump appeals to the lizard brain—that’s the brain that’s in touch with physical reality. The folks who have magical ideas about all sorts of “human rights” are the religious ones. That’s the opposite of lizard brain.
        mindslight 1y ago
        It's rationalization because you've taken the analysis just far enough to feel edgily insightful, and then framed the hanging thoughts in feel-good terms (eg "physical reality"). I don't actually disagree about the factual things you've said! Traditional religions, cultlike religions, progressivism, and Trumpism are all "forebrain" attempts steering the behavior of the "lizard brain". These goals often help the individual self interest of the forebrains espousing them. But modulo this, they can still be societally constructive (for instance it's hard to deny the progress that Christianity historically brought to western society), and sometimes they can be societally destructive. Trumpism, with its rejection of most of what makes our society successful (eg its rejection of being bound by intellectual reason, and your welcoming embrace of returning to the "lizard brain" behavior based on "physical reality"), is quite destructive.
eastbound 1y ago
There is a sociologic experiment to do with “The revolution eats its children”. For as long as I’ve seen Bill Gates donate to all causes that would please the most leftist proponents, the only reaction I’ve seen was indifference/hate. It’s a sociological reality: Nothing pleases a mob. On one side, leftist characters always end up in a situation where they were not left enough, which, in revolutionary environments, justifies their termination. In France when the left was elected the president was described as “a capitalist, simping for billionaires”. On the other side, if you are rich and perform acts promoted by leftism, such as donating your entire salary, increasing your employees by 30% a year, or like Bill Gates, donating your entire wealth for the world’s hunger and health before your death, your actions are construed as malevolent, probably there’s a “get rich” scheme behind it for Bill Gates, or probably “you had to treat your employees bad if you had to increase their salary.” For a good person, there is no winning. But we have countless counterexamples of bad people liked by the same population. A lot, lot, lot of people reach this conclusion by their 40ies. After all, it’s not “spine” that people should have, but just mutual love, including some from the bottom to the top. And perhaps it explains the current trends.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
karmakurtisaani 1y ago
> The reason is Zuckerberg and Chan have no backbone. More likely, the wealthier you are the more tied you are to the system. The US government could make it very difficult for Zuck to conduct his business, which would tank his wealth. This is in particularly true when there's a pseudo-dictator in power.
- gatlin 1y ago
  So, in other words, he has no backbone.
  - amy214 1y ago
    >So, in other words, he has no backbone. Pretty fair if you take Eli Musk as a counterexample. Eli stood with the government and the whole left groaned that he sold out. Then he backed off due to his principles and the whole right groaned that he's not a team player, also the left still hates him too for some reason. Basically, in this hyper-polarized political environment, apparently all sides agree that they don't like Eli Musk, ironically the power commander of the Twitter propaganda network node.

lasc4r 1y ago

>I don't think we can claim that either is strictly more reliable than the other In the article it was schools that were defunded. Does the government have a history of consistently funding schools?

martijnvds 1y ago
Sadly, yes.

make3 1y ago

the difference is that one is from elected officials (however flawed, clearly, there is some measure of representing the people's interests in theory at least), and the other is just an individual's decision, not even pretense of representing the people's opinion

DrScientist 1y ago

Governments have a degree of democratic accountability - the current US government could be kicked out or not in 4 years depending on the will of the people. Billionaires paying very little tax are forever ( certainly more than a lifetime as the wealth is handed down over generations ).