I would posit that his actual children have a comfortably non-zero amount of influence over him, and that the rest of us have a non-zero-but-muchcloser-to-zero amount of influence over him.
Yeah, the idea of “I could have been a part of the legendary 1%, but my parents decided to throw me back among the muggles” could make one rather angry.
Imagine that your parents were uneducated and homeless as teenagers. They lived many years on the streets, starving and abused. But they never gave up hope, and never stopped trying, so when they were 30, they already had an equivalent of high-school education, were able to get a job, and actually were able to buy a small house.
Then you were born. You had a chance to start your life in much better circumstances than your parents had. You could have attended a normal school. You could have a roof above your head every night. You could have the life they only dreamed about when they were your age.
But your parents thought like this: “A roof above one’s head, and a warm meal every day, that would spoil a child. We didn’t have that when we were kids—and look how far we got! All the misery only made our spirits stronger. What we desire for our children is to have the same opportunity for spiritual growth in life that we had.” So they donated all the property to charity, and kicked you out of the house. You can’t afford a school anymore. You are lucky to find some work that allows you to eat.
Hey, why the sad face? If such life was good enough for them, how dare you complain that it is not good anough for you? Clearly they failed somewhere at your upbringing, if you believe that you deserve something better than they had.
(Explanation: To avoid the status quo bias of being in my social class—to avoid the feeling that the classes below me have it so bad that it breaks them, but the classes above me have it so good that it weakens their spirits; and therefore my social class, or perhaps the one only slighly above me, just coincidentally happens to be the optimal place in the society—I sometimes take stories about people, and try to translate them higher or lower in the social ladder and look if they still feel the same.)
to avoid the feeling that the classes below me have it so bad that it breaks them, but the classes above me have it so good that it weakens their spirits
It’s not a social class thing. It’s a human motivation thing. Humans are motivated by needs and if you start with a few $B in the bank, many of your needs are met by lazily waving your hand. That’s not a good thing as the rich say they have discovered empirically.
That, of course, is not a new idea. A quote attributed to Genghis Khan says
After us, the people of our race will wear garments of gold; they will eat sweet, greasy food, ride splendid coursers, and hold in their arms the loveliest of women, and they will forget that they owe these things to us
and there is an interesting post discussing the historical context. The consequences, by the way, are very real—when you grow soft, the next batch of tough, lean, and hungry outsiders comes in and kills you.
The no-fortune-for-you rich do not aim for their children to suffer (because it ennobles the spirit or any other such crap). They want their children to go out into the world and make their own mark on the world. And I bet that these children still have a LOT of advantages. For one thing, they have a safety net—I’m pretty sure the parents will pay for medevac from a trek in Nepal, if need be. For another, they have an excellent network and a sympathetic investor close by.
It’s not a social class thing. It’s a human motivation thing.
Same difference. So there is an optimal amount of wealth to inherit to maximize human motivation, and it happens to be exactly the same amount that Gateses are going to give their children. (The optimal amount depends on the state of global economy or technology, so it was a different amount for Genghis Khan than it is now.)
I’d like to see the data supporting this hypothesis. Especially the kind of data that allows you to estimate the optimal amount as a specific number (not merely that the optimal amount is less than infinity).
They want their children to go out into the world and make their own mark on the world.
Which cannot be done if you have too much money. But will be much easier to do if you have less money. And you know precisely that e.g. 10^7 USD is okay, but 10^8 USD is too much.
Imagine that your goal would be to have your children “make their own mark on the world”, and that you really care about that goal (as opposed to just having it as a convenient rationalization for some other goals). As a rational person, would you simply reduce their inheritance to sane levels and more or less stop there? If you would spend five minutes thinking about the problem, couldn’t you find a better solution?
and it happens to be exactly the same amount that Gateses are going to give their children
You say this as if it’s a silly thing that no one could have good reason to believe. I’ve no idea whether it’s actually true but it’s not silly. Here, let me put it differently. “It just happens that the amount some outstandingly smart people with a known interest in world-optimization and effectively unlimited resources have decided to leave their children is the optimal amount.”
I mean, sure, they may well have got it wrong. But they have obvious incentives to get it right, and should be at least as capable of doing so as anyone else.
And you know precisely that e.g. 10^7 USD is okay, but 10^8 USD is too much.
I doubt they would claim to know precisely. But they have to choose some amount, no? You can’t leave your children a probability distribution over inheritances. (You could leave them a randomly chosen inheritance, but that’s not the same.)
It seems like whatever the Gateses were allegedly planning, you could say “And you know precisely that doing X is okay, but doing similar-other-thing-Y is not” and that would have just the same rhetorical force.
couldn’t you find a better solution?
I don’t know. Could you? Have you? If so, why not argue “If the Gateses really had the goals they say, they would do X instead” rather than “If the Gateses really had the goals they say, they would do something else instead; I’m not saying what, but I bet it would be better than what they are doing.”?
Again, I’m not claiming that what the Gateses are allegedly planning is anything like optimal; for that matter, I have no good evidence that they are actually planning what they’re allegedly planning. But the objections you’re raising seem really (and uncharacteristically) weak.
But I’m not sure I’ve grasped what your actual position is. Would you care to make it more explicit?
1) Gateses had some true reason for donating most of the money—probably a combination of “want to do a lot of good”, “want to become famous”, etc. -- and they decided that these goals are more important for them than maximizing the inheritance of their children. I am not criticizing them for making that decision; I think it is a correct one, or at least in a good direction.
2) But the explanation that they want their children to “make their own mark on the world” is most likely a rationalization of the previous paragraph. It’s like, where the true version is “saving thousand human lives is more important for me than making my child twice as rich”, this explanation is trying to add ”...and coincidentally, not making my child twice as rich is actually better for my child, so actually I am optimizing for my child”, which in my opinion is clearly false, but obviously socially preferable.
3) What specifically would one do to literally optimize for the chance that their children would “make their own mark on the world”? I am not going into details here, because that would depend on specific talents and interests of the child, but I believe it is a combination of giving them more resources; spending more resources on their teachers or coaches; spending my own time helping them with their own projects.
4) I can imagine being the child, and selfishly resenting that my parents did not optimize for me.
5) However I think that the child still has more money than necessary to have a great life.
What specifically would one do to literally optimize for the chance that their children would “make their own mark on the world”? I am not going into details here, because that would depend on specific talents and interests of the child, but I believe it is a combination of giving them more resources; spending more resources on their teachers or coaches; spending my own time helping them with their own projects.
So there is an optimal amount of wealth to inherit to maximize human motivation, and it happens to be exactly the same amount that Gateses are going to give their children.
Who are you arguing against? I saw no one express the position that you’re attacking.
would you simply reduce their inheritance to sane levels and more or less stop there?
Huh? Who stopped there? Do you have any reason to believe that the Gates handed their kids a “small” check and told them to get lost?
Sure, it can be used for whatever purpose. So now we have an empirical question of what is the average usage of inheritance in real life. Or even better, the average usage of inheritance, as a function of how much was inherited, because patterns at different parts of the scale may be dramatically different.
I would like to read a data-based answer to this question.
(My assumption is that the second generation usually tries to copy what their parents did in the later period of life, only less skillfully because regression to the mean; and the third generation usually just wastes the money. If this is true, then it’s the second generation, especially if they are “criminals, sons of criminals”, that I worry about most.)
I don’t think it’s a question of more research being needed, I think it’s a an issue ofthe original two categories being two few and too sharply delineated.
Can’t an inheritance be used as seed money for some wonderful world-enhacing entrepeneurship?
Bill Gates argues that it’s bad to inherent children so much money that they don’t have to work: https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_and_melinda_gates_why_giving_away_our_wealth_has_been_the_most_satisfying_thing_we_ve_done
I think the world is a better place for Bill Gates thinking that way.
I never thought I’d find myself saying this: I don’t want to be Bill Gates’s kid.
Does that not-want take into consideration your changed capacity to influence him if you became his child?
How would I have any more influence than his actual child does?
I would posit that his actual children have a comfortably non-zero amount of influence over him, and that the rest of us have a non-zero-but-muchcloser-to-zero amount of influence over him.
Yeah, the idea of “I could have been a part of the legendary 1%, but my parents decided to throw me back among the muggles” could make one rather angry.
I bet Bill Gates’s children will still be comfortably in the 1%.
(I found one source saying he plans to leave them $10M each. It didn’t look like a super-reliable source.)
/snort
In such a case I would probably think that you failed at your child’s upbringing, much earlier than deciding to dispossess her.
Imagine that your parents were uneducated and homeless as teenagers. They lived many years on the streets, starving and abused. But they never gave up hope, and never stopped trying, so when they were 30, they already had an equivalent of high-school education, were able to get a job, and actually were able to buy a small house.
Then you were born. You had a chance to start your life in much better circumstances than your parents had. You could have attended a normal school. You could have a roof above your head every night. You could have the life they only dreamed about when they were your age.
But your parents thought like this: “A roof above one’s head, and a warm meal every day, that would spoil a child. We didn’t have that when we were kids—and look how far we got! All the misery only made our spirits stronger. What we desire for our children is to have the same opportunity for spiritual growth in life that we had.” So they donated all the property to charity, and kicked you out of the house. You can’t afford a school anymore. You are lucky to find some work that allows you to eat.
Hey, why the sad face? If such life was good enough for them, how dare you complain that it is not good anough for you? Clearly they failed somewhere at your upbringing, if you believe that you deserve something better than they had.
(Explanation: To avoid the status quo bias of being in my social class—to avoid the feeling that the classes below me have it so bad that it breaks them, but the classes above me have it so good that it weakens their spirits; and therefore my social class, or perhaps the one only slighly above me, just coincidentally happens to be the optimal place in the society—I sometimes take stories about people, and try to translate them higher or lower in the social ladder and look if they still feel the same.)
It’s not a social class thing. It’s a human motivation thing. Humans are motivated by needs and if you start with a few $B in the bank, many of your needs are met by lazily waving your hand. That’s not a good thing as the rich say they have discovered empirically.
That, of course, is not a new idea. A quote attributed to Genghis Khan says
and there is an interesting post discussing the historical context. The consequences, by the way, are very real—when you grow soft, the next batch of tough, lean, and hungry outsiders comes in and kills you.
The no-fortune-for-you rich do not aim for their children to suffer (because it ennobles the spirit or any other such crap). They want their children to go out into the world and make their own mark on the world. And I bet that these children still have a LOT of advantages. For one thing, they have a safety net—I’m pretty sure the parents will pay for medevac from a trek in Nepal, if need be. For another, they have an excellent network and a sympathetic investor close by.
Same difference. So there is an optimal amount of wealth to inherit to maximize human motivation, and it happens to be exactly the same amount that Gateses are going to give their children. (The optimal amount depends on the state of global economy or technology, so it was a different amount for Genghis Khan than it is now.)
I’d like to see the data supporting this hypothesis. Especially the kind of data that allows you to estimate the optimal amount as a specific number (not merely that the optimal amount is less than infinity).
Which cannot be done if you have too much money. But will be much easier to do if you have less money. And you know precisely that e.g. 10^7 USD is okay, but 10^8 USD is too much.
Imagine that your goal would be to have your children “make their own mark on the world”, and that you really care about that goal (as opposed to just having it as a convenient rationalization for some other goals). As a rational person, would you simply reduce their inheritance to sane levels and more or less stop there? If you would spend five minutes thinking about the problem, couldn’t you find a better solution?
You say this as if it’s a silly thing that no one could have good reason to believe. I’ve no idea whether it’s actually true but it’s not silly. Here, let me put it differently. “It just happens that the amount some outstandingly smart people with a known interest in world-optimization and effectively unlimited resources have decided to leave their children is the optimal amount.”
I mean, sure, they may well have got it wrong. But they have obvious incentives to get it right, and should be at least as capable of doing so as anyone else.
I doubt they would claim to know precisely. But they have to choose some amount, no? You can’t leave your children a probability distribution over inheritances. (You could leave them a randomly chosen inheritance, but that’s not the same.)
It seems like whatever the Gateses were allegedly planning, you could say “And you know precisely that doing X is okay, but doing similar-other-thing-Y is not” and that would have just the same rhetorical force.
I don’t know. Could you? Have you? If so, why not argue “If the Gateses really had the goals they say, they would do X instead” rather than “If the Gateses really had the goals they say, they would do something else instead; I’m not saying what, but I bet it would be better than what they are doing.”?
Again, I’m not claiming that what the Gateses are allegedly planning is anything like optimal; for that matter, I have no good evidence that they are actually planning what they’re allegedly planning. But the objections you’re raising seem really (and uncharacteristically) weak.
But I’m not sure I’ve grasped what your actual position is. Would you care to make it more explicit?
My actual position is that:
1) Gateses had some true reason for donating most of the money—probably a combination of “want to do a lot of good”, “want to become famous”, etc. -- and they decided that these goals are more important for them than maximizing the inheritance of their children. I am not criticizing them for making that decision; I think it is a correct one, or at least in a good direction.
2) But the explanation that they want their children to “make their own mark on the world” is most likely a rationalization of the previous paragraph. It’s like, where the true version is “saving thousand human lives is more important for me than making my child twice as rich”, this explanation is trying to add ”...and coincidentally, not making my child twice as rich is actually better for my child, so actually I am optimizing for my child”, which in my opinion is clearly false, but obviously socially preferable.
3) What specifically would one do to literally optimize for the chance that their children would “make their own mark on the world”? I am not going into details here, because that would depend on specific talents and interests of the child, but I believe it is a combination of giving them more resources; spending more resources on their teachers or coaches; spending my own time helping them with their own projects.
4) I can imagine being the child, and selfishly resenting that my parents did not optimize for me.
5) However I think that the child still has more money than necessary to have a great life.
My whole point is that (2) is a rationalization.
OK, I understand. Thanks.
Does this work? I don’t know; I have no children.
Who are you arguing against? I saw no one express the position that you’re attacking.
Huh? Who stopped there? Do you have any reason to believe that the Gates handed their kids a “small” check and told them to get lost?
Sure, it can be used for whatever purpose. So now we have an empirical question of what is the average usage of inheritance in real life. Or even better, the average usage of inheritance, as a function of how much was inherited, because patterns at different parts of the scale may be dramatically different.
I would like to read a data-based answer to this question.
(My assumption is that the second generation usually tries to copy what their parents did in the later period of life, only less skillfully because regression to the mean; and the third generation usually just wastes the money. If this is true, then it’s the second generation, especially if they are “criminals, sons of criminals”, that I worry about most.)
I don’t think it’s a question of more research being needed, I think it’s a an issue ofthe original two categories being two few and too sharply delineated.