8 ms·

You can 'throw' what you can afford and it will feel as satisfying. Just try it.

• dwroberts 4mo ago
  Seems obvious the parent comment was making a point about how much money it is and not just whether it feels nice to donate money. 400k can go a long way
• alchemist1e9 4mo ago
  EDIT: comment was under incorrect parent. my error. moved it to correct location. EDIT2: Actually it’s more interesting. The commenters seem have changed their wording away from what I was criticizing. Original observation: Try to purge envy from your heart. It’s a poison. There was originally a lot of dark envy in this thread but interestingly it’s been revised out to be more subtle.
  • sevenzero 4mo ago
    In a working society, nobody should be able to throw away life changing money. Being rich is poisonous to society. Most of us suffer due to people hoarding money and humanity needs to overcome the concept of money generally.
    • nkrisc 4mo ago
      Wicked people will be wicked with or without money.
      • gr8painz 4mo ago
        [dead]
    • jazzyjackson 4mo ago
      Hoarding money is not economically prudent in a system designed with mild inflation. Money loses value sitting still, to grow wealth there has to be some action with a positive return. The trouble will billionaires is the oligopolizing of power and influence, not that they're sitting on gold that could otherwise be yours... I've spent a lot of time in communities trying to grow past 'money' and decided that the usual replacement is allegiance to some other ideology that aligns everyone's incentives to a common cause or cult. I'd rather have diverse incentives with a common language of cash.
      • sevenzero 4mo ago
        If we cant grow past money as a species we are pretty much doomed. I'd rather have allegiance or community based incentives over monetary gain, given that most people on earth can't really afford life anymore and rack up debt so rich people can get richer.
        • alchemist1e9 4mo ago
          Capitalism is the single greatest force for improvement in the human condition. Money is the foundation of capitalism. If you went to school and believe what you write then you went to terrible schools.
          • sevenzero 4mo ago
            Capitalism also marked the end of humanity and is the single greatest force driving human extinction. But yall money driven brains cant comprehend that :)
            • throwitaway222 4mo ago
              I guess my question to people that dislike capitalism, is - what do you want to see replace it? Capitalism with changes, Communism? I don't think Humans can ever do anything other than capitalism because at the end of the day, a farmer making food and delivering it is just going to STOP working when he finds out a daycare owner has made $15 in 3 years without actually taking care of kids. And everyone just bubble wraps the explanation - and then they disallow anger. The farmer then writes up a proposal for starting a daycare and the food stops flowing. Everyone dies in communism.
              • sevenzero 4mo ago
                >Everyone dies in communism. Everyone dies in capitalism as well though. Everyone dies generally at some point in life. Reality is, currently most of us are wage slaves and I'd love to work a little less and still be able to afford life. An alternative to capitalism would be socialism and killing corrupt people off.
    • tpmoney 4mo ago
      “Life changing” money is relative. We take some family friends and their kids on a vacation every two years. Sometimes the bill is split, sometimes we cover most or all of the cost. We’re not rich, we just have extra money they don’t because of different life circumstances. But as a result we can help give them and their kids experiences they never would have had. Likewise some friends who are better off than we are were able to take us on a trip we could not have afforded on our own. Again they’re not rich, just a different set of life circumstances. Now you might argue that “vacations” aren’t “life changing”, but I would certainly argue that if you never would have had the experience or seen the place then they absolutely can be. But even if not, I refer you back to the original thesis which is that “life changing” is relative. Because the sums of money we’re talking about would have been “pay my rent for a year”, “buy a reliable (used) car”, “reduce my student loan balance by nearly a third” sort of money. And those I think could all be reasonably said to be life changing sorts of things. Finally I would suggest that if you are “throwing away” this sort of money on actually changing someone’s life, then you are by definition not “hoarding money” and can hardly be said to be poisoning society with your relative wealth.
  • MyHonestOpinon 4mo ago
    I don't feel the parent post is about bad envy. There is also good envy, when you feel happy for someone's blessings. But you also would like to have it for yourself.
    • alchemist1e9 4mo ago
      Nah this is definitely bad type of envy you can look at the full discussion and additional comments from the user.
    • trollbridge 4mo ago
      Or you can just be excited that $400k is getting dumped into Zig, and without onerous strings attached. That's an unmitigated good thing. I don't feel a need to know too much about the particulars of mitchellh's life or what else he spends his money on.
• asimovDev 4mo ago
  i don't think my bank will let me withdraw 400k in cash with the reasoning of "I want to throw it"
  • fhn 4mo ago
    your bank owns your money?
    • asimovDev 4mo ago
      yes, I have to apply in advance if I want to withdraw large amounts of cash and it has to be approved.
      • jazzyjackson 4mo ago
        This is more 'multi-factor authentication' than deciding what you can spend your money on
      • FireBeyond 4mo ago
        > I have to apply in advance Banks try to avoid holding excessive amounts of cash in suburban branches because it makes them attractive armed robbery targets. If you have a need for a large amount of cash, you can let them know (my bank says 24-48 hours in advance), go to multiple branches, or to a large city branch. Inconvenient, perhaps, though temporary. If it's for a business or a recurring need your bank is generally happy to make that part of their regular logistics, "Monday's cash delivery needs X because asimovDev regularly wants $50,000 in cash every Wednesday". > it has to be approved I'm not sure what you mean by this, but I don't think it's "approved" in the sense of the bank deciding if you're allowed to do so. But hmm: multiple ID checks, or a specific seniority of bank employee doing the check. Or if you decide you want to take out $250,000 and you have to do it in cash, they might a) want a day or two to physically acquire the cash, and/or b) have additional security due to their insurance policy. They certainly might try to suggest you look at a cashier's check or wire transfer or other instrument to do so. There's going to be a CAR for any transaction involving more than $10,000 in cash. But I'd challenge the assertion that the bank tells you you're "not allowed" to withdraw "large amounts of cash" from an otherwise unencumbered bank account.
• Tade0 4mo ago
  The type of money I can throw at stuff wouldn't pay a salary of a full-time dev for 2.5 years (if not more).
  • yoyohello13 4mo ago
    Pledge what you can. If everyone does this, it adds up. I have a $100/month slush fund I have set aside for Patreon/OS projects I like and use. It's a drop in the bucket, but something. Even $5/month can go to VPS hosting or something.
• __turbobrew__ 4mo ago
  If you assume Hashimotos net worth is one billion dollars, a $400k donation is equivalent to a $400 donation if your net worth is one million dollars. I don’t believe donating $400 really feels that satisfying, the impact is fairly negligible in most contexts whereas donating $400k can very visibly improve a lot of lives. I think this illustrates just how much a billion dollars is and maybe why a very small wealth tax can be used for a lot of good in society.
  • grim_io 4mo ago
    That is a very privileged out of touch comment to make, no offense. In many(most?) parts of the world, $400 is the equivalent of months of good salary.
    • __turbobrew__ 4mo ago
      How is it out of touch? I donated much more than Hashimoto did relative to our net worths, but I cannot deny that I would have felt much more satisfied making a 1000x impact if I was a billionaire. I donated $6000 to a halfway house last year and that doesn’t even come close to covering a single bed for a year. If I was a billionaire I could have built an entire halfway house.
      • throwitaway222 4mo ago
        The problem is that when government spends $1,000,000 on your halfway house, it provides instant relief. It creates beds. The next year the government does it, the number of employees has doubled and it creates 20% more beds instead of the original amount. The third year it creates no beds and we find that 10% of the beds are gone, and the number of employees is now 1000. The government didn't care how well the money was invested. Now if you invest $6000 and no one else was doing it, they would probably have created some percentage of 1 bed out of it. And if 18 other people invest $100 each maybe that's enough to complete the bed for a year. And if those altogether 19 people hear that the money went to good use, they donate again and they tell their friends. Maybe the halfway house in 10 years starts earning $25k per year and they keep costs low and the beds start increasing, they rent more space. The government forced funding breaks it and turns it into a fake jobs program, the community funding it actually makes the service accountable.
• psychoslave 4mo ago
  A salary of $400,000 is approximately 40 times the world median salary, which is estimated to be around $10,000 per year. ~400–800 million people (top 5–10% of global earners) could easily pay $833/month without major struggle, assuming they earn >$100,000/year. So 90% people couldn’t even afford to pay a whole month of salary to a median earner without major struggle. ~3.6 billion people (45% of the global population) can likely afford to drop a $0.25 coin in a hat for a street artist without financial struggle. But that might not feel exactly the same as giving a whole month of median salary, let alone 40 years of it.
• throwaway894345 4mo ago
  Somehow I feel it’s probably less satisfying if your contribution pays for a couple hours of developer time compared with the annual salary for an entire team. It’s probably more satisfying to be able to move the needle than not.
  • fsckboy 4mo ago
    there are many non profits that rely on volunteer labor, but they still need funds to operate, amounts of $10k can move the needle quite effectively