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Too many visualizations that are fun and fancy but convey ideas poorly.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
People fail to understand the difference between innovation driven monopoly and government enforced monopoly. The former is commendable, indicating that a company has developed a product so useful that it becomes so widely adopted as to become a monopoly. Nobody is forced to buy the product - people just find it so useful that the it dominates in the marketplace. And there is nothing preventing the rise of a competit…
I understand that, and I like the label of Corporatism when it is a big company colluding with the state, as opposed to Capitalism, which is for all its good and bad, better than the alternatives right now.
The size of the Gates Foundation is only impressive if you believe public policy should be disproportionately influenced by the whims of a few rich individuals. Philanthropists may not be motivated by profit like lobbyists, but that doesn't mean they understand the needs of the people any better. For issues related to relatively concrete sciences like medicine this matters less. But in areas such as education for exa…
They're trying their best to do good with their money. This is more than can be said for most billionaires. Are you suggesting it would be better if all billionaires simply kept their money in the family and didn't try to help others?
Any bold investment carries a risk of failure. Does that mean no one should make bold investments, to you?
The size of the Gates Foundation is only impressive if you believe public policy should be disproportionately influenced by the whims of a few rich individuals. Philanthropists may not be motivated by profit like lobbyists, but that doesn't mean they understand the needs of the people any better. For issues related to relatively concrete sciences like medicine this matters less. But in areas such as education for exa…
Before you lionize a convicted monopolist ... 1) The USA tax code encourages wealthy people to create foundations. The money in the foundation is still controlled by them and has tax benefits. 2) In other countries, wealthy people are taxed to provide social services like education and healthcare. In the USA, they're not - the capital gains rate of 15% is basically a round-off error compared to 90% last century. 3) F…
Before you lionize a convicted monopolist ... 1) The USA tax code encourages wealthy people to create foundations. The money in the foundation is still controlled by them and has tax benefits. 2) In other countries, wealthy people are taxed to provide social services like education and healthcare. In the USA, they're not - the capital gains rate of 15% is basically a round-off error compared to 90% last century. 3) F…
People fail to understand the difference between innovation driven monopoly and government enforced monopoly. The former is commendable, indicating that a company has developed a product so useful that it becomes so widely adopted as to become a monopoly. Nobody is forced to buy the product - people just find it so useful that the it dominates in the marketplace. And there is nothing preventing the rise of a competit…
Before you lionize a convicted monopolist ... 1) The USA tax code encourages wealthy people to create foundations. The money in the foundation is still controlled by them and has tax benefits. 2) In other countries, wealthy people are taxed to provide social services like education and healthcare. In the USA, they're not - the capital gains rate of 15% is basically a round-off error compared to 90% last century. 3) F…
That's exactly what the article explores.
The size of the Gates Foundation is only impressive if you believe public policy should be disproportionately influenced by the whims of a few rich individuals. Philanthropists may not be motivated by profit like lobbyists, but that doesn't mean they understand the needs of the people any better. For issues related to relatively concrete sciences like medicine this matters less. But in areas such as education for exa…
If you're right, then I'd say that it's still trivially outweighed by the Gates Foundation's efforts on disease reduction. Each billion dollars spent fighting malaria buys a whole lot of indulgences.
Bill Gates was a tough competitor, to be sure, and you had to bring your A game when dealing with Microsoft. But the complaints that he was 'evil', when you drill down to see what the actual complaint is, just seem to fade away. Most of it seems to be simply envy. See "In Search of Stupidity" by Chapman. P.S. I was in the industry throughout that era, and competed directly against Microsoft in programming languages.
For me it was frustration with Windows, until I gave it up back, in 2004. I used to rage at it's instability and difficult reinstallation process when various device drivers were involved.
I would never have imagined I will have such a positive view on Bill Gates a decade later. He's smart because, after spending half his life amassing a fortune, he is now spending the other half of his life spending it. Money is just numbers sitting in an account if you don't do anything with it.
More and more I feel the best data visualization for most scenario is just bar, line, and pie charts. They need no explanation and communicate information effectively. Too many visualizations that are fun and fancy but convey ideas poorly.
http://www.businessinsider.com/pie-charts-are-the-worst-2013...