[shutupalready]

An observation on what the super-rich never do for their legacy:

There's something that super-rich individuals can do that vastly richer governments, organizations, and companies can't do. They can make long shot bets. That is, they can invest in something that needs a large concentration of capital (an idea, research, enterprise, discovery) that carries very long odds but could have massive world-changing effects if it succeeds. Those are things that neither governments (too many people need to agree) or companies (no short- or medium-term profit) can normally do.

I'm avoid giving examples here because it'd detract from the point. Besides, there's an infinite number of such long shot bets.

It's sad and ironic that people are more risk averse with what happens to the money after they pass away than when they're alive.

[EpicEng]

Yeesh, that's a high horse you're on. He donated his money to causes that he finds important, as you say. It's not always about the "big picture"; the little things can change people's lives in the here and now, and that's worth something. The world has room for both sorts of philanthropy.

[shutupalready]

> It's not always about the "big picture".

No, it's never about the "big picture".

High net-worth people almost never leave their money to a "space shot" type of endeavor.

[bsimpson]

So Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson don't count? Those last three are literally going to space.

How fitting to see so much horse-beating from someone called shutupalready.

[shutupalready]

The topic was what people leave their money to (after death). All of the people you mention are alive.

[mikeash]

Is that important?

[amirmc]

Government is probably the only entity that can bankroll a wide swathe of basic research. That's about as 'long-shot' as it gets.

[dmichulke]

Thanks to the taxes that at the same time keep people from investing the very same money in a much more distributed way to the investment / consumption / research they'd prefer while avoiding the bureaucratic overhead.

Please don't thank the government unless you think they know better how to distribute this money than the people they claim to spend it for.

[amirmc]

> "... taxes that ... keep people from investing ... in a much more distributed way ... [than] they'd prefer ..."

There's an implicit assumption in there that reducing taxes will cause people to 'invest' more -- i.e. something like the trickle-down effect. I believe there's enough evidence to show this isn't how things actually play out (people still keep their cash).

Also governments, need to set up/support entities that do figure out how to disburse funds appropriately. Like Research Councils in the UK or the NSF in the US who have established processes to do exactly this. How is that less distributed than a rich person deciding for themselves? Also, there are fundamental areas of research that would be completely ignored if we relied solely on the wealthy to solve problems.

> "Please don't thank the government unless you think they know better how to distribute this money than the people they claim to spend it for."

That assumes that people have enough knowledge about where it should be spent. I strongly disagree with that. You cannot achieve fundamental scientific breakthroughs this way.

[dmichulke]

> There's an implicit assumption in there that reducing taxes will cause people to 'invest' more

Typically, in times when interest rates are positive and default rates acceptably low (i.e., normal times), people put their money in a bank and the bank invests it. So the amount invested stays the same and the money doesn't appear or disappear, it's just invested by someone else. So I don't see this implicit assumption here.

> Also governments, need to set up/support entities that do figure out how to disburse funds appropriately.

Exactly and the money to sustain such councils is not used for research but for bureaucracy. And as you already mentioned, these 'well established processes' are not exactly simple and may happen to consume a rather substantial amount of the money supposed to be used for research. Not in all cases but in enough to produce events like this: "EU Resarch Council slams bureaucracy" [1]

> Also, there are fundamental areas of research that would be completely ignored if we relied solely on the wealthy to solve problems.

I disagree - if it is important to someone, then it will get researched. Of course, the very poor will not receive so much attention but then again that's not the case today either.

This discussion is actually more about trust in government and who is better able to identify the needs of a society. I just want to express that I disagree with your view.

[1] http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=2010042...

[irremediable]

I don't really think this is true. There are lots of famous super-wealthy people who've funded sciences (e.g. Nuffield, Wolfson, Rockefeller -- those are just three charities I work with). There are lots of famous super-wealthy people who've funded the arts, in particular things like avant-garde and classical pieces.

You held off giving an example, but could you give me one -- one that's qualitatively different to the stuff that wealthy people do often fund?

[Retric]

If Bill gates acting on is focused on building ~3 ITER style fusion reactors starting in say 2000 and without the overhead of multi-national organizations or all that PHD research he could have a reasonable chance of building a working fusion reactor 30 years before we are likely to.

Granted, Bill has done the world a lot of good, but I suspect that's the kind of project shutupalready was referring to.

Or for a higher risk example a few billion might get you a multi stage scram jet for getting stuff into LEO which could be huge. Or for an organization idea, build an ion drive tugboat for moving satellites around in orbit. Then if it works you take the revenue from that and start building ever more space based infrastructure with the long term goal of getting some people living on other stars.

PS: If you accept huge projects might just flat out fail there are plenty of possibilities. Human level AI?

[shutupalready]

> but I suspect that's the kind of project shutupalready was referring to

Yes, those are precisely the kinds of projects I was thinking of. (I was worried that if I gave examples, the conversation would derail into the viability of fusions reactors, ion drives, human level AI, or whatever.)

[draugadrotten]

Giving helper dogs to disabled people can be such a long shot. Thanks to the dog, perhaps a meeting takes place that would not have taken place otherwise. This meeting could be the start of anything - perhaps a romance, that leads to the birth of the girl who will discover ... well, we will know eventually, won't we. Thanks to this man's long shot bet with his legacy.