[bobsgame]

I believe the Gates Foundation has already put an enormous amount of thinking and research into determining the most effective use of a large amount of funds to improve the overall state of the world. My opinion is that you would probably rationally be better off investing that money or building a corporation to try and turn it into billions and then donate that to Gates.

[nathan_f77]

The donation to Watsi will provide life-changing surgeries in the near future, and will potentially save hundreds or thousands of lives. You might be able to do more good in the future with a larger sum of money, but if you made this choice, you are condemning the smaller group of people to suffering and death. If you met with the smaller group of people and learned all of their names and faces, you probably wouldn't want to let them die. If you could somehow travel to the future and meet with the larger group of people, you might decide to sacrifice the smaller group in order to save millions of lives instead of hundreds. You could also try to find a balance between the two extremes. I guess this is a variation of the Trolley problem [1].

However, there's a few additional variables that are very important.

1. The price of Bitcoin may fall dramatically, or your business and investments might fail. Now you can't help anyone.

2. By saving the smaller group of people, you will alter the course of history. Some of the people in the larger group might never experience the disease or accident that required medical intervention. Some of them will never even be born.

I think it's better to choose the predictable outcome that is guaranteed to ease suffering, instead of gambling with people's lives.

P.S. I just finished watching the first episode of 11.22.63 [2] a few minutes ago. (It was incredibly good!)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem

[2] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2879552/