Billionaire philanthropist and author MacKenzie Scott announced Tuesday she is giving $640 million to 361 small nonprofits that responded to an open call for applications.

Yield Giving’s first round of donations is more than double what Scott had initially pledged to give away through the application process. Since she began giving away billions in 2019, Scott and her team have researched and selected organizations without an application process and provided them with large, unrestricted gifts.

In a brief note on her website, Scott wrote she was grateful to Lever for Change, the organization that managed the open call, and the evaluators for “their roles in creating this pathway to support for people working to improve access to foundational resources in their communities. They are vital agents of change.”

  • @SpaceNoodle
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    48 months ago

    Why would you disagree with correct usage?

    • fmstrat
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      8 months ago

      Because she is simply an “exception.” Use of the phrase would require there to be a general understanding that “billionaires are bad except when…”, but the prevailing notion is simply that “billionaires are bad.” Therefore, she is an “exception”, and a good one at that, not an “exception that proves the rule”.

      edit Oops, replied to the wrong one, but leaving this here because I’m lazy. I am the rule.

    • @Feathercrown
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      8 months ago

      I’m not sure what the tone/intention was here but I’ll take it as a normal question. I disagree because I think people use it as an easy way to improperly dismiss evidence that disagrees with their views, even when they use it correctly in a sentence.

      • @SpaceNoodle
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        18 months ago

        Can you provide an example of correct usage that does this?

        • @Feathercrown
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          8 months ago

          I think we have a mismatch of definitions. By “correct usage”, I mean it’s grammatically correct, but not necessarily that the exception does actually “prove the rule”. Anything that fits the sentence but doesn’t actually provide a rule-proving exception is what I’m referring to as “incorrect usage”.

          Although come to think of it, I don’t think any exception can prove a rule by itself, actually. The only time it would work is if the entity enforcing the rule explicitly calls something out as an exception-- in which case, the thing proving the rule is that they acknowledged the rule by explicitly calling something an exception.

          • @SpaceNoodle
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            28 months ago

            The definition you provided in the second paragraph is the correct usage.

            • @Feathercrown
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              28 months ago

              Oh, okay. I guess that works, but in that case people use it incorrectly nearly every time.

              • @SpaceNoodle
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                28 months ago

                Yeah, that’s part of the problem.