This is the title of an article in today's Wall Street Journal by Terry Teachout. Teachout takes issue with what Gates said in a recent interview:

"[Gates] questions why anyone would donate money to build a new wing for a museum rather than spend it on preventing illnesses that can lead to blindness. 'The moral equivalent is, we're going to take 1 per cent of of the people who visit this [museum] and blind them,' he says."

Teachout calls this "nonsense" because "art museums . . . make the world more beautiful, thereby making it a better place in which to live." He says that "sooner or later most of us will long for [beauty] as we do for food. What could be more honorable than for a rich person to help satisfy that hunger in the same way that he might underwrite the operation of a food bank? . . . it's admirable to help prevent blindness-but it's also admirable to help ensure that we have beautiful things to see."

Do we really long for beauty as we do food? I'm with Gates here. Isn't a rich person who chooses to pay $142,400,000 for Francis Bacon's "Three Studies of Lucian Freud" instead of giving the money to a medical project that prevents illnesses that cause blindness, willfully blinding those he could have helped?

How good is the museum though?

Can't be too good if it has that Bacon triptych.

I spend money on cat food. Phucks given: 0

Did I miss the ceremony where he donated every cent he possesses (minus say $1,000,000, or whatever might be a reasonable rest-of-life stipend) to the causes he claims to champion? If I didn't, and if he's still out-wealthying Carlos Slim and the Sultan of Brunei and whatever inbred heirs of Sam Walton are roaming around Bentonville, AR these days, then he has no right to complain about the philanthropy of others.

Superficially stupidly designed philanthropy is a dangerous thing too you know. In fact i will now say something that will look out of character for me but it really isnt at all. If you help hunger in Africa or elsewhere people breed like rabbits, like there is no tomorrow and fed everyone nicely and treated their diseases, reduced infant mortality etc, all great things, and still did little to improve education and culture and local economies and remove corruption (and exploitation from the west of course) and civil wars and overall misery that is worse than disease, the damage you will create to the world is much more severe than if you let people die now, as cruel as this may sound. A world full of countries with ridiculously huge populations and terrible culture and ideals and lack of education and stupid religions, but who are capable of high technology selectively (in key population subgroups) and advanced weapons or terrorism delivery tools, proves a much more undesirable outcome. It is in fact a severely unethical place for all now.

If i were responsible for how philanthropy was done i would do even more than these guys like Gates do (who by the way already does a lot more than most rich anyway and has already agreed to give most of his wealth eventually, of course he took it from all of us over time... lol) , but i would focus a ton more on science and education (everywhere) and research (in the west ) and on changing culture and insisted that i am not going to help (at all or as much) any country that cant keep its population growth rate sub 1%. I must discipline myself to not be emotionally/ethically terrorized at the face of suffering if treating it without proper design in place will lead to worse suffering. A doctor of course cannot/should not think like that (otherwise you have given up on something elementary like the respect for the individual human spirit) and is forced to help as many as possible right away if found there on the ground so to speak. But these doctors are silently screaming at you to wake up and do it all much better so that their work will count.

The primary killer and creator of misery in these countries is the parents (and their stupid religions) that bring to the world 8 without caring for how they will raise them and that they will effectively make them miserable and lead a life of poverty and desperation that will promote further ignorance, intolerance, wars and religious bs extremism.

The hell with this bs!

If you treat people like fish in the ocean that leave millions of eggs so that few will survive then it is you breeding irresponsibly that must be the first to start the charity! It is a charity you owe to my own future. If in the ocean example the fish is somehow protected from their natural predators and a population explosion takes place, the system will collapse later under its own weight and other species will become endangered too.

Imagine a world where the victims of billions of ignorant intolerant, angry people is now science, culture and human rights...Welcome to a theocratic dystopia where we are back to dark ages...

masque, unlike you, I am a fatalist, so I engage his "argument" merely for my temporary amusement.

he is making the common omission = commission mistake made by people very good at adding up.

Really when you start getting answers like building a museum is equivalent to blinding people it should make make you seriously consider that you have messed up the question.

I find it funny that so many otherwise intelligible people are so receptive of the "**** is so messed up, we gotta do something" "the world is so cruel/unfair" schools of thought, yet continue to bring children into this madness cos something something he gave my life meaning and "awww so cuddly and cute".

Honorable mention to athiests who realize its all ultimately meaningless and futile yet still have kids so they can experience the beauty of life (provided they completely shut themselves out of the reality that people are literally starving to death, the human condition is poverty and that the pretty animals in the world are literally eating each other to survive). But, but, you can work hard and buy that nice house one day!! and that nice car! see its so beautiful right?

IN BEFORE "im middle class and live in the first world, tho". Yea, doesn't change the fact that you are increasing population in a heavily overpopulated world, subjecting the kid to a lifetime of servitude in the form of work, guaranteeing pain (social/physical/mental) and could simply adopt a child and actually make a difference rather than add to the misery because you are a inherently selfish, delusional person who is shackled the emotionless slave master called nature.

I mean you can't even guarantee that there will be an economy for your kid to actually have a job in 18 years, lol at thinking that passing on this level of variance is selfless.

Preach it, friend

Gates, Buffet, and other multi-billionaires were featured on 60 Minutes last Sunday regarding their philanthropy. These guys attend seminars on how to properly give away their money. Some plan on giving away over 99% of their wealth. IIRC they said Gates does give a lot to science and education. He's giving a lot to the development of some vaccine.

Yeah, well, if you're going to play the urgency card like Gates apparently is here (given the OP), then you better be giving away >99% ASAP

Gates said he learned the hard way that you can do more harm than good if you give it away incorrectly. I imagine it might be better to give some now, then give some more later conditional on results, instead of just dumping all of it on someone now with no strings.

Makes sense, given that last I heard (circa 2009) he was going all-in (charity-wise) on Africa. Corruption is amok globally but if you had to pick a continent where it was most evident....

Aren't museums where countries keep the stuff they stole from other countries?

aw, man, you ****ing found me out, *******

The British Museum being the quintessential example.

The silliness of concentrating on and finding moralistic themes in what a few very wealth people do with their money is equivalent to the silliness of caring what new hair style or clothes some Hollywood celebrity is displaying before the public.

In essence, it is a waste of your valuable time. You should instead be counting the neutrinos currently zipping through your body, setting up your telescope to view the comet ISON, reading a stimulating book, listening to Mozart, selling heroin to a sixteen year old girl, or masturbating to internet porn*. Need I mention, also drinking excellent tasting Beer?

Thinking otherwise is falling into what I will dub the Brutus Fallacy.


* Just random examples; not given in any order of magnitude or of importance.

I nominate The Louvre.

My mistake; you are quite right. I second the nomination - We need to stick it to the French. The Louvre it is. (I guess we dismiss the Hermitage out of hand?)

Never been. I heard (I think maybe from you) that it's super-impressive.

Being a hypocrite doesn't make him wrong.

Who advocates this?

Figured this thread would bring out the mouthbreathers, good to know I didnt have to wait long.

There are two kinds of sins of commission. And sins of omission are in fact almost equal to the second kind. If I blind somebody because I want him blind my sin is worse than any sin of omission. But if I do something to my benefit such as help design an ad for a drug that I know will sometimes blind peoplein order not to get fired, that is not much worse than simply remaining silent about the drug in order not to be fired.