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0 pointsivape10mo ago0 comments

I've always wondered about the Gates and Buffets commitment about giving away their wealth in death. It assumes that the people of the future are more worthy of it than the people of now. Whatever poverty will exist in the future also exists now. I suspect they've thought about this too, hence the acceleration. If anything, addressing the issues now has a chance of reducing the issues in the future.

There's always something to learn from everyone. Elon reiterated one thing frequently - "We have to get to Mars soon because I don't want to be dead before it happens" (paraphrasing). If this philosophy is used for the right purpose, we can get some cool things happening sooner. Recent events also show that there are people who are not interested in being charitable at all, so it's even more of an imperative.

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owebmaster10mo ago

> It assumes that the people of the future are more worthy of it than the people of now

I don't think that is the assumption. The assumption is that people will treat them well for planning to give away their money without them needing to live their life without their precious wealth.

lechatonnoir10mo ago

This is a weirdly conspiratorial idea to my eyes. Not because people don't have unsavory hidden motivations that they give good excuses for, but because this doesn't really seem to confer any benefit.

The benefit of wealth is your capacity to spend it. If they don't spend it in order to give it away on a future date, they have lived their lives without it.

You can say that they are selfishly maintain optionality while they are alive, but that's a less biting critique, I guess.

card_zero10mo ago

I might spend millions easily enough, but I might struggle to spend millions more on top of that. Bill Gates has a hundred thousand millions. Personally I probably wouldn't spend it because figuring out how to spend it sounds like hard work. I think this idea was first explored in trashy 1902 comedy novel Brewster's Millions, but is somewhat true.

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ghaff10mo ago

Many things take time. And it may be good to fund them. But outsized contributions don't necessarily make them happen that much faster.

conception10mo ago

I think the phrase is something like you can’t get a baby in a month if you have nine women.

bdhe10mo ago

> There's always something to learn from everyone. Elon reiterated one thing frequently - "We have to get to Mars soon because I don't want to be dead before it happens"

I understand the idea of learning from everyone, even those whose values I strongly disagree with.

But after learning about everything Elon has done in the public sphere, would this statement be more likely just narcissism rather than a deep and inspiring virtue?

Aeolun10mo ago

That doesn’t really matter though? The end result is we’ll get to Mars faster than we’d otherwise do.

bdhe10mo ago

I think it matters a great deal! If that result comes at the expense of - let's say - progress fighting climate change because Elon also ended up defunding and destabilizing a lot of science with the same instincts that got him to proclaim his mission of going to Mars, it is not obvious that we only ought to focus on the end result, and even if we do, that only one set of end results need focus.

We may be closer to going to Mars, an extremely inhospitable place, at far greater expense than simply making the world we were evolved to survive in a little better.

blooalien10mo ago

The way things are going here on Earth (thanks in part to Musk and "Glorious Leader" Trump), we ain't makin' it to Mars before global resource wars completely cripple all our scientific aspirations, including becoming a "space-faring" species. It's all wasted effort at this point, because nobody seems willing to do what it's gonna take to ensure that humanity has any future at all.

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BobbyTables210mo ago

I very much would like to see a human on Mars very very soon —- only because I really hope it will be Elon.

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0 pointsivape10mo ago0 comments

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owebmaster10mo ago

> It assumes that the people of the future are more worthy of it than the people of now

I don't think that is the assumption. The assumption is that people will treat them well for planning to give away their money without them needing to live their life without their precious wealth.

lechatonnoir10mo ago

The benefit of wealth is your capacity to spend it. If they don't spend it in order to give it away on a future date, they have lived their lives without it.

You can say that they are selfishly maintain optionality while they are alive, but that's a less biting critique, I guess.

card_zero10mo ago

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ghaff10mo ago

Many things take time. And it may be good to fund them. But outsized contributions don't necessarily make them happen that much faster.

conception10mo ago

I think the phrase is something like you can’t get a baby in a month if you have nine women.

bdhe10mo ago

> There's always something to learn from everyone. Elon reiterated one thing frequently - "We have to get to Mars soon because I don't want to be dead before it happens"

I understand the idea of learning from everyone, even those whose values I strongly disagree with.

But after learning about everything Elon has done in the public sphere, would this statement be more likely just narcissism rather than a deep and inspiring virtue?

Aeolun10mo ago

That doesn’t really matter though? The end result is we’ll get to Mars faster than we’d otherwise do.

bdhe10mo ago

We may be closer to going to Mars, an extremely inhospitable place, at far greater expense than simply making the world we were evolved to survive in a little better.

blooalien10mo ago

1 more reply

BobbyTables210mo ago

I very much would like to see a human on Mars very very soon —- only because I really hope it will be Elon.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse