Giving away money is stupid. With that much money I would rather fund companies that push the frontier on something. If it fails no biggie, if it succeeds it will probably end up employing people and giving them a source of income for life while simultaneously contributing to human progress.
Artists don’t need money. More money is poured into the arts than at any time history.
Motion picture arts, literary arts, video game arts, graphic design arts,
and also at no time has it cost less to get an audience and find supporters. YouTube , TikTok, instagram, twitch, patreon, starsubscribe, gumroad, etc…
> Artists don’t need money. More money is poured into the arts than at any time history.
That first sentence is patently untrue especially in the US. We have been defunding and ridiculing the arts since the Reagan years. And is “more than before” enough? I’d say clearly not. The only arts that receive large sums of money are those that are commercial enterprises designed to generate enormous profit, they are integrated into capitalism. Are you going to tell me that poetry and painting are heavily funded in the US? How about your local symphony? Are these not “worthy investments” in our culture and humanity?
And let’s say we buy that argument: How does this not apply to private companies? Are you really going to argue that we prioritize the arts anywhere near as much as for-profit businesses?
A lot of non-profits are just jobs programs for people who run in the same educational/social circles as the wealthy people. Not all non-profits obviously. But a shocking amount when you get close to it.
I didn't say anything about a "quality non-profit." I said that a lot of non-profits are jobs programs for people who travel in the same social circles as wealthy people. Those non-profits often make little meaningful impact. Those non-profits are worse than for-profit companies because ineffectual for-profit companies at least go out of business. By contrast, fund-raising for non-profits generally isn't based on results, it's based on social networks. Donors get the same tax write-off whether the non-profit is effective or not. And they have social reasons for donating to non-profits run by people they or their spouse went to school with, grew up with, etc.
Why does any of this need to be discussed? Did you think I was saying just throw money at any random nonprofit without any research? Do you think I blindly trust all non-profits? Clearly the implication is “give to quality non-profits.”
I didn’t just start talking about how there are lots of bad private companies, I assumed what you meant. So this just feels like an attempt at spiking the conversation.
Because you get very little value from them. I haven’t seen anything paradigm shifting come out of non profit besides OpenAI which they then promptly turned into a for profit spinoff.
You're saying charities like OpenAI that people have given money to haven't pushed the frontier on anything?
You'd rather vibecode a SaaS or start a dropshipping business because that is somehow pushing the frontier more than a charity like OpenAI people gave away money to?
