61–70 of 212 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't know about Buffett, but I don't get Gates either. He was a ruthless businessman using every trick in the book (legal and illegal) to solidify his company's monopoly.
Well it wouldn't be Gates of 1992 running, it would be Gates of today. Have you changed in the past 25 years? I sure have.
Nice On the opposite number side, I hope they can help to find ways to reduce the population growth. It is unsustainable, especially in Africa and Arabic countries. (Pity one cannot just implement a China-like one child policy:))
Here is the Hans Rosling video explaining why that's not a problem: https://www.gapminder.org/videos/will-saving-poor-children-l...
It is still a problem, make no mistake.
edit: the problem comes from factors such as fresh water supplies, energy production, food production and transport. Once you start using more power to produce fresh water, you end up in a precarious highly industrialised future where the entire population becomes much more vulnerable to sabotage or incompetence. Even worse, most power production schemes of the scale required will also consume fresh water themselves.
We need to find a way to maintain an acceptable quality of life with minimal energy expenditure, so that the entire population can live at that standard without destroying the planet in doing so.
For anyone interested in why polio hasn't been eradicated, it is likely related to the capture of Osama Bin Laden. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vacci...
It's hard not to be impressed by what the Gates Foundation is doing. I don't think they get the full recognition they deserve sometimes, maybe because much of their work is abroad in the poorest countries in the world. Hard to fathom the number of people out there in the world thankful and who owe their lives to the foundation choosing to help their community or their cause. With that said and not to diminish the goo…
A kind of benevolent taxation?
Ghostery identifies 10 trackers and uBlock shows 7 advertising scripts, which seems like a lot for a page that you'd think shouldn't need advertising. The page doesn't even display if you block some of these scripts. This is terrible.
Nice On the opposite number side, I hope they can help to find ways to reduce the population growth. It is unsustainable, especially in Africa and Arabic countries. (Pity one cannot just implement a China-like one child policy:))
Here is the Hans Rosling video explaining why that's not a problem: https://www.gapminder.org/videos/will-saving-poor-children-l...
High fertility rates, poverty, low education, lack of affordable birth control, child mortality... these and other things cluster together. What's causing what?
If you found a genie and wished for an end to kids dying in Africa, with no intervention in any other parameters, how much do you really think that would change the fertility rate? They're not having lots of kids just to have lots of kids, right? There's some other underlying motivation or cause. Either the kids are accidents, or there's a reason — perhaps an economic motivation — to have lots of kids? What underlying reason for high fertility rates is going to be addressed by stopping kids from dying?
I wish Bill or Warren would have run for presidency as an "outsider" instead of Trump. I guess our only hope will be their successor Mark (Zuckerberg)
Bill and Melinda are better where they are, because they are free from political interference. Can you imagine the opposition they'd get from the GOP for pushing contraception so centrally? And if they get into power, probably from the democrats too, for not focusing on their favourite bandwagons. OT: Can someone explain the GOP's strident opposition to funding contraception, both domestically and in the US's foreign…
I don't read anywhere any opposition to contraceptives in the context of family planning, nor have I ever heard any conservative outside of Catholic church clergy speak against use of contraceptives in that context.
[1] https://prod-cdn-static.gop.com/static/home/data/platform.pd...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would I ever want Zuckerberg as president? Why would I want any of these intelligent, but unqualified people as president? Trump has about the same qualifications. Look at that so far.
As far as I can tell, Trump lacks intelligence. I'd rather have a Gates or Buffet presidency. They've at least shown to care about philanthropy a bit. Trump has his foundation, but it mostly seems to do stuff like pay his legal fees and buy portraits of himself.
I keep seeing people say this, but I'm not sure it's true.
He took a loan of a few million from his father and turned it in to a billion dollar empire.
It's difficult to do that without some measure of intelligence.
He almost lost that billion dollar empire in '94, but recovered and built it back up again in to a billion dollar empire.
It's more difficult to do that without some intelligence.
He also out-played all his Republican opponents in the primaries and then Hillary in the general election.
It's even more difficult to do that without some intelligence.
I remember all the pundits talking about Trump's strategy to win the election and how he didn't have ground game, and it was stupid to be doing all those rallies and campaigning in the states he was campaigning in, and yet it was that very strategy that won him the election.
And all those outrage inducing comments and tweets that keep him in the media spotlight and earned him some $2 billion in free advertising..
If Trump is not intelligent, what does it say when Trump seemingly always manages to outsmart his opponents?
How many times does it have to happen before you can no longer dismiss it as dumb luck?
I wish Bill or Warren would have run for presidency as an "outsider" instead of Trump. I guess our only hope will be their successor Mark (Zuckerberg)
Why would I ever want Zuckerberg as president? Why would I want any of these intelligent, but unqualified people as president? Trump has about the same qualifications. Look at that so far.
It's hard not to be impressed by what the Gates Foundation is doing. I don't think they get the full recognition they deserve sometimes, maybe because much of their work is abroad in the poorest countries in the world. Hard to fathom the number of people out there in the world thankful and who owe their lives to the foundation choosing to help their community or their cause. With that said and not to diminish the goo…
I wonder how much of this particular philanthropy is just giving back money that those countries spent? I.e. Microsoft licences, or balance of trade with the donor countries? A kind of benevolent taxation?
Most billionaires just hoard a few more islands for themselves.