undefined | Better HN

0 pointsjasode8y ago0 comments

>It's as if you read the article and completely ignored all the points the author made [...] Think of the library as the efficient distribution center of Common Good.

One can agree with all the positives mentioned in the article and your points as well but still question if there is an _even better_ investment than libraries that will result in the most good.

Even Jeff Bezos' wealth is finite so spending it is a zero-sum game. Donating to public libraries means money not donated to researchers needing $1m to find cures/antibiotics that would benefit all of humanity more than upgrading libraries. (Or whatever other recipient you can imagine that could have a greater multiplier effect of that money than libraries.)

Maybe libraries are the best use of his donation money. Maybe not.

0 comments

3 comments · 2 top-level

civilian8y ago· 1 in thread

Yup, jasode has got the right idea.

The meter-stick to compare all charities (or hell, government programs? Personal spending?) is that we can donate $3000 to the Against Malaria Foundation and save a child's life.

I might be a numbers-first globalist nerd, but $3000 per life? It makes me want to defund most welfare programs in the states because by comparison, they are horribly inefficient. And inefficiency of resources, in this scenario, results in dead children.

goialoq8y ago

https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/#we-are-giving-what-we-can

(The web design is a disaster, but the content is fine once you dig it up)

eutropia8y ago

An excellent point, there's always the possibility of something better: but there's time and energy invested in finding the better too, not to mention risk. Libraries are most certainly not going to result the highest utilization of that money but I would argue that they should form a stable, low-risk, immediate, guaranteed ROI core to his philanthropic efforts.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse