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   Brian C. Keegan (bkeegan@hci.social)'s status on Friday, 24-Nov-2023 01:31:24 JST Brian C. Keegan

   It’s easy to dunk on midlife Elon for lighting $44 billion on fire to own the libs.

   But it’s hard to fathom the enormity of this destruction of value.

   Harvard University has attracted significant and deserved criticism about its embarrassingly large endowment.

   In 2019, Harvard’s endowment was $40 billion.

   The income from this pile of money reliably pays out 5% per year, or $1.8 billion.

   Just remember: “A 44 billion endowment could indefinitely pay for $2 billion of stuff per year.”

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   • Embed this notice
     Brian C. Keegan (bkeegan@hci.social)'s status on Friday, 24-Nov-2023 01:31:19 JST Brian C. Keegan

     in reply to

     But when you hear “every billionaire is a policy failure” just remember that $40 billion could profoundly transform humanistic endeavors at a national scale on a timescale of centuries.

     And then reflect on how some people have multiples of that amount.

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   • Embed this notice
     Brian C. Keegan (bkeegan@hci.social)'s status on Friday, 24-Nov-2023 01:31:20 JST Brian C. Keegan

     in reply to

     If we just went full megalomaniacal narcisst:

     Award 100 $20 million Musk Laureates annually?

     Pay 20,000 Musk Fellows $100,000 per year?

     5/🧵

     Matthew Lyon repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Brian C. Keegan (bkeegan@hci.social)'s status on Friday, 24-Nov-2023 01:31:21 JST Brian C. Keegan

     in reply to

     Total foreign aid spending on Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance?

     $2.2 billion per year.

     The investigations budget for the IRS?

     $800 million per year.

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   • Embed this notice
     Brian C. Keegan (bkeegan@hci.social)'s status on Friday, 24-Nov-2023 01:31:22 JST Brian C. Keegan

     in reply to

     One of the final and most emotional moments of Obama’s tenure involved the announcement of a Cancer Moonshot.

     A massive influx of funding to accelerate cancer research.

     Set against the backdrop of Biden skipping the 2016 race because Beau had just died of brain cancer.

     How much money are we talking? $1.8 billion per year for seven years.

     $44 billion of Elonbucks could have accelerated cancer research forever.

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   • Embed this notice
     Brian C. Keegan (bkeegan@hci.social)'s status on Friday, 24-Nov-2023 01:31:23 JST Brian C. Keegan

     in reply to

     The budget requested for the National Science Foundation's Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) in 2023 was $1.15 billion.

     That’s a very large fraction of the nation’s total investment in graduate students, researcher salaries, infrastructure, and services for research about computing.

     $44 billion of Elonbucks could have permanently altered the structure and dynamics of computing research in this country.

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