Mark Zuckerberg plans to give away 99% of his facebook wealth over his lifetime

ChristianKl

Mark Zuckerberg annouced that he is going to give away 99% of his facebook wealth ($45 billion) over his lifetime.

He announced guiding questions:

Can you learn and experience 100 times more than we do today?
Can our generation cure disease so you live much longer and healthier lives?
Can we connect the world so you have access to every idea, person and opportunity?
Can we harness more clean energy so you can invent things we can't conceive of today while protecting the environment?
Can we cultivate entrepreneurship so you can build any business and solve any challenge to grow peace and prosperity?
Can our generation eliminate poverty and hunger?
Can we provide everyone with basic healthcare?
Can we build inclusive and welcoming communities?
Can we nurture peaceful and understanding relationships between people of all nations?
Can we truly empower everyone -- women, children, underrepresented minorities, immigrants and the unconnected?

It's interesting that "live much longer and healthier lives" is on the list. Larry Page seems to divert money inside Google into Calico for anti-aging tech. Under Cook Apple also invests into health.

The future seems looking good :)

Mark Zuckerberg annouced that he is going to give away 99% of his facebook wealth ($45 billion) over his lifetime.

He announced guiding questions:

Can you learn and experience 100 times more than we do today?
Can our generation cure disease so you live much longer and healthier lives?
Can we connect the world so you have access to every idea, person and opportunity?
Can we harness more clean energy so you can invent things we can't conceive of today while protecting the environment?
Can we cultivate entrepreneurship so you can build any business and solve any challenge to grow peace and prosperity?
Can our generation eliminate poverty and hunger?
Can we provide everyone with basic healthcare?
Can we build inclusive and welcoming communities?
Can we nurture peaceful and understanding relationships between people of all nations?
Can we truly empower everyone -- women, children, underrepresented minorities, immigrants and the unconnected?

It's interesting that "live much longer and healthier lives" is on the list. Larry Page seems to divert money inside Google into Calico for anti-aging tech. Under Cook Apple also invests into health.

The future seems looking good :)

Effective altruists care. I'm not even into EA myself but I can see that it's important to know where the money goes and how effectively it's used.

On a more cynical note, I'd say this looks utopian. Here's some less optimistic articles.

Effective altruists care.

Effective altruists care about effectiveness. If the claim we're assessing is "Zuckerberg is only pretending that this money will be used to do good; actually it's a pure tax-avoidance scam and it'll all end up being spent on his family" then sure, effective altruists care. But if it's "Zuckerberg really is putting all this money into trying to improve the world, but his motive for doing so is that he wants to look good" then no, effective altruists shouldn't care why he's doing it, only what he's doing.

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0ChristianKl11y

That sentiment comes for not being in EA, for a real Effective Altruism it's not important to know that Mark Zuckerberg spends it's money effectively. It's important whether or not he spends his money effectively which happens to be a different issue. Don't project your own aversions on EA's. The EA position as articulated by William MacAskill (80,000 hours/Given What We Can/ author of Doing Good Better) is: [...] On the other hand the article to which you refer are not by people of the EA movement. Those letter likely result in the loss of many lifes due to discouraging donations by wealthy people. I would estimate education dollars invested by Zuckerberg to have a higher return than eduction dollar invested by the department of education. If Zuckerberg pays less taxes I don't think that's a problem when he spends it in good areas. If you are a teachers union who doesn't want change in the educational system but protect the status quo, Zuckerbergs announcement looks like a problem. As far as Mark Zuckerberg wanting to engage in policy debates, it depends on your politics if you believe that's a good thing. It might raise the chances that the Startup Visa act gets passed. If you are a xenophobe and against immigration than Zuckerberg plans to shape policy debates to among other things build inclusive and welcoming communities is a bad thing.

2[anonymous]11y

I don't understand why EAs would care about his motives, provided his money was spent with maximum possible utility. Or, even if SOME of it was spent with maximum possible utility.