Comment by req2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by req2 | Hacker News Reader

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I don't think he's saying that hospitals and academics are worthless, but that their current marginal worth is well below their cost. The charity didn't create hospitals in needed areas, it simply expanded an existing hospital. An extra building on a sufficiently large campus isn't going to improve academics by any appreciable amount.

edit to respond to your own edit:

You're still being needlessly sensationalistic yourself. The phrase "pissing money away" features once, in "But when folks like Alex spend their later years trying to “do good” with the millions they were paid for actually doing good, they usually end up pissing it away." Note that this is qualified with 'usually', and doesn't say hospitals and academics are "pissing money away". He does note that extra wings and additional lecture halls are unnecessary, but this is neither saying that hospitals are worthless, nor saying that charitable spending on hospitals, universities, or (the nowhere mentioned) libraries is worthless. Be careful with language.

His main point is the odd social idea that for-profit innovation is inferior to charitably spending is well taken. It should be noted that, for example, inferior products with superior marketing can actually damage overall welfare. Monopolistic business practices, again, can be profitable but damaging. Financial success correlates with having done good, but does not guarantee it.

The problem is that saying that spending on hospitals and universities is "pissing money away" is much more sexy than saying that "in this geographic location and at this point in time, increasing the size of the campus will have a fairly low marginal value, whereas a larger marginal value could be achieved through other means."

For the record I, too, would have preferred that the money be put towards, for instance, mitigating existential risk. On the other hand, I'm very grateful to the people who funded the hospitals, universities, and public libraries from which I've benefited.

First, you shouldn't expect such an unnecessarily verbose explanation of 'pissing money away' when anyone willing to follow the argument productively would happily understand that he didn't mean polio vaccinations aren't helpful. (http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/06/against-disclai.html)

Secondly, he does say the same exact things you want him to. He says that most people "do good" in ways that actually "[piss] money away", explaining that we have too much of things we don't need, and saying that more good could be achieved by other means.

edit to address your first point: He directly addresses the 'correlation' of financial success to 'doing good': "When we look back on people in the past and what they did that we are thankful for, creating innovative products, processes, and organizations should come out near the top; that is mainly what made us rich." (emphasis mine)

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