Setting this aside for a much more interesting question: What application of $4B would, right now, generate the most utility for humanity? Or alternatively, for the US?
None of these groups recommend giving to the Gates Foundation, btw. GF is better than average but it's not in the league of the best.
(I honestly think that if Gates, Buffett, or Lucas truly deeply cared more about saving lives than anything, they'd just hand $10M to Givewell, and that as a test for $100M the next year. I don't see how anyone with $10B to give could possibly not think this was a good idea - there's more than enough Givewell track record to establish the point.)
Thanks for sharing these links. Honestly, charity isn't something I think much about, but have a poor opinion of. Nice to be reminded that good applications of it exist, and that it's measurable and assessable. The 80,000 Hours site in particular looks like a great resource.
Also quite a recommendation coming from you - never fails to amaze me the people you find posting on here.
Maybe its obvious to others, but I think most philanthropists want to make sure their donation is unmistakenly theirs, attributed to them and highlighted with their name. This way you maximise all those nice social benefits to giving. Just setting a hands-off donation to Givewell doesn't reap quite as much.
If one is looking at it that way: why does it have to be a hands-off donation? I'm sure there are myriad ways for such a donation to be used as PR material.
It's not sexy. No one will ever raise money for it. But nine out of ten African aid projects fail because the medicine or the personnel can't get to the people in need. Blanket the continent with highways and then maybe get started on plumbing.
You're right. It is a complex problem more akin to Christian missionaries who tried to bring their religion to the country that they visited. The country/culture might actively resist change because it threatens the status quo. Can't just build churches, have to build a following. And, as the Crusades showed, that can lead to aggression and war.
That sum might go a long way toward alternative energy research. A significant breakthrough in solar energy accumulation, storage, and transfer could drastically change the way of life for everyone on the planet.
That's an unanswerable question except on the individual level, since it depends on your values and priorities as an individual. You can certainly point to some uses and say "that's a total waste". But "humanity", as a group, doesn't have coherent goals.
The first thing that pops to my mind would be eliminating homelessness by building affordable housing for the those at risk of homelessness, the homeless and the hard to house.
My suggestion is a "Housing First" strategy. Getting a person off the street and into a safe home is an important first step toward solving the issues that made them homeless.
