[Waterluvian]

When I think about large-scale donations I think about Melinda and Bill Gates. They don't just donate large sums of money, they donate their time and talent and take their efforts very seriously. They work hard to see every penny well-spent in an effective manner.

That being said, I would love to witness a super-rich person throw a one-time insanely large lump sum of money at some problem. Like, "Here's 50 billion dollars. Free mammograms to anyone on the planet until the money runs out." It would be nice to see a global respite from some sort of issue.

[nataz]

FYI - My wife had her project funded this year by ripple, but last year her projects were funded by Melinda and Bill Gates. In both cases her projects were less than 10k, but make a huge difference to the kids in her classroom.

[jsjohnst]

On the one hand, I’m very proud of how much it can help with such a small donation. On the other hand, I’m depressed it has to come from donations. Seriously, what is wrong with adults these days kicking the door closed behind us?

[komali2]

Propaganda mostly from the Republican party has convinced a great deal of people that Education is a waste of money. This is obviously stupid and false.

Apologies for getting political, but I come from a family of teachers in two red states (actually three now, thanks Wisconsin, you do love to hate yourself), and we're out of fucks to give.

EDIT: I know we don't like to get political here, but the question was "Why is America bad at education compared to other countries." First of all, it is bad, and it spends more than other countries, somehow. Makes sense when half the country has put their feet down stubbornly into the stand and said "pull yourself up by your bootstraps!" Or some nonsense.

Here's a great analysis of the Republican platform vis a vis education: https://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-education/2016/07...

Inevitable disclaimer: obviously not all republicans are opposed to effective, common sense education, and obviously not all democrats support it. But uh... compare the platforms.

[dmix]

> Propaganda mostly from the Republican party has convinced a great deal of people that Education is a waste of money.

That's a misrepresentation. Plenty of them some care very much about fixing education and funding it. Just the kind the find most effective:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0Zh96wc01k

The difference, as the video mentions, is that they always gets attacked as being 'anti-education', depsite intentions and data supporting their efforts, largely by the heavily entrenched people and organizations who have most to gain from keeping the same status-quo systems. Ie, the massive top-heavy administration that controls pubic education, unions, pension funds, etc. They have plenty of political pull.

Ultimately that is very much equally propaganda, is it not?

The right also tends support more state financing and control of education, and funding towards education has increased dramatic in states for decades. The only thing that has stagnated (but hardly declined) is federal spending:

https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/education_spending

And percentage of GDP spending for education has hardly dipped under republicans either:

https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/education_chart_20.html

Words are always valued over actions and the ideology of a few extremists always seem to always take precedence over data and tangible outcomes. Which is why I hate debating this subject.

[Angostura]

> The difference, as the video mentions, is that they always gets attacked as being 'anti-education'

That would be partly because it is true http://www.people-press.org/2017/07/10/sharp-partisan-divisi... ('Republicans increasingly say colleges have negative impact on U.S.')

And its not helped by the fact that much of the GOP is apparent anti-science, and anti expertise https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/american-trust-scient... ('A 54 percent majority of Democrats, compared with just 13 percent of Republicans, say they have “a lot” of trust that what scientists say is accurate and reliable.')

[dmix]

Got any more Huffington Post "web based surveys" to educate me on the merits of conservative ideology? That was so enthralling...

I find it hilarious how often US Democrats want to use the lowest common denominator, with their half-baked grasp of politics, economics, science, history, etc, to define their party's credibility (and to be clear I'm far from either American democrat or republican). As if the intelligence of the entire voting base (or whom either group decided to convince to vote for them) defines the merits of the ideology behind 0.0001% of the population who reside in congress, senate, and the white house.

Personally I'd rather seek out the intellectuals from either side (for ex: [1]), but also ideas from outside the two main left/right groups, and also from historical ideologies... and then decide what is best for society from that. And from there try to influence particular parties to adhere to the most rational and ideal ideas.

If /r/politics is any indication, the more people you have the dumber the conversations gets. It went from "somewhat annoying political tribalism" on Reddit to completely unbearable inane echo-chamber debates as it scaled up to millions of people. And these same people STILL think they are superior to 24/7 news media talking heads, which is the channel which most influences the wider population.

Is this the means from which we should determine the merits of particular political ideologies?

But by all means, let the opinions of the lowest common denominator, web surveys, and shamelessly biased 'news' websites like Huffington Post be your guiding voice on what's best. I'd personally rather not...

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Fools-Frauds-Firebrands-Thinkers-Left...

[thunfischbrot]

This seems to be what made US-American culture difficult to understand to some first time visitors. From tips to donations and gun ownership society seems to have decided to make citizens take into their own hands many responsibilities which in other countries the government takes care of.

/e: Not to suggest that either approach is without flaws, just that the approaches are different.

[koboll]

>That being said, I would love to witness a super-rich person throw a one-time insanely large lump sum of money at some problem. Like, "Here's 50 billion dollars. Free mammograms to anyone on the planet until the money runs out."

I feel like that's a dangerous plan. The Gates Foundation invests a lot of time and energy into making sure its money is well-spent and effective. Throwing a "one-time insanely large lump sum of money" at a problem sounds like a recipe for graft and embezzlement on a colossal scale.

The toughest problems are the ones that resist throw-money-at-it solutions. You can't just give money to poor people; you have to do it in a way that coincides with guaranteeing they understand how to use it to escape poverty, guaranteeing it won't be stolen by a corrupt regime, etc. etc. etc.

[mistercow]

I think it's bad that people prize volunteering time and direct effort over monetary donations. Rich people are free to spend their time on whatever they like, of course, but comparative advantage applies as much to charitable efforts as it does to any other enterprise. If you're best at managing charities, you should do that. If you're able to earn vast sums of money doing something else, it's more efficient to do that, and then pay someone else to manage the charity.

>Like, "Here's 50 billion dollars. Free mammograms to anyone on the planet until the money runs out." It would be nice to see a global respite from some sort of issue.

That would cover one mammogram for every woman in America. If donated to anti-malaria charities, it would save about 25M lives (more or less, according to GiveWell's estimates, which may not scale to that much funding). According to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, that's a little over half of what it will eventually cost to eradicate malaria.

Solving the world's problems is expensive.

[hacalox]

Amancio Ortega, one of the top 5 richest person on earth and owner of Zara and few other brands donated 350M€ last year to the Spanish public healthcare system. We got new mammograms all over the country.

[nugi]

On the other hand, paying that in taxes would benefit even more long term, but not have a ribbon attached. It is marketing first, philantropy second.

[celticninja]

See the pineapple fund for how this sort of thing can be done well in the crypto space.