[FRIAM] Patriotic Millionaires

Mon Mar 7 09:46:47 EST 2022

Let’s say it is not a box of cookies but a four year college scholarship or a Javelin missile launcher.  The millionaire might be able to pay those individually, but no one else.  In that situation there is no sales for the individual girl scouts to perform.  At best a few heroic medium-sized donations.

Some purchases will be out of reach without spreading the cost around, even over thousands of millionaires.

On Mar 7, 2022, at 6:04 AM, Eric Charles <eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com> wrote:

Marcus,
Let's say you have a neighbor who's always talking about wanting to support the girl scouts, and who even goes so far as to set up a web page about how important it is to support the girl scouts, and pays to have signs printed and distributed around town about how important it is to support girl scouts. You have a cousin in the girl scouts, so you send her over with the girl-scout cookie order form. The neighbor takes a look at the forms and tells your cousin "While I do think I should support girl scouts, I am not going to give you any money unless everyone else in the neighboorhood is forced to give you money too. Don't ask me to be a chump."

What would we make of that?

<mailto:echarles at american.edu>

On Sun, Mar 6, 2022 at 11:13 PM Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com<mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com>> wrote:
Facebook had advertisements on TV for a few months talking about their efforts to review content for fake news.   They advocated government regulation.   Commonality being that a taxation or regulation impacts them and their competitors in the same way, so their effective power and influence won’t be negatively impacted.   “Don’t ask me to be a chump.”
On Mar 6, 2022, at 8:02 PM, Eric Charles <eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com<mailto:eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com>> wrote:

Frank,
That all seems 100% positive to me.

Do you also routinely publicly complain about how legislatures are lax in not forcing you to do more of that sort of thing, because you strongly think that you should do more, but are unwilling to without the government forcing you to?

THAT is what the Patriotic Millionaires are doing.

<mailto:echarles at american.edu>

On Sun, Mar 6, 2022 at 9:43 PM Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com<mailto:wimberly3 at gmail.com>> wrote:
I probably shouldn't volunteer to be a case in your argument but...

I do make donations to universities and a church.  Today my wife and grandson Matthew assembled packages of hygiene products for Ukrainian refugees which included things like towels, toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, shampoo etc.  This was done at United Church of Santa Fe.  As for financial contributions we spend $20k per year for tuition at Matthew's school which is a Montessori school for kids with executive function problems.  There are a number of scholarship students whose families wouldn't be able to send their kids there without help.

The church group put together 137 packages this morning.  We donated funds for the purchase of some of the stuff.

Melinda Gates said that if you're a billionaire you can donate half of your assets without any impact on your lifestyle.  But that's a different question.

Frank

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sun, Mar 6, 2022, 7:24 PM Eric Charles <eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com<mailto:eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com>> wrote:
While some of the goals of groups like "Patriotic Millionaires" are admirable, I can never get past the blatant hypocrisy of it all. Maybe "hypocrisy" isn't exactly the right term. You could also see the part that bugs me as a bizarre worship of the benefits of authority over individual choice. Let me rephrase their primary claim: "I, as a rich person, recognize that I really should give more of my money to certain causes, but I adamantly refuse to do so unless forced to do so by the federal legislature."

What is anyone really to make of that position? Is it any different than trying to look virtuous by saying that you know you should stop using child labor in your mine, while also publicly refusing to stop unless the government makes you?

On Thu, Mar 3, 2022 at 3:08 PM glen <gepropella at gmail.com<mailto:gepropella at gmail.com>> wrote:
Obviously, I'm either procrastinating or unclear on how best to do actual work today because here is yet another thing I meant to talk about with someone, anyone, awhile back:

https://patrioticmillionaires.org/about/

A salon participant recently asked whether "greed" was our most nefarious trait as a species. It's a great question for sparking discussion. My answer was that the most nefarious trait of *all* species is myopia, the inability to reason over externalities, from pond scum to the Trust <https://raised-by-wolves.fandom.com/wiki/Trust>. But to de-emphasize what people think of as "greed", I said "Trying to ensure you have enough money to live out your life in relative comfort is not greed. Greed is, after acquiring billions of dollars, you feel the need to acquire more billions of dollars."

I found Patriotic Millionaires prior to that conversation. And it seems legit ... a set of outwardly greedy people who recognize limits to their greed ... a recognition that there's a spectrum of merit, some luck, some effort, some systemic infrastructure, etc. Overall, [m|b]illionaire philanthropy (and especially effective altruism) seem like jokes to me, very postmodern jokes. "Here, let me given you a billion dollars without fundamentally rewriting your genetic code." Pffft. Give anyone enough money and you'll corrupt them fundamentally, often against their will. Philanthropists know this. Effective Altruism is an oxymoron. You can't both be coercive and altruistic at the same time. >8^D

Anyway, I'd welcome any opinion on Patriotic Millionaires.

--
glen
When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.

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