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If you read his book the basic premise is that right now there is a big focus on philanthropy when instead there should be a focus on fixing the broken system that allows a small group of people to accumulate massive wealth at the expense of 99% of others.
But using their philanthropy they are able to persuade the masses to keep the current system. How else can a democratic system exist where the top 5% own 66% of the wealth (United States).
The richest Americans would easily be defeated in a vote if the remaining population could get their act together.
It was the late Christopher Hitchens who first taught me about the inhumanity of Mother Teresa, though I'd watched a lot of clips of his I haven't read his book, The Missionary Position.
What does it mean to be a wretched person? Maybe it means to be someone who feels no greater joy than watching another suffer unto death, just to feel the satisfaction of being there, when in all their desperation and without basic respite, accepting your religion on their deathbed.
By her own accounts she watched nearly 30,000 people come through her doors, and with broken empathy managed to convince them that their suffering only brought them closer to god. I'd like to know how anyone came to the conclusion that this woman was worthy more than anybody else of earning a Nobel peace prize.
Well, Mother Theresa is an expert on the subject. She left humans in her care to die in pain, denying them medical care and antibiotics. Her policies led to deaths from untreated injuries and diseases in the filthy, poorly managed hospices she ran (The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice https://www.amazon.com/Missionary-Position-Mother-Teresa-Practice/dp/1455523003/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1473084988&sr=8-1&keywords=hitchens+mother+teresa&linkCode=sl1&tag=chitch-20&linkId=58b39e60ab5d4a6a041d265dc54c8221)
Christopher Hitchins had quite a bit more to say about her; she cozied up to the Duvalier family who ran Haiti as a savage dictatorship for years and considered Charles Keating (disgraced savings and loan executive who bankrupted hundreds of elderly retirees when his pyramid S&L investment bank collapsed due to his greed and mismanagement) as her good friend.
She also opposed contraception and compared contraceptives to abortion, even though India women begged for them so they wouldn't be forced to give birth every year.
That's great and all, but wouldn't it have been better if Gates had been taxed appropriately in the first place and then all citizens (at least theoretically, anyway) could have had a say in how that was allocated?
Relying on billionaires to allocate resources for public solutions seems more likely to just fund whatever billionaires care about, maybe not what is needed most, and definitely not toward anything which might pose a challenge to their status.
(Anand Giridharadas' <em>Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World</em> covers the subject quite well)
The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice
Is a great book by - Christopher Hitchens
> A religious fundamentalist, a political operative, a primitive sermonizer, and an accomplice of worldly secular powers. Her mission has always been of this kind. The irony is that she has never been able to induce anybody to believe her. It is past time that she was duly honored and taken at her word."
The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice
Definitely agree with you on the comment that using never is...almost never a good strategy.
Nonetheless I imagine what this overzealous individual is speaking to is a fairly legitimate point regarding how billionaires are highly invested in preserving the status quo. Much of their philanthropy, while coming from a good place (probably where I disagree with Oxytokin), serves to make society think that the current system will look out for the least fortunate when that is really not true. Significant reforms would be needed to do that properly, including but not limited to a return to very high marginal tax rates for extremely high earners.
The book Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World speaks to this.
No, he’s really not, but he’s paying a lot to make you think so.
Recommended reading: No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy https://www.amazon.com/dp/1784786233/ref=cm_sw_r_awdo_navT_a_4D58SM17YMSWBR8JPM7H
She was a monster. She fetishized suffering, and was the cause of so much of it that it's unfortunate that there's no hell for her to suffer in. Although she probably would love it.
The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice by Christopher Hitchens
Anande Giridharadas gives a pretty compelling presentation on the situation his book you can watch a snippet of his appearance on the daily show for a rundown on his position
"Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World " perhaps? I've not read the book but I've seen him speak on it and I recall the commentary on BE being one of interest.
A more dated by broad topic book might be "The Occupy Handbook"
I'm only finding out about it and have just read Peter Singer's recent book (The Most Good You Can Do). It turns out that there will be two more books on this topic published in 2015 (link).
Winners Take All, The Elite Charade of Changing the World. A great summary of how the wealthy create the very problems that the "good wealthy people" seek to solve.
https://www.amazon.com/Winners-Take-All-Charade-Changing/dp/0451493249
Hitchens noted in his evaluation of Mother Theresa that after her, they did away with "Devils Advocate" and this process is pretty much just marketing.
Okej fair enough. Det förändrar dock inte det faktum att dom är inte är kostnadseffektiva. Jämför med t.ex Against Malaria Foundation eller Helen Keller International.
Att man vill gott kan fortfarande betyda att man har väldigt olika effektivitet i hur man går till väga med det. Jämför t.ex att köpa villor till hemlösa jämfört med att köpa A-vitamintillskott till fattiga barn i Afrika/Asien. En villa kostar massvis medan A-vitamin kostar ungefär 30-40 kr per år och barn. Ett kanske fånigt exempel, men vissa organisationer är hundratals gånger kostnadseffektivare än andra. Är du intresserad kan jag rekommendera boken Doing Good Better.
Kyrkan vill säkert gott, men är dom inte i närheten av lika kostnadseffektiva som många andra organisationer.
Rich people don't need to donate more to charity. That's inherently undemocratic, at least if they're doing it while paying a lower effective tax rate than the rest of us. They need to pay a disproportionate amount of actual taxes that are then spent on policies and programs we all democratically decide are worthwhile.
Again, I'll recommend Winners Take All.
>There's a popular misconception that all this wealth spread out would make much of a difference.
That's just utterly, completely wrong. You're the one with the misconception.
Wealth on the whole in America has continued to expand over the last few decades, but the lion's share of that wealth has gone to the very very rich. And those in the top 1% generally live years longer on average than those in the lower percentages. The mega-rich can pay for much better education for their children. Nearly every metric for quality of life has increased for the mega-rich as income inequality has worsened in America, and nearly all those metrics have stagnated or declined for everyone else.
Read Winners Take All to dispel this idea that the super rich hoarding all the wealth gains doesn't make any difference in society.
You can stop at the number after /dp/. Everything beyond that is superfluous and is used to track link sharing back to your account.
>https://smile.amazon.com/dp/1455523003/
Will get people to the same place, but it's much cleaner and without the tracking links.
Good book on existential threats by Toby Ord called the Precipice . It explores different threats, probability of occurrence, and how to mitigate risk of said threats.
Nukes
Climate change
Bioweapon/pandemic
AI
Natural disaster
This is bad and neoliberals should be economically literate enough to know why.
Cost effectiveness of interventions + room for additional funding. Scott is completely disregarding both concepts and giving money to whatever sounds good. There will evergreen be a book written on Scott's philanthropy and it will probably have accomplished nothing at all. Would be better off as capital for Bezos to have allocated privately with the intention of profit (Amazon and other Bezos projects will do more total good for humanity than all of Scott's cockamamey donations do) and the money would certainly do more good via the Gates/Effective Altruism style of hyper targeting the most coat effective causes, giving only as much as they can each deploy, and funding research into high financial risk but high expected return research, both for profit and not-for-profit.
A bery enlightening book on these principles: https://smile.amazon.com/Doing-Good-Better-Effective-Altruism/dp/1592409660/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=3VU1ZFHVZ0ICE&keywords=doing+good+better&qid=1638468006&sprefix=doing+goo%2Caps%2C93&sr=8-1
Charity Navigator does not evaluate the effectiveness of charities. They evaluate whether the charity has high overhead and whether they spend money where they say they do. You can get a perfect 100/100 CharityNavigator score for handing out copies of The Art of the Deal to malnourished Africans, or baptizing gays in Bangladesh, so long as you do it in with low overhead and healthy finances.
To assist you in your journey, I recommend the book "Doing Good Better" by Oxford professor William MacAskill, which explains this and essentially every other method and mistake in evaluating charity effectiveness. A very interesting read too.
Yup. People donated millions for a futuristic autonomous eco-friendly machine but we're ultimately given 2 fishing boats and a net that is problematic, as you pointed out, but any criticism is met with "at least he's trying", "it's better than nothing" or "what have you done?"
For anyone who doesn't want their donations to go to waste on impossible or useless ideas, I recommend reading "Doing Good Better".
I highly recommend this book called "Doing Good Better". It explains a lot about the flaws in charitable giving and how to make your donations have the biggest impact.
Our government programs are neglected and actively under attack by plutocrats from both major political parties. Our social funding/programs/government institutions have gone to shit under neoliberal ideology that dominates our policy in america today.
There's an entire book written on the topic if you would be so inclined: https://www.amazon.com/Winners-Take-All-Charade-Changing/dp/0451493249
The gap in charitable giving and volunteering is well documented. I don't have access to a research database, but this article discusses the research on volunteering and charitable giving near the end. It also links its sources. https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/04/research-finds-conservatives-are-more-happy-generous-and-purposeful-than-liberals/
This book has the data in it if you need a more scholarly source. I got it from my library a few years ago. https://www.amazon.com/Who-Really-Cares-Compassionate-Conservatism/dp/0465008232
I'm not trying to poop on liberals, either. I grew up in a hard left union household. I just think your arguments aren't holding up.
I think people should be able to get an abortion because I don't give a shit what other people do, and I don't think it matters much if a fetus is killed. This won't convince pro life people, but I don't care.
I’m pretty firm on discontinuing the discussion of abortion/embryology/evolution/species nomenclature. At least for now.
But I’m always interested in passing on and receiving tips on good books.
Here’s one you might like.
Even after I left the Catholic Church and religion all together I still held a kind of reverence for Mother Teresa. Learning the truth about her - and knowing how deceived most ppl still are - is still beyond disturbing. I’m looking forward to this podcast, ty. Hitchen’s book, The Missionary Positionis insightful, harsh, and angry… highly recommend!
I get it that you're heartless and power hungry dude....
Those are solutions. Lower prices / inflation, elimination of moral hazards and people keeping more of their own money is the solution (all while not commiting moral wrongs).
Don't worry, you won't have to take care of poor people hurt by Lib / Prog polices. Republicans will voluntarily take care of the poor, just like they do now (social science is clear on this.)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465008232/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_9JQ2F99J8SXGTERBQGGF