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Giving Pledge/the Prince/Breakthrough Energy/Climate Change/Gates/Steyer and more
Anon has been thinking about The Giving Pledge. The Giving Pledge is the group founded by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet in 2010. They and 40 of America's filthy rich (AKA billionaires) got together in order to make pledges to give away over half of their wealth during their lifetimes (or in their wills).
Their goal in giving is to shift the social norms of philanthropic giving. They wish to "leverage" their money and power to achieve their goals. The real kick in the pants is that The Giving Pledge has annual meetings and other special meetings to exchange ideas. During these meetings the members of the pledge are educated, by experts, and have discussions not only about how much to give but also for what purpose to give and to what ends. Elsewhere in the literature, the claim is made that the pledge does not tell members where to give. You can see from the screencaps provided that the pledge does educate signatories about the purposes for which to give. This pledge looks very much like an agenda driven way to dupe rich folks into investing money in approved pledge projects.
Human nature being what it is, the peer preassure must be intense, when billions of dollars are at stake. This pledge looks like a very neat trick to give the very wealthy a stronger sense of belonging. Members probably realize that, if ostricized by the pledge, they will have only the lowly with whom to socialize.
Over the years the pledge has aquired signatories from around the world: "…Australia, Brazil, Canada, China (mainland, Taiwan, and Hong Kong), Cyprus, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, Malaysia, Monaco, Norway, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Slovenia, South Africa, Switzerland, Tanzania, Turkey, Ukraine, UAE, the United Kingdom, and the United States.".
https://givingpledge.org/About.aspx