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Bill Gates: My Plan to Fix The World's Biggest Problems

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Re: Bill Gates: My Plan to Fix The World's Biggest Problems

#81

Post by mathgladiator »

technoslut wrote: post #68
MichaelGG wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why exactly does Earth itself have any intrinsic value greater than humans? We evolved to expand; we're machines to replicate DNA. I'm not sure how you can state that we now must be custodians and not expand more. I know you "can't get an ought from an is", and I can come up with several utility functions that have the effect of limiting humankind's impact, but I'm not sure there's any fundamental reason they're vali…

>Why exactly does Earth itself have any intrinsic value greater than humans? If you'd like to be arrogant about it then that's fine. However, we revolve around and are dependent on animals, insects and plants to provide us life. >We evolved to expand; we're machines to replicate DNA. You can expand as much as you want. Nature will fight back like it has with adaptive viruses and the Ice Age. >You may want to save the…

> However, we revolve around and are dependent on animals, insects and plants to provide us life.

That's because we are predators. There's no shame here; it's a simple truth.

> Nature will fight back

The way you put it sounds like nature is a person. Instead, nature is a set of rules that we don't fully understand yet. One day, we may understand those rules and control nature. OR, our bets fail and we are dead.

Re: Bill Gates: My Plan to Fix The World's Biggest Problems

#82

Post by TDL »

specialist wrote: post #50
TDL wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you would rather have him do nothing?

Sometimes "free" is too expensive. Ask anyone who has gone aboard to do good works. There's a very fine line between helping and inadvertently creating a dependency or destroying previously stable social or economic structures. Big example is famine relief. We dump our excess commodities in a local economy. That enriches the power elite. It nukes the local agriculture. People end up worse off.

I actually agree with you on this point. I was more reacting to the "White mans burden" comment.

Re: Bill Gates: My Plan to Fix The World's Biggest Problems

#83

Post by notahacker »

technoslut wrote: post #68
MichaelGG wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why exactly does Earth itself have any intrinsic value greater than humans? We evolved to expand; we're machines to replicate DNA. I'm not sure how you can state that we now must be custodians and not expand more. I know you "can't get an ought from an is", and I can come up with several utility functions that have the effect of limiting humankind's impact, but I'm not sure there's any fundamental reason they're vali…

>Why exactly does Earth itself have any intrinsic value greater than humans? If you'd like to be arrogant about it then that's fine. However, we revolve around and are dependent on animals, insects and plants to provide us life. >We evolved to expand; we're machines to replicate DNA. You can expand as much as you want. Nature will fight back like it has with adaptive viruses and the Ice Age. >You may want to save the…

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that criticisms of attempts to eradicate disease and suggestions that AIDs is a good thing because a tiny fraction of Africans participate in the ivory trade shows a lot more inhumanity than participating in the ivory trade (to feed ones family) itself.

Re: Bill Gates: My Plan to Fix The World's Biggest Problems

#84

Post by jacoblyles »

technoslut wrote: post #51
dos1 wrote: post #31

I don't get the negativity in this thread. Bill Gates is trying to solve hard problems and people here are complaining. Sure, they may not be the problems that you think are most important, and I'm sure the foundation is making missteps along the way and wasting some money. But his message in this article is a good one I think: > The process I have described—setting clear goals, choosing an approach, measuring result…

>I don't get the negativity in this thread. Bill Gates is trying to solve hard problems and people here are complaining. I respect Bill Gates and think his cause is noble but they are partly childish because of the idealism and the hopes to cure disease. ilaksh's post on this thread is part of the reason why though I wanted to reply to your post instead of doing so to his. It will be far more controversial though. Da…

In the 1500s we invented Humanism.

Now, finally, in this post-modern world we have invented Anti-Humanism. This allows truly clever humans to signal how truly clever they are. Because it takes a truly clever human to recognize the value of Anti-Humanism.

Simple folk still think humans are a good thing.

Re: Bill Gates: My Plan to Fix The World's Biggest Problems

#85

Post by Alex3917 »

kenjackson wrote: post #80
Alex3917 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Bill Gates is trying to solve hard problems and people here are complaining." If you actually look at KIPP (the main education reform that Bill Gates advocates), it seems more like an effort to basically enslave low-income minorities rather than a real attempt to improve education. I think there is actually pretty good reason to complain about this.

Huh? I've heard complaints about KIPP, but never anything about any sort of metaphorical enslavement. Could you expand?

One of the main components of the program is extending both the school day and the school year, so that schooling is 10 hours a day and 11 months a year or whatever. Why? The logic is basically that low-income minorities can't be trusted to raise their own children, so the government needs to step in and separate them from their kids.

Paul Tough (the NYT's main KIPP advocate) has an article here explaining it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/magazine/26tough.html?_r=0

The basic idea is summed up in this quote from the article: "Can the culture of child-rearing be changed in poor neighborhoods, and if so, is that a project that government or community organizations have the ability, or the right, to take on?" In other words, kids need to be in school 24/7 in order to "change their culture."

There a variety of problems with this, e.g.

- Not supported by data.

- Not being allowed to do stuff on your own prevents you from developing executive function.

- The program revolves entirely around extrinsic motivation, which will prevent most of these kids from actually maturing into adults and being able to handle anything beyond minimum wage jobs.

- Even if these kids do have improved reading and math scores on standardized tests, which there is not yet data to support, it's nowhere near clear that this would outweigh the other problems with the program.

KIPP makes a lot of sense if your goal is to take kids who would normally join gangs and give them enough skills to work at McDonald's, but as a compulsory government program (where you go to prison and literally become a slave if you don't participate) I think this is highly dubious.

Re: Bill Gates: My Plan to Fix The World's Biggest Problems

#86

Post by anewguy99 »

jneen wrote: post #38
dos1 wrote: post #31

I don't get the negativity in this thread. Bill Gates is trying to solve hard problems and people here are complaining. Sure, they may not be the problems that you think are most important, and I'm sure the foundation is making missteps along the way and wasting some money. But his message in this article is a good one I think: > The process I have described—setting clear goals, choosing an approach, measuring result…

The negativity is because of the legacy of colonialism. "Rich White Guy Solves all the World's Problems" ends up being really condescending, especially when other rich white guys are causing or exacerbating many of the problems.

Am I the only one that gets uncomfortable when white people are treated as an undifferentiated, malevolent mass?

Re: Bill Gates: My Plan to Fix The World's Biggest Problems

#87

Post by genwin »

technoslut wrote: post #51
dos1 wrote: post #31

I don't get the negativity in this thread. Bill Gates is trying to solve hard problems and people here are complaining. Sure, they may not be the problems that you think are most important, and I'm sure the foundation is making missteps along the way and wasting some money. But his message in this article is a good one I think: > The process I have described—setting clear goals, choosing an approach, measuring result…

>I don't get the negativity in this thread. Bill Gates is trying to solve hard problems and people here are complaining. I respect Bill Gates and think his cause is noble but they are partly childish because of the idealism and the hopes to cure disease. ilaksh's post on this thread is part of the reason why though I wanted to reply to your post instead of doing so to his. It will be far more controversial though. Da…

It's predictable that you'd be downvoted by the hivemind. Overpopulation is still taboo to discuss, even though it's obviously the world biggest problem, and the root cause of a multitude of other big problems.

Re: Bill Gates: My Plan to Fix The World's Biggest Problems

#88

Post by anu_gupta »

technoslut wrote: post #63
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer to that problem is education, not killing off an underclass. Educated societies have far fewer children than non, to the point that some first world countries are losing population. The thing is, it's impossible to gain an education when you are constantly starving or sick. Solve that problem and you move towards solving the next.

It's not about killing an underclass. Human beings are selfish. >Educated societies have far fewer children than non, to the point that some first world countries are losing population. You're citing statistics without understanding the reason why. Education means a higher household income which has become less so during the recent economic crisis. The traditional reasoning, while crude, of why poor people have more…

> What they can do is have more sex because they don't have the money to do anything else.

Not sure why you're trolling so hard, but that did make me laugh. Access to entertainment has killed sex!

Re: Bill Gates: My Plan to Fix The World's Biggest Problems

#89

Post by gesman »

realcertify wrote: post #58

A couple of years ago my wife's 2 years old nephew was diagnosed with retinoblastoma (eye's cancer). I contacted the world's best hospitals and was told that the treatment will cost hundreds of thousands dollars. So I tried to get some financial help from related funds and organizations and contacted all of them I could find on the internet. Guess what happened: 90% of them just ignored me, and the rest told me that…

I used to volunteer for one of the world famous named-after-desease organization. They organizing yearly events collecting funds for "research". While events are fun and people are happy to gather together - no one knows what exactly this "research" does and what outcome of it. People just assume that someone somewhere researching something and then one day magic solution will appear as a result of this research and that disease will disappear forever. I think doing the same thing all over again and expect a different result is just plain stupid.

So on next even the management of this organization arrived on three brand new, shiny SUV's bought using donated funds.

The only good thing coming from these fundraisers is that people are getting together, socializing and participating in decent activities. The reset of it - in particular - "collecting funds for research" is a bullshit bordering with scam.

Re: Bill Gates: My Plan to Fix The World's Biggest Problems

#90

Post by jacoblyles »

ilaksh wrote: post #23

Feedback and data related to your actual goals is key to achieving anything, and of course education and health should be targeted, but a bigger underlying problem is the structural inequality causing a constant lack of resources for many countries and communities. The fact that Mr. Gates ignores this leads me to believe that he thinks that the grossly unequal distribution of resources is the result of some process t…

For most of human history, equality and poverty were much greater. People were equally miserable.

It is only in modern times that we discovered the productive capability to escape the Malthusian trap and improve the human condition. Because this happened unevenly, "inequality" rose. But this was not a bad thing, it was a necessary step in progress.

Today, much of the developing world is catching up to the rich world. This is reducing inequality.

Inequality is neither good nor bad in itself. Focusing on this one variable creates a far too simple model to understand the world.

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