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Yes, and a casino is more profitable than a hospital, and "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads, that sucks." (Jeff H
by api 14y ago
Yes, and a casino is more profitable than a hospital, and "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads, that sucks." (Jeff Hammerbacher, Facebook.)
Communism is dead, socialism is dead, fascism is dead, god is dead, and now market fundamentalist capitalism is dying.
Of course all these things still have their True Believers, but as time goes on the ranks of those true believers dwindle and it becomes increasingly difficult to find serious and widely educated thinkers among them.
This is interesting. Ideology with a capital I is a big part of how human beings model and conceptualize the world. I think what we're seeing is that our cognitive modeling capabilities have limits. Our models break down. It honestly reminds me of the trends that sweep through the computer programming world: object oriented, aspect oriented, functional, MVC, late binding, strong typing, weak typing, multiparadigm, templates, and so on... all work well for a while and then show their weaknesses.
P.S. The big thing that killed market fundamentalism for me was doing a stint in business consulting and seeing what the average rich person actually is: a glorified street hustler. I was once a bit of a Randian... it was a real "the emperor has no clothes" moment. (I can think of a few rich folks who remind me of Rand heroes... a very, very, very few. I don't think I would run out of fingers. Elon Musk would be at the top of the list. Oh, but wait, his enterprises are quasi-philanthropic ventures...)
- thebmax 14y agoCapitalism also allowed Bill Gates to make $60 billion so he could donate it to finding a cure for malaria.
- lifeisstillgood 14y agoFar far rather have Bill Gates deciding how to spend $60 bn than Congress / Parliament. Just seems more likely to get bang per buck.
- Retric 14y agoReally, as far as my personnel spending priorities go Bill Gates has wasted close to 100% of his charitable donations. Which I would not care about, however he get's a huge (multi billion dollar) tax break on donations which is simply a staggering waste of money. PS: Want to pay people to pray for world piece? That's a tax break after-all we don't actually need to repair roads and bridges or pay down debt.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- adestefan 14y agoDeductions for charitable contributes are capped. There is also the difference between what Bill Gate's paper worth is and what his tax liabilities are for the year.
- Retric 14y agoDeductions for charitable contributes are capped. Not for capital gains if you sell the underlying asset. If I buy a stock for 1 cent and donate it then I avoid all capital gains even if it's now worth 30 billion. Considering the original baseline Gates working with it's ~30 billion * .15 ~= 4.5 billion tax savings. You also get to deduct the original 1 cent from your income, but as I said your avoiding the 50% income cap on donations. I agree that his paper worth and taxes are separate issues, I am simply stating that having a charity sell stock is much better than having a person sell stock for the amounts involved. And it would be reasonable to charge capital gains at the time of donation for the same reason it's reasonable to remove the donation tax break. To further prove the point if your dealing with a deprecated stock it's better to sell and then donate. PS: Wikipedia has a good example (Ordinary Income Producing Property and Short Term Capital Gain Property) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charitable_contribution_deductions_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charitable_contribution_deducti...
- glomph 14y ago100% ? What are you smoking? He spends millions on malaria nets that have a proven record of saving lives. If that is wasting money I don't really want to know what you think the right way to spend money is...
- Retric 14y agoGates tends to attack symptoms not the root cause. Handing out net's is more or less the same as handing out food which has many well known downsides. He would have done more long term good donating 1 billion to deal with corruption and setup garment factory's in Africa than everything else he has done in Africa. Again, I don't care what he does with his own money but as soon as the Government subsidies charities efficiency is something to consider. Panama had a huge problem with the disease and it was delt with they now have 36 cases per 100,000 people vs 75,386 in Guinea. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_mal_cas_per_100-malaria-cases-per-100-000 http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_mal_cas_per_100-malari... And the simple truth is net's don't get you to 36 from 75,386.
- antidaily 14y agoJust to add context to this comment - The US spends about $60b per year in aid to other countries. How much is wasted is another debate but it's probably a lot.
- jbooth 14y agoIt's more like 50, and of that 50, probably 30 goes to middle eastern countries for strategic reasons and is only called 'aid' so it looks better on the balance sheet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_aid#Recipients http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_aid#Recip...
- antidaily 14y ago$56b projected for 2013. Close enough. http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/factsheet_department_state/ http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/factsheet_department_state/
- jbooth 14y agoYeah, close enough. The key point though is that the figure includes military aid and even for non-military aid, most of it goes to strategically important states. Top 5 are Afghanistan, Israel, Iraq, Egypt, Pakistan, before we finally get to purely humanitarian aid for Haiti at #6. Nigeria's got oil, or they wouldn't be getting any aid.
- cma 14y agoMilitary aid to Israel, making Israel the the only nuclear power in the Middle East in opposition to every other country there (they all support a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East), is not "Foreign Aid"; it is pure (misguided) self-interest. Are there other instances of Foreign Aid that also align with self-interest? Sure; but calling the funding of a proxy military in the most resource-rich area of the world Foreign Aid is really stretching the semantics. Why not go ahead and classify the entire military budget as foreign aid, since we only ever do things with noble intentions? The other large portion of "foreign aid" used to go to the dictatorship in Egypt...
- neilxdsouza 14y agoRMS created the GNU GPL v2 and canvassed for free and open Software and programmed our minds to create open source software too and I believe Trillions of Dollars of wealth will be created thanks to this and none of it will be credited to RMS, and Bill Gates will be showered praise for the 60 billion he is going around donating. But RMS, I want you to know that I recognize your contribution.
- prawks 14y ago> Our models break down. This is a fundamental fact of how humans make models. They're never perfect the first time, and rarely (if ever?) are models every truly perfect. The most important hurdle for us as a species to overcome is the advancement of new models that refine our old ones; specifically, we need to become less averse to change.
- api 14y agohttp://www.geekwire.com/2012/jeff-bezos-smart-people-change-minds/ http://www.geekwire.com/2012/jeff-bezos-smart-people-change-...
- EthanHeilman 14y agoThe death of ideology appears to be a major shaping force in the 21st Century. Religion seems to be at least partially filling the vacuum. Most of the radical groups in the MENA used to be Socialist (PLO vs Hamas). I suspect that this will not last and that a new ideology will arrive (demand is high, supply is low, very few competitors). Any bets on what this ideology will look like?
- yesbabyyes 14y agoThere is a hopeful, post-collapse, ecological/open source movement growing. See e.g. Charles Eisenstein [0], Open Source Ecology [1]. It's not an ideology, perhaps it will never be, but I think this is something that can attract many who feel alienated and discontent with the establishment. [0] http://charleseisenstein.net/ http://charleseisenstein.net/ [1] http://opensourceecology.org/ http://opensourceecology.org/
- glanch 14y agoI just spent an hour learning about OSE. Really amazing stuff, shared it with my friends and family, thanks! I have a friend who does a lot of mission work in Honduras.. maybe they could use some of the OSE stuff.
- yesbabyyes 14y agoHey glanch, I'm happy to hear you enjoyed OSE. Your account is hellbanned, FYI.
- bjhoops1 14y agoLet's certainly hope so. Problem Solving > Ideology. The world is far too complex for a simple set of rules (Ideology) to be capable of providing all the answers to all the problems. The simplest cell in the human body is unimaginably complex - why would the rules governing the interaction of billions of humans comprised of billions of those cells be simple?
- EthanHeilman 14y ago
- smokeyj 14y agoI feel that Gate's comment about curing baldness is a testament to the efficacy of the marketplace. Markets only represent what the people want, and I guarantee you that more people want to cure baldness than malaria. Bill is noticing a problem with people, and the markets reflect that. The nice part about markets is they can adapt very quickly. If we were to convince enough people malaria was worth curing, we could do it! There's no rule to a marketplace that says you can't. I see two roads you can go down in solving this problem. We can convince the public that a cause is worth investing in, or we can force the public to support a cause (by means of a State actor or other monopoly on violence). Personally, I think historical evidence proves forcing people to do anything is unsustainable and counterproductive. Just one guys opinion.
- hodr 14y agoWhere is my baldness vaccine?
- mc32 14y agoI think it's not as simple as that. People who would be affected by Malaria wouldn't have the purchasing power to affect the market. Baldness is universal and so people who have money and care about cosmetic effects, can affect the market to a greater degree.
- Cederfjard 14y agoI feel like you just skipped what I believe was smokeyj's entire point: that perhaps it's possible to convince people that a cure for malaria is a cause worth investing in, even if it doesn't affect them personally. It's not a truism that people who are sufficiently well off will necessarily care more about their impending baldness than the lives of others.
- mc32 14y agoYou're right, I did skip over some of his point. I would like to think that there is more to the notion than theory though. In practice, cures and treatments for baldness are self-sustaining --advertising > want > investment in treatments > more ads. Malaria (or similar affliction) have different dynamics and are not self-sustaining. (at least I don't see that). It's nice to think we could convince people to care about Malaria the same way they care about baldness (superficially this is a crass comparison), but the benefit (re Malaria) is remote and not immediate. Now, maybe it's not impossible. People unaffected personally by bigotry can show interest (and put effort) into ending bigotry, for example. I think that and Malaria are examples of 'big society'. So, maybe there is hope...
- desigooner 14y agoThese days, there's a good chance that a hospital being more profitable than a casino. Many of the casinos are having serious money issues (Revel in AC being the most recent case) and quite a few hospital groups are minting money.
- chii 14y agoprobably because people's life depend on the treatment they got from the hospital and so with out regulation , the hospital can charge what ever they want.
- michaelwww 14y ago> fascism is dead I wish > god is dead god likely never existed, but the idea of god will continue to cause humans to kill and oppress each other. Ideas don't die so I'm not sure what you mean when you say they are dead.
- amalag 14y agoActually I think hospitals in the US are more profitable than casinos. I believe that was pointed out by the latest Time magazine article. The author said on The Daily Show that the hospital lobbies make the oil and gas industry lobbyists look like homeless people. Hospitals are assisted by a government enforced monopoly.
- macrael 14y agoOur ways of thinking evolve just like everything else on this planet.
- jonascopenhagen 14y agoThe big thing that killed market fundamentalism for me was doing a stint in business consulting and seeing what the average rich person actually is: a glorified street hustler. Capitalism isn't just about the rich people. Small business owners are capitalists, too, and most of the ones I know don't fit your description.
- ashwinaj 14y ago> God is dead You obviously don't live in the south, do you? ;) It's sad to hear what Gates has to say. Unfortunately market and monetary pressures are the pitfalls of a pure capitalistic society where humanity takes a back seat.
- pointernil 14y agoAs a helpful recipe for the future, let's maybe not say X,Y,Z Ideology is DEAD but list those properties which turned out to be crucially misunderstood, unknown and in the end hurting. In almost every failed/criticized ideology there are parts which still make sense and should not be thrown away. Let's not make the mistake again of blindly replace "all of communism" with "all of capitalism" f.e. This would maybe get a higher chance for the next idea to "succeed better"