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carapace10/02/20242 repliesview on HN

Funding a hospital is fine, A-Okay. Putting your name on it is crass.

It's been the "General Hospital" for my entire life and now I'm supposed to call it "Zuckerberg General Hospital"? This from the guy that's feudalizing Kauai. Or should we call it Zuckerberg-Kauai?

Yeah I'm being a bit churlish, but c'mon. We don't have to worship them? Let's tax them already and get on with fixing the climate etc.


Replies

vineyardmike10/02/2024

I’m Ancient Greece they used to name platoons and battleships over the rich who were taxed to pay for it. They’d even announce whose battalion was the winner of the battle to give them a publicity boost. They’d even announce rich would compete to pay more taxes to be the one to show off.

I’m not saying that hospitals should exclusively be funding by billionaires honoring their doctor wives who used to work at said hospital, but it’s a pretty innocent gesture.

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steveBK12310/02/2024

This is not new or unique. I'm not worshipping them. Their vanity doesn't hurt my ego.

I had the misfortune of being in 2 different hospitals in the last 18 months.

One had its ER named after a hedge fund guy & his (now ex) wife. The other had an entire building named after the deceased wife of another hedge fund guy.

Didn't really bother me. Good for the guy honoring his wife, even. Probably some sentimental value in that she had been treated there.

I think in the rare event billionaires actually put 8+ figures into social goods, I'm not going to squabble over the name on the label. I think anything that incentivizes the rich to give to social goods is fine with me.

Better allocation of capital than another yacht or putting their name in another art museum wing (look around next time you are at one..).

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