About half of the top 50 philanthropist dollars in the United States in 2014 were given by tech entrepreneurs, according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Overall, the technology sector gave away $5 billion that year, though their charitable contributions dropped precipitously last year to $1.3 billion (possibly skewed due to the absence of "mega-gifts," such as a $2 billion donation by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2014).
"There is a very real surge of philanthropy from tech sector leaders," says David Callahan, founder and editor of Inside Philanthropy, a news website that tracks nonprofits. "Many of these folks believe in giving early in life while still in their careers, as opposed to a more traditional model of waiting until later in life."
(Score: 3, Funny) by wonkey_monkey on Friday November 11 2016, @02:15PM
About half of the top 50 philanthropist dollars in the United States in 2014 were given by tech entrepreneurs
$25? Bloody cheapskates.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Friday November 11 2016, @02:17PM
I can't actually work out what it's supposed to mean, now I think about it...
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday November 11 2016, @02:43PM
I think it was supposed to be "top 50 philanthropy donations", which would make more sense.
As far as I can tell, philanthropy in this case is the modern version of buying an indulgence from the pre-Reformation Catholics: "I feel a bit guilty about getting rich by ripping off millions of people and working my H1-B developers 90+ hours per week, so I'm going to give a bunch of money away so I can feel better about myself." I mean, there's worse things to do with it (e.g. being able to park a yacht inside your yacht), but I'm not all that impressed.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 11 2016, @04:58PM
these are not just people who made a bunch of money and decided out of the goodness of their heart to donate to a worthy cause. these people have secret society handlers and are allowed to get this rich (or co-opted shortly thereafter) so money can be funneled into black projects. you think arabs and africans are suspicious and/or killing Gates funded vaccine doctors just b/c they are ignorant and superstitious? think again. they are seeing the effects up close and personal and have realized what a threat these doctors are. The conspiratorial western press then reports how backwards and evil they are for defending themselves from these useful idiots. sometimes it's just simple money laundering instead of bio weapons.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Friday November 11 2016, @04:02PM
Maybe the exchange rate on philanthropist dollars to US dollars is really favorable to the US dollar? I don't know.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by moondoctor on Friday November 11 2016, @02:35PM
Here's an idea...
Instead of taking *all* of the money then throwing some scraps back, how about working for a fair and equitable society where everyone can make a living?
(I know, crazy talk...)
(Score: 5, Interesting) by RedGreen on Friday November 11 2016, @04:37PM
"Instead of taking *all* of the money then throwing some scraps back, how about working for a fair and equitable society where everyone can make a living?"
Indeed but that makes sense so will never happen also plus it eliminates the egomaniacs factor whereby the mostly undeserving praise heaped upon them will not happen. But the thing that really bothers me most is these people never actually give anything away it almost all the time goes into some self named foundation that only spends the interest while spending that interest on advancing a political/corporate interest of the donor at the same time employing family members on big fat salaries. Oh all the while getting massive break on the taxes owed by them. If they were truly altruistic then it would all be done in secret donations taking no tax breaks to existing organizations. Instead it is almost always a whitewash of some petty detestable character in an effort to clean up the image before they are dead.
"Cervantes definitely was prescient in describing a senile Don fighting against windmills." -- larryjoe on /.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday November 11 2016, @04:40PM
Because in a society where everybody can make a decent living, it's too easy for the employees to tell the boss to Take This Job and Shove It [youtube.com], which makes things much more annoying for a boss who wants everyone to work 85+ hours per week while paying for 40 hours per week (this is what business types call "efficiency").
Capitalism as it is currently practiced will never, ever, create that society unless forced to do so by some other outside influence. In the 1950's in the US, the major outside influences that caused something close to that for some people:
1. Racism and sexism meant everyone was looking for white male workers when women and non-white people could have done many of the same jobs just as easily.
2. A shortage of male workers caused by that little dust-up in the early 1940's.
3. Unprecedented levels of union representation.
4. 90%+ tax rates on the highest incomes, discouraging CEOs from overpaying themselves. This was imposed mostly by Harry Truman, but Eisenhower kept it around for his term as well to help pay back the WWII war debt.
The liberals managed to undo much of racism and sexism in the 1960's and 1970's. The post-war Baby Boom took care of the shortage of workers. Richard Nixon and later Ronald Reagan started cutting back on those high tax rates. And in the 1980's and 1990's, Reagan, Bush, and Bill Clinton all stuck a knife into what was left of the unions.
And that's why 2010's America looks nothing like 1950's America, economically speaking.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday November 11 2016, @08:28PM
Trump got elected on the Grapes of Wrath.
I've had too much experience in dysfunctional workplaces. This heartless and negative management style that views workers as disposable cogs, and people as fundamentally lazy slackers who have to be constantly prodded to do work, is wasteful and destructive. I understand businesses are under enormous pressure to perform or die, but trying to improve their position by beating workers down is not the answer no matter how tempting and expedient that route looks. It's why slavery failed. The US Civil War, with one side practicing the grossest inequality of all, slavery, was the ultimate demonstration that a free society is stronger than a slave society. The conflict goes way back before that, to Persian vs Greeks, the fundamental East vs. West philosophy pitting autocratic control of a highly unequal class stratified society against a more egalitarian one. Time and time again, the autocrats lose those wars.
Yet I continue to encounter businesses who try to subjugate workers. There's the company town, financial indentureship through leaning on employees to take on massive debt to buy big ticket items so that they can't afford to tell the boss to "take this job and shove it", attempts to instill fear of being blacklisted from ever getting another job, the H1-B cudgel, and treating workers as if they are dim witted children through humiliating micromanagement. It's all about the imbalance of power and abuse of that fact.
Many of the wealthy and powerful did not earn and do not merit authority. Some know it, secretly admit it to themselves, and behave as mean little degenerate trolls filled with envy and spite, getting their kicks from bossing around and humiliating their betters. Some kind of play chicken with their situation, doing ever more outrageous things, pushing the envelope to see how much they can get away with. Nepotism and cronyism are perhaps the biggest contributors to that. If workers have no power, no options, there's not much they can do about an abusive boss. What are you going to do if your boss sexually harasses you or your spouse? Shut up and take it so you don't lose your job? Not unless the power imbalance is extreme.
Capitalism works great when it's not corrupted. The problem is how to keep it clean.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 11 2016, @11:35PM
Capitalism works great when it's not corrupted. The problem is how to keep it clean.
Almost all economic systems work. *IF* people follow the rules.
The problem is people do not follow them. I call it that person 'the dick'. At that point you need more rules and take away power from everyone all because 1 dude decided not to play the right way. In communistic societies it is the lazy worker who does nothing. In capitalistic societies it is is the guy who figures out it is more profitable to buy the system and appoint themselves as the ones to get all the rewards.
People bemoan 'there must be a better way'. I doubt it. All systems seem to have a way to game them.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 11 2016, @05:00PM
Do you like being burned as a heretic? Cause that's how you get burned as a heretic!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 12 2016, @09:54AM
Instead of taking *all* of the money then throwing some scraps back, how about working for a fair and equitable society where everyone can make a living?
I suggest going for the low lying fruit, like getting rid of your zero sum thinking here.
And if creating and running a business is such a trivial task for the money obtained, then why not make a few businesses yourself rather than leaving that to ungrateful rich people? Then you wouldn't need to take scraps, and you could give fair and equitable wages yourself, completely bypassing any regulatory middlemen.
(Score: 1) by moondoctor on Saturday November 12 2016, @01:28PM
You make a lot of assumptions.
>you could give fair and equitable wages yourself, completely bypassing any regulatory middlemen
That's fucking gibberish.
Paying fair wages bypasses nothing, and works well for everyone. You think there's regulations saying you must screw the poor? WTF is wrong with you?
I got mine, and I don't throw or need scraps, I try very hard to be fair. I also try hard to be decent about wages etc., because most people that struggle in the United States are pretty fucked right now. It is more difficult to run a business in a fair and equitable way, but society will eat itself if we don't. (See: current events)
Contrary to the mantra of the Harvard Business School, prosperity *is* pizza.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 12 2016, @02:50PM
Paying fair wages bypasses nothing, and works well for everyone. You think there's regulations saying you must screw the poor?
Actually yes, I do think there's regulation that screws the poor. What's worse is that I think this regulation was intended to help the poor. Unintended consequences and all that.
WTF is wrong with you?
I have a low tolerance for this sort of bullshit. You just said that it's even to the advantage of the business owner to pay more to their employees. You got this problem solved. So solve it.
I got mine, and I don't throw or need scraps, I try very hard to be fair. I also try hard to be decent about wages etc., because most people that struggle in the United States are pretty fucked right now. It is more difficult to run a business in a fair and equitable way, but society will eat itself if we don't. (See: current events)
So it is more difficult to run a business in a "fair and equitable" way? So these so-called fair wages aren't an advantage to businesses. There's this cognitive dissonance.
Here's the secret ingredient we're missing: more business creation and expansion. And one of the ways to get more business creation is to amply reward those who create businesses and employ people. So no, I think we're already paying fair wages. Working for a living just is far less valuable than employing other people else for a living.
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Friday November 11 2016, @04:55PM
Would be nice to be able to decide what charitable philanthropy my money supports, rather than having wealth concentrated in a few "tech philanthropists" who get to call the shots with money they got from monopolies, rent seeking, preinstalled software, personal tracking, harvesting data, and so on.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 11 2016, @06:38PM
You mean you don't want to donate to the "Now mere millionaires can get to experience zero gravity" charity?
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Saturday November 12 2016, @06:46AM
Yes, what if they just simply paid their fair share of their taxes?
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Bot on Friday November 11 2016, @05:16PM
“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret...
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 11 2016, @08:03PM
This idealistic attitude does not work in reality. I know because I live by this method, to my continual disappointment.
I contribute to open source projects in the form of code patches to fix bugs and add features, things that I know would be useful to others. I always provide rationale for my changes, but I contribute under pseudonyms, and I have not affixed my real name to anything for the past ten years.
My contributions are summarily ignored. Meanwhile narcissistic self aggrandizing rockstar coders drive by and dump buggy untested code which is always accepted, even when the code does not compile and the maintainer has to rewrite it.
Unless announced with trumpets, giving is futile.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 11 2016, @11:44PM
You should review why you give. It sounds like you want credit but do not take it. Most code projects out there are run by the 'in kids'. They have their buddies. They are not interested in actually making good code.
One project I contributed to accepted my fix. The next dude who commented on it got all pissed off about the style of the code. Right until one of the other dudes said 'dude YOU wrote that and he just fixed your math error'. Many are looking for a reason to reject you. As it means they lose a bit of power. Power they never really had in the first place. Another project I contributed to I sped up a core function by about 4x. What did the whole group get bent out of shape about? I misspelled a word. Not one critique on the code. Yet they still had to give me a 2 paragraph rant about the spelling. My interest in that project quickly went to 0. A 'hey you misspelled xyz' would have been enough.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 12 2016, @06:15AM
Sometimes I wonder why the "in kids" open their code projects to contributors at all. I have a project which I've worked on for many years, and the whole thing is open source, but all work is mine and I don't allow edits, because it's my project and I want to work alone.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 12 2016, @09:56AM
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday November 13 2016, @12:39AM
I put the quote for various reasons, one was provocation :) To further bait, you are saying hypocritical donation is still something, better than nothing, implying that nothing is what those philanthropists would do if they could get no recognition, which agrees with my title.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RamiK on Friday November 11 2016, @06:45PM
1. Price your tablet\phone 100% higher then it should be.
2. Reach out to school districts and offer 2 for the price of 1 where by the 1 free is given as a donation.
3. Reach out to ISPs and offer service lock-in for half price and order by bulk.
4. Profit!
And remember kids: Giving money to universities to train your future employees is donations too!
compiling...
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by linkdude64 on Friday November 11 2016, @06:55PM
I don't care what you flag-burning liberals say - there is good reason for Nationalism and Pride in the American Culture. Look at what billionaires from other major countries do with their money - like China and Saudi Arabia. They would rather build palaces that are city-sized or build cities full of skyscrapers that will never be occupied than give anything more than a shred back to humanitarian projects. Even not counting the billionaires, there is so much money flowing out of the country for clean water projects, housing projects, and food-aid projects all around the world that you wouldn't believe. America is a great and wonderful nation.
Go USA!
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday November 11 2016, @10:45PM
American 'culture' is work til you fucking drop dead of a heart attack and make those under you work for next to nothing until THEY also drop dead from heart attacks (and can't pay the hospital bill OR the funeral home bill) or are forced to work 16 jobs just in order to make things work until they get so PISSED OFF that they vote in someone like Donald Trump (when it should have been Sanders, (and a good 'fuck you' to Hillary, glad SHE lost)), and then start giving 'your' money away in shady tax deduction schemes where you get to harm people and environments.....
.... go USA 'culture'..... you're #1!! Yaaay!
If that is what it takes to be #1, i'll pass. I like spending time with my family and having a life, thanks.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 11 2016, @11:30PM
Donate to the Anonymous Coward Foundation? We shall commission a life-size painting of me, also a bronze bust.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Sunday November 13 2016, @04:31PM
As a proud Union Worker, I can proudly say: Go read a fucking history book. The Labor movement, which is responsible for you having Saturdays off, and enjoying an 8-hour standard work day was started in the USA.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday November 13 2016, @05:19PM
Wow, so EVERYONE has Saturday off now? When did i miss this???
EVERYONE works an 8 hour day? No one has to read work emails on off hours? Go in after hours to work? No one has to work 2 and 3 jobs in America to make ends meet?
Is EVERYONE in America a union worker???
That IS something to be proud of!
Except..... waaaiiiit...... what you said is not true???? The labour movement has been decimated by American politicians laws? That union membership is in the shits now???
And that American corporations are screwing workers over like crazy in order for their CEO's to make billions so they can become philanthropists and make themselves look good while, hey!, screwing their workers????
Hmmm.... still proud of the good ol' USA!?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Sunday November 13 2016, @06:43PM
"Crony Capitalism is what America is all about. It's not the internationalist cabal of bankers who have no loyalty to any one nation, or the globalists who want to do away with borders (and standards of living)! It's the USA's doing!"
You didn't read that history book, did you? Globalists (people who don't want borders) are the reason unions got busted up. NAFTA is the reason. TPP *was* going to be another reason, but thanks to Trump being elected, that is now dead in the water. Once jobs start coming back to this country, you will see the resurgence of labor unions.
"EVERYONE works an 8 hour day?"
IT'S EVEN BETTER THAN THAT, MY LIBERAL FRIEND!!! Actually, a HUGE percentage of the country is working ZERO hours a day thanks to our trade deals and business-senseless politicians! Gotta love welfare!!!
"And that American corporations are screwing workers over like crazy in order for their CEO's to make billions so they can become philanthropists and make themselves look good while, hey!, screwing their workers????
IT'S EVEN BETTER THAN THAT!!! Liberals are voting in DROVES to bring MILLIONS of people with lots of children and NO job skills into the country while simultaneously voting on HIGHER TAXES to make it happen! You think big business screws over workers and small business? Try socialism!
"Hmmm.... still proud of the good ol' USA!?""
I am not proud of its absolutely ass-backward citizens or government at times, but for all of it's flaws, the USA is the best country in the WORLD. Name me a single country that is "better" that does NOT have a larger percentage of whites in it than we do here! You will find a strong correlation of quality of life and demographic - with Switzerland being somewhere right up top.
There isn't a single country that is *this* diverse (where half of the country wants to destroy the other half, for instance) in every way imaginable and is simultaneously as powerful, productive, and influential. Who knows what the future brings, but for now, absolutely, this country is the best on the planet.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday November 14 2016, @01:42AM
Well, guess our ideas of 'best country' differ.
And Canada is more ethnically diverse.
https://lifestyle9.org/worlds-best-country-to-live-in-2013/4/ [lifestyle9.org]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/16/a-revealing-map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-ethnically-diverse-countries/ [washingtonpost.com]
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Monday November 14 2016, @03:41PM
Oh, we absolutely do. "Best," to me, means the most capable, most accomplished, and most powerful.
The standard of living in those countries on the "best" list is taking a MASSIVE dive, because their models of government are
A) Not sustainable (Does not qualify them for "best" in my book)
B) Currently crumbling as a result of Hillary Clinton's disastrous intervention in the Middle East (But you voted for her, so you support the destruction of Europe anyway, by extension)
C) Not designed to be flexible, unlike the US Constitution
You also fail to notice that Europe benefitted massively from the US Constitution, US technology, and US governing principles after WWII. We actually rebuilt nearly that entire continent - right after we rescued it. :) The only reason they enjoyed their socialism for so long is because the good old US of A was making it possible by funding its defense for FREE - something your cute little listicles fail to account for.
Now that that defense is going to come at a price with Trump at the wheel, and those "great" countries you listed have opened themselves to both invaders and economic disaster due to the decadence of ideologies like YOURS, Europe is crumbling - while the US will become stronger than it ever has before. After the lite
Oh, and about those two "Best" countries to live in at the time that listicle was written Denmark and Sweden...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/sweden-and-denmark-have-highest-number-of-sexual-assaults-in-europe-a6800901.html [independent.co.uk]
SAY MY NAME, MOTHERFUCKER: USA! USA! USA!
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday November 14 2016, @09:17PM
Ummm... U.S. standard of living is falling because of all your debt and will fall further when, one day not too distant, taxes will be raised to pay it back: just none of your Presidents have had the balls to raise taxes to do it.
I'd say China is going to surpass the US as the super power, and the US will be entering a war if they want to try to prove otherwise.
And i agree: the other countries SHOULD be paying more their way... we have some consensus! The US should not be shouldering such a large burden: it should be a fully funded U.N. or other agency going as a combined force.... show the force and make the others back down.
I did not vote for Hillary: not a US citizen :)
Okay, i'll say your name... "Motherfucker". Is that right?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Tuesday November 15 2016, @05:00AM
"Ummm... U.S. standard of living is falling because of all your debt "
That Obama created and that Clinton was going to extend with all of her "Free" welfare programs - modeled much after Europe's. That is going to get fixed with Trump - taxes don't need to be increased when internal revenue is increased and money isn't being as actively thrown out of the country through World Policing programs.
"I'd say China is going to surpass the US as the super power"
You were (and are) wrong about Trump, wrong about Clinton, wrong about the US, so I'd say you'd be wrong about China, too. Their economy is absolutely falling apart. Some of their largest businesses have filed for bankruptcy as of late (because of all that inflationary spending by the billionaires - re: my original comment) but the government refuses to let them fail. So the bubble gets bigger - much bigger than the US bubble, and with none of the built-in quality infrastructure to fall back on like we have here. They build "concrete" buildings that are actually styrofoam with a concrete layer on the outside - that is the infrastructure they have to carry them through the coming Trump-accelerated recession. They have destroyed their farmlands with pollution. They have poisoned their water. China is fucked.
" it should be a fully funded U.N. or other agency going as a combined force"
"fully funded UN" - by whom? The US? Britain? Germany? With what money?
No. It is every country for theirself now. No more "free" this or that in Europe - they destroyed their societies doing that. They will leave their age of decadence the hard way or the harder way.
"I did not vote for Hillary: not a US citizen :)"
But you supported any of the other candidates over Trump, and the fact of your ignorance stands.
Genuinely good attempt at a comeback with the "Motherfucker," but the diction and context wasn't proper for you to reach that interpretation linguistically, and I would gladly take "Motherfucker" over "illiterate, uninformed, and idiotic" anyday.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday November 15 2016, @12:06PM
Okay, good luck with your fantasy.
Don't know where you got me supporting Hillary from, but my posts say otherwise, which shows your ignorance.
You are uninformed and idiotic in that you can't see the US going down yet.
Sad.
Moving on.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Sunday November 13 2016, @05:23AM
Well, the US foreign aid budget is really low. Like, if I recall, lower than Finland's. And I don't mean per-capita.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 12 2016, @02:40AM
https://www.opendemocracy.net/article/globalisation/philanthropy_on_the_commons [opendemocracy.net]
"At the end of his essay - and in his accompanying book, Just Another Emperor: the Myths and Realities of Philanthrocapitalism (Demos/Young Foundation, 2008) - Michael Edwards asks what he calls the $55 trillion question [expected to flow into foundations over the next 25 years]: how will we use the vast amount of new philanthropic resources that will be created in the next fifty years? My instincts tell me that Wikipedia, open source and peer-production may hold part of the answer. The world of the commons has used openness, participation and community to create real and (hopefully) lasting public goods. Why not apply these same principles to improving education, creating low-cost housing or evolving our democracy? (Mark Surman)"
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 12 2016, @10:00AM