Today someone contacted me about getting funding from two well-known fascists who have become major figures in philanthropy and it made me realize that one of the byproducts of America’s obscene wealth inequality is that scientists seeking support for their research often have to make a deal with the devil. I could certainly use the funding but I turned him down, and it has left me thinking about what has happened to philanthropy in the United States.
llustration: Peter Fowler / Axios
Selfishness is philanthropic.That’s the message being sent by a series of high-profile Silicon Valley leaders, most recently billionaire venture capitalist Marc Andreessen.
Why it matters: Philanthropy has historically been framed as giving back — after making their fortune from and within society, individuals then return the favor.
Under the new conception of philanthropy, the act of making the fortune itself is the philanthropic act. There’s no need to give any money away — feel free to go ahead and drop more than $220 million on Malibu property if you’re so inclined. Just by dint of getting rich, your philanthropic work is largely done.
The big picture: Harvard and Stanford economist Robert Barro sketched the broad outlines of this philosophy in a 2007 WSJ op-ed, focused on Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates.
Gates, he wrote, “is kidding himself if he believes that the efforts of the Gates Foundation are likely to provide society anything like the past and future accomplishments of Microsoft.”
I don’t know how much more obvious it could become that as a result of the last Republican appointments during the Trump administration that something has gone seriously awry with the Supreme Court. Finally, it looks like the Senate Democrats are willing to take this on. Whether this is finally what happens, to me, is less important than that the problems of the court are finally being seriously considered.
The U.S. Supreme Court Credit: Tom Brenner / The Washington Post / Getty
A group of Democratic senators has introduced legislation that would drastically alter how often Supreme Court justices are chosen, and limit the cases justices can hear after a certain time on the bench.
The new legislation, sponsored by Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island), Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), and Alex Padilla (D-California), is called the Supreme Court Biennial Appointments and Term Limits Act. A number of Democratic senators have signed on as co-sponsors of the bill. It has not yet been endorsed by any Republicans.
The bill would require new appointments to the Supreme Court every two years, as opposed to the current process that only requires new appointments when there is a vacancy on the nine-member bench. Justices would still serve lifetime appointments, but the bill would limit the kind of cases a member of the Court can take part in after 18 years.
The Supreme Court hears two different types of cases: those that originate from appellate […]
Elizabeth Dwoskin, Silicon Valley Correspondent - The Washington Post
Stephan:
Quite apart from what is actually happening in the Gaza – Israel War what stands out for me is the glaring misinformation describing the war that is to be found on social media. This is only the latest example of what I see this as a growing international problem. Local newspapers are dying like elderly old friends, and national and international papers and corporate television increasingly is shaped to corporate profit interests. At the same time, people around the world get the information that shapes their views of the world from social media. What this tells me is that we live in a world in which the laws governing news were all created in a time before large corporations or a few billionaires controlled news, and before the internet and social media even existed. As a result what most people think about an event is shaped not by facts, but by nonsense and the weaponization of lies, and what corporations decide to let their outlets say.
Soldiers and civilians try to extinguish a car on fire after a missile attack in the city of Ashkelon, Israel, on Tuesday. Credit: Lorenzo Tugnoli / The Washington Post
A WhatsApp voice memo purporting to have insider information ricocheted across hundreds of group chats in Israel early on Monday. The Israeli army was planning for another “battle like we’ve never experienced before,” the anonymous woman said in Hebrew, warning that people should prepare to lose access to food, water and internet service for a week.
Across the country, Israelis raced to the banks and to the grocery stores, anticipating another attack. But the message, the army clarified hours later on X, turned out to be a falsehood.
One week into the war between Israel and Gaza, social media is inducing a fog of war surpassing previous clashes in the region — one that’s shaping how panicked citizens and a global public view the conflict.
Social media has long played a critical role in battles in the area. During the 11-day war […]
Water is destiny. I have been telling you that for years, and the reality of that statement gets clearer day by day. The world is just not taking this issue seriously enough. Nor is there enough planning, nor enough money being allocated to addressing this ongoing crisis.
WMO says not enough is known about the real state of the planet’s freshwater resources.
“We cannot manage what we do not measure,” the agency’s State of Global Water Resources 2022 report said in a plea for elemental policy change.
The report says investments must be increased to facilitate cross-border collaboration and water resources assessments, improved monitoring and data sharing, a press release from WMO said.
“This WMO report offers a comprehensive, and consistent overview of water resources worldwide, highlighting the influence of climate, environmental, and societal changes,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas, according […]
Yet another research study telling humanity that we absolutely have to change the industrial mono-crop chemical-based form of agriculture currently practiced, as well as the way animals are raised for meat. There is no question of this, but are we listening? That is not so clear.
Ahead of COP28, global leaders are increasingly turning to food systems to tackle climate pollution. Now, experts from Stockholm Environment Institute have released a new policy report with recommendations for reinventing the food system. The common thread — a shift away from factory farms.
The experts specifically call out the harms of industrial meat, as producing beef and dairy products along with other meats is one of the largest contributors to climate change, using vast amounts of water and land while belching a significant amount of greenhouse gasses.
“…Even if fossil fuel emissions were eliminated immediately,” the authors write, “emissions from food systems alone, particularly from animal product production, would make it impossible to limit global warming to 1.5°C and difficult even to limit warming to 2°C.”
Because food production doesn’t exist in a vacuum, eliminating meat — or even just reducing it — is no small task. In much of the world, animal products continue to play a key role in health and nutrition, the authors […]
