
Jeff Bezos tweet seeking philanthropic ideas draws 42,000 replies - virtualwhys
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-22/amazon-s-bezos-disrupts-another-frontier-with-just-one-tweet
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6stringmerc
Bring back the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) concept and significantly
over-pay the employees on the condition half goes into savings accounts for
family use or to pay down debts of some sort. Employ it as a method to give
uneducated (HS degree) or underemployed (able bodied with Bachelors and $8/hr
job), rehabilitate and early-release incarcerated US Citizens and put them to
work in infrastructure needs.

So, this way we address numerous factors: 1) The large uneducated mass of
young people excluded from the workforce or otherwise drowning in college
debt, 2) Work to reduce the prison population and actually rehabilitate people
with worthwhile skills (metallurgy, equipment, etc), and 3) Fix the crumbling,
pot-hole riddled, creaking, aging US infrastructure in probably record time.

Yes it will cost a fuck-ton of money but because these low-level employees
will have money to spend, the wheels of US Consumerist economy will be able to
pick up. Former students in the program could pay down debt AND save for after
they're released from the program commitment.

Poor people are poor because they spend. The US wealth gap is so distorted the
rich have choked this system. They sit on piles of assets and spend very
little by comparison, even if it's millions of dollars per year. These are
economic realities that Bezos is part of causing to be an issue.

It's almost as if Amazon's business model isn't viable without the public
infrastructure that is now in desperate need of investment. Hm.

~~~
samstave
Totally agree!

This is why I always skeptically look at any philanthropic announcements....

if billionaires like Gates, Buffet, Zuck, Bezos simply funded the above - it
would go way further, and have long asting effect on the future of this nation
in so many profound ways. Rather than "give away half their wealth" \- why not
do the above now and actually see it change the surface of the nation?

\---

I am getting involved in the tiny house movement. Clayton homes (berkshire
hathaway) has a tiny home division... but BHs entities (like clayton and
karsten) in the housing market are so poorly regarded: they build sub-standard
homes, their employees are treated like crap, the quality of their products
are low because they do not provide skilled training to their employees, the
working conditions are fairly poor etc...

its maddening to see billionaires and governments claim all this "making the
world a better place" platitudenal BS, but a critical program like CCC would
be realize some serious material benefit in every sector.

~~~
euroclydon
Simultaneously driving the economy and increasing quality of life are often
competing goals. Take tiny homes, sure, you might be able to put more people
in homes they own, but housing construction is one of the most hammer-ready
jobs producing activities there is, and if you cut the average house size by
75%, there are fewer jobs in building.

Then consider externalities, the environment could be a lot cleaner if we got
over striving for economic growth. Growth is driven by population or
consumption growth or both. So you get more trees cut down to build roads,
houses and malls. More pollution from energy consumption and manufacturing.

We should really just pursue managed population reduction, combined with a
prescribed amount of economic shrinkage, not growth. But then people really
get stuck in their caste and there are far fewer opportunities to move into
middle class.

~~~
livingparadox
Well, its not like building tiny homes are going to make most people who would
normally purchase a normal/large size home switch to a tiny home. It would
probably net increase the amount of construction work because you've now
expanded the available market (lower income people can now purchase a home).

------
adventured
The idea here isn't that Bezos is going to get some stellar idea from the
Twitter crowd that he couldn't have gotten from an hour sitting down with the
best people at the Gates Foundation. The idea is propaganda / PR. Bezos is
letting the world know that while yes, he's about to become the world's
richest person, he's going to be a good mogul and begin giving lots of money
away, so please don't attack him too harshly for the soon to be $100 billion
pile of riches.

The $1b per year in space spending wasn't going to be viewed as enough of a
good deed, given the business dominance Amazon is about to enjoy and all the
horrible press that is about to follow in the coming years. The Twitter
campaign is Bezos firing up his own PR effort ahead of becoming anointed as
the world's richest (which will generate thousands of headlines & stories,
plenty of which will be negative, when it occurs; and so long as he retains
that title, the headlines will grow worse inverse to his philanthropy levels).

~~~
triangleman
His PR is top notch, for sure:

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-lyons/amazon-
drones-60-min...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-lyons/amazon-
drones-60-minutes_b_4372910.html)

------
Mithaldu
Great marketing campaign, but philantropic stuff needs to be long term to be
of any use. Short term stuff can in fact be counter-productive by hiding that
there is a problem that needs to be resolved.

The best solution for almost every response he got is: Introduce better
legislation. Even charities are just bandaids over actual problems.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
You can't legislate societies problems away. Legislation is just bandaids
applied with the threat of violence for those who seek to remove them.

~~~
Cozumel
> 'You can't legislate societies problems away'

Could you elaborate? It seems pretty obvious that you can. No child labour,
minimum wage laws, equal rights etc.

~~~
bobabooey02
The reason legislation like this isn't helping our country at the moment is
because of globalization. Labor laws may help the workers, but it's a net
negative if those laws just lead to the outsourcing of jobs. We need to choose
between globalization for maximal gains for the rich, or protectionism for
quality of life for our workers. At the moment, a middle ground doesn't seem
possible.

~~~
matthewmacleod
Globalisation is fine where regulation can ensure that standards are still
met. There is nothing that prevents domestic legislation setting standards for
the working conditions of those who produce goods in foreign countries.

Protectionism isn't going to help workers in the long term. We live in a
global market; accepting that and using legislation to deal with negative
outcomes is a totally valid approach. The fact that it hasn't been done is
because of the large amount of money standing in the way of it.

~~~
bobabooey02
Theoretically this is true, but look at how it's worked in practice.
Manufacturing was shipped to places like China and Mexico where the minimum
wage and quality of life is much lower. When considering these things, should
we consider the theory of globalization, or the reality of what is happening?

------
sethammons
Truly affordable housing. Something in the $300 range at the most. Lots of
regulations, at least in California, do things to prevent micro apartments,
which I think could help the situation.

~~~
melling
Create an unsustainable system then seek philanthropy to fix the problem? Why
not simply fix the system?

~~~
samstave
Seems to me, that is exactly what he stated: Legislation is blocking
innovation and ability to provide micro-apartments. We need to change the laws
to fix this.

I know this first hand, as I am trying to work in the tiny house movement here
in the bay area.

In talking with the city and county of alameda, the code is the problem. The
code states that any land parcel for a single family is required to be minumum
of 2,300 square feet.

So you cannot sub-div a parcel for several tiny homes, as any structure with a
door, sleeping and cooking facilities is considered a dwelling and is subject
to requiring a 2,300 SF lot...

I am working with several tiny home manufacturers on this - but the laws need
to change.

~~~
majewsky
Can't you just make a small apartment building (with maybe 3 or 4 apartments
all connected by a hallway to fulfil the single-outer-door requirement)?

~~~
adventured
Apartment buildings - even very small ones - come with their own special,
elaborate, nightmare regulations. They're worse than housing regulations.

~~~
PeterisP
An that's a problem which legislation can remove or at least ease.

------
mc32
As I mentioned last time, my preference would be to set up an endowment which
would support the retraining of workers who are displaced by automation into
areas where there is a skills shortage.

When 1,200 jobs disappear because whole foods automates sorting and packing to
their stores, this is traceable as a direct consequence of automation.

Those people should be interviewed assessed and retrained into viable
opportunities.

~~~
wolfgke
> As I mentioned last time, my preference would be to set up an endowment
> which would support the retraining of workers who are displaced by
> automation into areas where there is a skills shortage.

If one can believe the HN crowd there is a shortage of programmers. For this
you don't need retraining, you can just teach it yourself on the internet.

~~~
Amygaz
Beyond retraining, there is dignity. Most workers don't feel like their job
means anything, that their effort is not valued properly, or do a job by
obligation, not because they like it.

~~~
wolfgke
> Beyond retraining, there is dignity. Most workers don't feel like their job
> means anything, that their effort is not valued properly, or do a job by
> obligation, not because they like it.

And what would retraining change on this situation? Why should they like the
job that comes afterwards?

To state it cynically: Wouldn't brainwashing people to love their job be a
much more effective solution to this problem?

------
campbellmorgan
Lobby Congress to outlaw lobbying and restrict campaign donations to $20 /
person!

~~~
cies
This. Next have a many-party political system so parties have to form
coalitions. Or even better, only vote for and pay taxes to the lowest level of
gov't (village, neighbourhood); then replace all higher levels of gov't with
committees that are on topic (health care, roads, public transport, etc.) that
are funded and mandated by those local gov't bodies. Note that committees do
not have exclusive "right", local gov't bodies can switch or create their own
if they feel the need.

------
sah2ed
In the tweet Bezos wrote [0]:

> _This tweet is a request for ideas. I 'm thinking about a philanthropy
> strategy that is the opposite of how I mostly spend my time - working on the
> long term. For philanthropy, I find I'm drawn to the other end of the
> spectrum: the right now._

Perhaps, the focus on right now is to find cool ways to end up with a lower
tax bill?

Bezos recently sold about $1billion worth of Amazon stock [1]

[0]
[https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/875418348598603776](https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/875418348598603776)

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-04/amazon-
ce...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-04/amazon-ceo-bezos-
sells-about-1-billion-in-company-stock)

~~~
digitalzombie
> Perhaps, the focus on right now is to find cool ways to end up with a lower
> tax bill?

Sure he most likely doing it to lower tax. Capital gain is 15% no?

Either way at least he's doing it in a helpful way. Even if I don't agree with
Amazon monopolistic tendencies.

------
johnpython
The person who suggested building AWS data centers in Africa was right on the
mark. I would love to see that

~~~
mtmail
Maybe I'm missing something. Can you explain the philanthropic reasoning
behind the idea? Other than lower cost or latency.

~~~
johnpython
This was the original tweet:
[https://twitter.com/asemota/status/875497242987307008](https://twitter.com/asemota/status/875497242987307008).
He explains it better than I could.

------
postfacto
What about treating his employees decently?

------
ErikVandeWater
Is this attention-seeking, or is there a process to reviewing these replies
(maybe see what's common to many of them)? 140 characters for a great idea is
very tough. And I'm sure the people advising him on this are geniuses with
lots of experience.

------
louithethrid
What this species needs is not philantrophy, but a new frontier- something,
that equalizes, as everyone gets a chance to throw themselves at it. A wild
West, and to be honest the comp science revolution was a disappointment in
that regard.

We need a method to get ressources for cheap out of the gravity well, so if he
built a cannon to the moon, and researched a way to get humanity (0,1,0)
there, that would be the greatest gift to this species.

------
jlebrech
why doesn't he create a big city with communal living and top rate security
for refugees?

~~~
samstave
... Or for anyone?

~~~
jlebrech
or that too.

------
ckastner
I'm getting so sick of hearing the word 'disrupt'. It's been so overused that
it I feel that it has basically lost all meaning.

Edit: I see that the HN title has been changed in the meantime.

~~~
agumonkey
mainstream spoils everything.

btw, what about Bezos paying taxes instead of "optimizing" ?

~~~
wolfgke
What evidence can you provide that the government provides a more efficient
allocation of ressources? It is well-known that a lot of the taxes go into the
military-industrial complex.

~~~
codyb
Isn't the USA pretty much middle of the pack when it comes to percentage of
GDP spent on the military? And I feel like I don't hear too much about
Raytheon Billionaires although I'm sure some of the upper echelon at these big
contractors must be doing pretty well.

It's also well known a lot of taxes go into our healthcare complex. Is that
good or bad? Seems like we overpay for worse outcomes statistically but we
also have some of the best healthcare facilities in the world and pioneer a
decent amount of drugs.

At the end of the day both are employing a lot of solidly middle class folk
who are spending their money moving the economy which seems to be the ideal
situation in a lot of ways.

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losteverything
How can one person read 42k anything.

I hope he does, and not someone for him.

I remember justice roberts saying in an interview how he read letters to
president Reagan, and pass along those he thought appropriate. I was truly
disappointed.

~~~
r3bl
> How can one person read 42k anything.

It's actually quite easy in this case. Most of them are threads, from a quick
skim on the replies. So you separate them into threads, treating the person
that replied to the top comment (so, mentioning @JeffBezos and himself only)
as one idea. Replies to these replies are not usually ideas, but more of
questions, feedbacks and such. So, I would say that there are at most 10% of
usable tweets (out of 42k replies in total), which you then combine into
specific ideas (chain responding about an idea is still just one idea) and you
get down to something like 500-1000. Out of those, you'll might find 50 or so
that are actually doable and not blatant trolling (I mean, one of the top
replies is literally "I could need some money and I would consider it very
philanthropic") and you get something usable and easily digestible within a
day or so.

I would say that he needs to read them, but he definitely needs someone to
make it digestible before starting to read them.

