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Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

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Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#81

Post by Upvoter33 »

olivermarks wrote: post #65
rglover wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An excellent question that shouldn't be downvoted. Why is Bill Gates "the guy?" Don't read that in a conspiratorial sense, just in a rational "can someone explain this to me" sense.

Gates was born wealthy and connected and is now one of the richest humans on the planet, and owns or controls multiple corporate media companies (his foundation funds UK media company the guardian 'global development', the UK BBC 'world service trust as european based examples, Conde Nast in the US (Wired etc) are effectively Gates PR mouthpieces). As an oligarch he can pronounce as a 'philanthropist' on global publi…

This is misleading at best. Sure, his dad was a lawyer and he was raised in a well-off househould. But he made something -- Microsoft -- through his own ingenuity, effort, and business acumen. I didn't agree with his business ethics, but to pretend he just fell into MS because of his connected family is fairly ridiculous.

Amazingly, he has since turned his fortune into one of the most successful philanthropy projects probably in human history. Now, do I think governments should do what he does? Yes. Would I prefer higher tax rates for people like him so the people could decide what to do, not him? Yes. But he has actually been working for good, you have to give him that.

And now my life is complete: here I am, trying to defend Bill Gates, on the internet.

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#82

Post by Upvoter33 »

raphlinus wrote: post #74

To me, the most striking thing about the interview is his idea for just fixing the Covid testing delays. I think he puts his finger right on the problem: we're incentivizing essentially worthless tests by paying full price. Change the reimbursement structure and capitalism will do its job. I'd like to understand more deeply why this is not happening.

You don't have to understand very much to know that the Trump administration has made so many wrong turns on this issue. This is just a small part of their stupidity, and it has cost the US thousands of lives, and a much longer road to recovery. November can't come soon enough.

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#83

Post by creato »

codebolt wrote: post #79
mdoms wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bill Gates is a public health expert. He has been working on these problems with some of the smartest minds in the field for decades now. How long does someone need to be working on a problem before they're worthy of being a "go to source", in your opinion?

Like it or not, he's become a highly controversial figure for a large fraction of the population, particularly within the societies that his foundation works. In my opinion, they'd do good to pick a figure whose name is less tarnished if they want the message to be more broadly accepted.

No matter who you put forth saying what Gates has been saying, they will quickly be tarnished by the same baseless bullshit. Effectively 0% of people knew who Facui or Birx were before the pandemic. Now they're the target of the same kind of controversy.

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#84

Post by Vinnl »

codebolt wrote: post #79
mdoms wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bill Gates is a public health expert. He has been working on these problems with some of the smartest minds in the field for decades now. How long does someone need to be working on a problem before they're worthy of being a "go to source", in your opinion?

Like it or not, he's become a highly controversial figure for a large fraction of the population, particularly within the societies that his foundation works. In my opinion, they'd do good to pick a figure whose name is less tarnished if they want the message to be more broadly accepted.

But Gates is controversial because of the work he did that make him a qualified source, so it's not unlikely that any reasonable alternative would also have their name "tarnished".

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#85

Post by Vinnl »

fierarul wrote: post #57
arrrg wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you name your specific criticisms? Gates was punchy, sure, but his answers seem reasonable.

Well, for starters he seems quite in favour of a Western Great Firewall except this one will be used for Good(TM). And although the current US government is pretty bad, Microsoft should buy their own social media platform which is being otherwise kneecapped for political reasons. The remark about the Congress was cringey. Haha, let's laugh with the convicted monopolist about the good ol days.

> And although the current US government is pretty bad, Microsoft should buy their own social media platform which is being otherwise kneecapped for political reasons.

As I read it, he explicitly said that he didn't think that MS should buy TikTok.

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#86

Post by ponker »

refurb wrote: post #36

Maybe it’s just me, but I find it odd that Gates is the go to source for public health issues. His biggest contribution is money, which pays for really smart people to tackle these issues. So why not talk to the really smart people he hired?

He’s smarter than and has more public health experience than anyone in the senior ranks of the US government, so he’s the best you’re going to get.

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#87

Post by brandontreb »

gandutraveler wrote: post #78
brandontreb wrote: post #64

I can't understand the 'microchip in vaccines' issue. You mean to tell me that my iPhone can't last a full day on a battery charge, however we have microscopic tech capable of tracking location data and relaying it somewhere and doesn't need charging once injected into the body? I'll take my microchip in space grey please.

Microchips have existed for a while now. Even dogs are microchipped for tracking owners.

That's a 'dumb` RFID chip. I don't think folks are too concerned with offline chips that require close proximity scanning (for power). RFID also doesn't 'track' dogs. They contain information about the dog to get them back to their owner. The info is static and contains NO location data.

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#88

Post by ponker »

numpad0 wrote: post #80
benatkin wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't just MSM folks that go to him. He's proven to be reliable over decades. That's the main reason, I think. There was a small reason to talk to him about public health at first, but over time it's grown into a huge reason. The question remains, is what is he reliable at? Why do I and so many others want to listen to him more over the years? I think it's because of the depth and breadth of issues he discusses. I…

I think he’s like a bored nerd tremendous in managing Windows and using web browsers. So I’d think his accounts would be as easy and correct as some wiki articles or better, and at the same time would sound “irrelevant” to the public for the lack of emotional components to it.

The difference is that instead of Wikipedia he just calls the professor doing the relevant work and flies them out to brief him on topics of interest.

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#89

Post by MrDresden »

refurb wrote: post #36

Maybe it’s just me, but I find it odd that Gates is the go to source for public health issues. His biggest contribution is money, which pays for really smart people to tackle these issues. So why not talk to the really smart people he hired?

I guess for the general U.S audience having a well known figure, who has been active in the public health space for some years now through his foundations, speaking as an authority on the ongoing crisis makes sense, giving the lack of ongoing leadership in that country.

However for someone living in a western European country it would not be received very well if a business person, even one with such a big philanthropic side to them, would become the go to authority on public health and wellbeing during this time. For that only be an actually trained and experienced professional can be turned to.

edit; spelling.

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#90

Post by asalahli »

codebolt wrote: post #79
mdoms wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bill Gates is a public health expert. He has been working on these problems with some of the smartest minds in the field for decades now. How long does someone need to be working on a problem before they're worthy of being a "go to source", in your opinion?

Like it or not, he's become a highly controversial figure for a large fraction of the population, particularly within the societies that his foundation works. In my opinion, they'd do good to pick a figure whose name is less tarnished if they want the message to be more broadly accepted.

That's an interesting claim. Pretty much every piece of negative opinion of Gates I've seen have either been

1. About his work at Microsoft

2. Or some conspiracy theory about world domination, population control etc

I'd be interested to read more on how societies he's directly worked with think of him, if you have any links

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