Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

If great efforts are made to eradicate diseases in an area that has historically been subjected to various diseases such that the local population has adopted the reproduction strategy of having large amounts of offspring to counter premature deaths, but upon eradication/reduction of said diseases there is significant delay in the abatement of the overproduction strategy if it abates at all http://www.unz.com/isteve/the-worlds-most-important-graph/

if this population surge then expands beyond it's historical borders and causes mass societal disruption on a neighboring continent whose civilization has historically contributed great innovation and wealth to the world at large, and subsequently, said wealth and innovation contribution declines because of said societal disruption, do those who sought to eradicate the various diseases harbor some responsibility for the diminished prospects of the world at large?

Granted these are delicate questions but I believe their being asked has not just validity, but importance.

Certainly, simply ignoring pain, disease, and suffering is almost universally unpalatable.

But modifying one aspect of a complex system for what appears to be perfectly benevolent reasons, it is not at all surprising to find there could be downstream negative effects, negative enough to far outweigh whatever beneficent contribution you thought you were initially making. How do you make value judgments in such cases?

Gates himself has said it is far better to help people where they are regarding the recent unauthorized population influx events in Europe.

So I don't believe he is entirely blind to these potential downstream catastrophic effects.

Some highlights:

"The first question concerns accountability... The Foundation is the main player in several global health partnerships and one of the single largest donors to the WHO. This gives it considerable leverage in shaping health policy priorities and intellectual norms..."

"‘Depending on what side of bed Gates gets out of in the morning,’ he remarks, ‘it can shift the terrain of global health.’.."

"It’s not a democracy. It’s not even a constitutional monarchy. It’s about what Bill and Melinda want..."

"In 2008 the WHO’s head of malaria research, Aarata Kochi, accused a Gates Foundation ‘cartel’ of suppressing diversity of scientific opinion, claiming the organization was ‘accountable to no-one other than itself’."

"As Tido von Schoen Angerer, Executive Director of the Access Campaign at Médecins Sans Frontières, explains, ‘The Foundation wants the private sector to do more on global health, and sets up partnerships with the private sector involved in governance. As these institutions are clearly also trying to influence policymaking, there are huge conflicts of interests... the companies should not play a role in setting the rules of the game.’"

"The Foundation itself has employed numerous former Big Pharma figures, leading to accusations of industry bias..."

"Research by Devi Sridhar at Oxford University warns that philanthropic interventions are ‘radically skewing public health programmes towards issues of the greatest concern to wealthy donors’. ‘Issues,’ she writes, ‘which are not necessarily top priority for people in the recipient country.’"

More in the article...

https://newint.org/features/2012/04/01/bill-gates-charitable...

In both cases I don't think the "civilized" neighbor continent is enjoying the benefits of its poorer neighbor. There is an equal argument to be said that by eradicating these diseases that the poorer neighbor is able to pull itself out of that poverty.

Regardless, history is filled with population surges and mass societal disruption -- I am sure we can resolve it over time.