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Google.org to Spend an Initial $1.1 Billion
conq writes "Google.org, the charitable branch of Google, has hired on Dr. Larry Brilliant to create a strategy for making a 'social impact.' According to the article: 'The network will focus its charitable endeavors on global poverty, energy, and the environment.' Brilliant outlines his goal: 'In 10 years, I'd like people to say Google changed the world less for its search engine than for the way in which it changed philanthropy to make the world a better place.'"
Ok, so this can be the designated thread for you to file all your BRILLIANT jokes under.
Yes, yes... I know - I made a pun! I'm just too much for myself sometimes. *insert seal yelps here*.
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Brilliant!
For those of you who don't know who Brilliant is, he has just the eclectic background that makes him a natural fit for Google's philanthropic thrust. He is a physican and epidemiologist who has also been heralded as a tech visionary. He spent a decade studying religion in at a Himalayan monastery in India, followed by a stint as a diplomat with the U.N. He helped lead a World Health Organization program to eradicate smallpox and later founded the Berkeley (Calif.)-based Seva Foundation, an international health nonprofit group credited with restoring sight to more than 2 million blind people.
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So is google.org going to start by shutting down or opening up google.cn?
Why is it that they're increasingly acting like Netscape these days? They're still a small company compared to Microsoft and they seem oblivious to the fact that Microsoft caught up to Netscape once Netscape started to lose focus. Become as big as Microsoft, then you can do things like this. $1.1B, even over ten years, is a lot of money that could be reinvested in the company to provide more jobs and grow the company. Again, Netscape seemed unbeatable but now is on the trash heap of history.
If they want to make a difference, how about investing money into good civics lessons in the countries wracked by violence. Teach them peaceful resolution of differences, undermine their tribal identities to create a unified national identity and teach them the value of working together in a way respectful of basic civil rights. That's why they get in this mess. Almost every time an African country manages a decent election, the opposition goes onto the warpath to try and take power. If they want to really shake things up, teach them the values that made America be able to unify and work together to become an industrial power. Until then, it's all a bunch of shiny things.
I would rather hire Joe Modest.
Now I am sad.
Set up a factory in a third world country to build:
Wheelbarrows
Handcarts
Bicycles
Water pumps (well and irrigation)
Ploughs
Seed drills
Hand tools
Evaporative refrigeration Jars
And better yet, also help set up a marketing/distribution co-op of just-above-subsistence farmers, and seed banks that also submit to some journal as "prior art" to prevent patents on indigenous varieties.
And set up education programs for urban gardening in the developing world and low-income areas of the developed world.
However, this is not to say that such endeavors are not worth doing. I'm all for big companies striving to make the world a better place.
/dev/random
Now if only those poor little brown people a) could read English, or whatever language Wikipedia is in b) had a handy source of electricity to recharge those laptops c) had another source of reliable information for the times when Wikipedia is totally wrong d) had someone writing information that was specific to their climate and culture, not Southern California.
The problems faced the people in many developing nations are significantly more complex and profound than anything that a free laptop will solve.
Sidebar: the 1.1 Billion referred to is the amount being placed in an endowment. The actual amount that will be available to be spent will be signifcantly smaller. For comparison, check out the Ford Foundation, with assets of some 11.4 billion, and annual progam expenditures of about 500 million.
Three Squirrels
How does philanthropy improve shareholder value?
No, I'm not a staunch capitalist. I don't really even invest much. But, if you play by the rules of capitalism, you die by those same rules. Unless this is being funded directly by the shareholder founders, then it's not clear this adds shareholder value, and therefore puts Google at risk.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Note to Google: Put a bunch of These: http://web.archive.org/web/20030418044709/http://w ww.boeing.com/assocproducts/energy/powertower.html all over the place. Stop the world from relying on Oil for electricity. Cheap to maintain, cheap to build.
Just my two cents.
You create your own reality - Leave mine to me.
That's because people try to help them in the wrong ways....help educate them, help get them jobs, help them to be selfsustainable, and if not leave them to Darwin. Current wellfare systems don't work, I'm not saying don't help people...but don't baby them for the rest of their life. If we help the cause rather than the effect we'll do much greater good.
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
There's only one thing that's going to reduce poverty and suffering in third-world countries: classical liberalism.
If Google (or any philanthropist) wants to really help a poor country, persuading them to depose their theocratic / despotic / fascist / socialist / puppet Governments and replace them with a constitutionally-bound Republic would be a good start.
Of course, that'd involve many people, a deep understanding of the culture of said country, and a long, tiresome struggle to educate the people - not to mention the high likelihood of violent opposition from the existing powermongers.
So most people don't bother, they don't choose to analyse the causes of poverty, and instead buy the people of those countries millions of dollars worth of rice and medicine, thereby adding welfare dependency to their list of problems, and propping up the aforementioned evil Governments.
Sigh.
I think big companies like Microsoft (Melinda Gates Foundation) and Google have started to think that charity may be a means of marketing and would in a long term help to make some bucks out of it. I guess that works by
1) Constantly staying in headlines, by those charitable activities
2) The countries which these companies will impact, are the places who potentially have a large consumer market which is still not tapped.
3) They will work hand in hand with policy makers, etc. in those countries - and would be in a better position to influence them in their favor.
donated billions $$ along with his wife
Would anyone care to donate their wife to me? Just one night...
Ha, turn down google's job, laugh in their faces!
You'd be better off going to Microsoft anyway! Wait, they modified their search engine and OS for China.
Wait, go for Yahoo! That'd be a kick in the... nevermind, they did the same.
Oooooh! Go work for IBM, that would... wait, nope, they assist China with hardware and OS's with the Guangdong Initiative....
I know, Go to work for Dell because they... nevermind, they assisted with the Guangdong Initiative too.
Go to work at a mom and pop convenience store and slowly starve to death living in your mom's basement making minimum wage while Google continues to rake in billions!
That'll show google who's boss! Yeah!
Evil Walrus >83=
I'd love to see Google continue and expand its Summer of Code program, which last summer funded 400 students worldwide to work on the Free and Open Source projects of their choice. Each student was rewarded $4,500 and the project they were improving received $500 to cover the mentors' time and expenses.
By enabling students to contribute to Free Software at an early age, Google would not only be doing society a favor, but it would also introduce those students to the concept of working with a large group of talented, motivated contributors coming from vastly different backgrounds.
Don't make me laugh. This country is hardly an example of stablism. We've been around for barely over 200 years, and it amuses me everytime someone thinks we should go "convert" another country to our preferred governmental system.
Historically, both Greek democracies and Roman republics were short-lived. These are just about our only other only other historic examples of such ruling systems. The longest-lived systems are more along the lines of emperial monarchies, whose lines can stretch for millenia.
If you believe that a "constitutionally-bound Republican government" will end suffering and poverty, I recommend you descend from your ivory tower and walk among the ghettos and homeless shelters of your local city sometime. That you visit some truly poor and struggling families. The belief that education and democracy will end the world's problems is stereotypically naive American thinking.
A stable monarchy would be a better choice. You will still end up with different social strata (ruling class, middle class, poor class---you are fooling yourself if you believe these do not exist in a republic), but the poorest will be in general better off. (Note: a monarchy does not imply a dictatorship.)
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
A stable monarchy would be a better choice. You will still end up with different social strata (ruling class, middle class, poor class---you are fooling yourself if you believe these do not exist in a republic), but the poorest will be in general better off. (Note: a monarchy does not imply a dictatorship.)
No offense, but you obviously don't know what you're talking about. You knock down a variety of strawmen to make a point that's wrong anyway.
Monarchies are inherently dictatorships because everyone must follow the rule of a single person. A monarchy does not just imply a dictatorship -- it requires one. The problem with them is that, while their may be a benevelent dictator or monarch for a generation or two, inevitably someone seizes or inherits power and then wields it for his own benefit and to the detriment of his citizens. Historically, free government and free speech lead to material wealth and improved living standards. There is no way to "end suffering and poverty" but there are ways to alleviate it for the vast majority of the population.
Your examples are terrible. Although homeless shelters do exist and not all people are equal in America (or other western countries), the poor of this country are considerably better off than even the rich of many third-world countries. Most American poor have TVs and cars; the poor of many other countries wonder where their next meal will come from.
Education and democracy will not end all the world's problems, but they will improve the overall well-being of the people. Of course, you elitist view has been argued throughout history. Those who impose it only cause greater suffering to their people. No one argues that different social classes develop in republics, but that doesn't mean that a republic isn't a superior form of government.
Is the up modding it received, (currently at 5 insightful) and the lack of upmodding to the responses. Have you ever lived under a proper monarchy? Have you any idea besides what the legends of king arthur tell you what that entails? Speaking as someone from Ireland, not so long ago my country was the orginator of such terms as "scorched earth policy", "coffin ships", and "lynching". All because whatever inbred monkey that happened to be sitting on the metal chair took a fit and decided that was a good way to go this season.
You want to wake up, son. Monarchies are never meritocracies, the best does not rise to the top. The wealthy have their status codified and secured by law, enforced by the willing peons that were beggared by the noble classes themselves, but are too ill educated to see it, again due to the noble classes.
The longest-lived systems are more along the lines of emperial monarchies, whose lines can stretch for millenia
Good lord. You say this like its a good thing. The advances in science and living conditions made in primarily western nations that gave us what we have today were made when..? Thats right, in the last 200 years. Seeing the connection yet? Just because some thugs can settle into hereditary positions and bully the rest of the population for a few millenia with hired heavies doesn't make it smart or right. Still with me? Good lad. The longest lived systems are only stable from the top. And even then not very stable.
As I was saying, the scariest thing about this post is the agreement I see with it. Its like you americans have forgotten what it was like. Does anyone doubt that a lot of people in the US today would mind living under a monarchy? Yeesh.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
...his wife if fucking Brilliant, too.
Sorry.
If you can read this sig, you're too close.