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Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

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Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#91

Post by theobon »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #67
bearjaws wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its important to understand, when anyone says "cure cancer", they are saying cure 100+ (mostly) unique diseases. $20Bn is not even close, try around 200Bn and 50+ years of research. Maybe we will get lucky and find an amazing immuno-oncology drug that takes out half of them in the next 20 years, but I wouldn't bet on it.

I see it a bit differently, if you can figure out both all of the functional relationships in our bodies and devise a mechanism to precisely drive any and all of them, not only will you 'cure cancer' but you will be able to cure any other disease or ailment that is expressed as an undesirable functioning of that system. I don't know if you can do that with $20B but I feel these days that its more likely to occur rath…

We are barely able to simulate a simple reptile brain and you are asking for complete understanding and simulation of any human body. I think you are vastly underestimating the complexity of biological system.

Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#92

Post by maxerickson »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #67
bearjaws wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its important to understand, when anyone says "cure cancer", they are saying cure 100+ (mostly) unique diseases. $20Bn is not even close, try around 200Bn and 50+ years of research. Maybe we will get lucky and find an amazing immuno-oncology drug that takes out half of them in the next 20 years, but I wouldn't bet on it.

I see it a bit differently, if you can figure out both all of the functional relationships in our bodies and devise a mechanism to precisely drive any and all of them, not only will you 'cure cancer' but you will be able to cure any other disease or ailment that is expressed as an undesirable functioning of that system. I don't know if you can do that with $20B but I feel these days that its more likely to occur rath…

I'm not sure a it follows that a perfect understanding of how our body functions leads to a cancer switch.

Mostly because cancer tends to be associated with dysfunction and it isn't necessarily the case that dysfunction can be externally corrected.

Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#93

Post by joering2 »

NIL8 wrote: post #47
joering2 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: can half of it for example $20B in cash, cure cancer? or HIV/AIDS?

I don't understand why you were down-voted for asking an honest question. Here's an up-vote to encourage fair play.

+1. I often have anti-pg approach opinions that I think got me on some sort of "downvote him" list.

Also my upvote doesn't seem to work. First I had impression myself, then asked fellow HNer to see if I'm wrong and my downvote for his comments didn't go through.

Thanks for upvote though.

Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#94

Post by xenadu02 »

jimbokun wrote: post #42
sametmax wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do realize their PR tell you that. What I know, however, is that I've been missioned in Africa by the gate foundation and that most money is wasted. Most stats are bullshitted. What I know is that Gates have been misbehaving most of his life and that suddenly he is giving so much money he won from this time. What I see is that a lot of people like you are very eager to forgive everything he has done, all the benef…

I didn't like the way Microsoft acted as a monopoly, but the tech industry managed to survive and escape Microsoft hegemony. Microsoft made some terrible software, but Office is actually very good overall and can argue has led to real productivity gains for many businesses. (I realize this can be debated endlessly.) Everything I've read indicates Gates takes his philanthropy very, very seriously and is having a real…

FYI: that’s not true. Jobs never wanted publicity for his charitable efforts. The bulk of his fortune went to his foundation when he died. His widow manages it now, basically doing the same thing as Gates.

Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#95

Post by FilterSweep »

efa wrote: post #52
revelation wrote: post #25

Read: has donated shares of Microsoft to his own foundation. Maybe we can give Gates the benefit of the doubt but for everyone else, this is just a tax scheme.

What!? Do you realize what the foundation does with the money? They aren't spending the money on vacation homes for Bill & Melinda. They are spending on eradicating malaria and stuff like that. You know, good things for the world. How is this a tax scheme?

It's the precedent, really.

Donate $1B, and only $100M is used for the actual solution of the problem while $900M sits accumulating more wealth.

The vacation home comes 7-8 years later, after the money has been "washed" a few times.

This would be like me automating commits at a startup with some hardcoded boilerplate commit messages to make it look like I was working the full "expected" day while in actuality, I was completing everything in 20 minutes.

In the end of the day - malaria is being eradicated. This is GOOD. However, your "Foundation" actually profited while doing it and sets the false narrative that it took sacrifice to achieve such means. This is disingenuous in two ways:

(1) A $100M task is now seen as a $1B task.

(2) Brings into question the charity ideals. We, as peasants, are supposed to look up to this sizable donation if we follow media sentiment. I donate to charities and kickstarters of my own - the difference is I'm poor and I'm not making money off these donations. Its an actual sacrifice.

There are sites like charitynavigator that help those who would like to donate check how valid a cause really is, but when you are talking "Foundations" where the amounts are in figures

Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#96

Post by zaroth »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #84
zaroth wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your own source shows defense as 17% of overall spending. As a percentage of income tax receipts, the number for military spending is closer to 25%. See, for example, https://www.nationalpriorities.org/interactive-data/taxday/

It's 21% for FY 2016 (which is a percentage based on including social security and medicare, which as I mentioned, are not part of federal income tax receipts; the percentage ). 2017 isn't done yet; I'm not using an estimate with an administration going sideways. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_... "Military budget of the United States. ... The budget funds 4 branches of the U.S. military:…

OK, that is bizarre; visit usgovernmentspending.com site on mobile and the chart says US FY2016 spending on Defense is 17%. On desktop, the chart says 21%.... In any case, as a percentage of federal income tax it does seem that defense is around 25%.

"U.S. discretionary spending" is simply spending which is authorized annually instead of authorized by laws spanning multiple years. It doesn't seem to be a highly meaningful categorization if you are arguing about where your dollars are going -- the dollars don't care what year they were authorized to be spent.

Separating out payroll vs income taxes -- in other words recognizing the different tax rates for "earned" vs. "unearned" income -- is not entirely irrelevant, because dollar for dollar your capital gains taxes will be spent more on defense than welfare, but it's still no where near 50% of your capital gains taxes being spent on defense.

Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#97

Post by canoebuilder »

peter303 wrote: post #76
jcranberry wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Andrew Carnegie was the OG give-all-my-wealth-away-before-I-die incredibly wealthy person. I read an essay by him in high school where he though, philosophically, he shouldn't give his money to his kids rather than donate it.

Famous for a library in every town- over 2500 of them. Many still operating.

Yes, the scope is rather immense, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Carnegie_libraries

Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#98

Post by sametmax »

jimbokun wrote: post #42
sametmax wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do realize their PR tell you that. What I know, however, is that I've been missioned in Africa by the gate foundation and that most money is wasted. Most stats are bullshitted. What I know is that Gates have been misbehaving most of his life and that suddenly he is giving so much money he won from this time. What I see is that a lot of people like you are very eager to forgive everything he has done, all the benef…

I didn't like the way Microsoft acted as a monopoly, but the tech industry managed to survive and escape Microsoft hegemony. Microsoft made some terrible software, but Office is actually very good overall and can argue has led to real productivity gains for many businesses. (I realize this can be debated endlessly.) Everything I've read indicates Gates takes his philanthropy very, very seriously and is having a real…

You don't remember MS lying, cheating, doing illegal things and corrupting governments ?

See, that's the problem here.

You have completely forgotten how bad it was.

The fact the industry and society did well despite that is not relevant.

Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#99

Post by elmar »

F_r_k wrote: post #86
elmar wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's capitalism at is best you start a company in your garage take it to be worth Bilions an then give it all away, doesn't get better than this.

What's the link with capitalism ?

Capitalism as in the private accumulation of large sums of capital.

Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#100

Post by Lucy_ »

savanaly wrote: post #28
SEJeff wrote: post #21

I'm surprised that people are asking how / why he is giving money away and no one mentioned his Giving Pledge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge Bill Gates and Warren Buffet pledged to give half of their net worth away during their life or death to charity. They're practicing what they preach.

Reminder to any who feel that is a great idea and are inspired to emulate it, but don't make so much money that they can afford to donate half of it, there's a different pledge for us little guys, the Giving What We Can Pledge: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/pledge/

I make up to $90 an hour working from my home. My story is that I quit working at Walmart to work online and ­with ­a ­­little ­effort ­I ­easily ­bring ­in ­around ­$­40h ­to ­$­86h… ­Someone ­was ­good ­to ­me ­by ­sharing ­this ­link ­with me, so now i am hoping i could help someone else out there by sharing this link­... Try it, you wOn't regret it­!...http://www.todaysfox.com
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