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Does clean living and healthy lifestyle help much with malaria and starvation?
These breakthroughs will make 2021 better than 2020
11–20 of 40 posts
Re: These breakthroughs will make 2021 better than 2020
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
IMHO caring is giving what people want, not trying to do what you declare good for them.
Sounds like an excuse to not tackle universally despised problems like disease.
This is also about the ways to do it, and their potential effects. In order to "control" malaria (see "youeseh" answer here) some dispersed tons of DDT. I, for one, sure prefer to tackle mosquitoes than to see "good samaritans" put such products everywhere near me, without my consent (even if they do so while chanting "this is for your own good".)
Re: These breakthroughs will make 2021 better than 2020
#13Is that mask in the photo accompanying the post photoshopped over an existing picture of Bill? Or is Gates actually wearing the mask that way? In either case, doesn't it appear to be OVER the bottom of his glasses? Don't mean to be too picky, but the post stresses the importance of wearing masks to "slow the spread of the virus and save lives," so one would want to avoid suggesting wearing masks in a way that has bee…
I think its because of black frames over a black mask. When it was greyscaled the contrast was increased it seems to have merged the two
Re: These breakthroughs will make 2021 better than 2020
#14Is that mask in the photo accompanying the post photoshopped over an existing picture of Bill? Or is Gates actually wearing the mask that way? In either case, doesn't it appear to be OVER the bottom of his glasses? Don't mean to be too picky, but the post stresses the importance of wearing masks to "slow the spread of the virus and save lives," so one would want to avoid suggesting wearing masks in a way that has bee…
I think its because of black frames over a black mask. When it was greyscaled the contrast was increased it seems to have merged the two
You can indeed see outline of the bottom of the frame on top of the mask on the right side of the picture. Also the shape of the top edge suggests some refractive distortion. Which is to say, I think your interpretation is correct - the mask goes under the glasses.
Re: These breakthroughs will make 2021 better than 2020
#15Has any other philanthropists in history appeared to care about the world (or part of the world) in a more profound way than Bill and Melinda Gates? The question I have, though, is how about continuation? I can't find anything on their website about a (hopefully distant) future without Bill and Melinda. Are the covenants such that the organisation can continue and still have the same impact? And the reason I care is…
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Re: These breakthroughs will make 2021 better than 2020
#16Has any other philanthropists in history appeared to care about the world (or part of the world) in a more profound way than Bill and Melinda Gates? The question I have, though, is how about continuation? I can't find anything on their website about a (hopefully distant) future without Bill and Melinda. Are the covenants such that the organisation can continue and still have the same impact? And the reason I care is…
I'm not convinced if Gates actually cares about the world. I find his transformation from one of the disliked CEOs of most despised companies into some sort of high tech messiah hard to believe. The phrase "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" was coined in Microsoft when he was the CEO. Google bombing was invented to redirect to Microsoft homepage when searching "more evil than satan himself". Those are facts that confirm the sentiment I remember.
In my opinion, his philanthropy work is just another playground. Power is addictive and now he has way to exercise power over world outside the tech industry. Quick Google search shows he spent 45B$ on his foundation... and another search shows his net worth is still 119B$. This is still more money that I can imagine, even if he spent 99.9% of it he would still be richer than I can ever hope for. And honestly, his personal brand is so strong that even after zeroing on his account balance he could become multimillionaire in no time.
Maybe I'm overly cynical. Maybe my memory fails me and I'm mistaken about how bad reputation he and his company had back in the day. But it's hard for me to buy this 180 degree turn from ruthless CEO into great philanthropist. Now, I'm not saying his antichrist and he planned the pandemic 20 years ahead; I just would appreciate some healthy skepticism.
Re: These breakthroughs will make 2021 better than 2020
#17Has any other philanthropists in history appeared to care about the world (or part of the world) in a more profound way than Bill and Melinda Gates? The question I have, though, is how about continuation? I can't find anything on their website about a (hopefully distant) future without Bill and Melinda. Are the covenants such that the organisation can continue and still have the same impact? And the reason I care is…
I assume you mean by dollar amount of personal fortune they’ve contributed because I can certainly think of quite a few philanthropists who have sacrificed more by percentage of wealth, time, or given their lives to support worthy causes. This is by no means a dig at the Gates whom I admire greatly. It’s hard to say if a foundation such as theirs can survive their loss. As much as they might clearly define the missio…
It's nearly impossible for a foundation like Gates to survive a loss of visionary leadership.
If it were handed to me with no checks-and-balances, and I were given absolute control, I'm pretty sure I could run Gates Foundation as well as Gates. That's not a statement about me; I know a few people who could run it BETTER than myself or Gates. The problem is finding them and the no checks-and-balances bit.
Beyond a founder/donor, no checks-and-balances is a really bad way to run an organization because although MANY people would do a great job, MOST people wouldn't. A good dictatorship beats a good democracy, but a typical democracy beats a typical dictatorship.
The sorts of arbitrary decisions "Let's dump a billion dollars into making a vaccine for COVID19 economical" become impossible once the founder of a foundation goes away, unless you are willing to accept that whomever comes into control might just as well say "Let's dump a billion dollars into buying paintings of myself at 10x markup." You move into competitive processes.
Competitive processes mean people apply for grants under standard criteria.
If grants have a strongly positive ROI, you have more people applying to the program, and if a negative ROI, fewer people. This means grant-funded organizations will spend a significant portion of their time applying for grants; grants become thin-margin beasts.
And the people who do run late foundations? They're connected people good at climbing corporate ladders.
Re: These breakthroughs will make 2021 better than 2020
#18Has any other philanthropists in history appeared to care about the world (or part of the world) in a more profound way than Bill and Melinda Gates? The question I have, though, is how about continuation? I can't find anything on their website about a (hopefully distant) future without Bill and Melinda. Are the covenants such that the organisation can continue and still have the same impact? And the reason I care is…
IIRC the Foundation is supposed to close up shop 20 years after both of them die. I guess Bill is aware of the potential for abuse. They do not accept donations anyway. Between Gates and Buffet, they have all the resources they need.
Re: These breakthroughs will make 2021 better than 2020
#19Has any other philanthropists in history appeared to care about the world (or part of the world) in a more profound way than Bill and Melinda Gates? The question I have, though, is how about continuation? I can't find anything on their website about a (hopefully distant) future without Bill and Melinda. Are the covenants such that the organisation can continue and still have the same impact? And the reason I care is…
I'm not convinced if Gates actually cares about the world. I find his transformation from one of the disliked CEOs of most despised companies into some sort of high tech messiah hard to believe. The phrase "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" was coined in Microsoft when he was the CEO. Google bombing was invented to redirect to Microsoft homepage when searching "more evil than satan himself". Those are facts that confirm t…
Just because you enjoy crushing business rivals doesn't mean you also want kids to die young. I think Gates simply enjoys the challenge and the technical side of things.
Re: These breakthroughs will make 2021 better than 2020
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not convinced if Gates actually cares about the world. I find his transformation from one of the disliked CEOs of most despised companies into some sort of high tech messiah hard to believe. The phrase "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" was coined in Microsoft when he was the CEO. Google bombing was invented to redirect to Microsoft homepage when searching "more evil than satan himself". Those are facts that confirm t…
Just because you enjoy crushing business rivals doesn't mean you also want kids to die young. I think Gates simply enjoys the challenge and the technical side of things.
I'm not saying he wants kids to die young, please don't strawman me. I think Gates career as CEO points into direction he enjoys acquiring and wielding power. He stepped down from being CEO in 2008, this was long after Windows won. It's also possible that he enjoys both technical side of challenges and being powerful at the same time.