Bill Gates: My Plan to Fix The World's Biggest Problems • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by onedev » Sat, Jan 26, 2013, 10:29 PM UTC

realcertify wrote: post #111

MichaelGG wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the past, the foundation has explicitly stated that they are not looking to fund clinics and specific work. While that kind of charity provides immediate help to people, it does not provide any long-term solutions. Bill Gates does not have unlimited money. The $40BN or so they manage is not enough to really make an impact if they focus on immediate solutions like helping individual cases. They need to use the mone…

I see your point, but considering that there are almost no advances in cancer treatment over last decades (despite all that research), may be it would make some sense to spend some of that money to help sick people? Especially 2 year old kid with such rare type of cancer? In fact trying to help him could be a great research in itself, but looks like it's not something they are interested in.

So do you propose we just stop cancer research just because there have been no immediate advances?

"Trying to help him could be a great research in itself"

Only if you volunteered your nephew as a test subject to go through unproven clinical trials.

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

#142

Post by adrianbg » Sat, Jan 26, 2013, 10:48 PM UTC

Who has more power to do good in the world? A rich business person or a "powerful" politician in a democracy? I'm going to go with the business person. They're free to do anything they can afford, unlike politicians who are at the mercy of government processes and political opponents.

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

#143

Post by Alex3917 » Sat, Jan 26, 2013, 10:50 PM UTC

hackinthebochs wrote: post #126

Alex3917 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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:/…

>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 In general this is true. There is a serious culture change that needs to happen and the parents aren't doing it. This is coming from a black man that has seen first hand the toxic culture a lot of these kids grow up in. >The program revolves entirely aro…

"There is a serious culture change that needs to happen and the parents aren't doing it."

During the 1950s, basically the height of segregation, blacks were doing just fine. If it's an exaggeration to say that the black community was on track to be what the Jewish community is in society today, it certainly isn't by much.

Considering that much of the decline in the black community has been caused by the school system (as well as the war on drugs and a few other factors), I think it's rather optimistic to think that radically increasing the amount of schooling is going to fix things.

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

#144

Post by dllthomas » Sat, Jan 26, 2013, 10:52 PM UTC

illuminate wrote: post #121

sliverstorm wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

especially when other rich white guys are causing or exacerbating many of the problems. Sounds like "Rich White Guy" is the best person to solve the problems, then. Which is a fairer fight- bushmen vs. rich white guys, or rich white guy vs other rich white guys?

"Sounds like "Rich White Guy" is the best person to solve the problems, then" This is not a binary "problems" or "no problems". The manner by which colonialists "improve" the rest of the world is at the expense of the rest of the world. Not commenting on Gates' particular methods, but injecting money generally comes with a cost, and at various freedoms of the countries involved. At best of intention, throwing money a…

But measuring what you're doing and the impacts you're having and adjusting as you go is likely to have a better outcome than those with similar goals who lacked such introspection.

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

#145

Post by dllthomas » Sat, Jan 26, 2013, 10:57 PM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #136

illuminate wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Complicity is only with those willfully ignorant, I imagine. Colonialism ~is~ a malevolent mass. "Rich white persons" tend to be the force behind colonialism, but theoretically it could be anyone.

So I'm assuming you're of native ancestry in your particular region.

People can migrate without being colonists. Certainly a lot of historical migration was due to colonialism, but someone who moved to a developed country last year (from either a developed or undeveloped country) clearly isn't guilty of it.

Second, even if the parent commenter's ancestors were colonists of some stripe, people aren't bound in any way to say that the actions taken by their ancestors were the right ones.

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

#146

Post by dllthomas » Sat, Jan 26, 2013, 10:58 PM UTC

9392732 wrote: post #112

dmhdlr wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rich whites were specified.

It still groups a large amount of people under one banner segmented with race as a variable. Why can it not just be "rich people"?

No no, the point was that we're a differentiated malevolent mass.

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

#147

Post by jhuni » Sat, Jan 26, 2013, 10:58 PM UTC

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…

This negativity could be directed against the authoritarian attitude towards problem solving. If you have a problem with Microsoft Windows you have to ask the Microsoft authorities to solve it for you because they won't give you the source code so that you can handle the problem yourself. In a similar sense, Bill Gates isn't asking for the community to democratically decide where money could be best spent, he is spending money wherever he wants to solve problems he personally deems to be the most important.

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

#148

Post by dllthomas » Sat, Jan 26, 2013, 11:01 PM UTC

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.

My understanding is that it depends very much on the nature of the famine. Temporary famine caused by natural disaster or warfare can be helped quite a bit by temporary relief. Structural famine caused by ongoing problems is likely to be alleviated temporarily by temporary relief but the root causes deepened, creating the dependency you mention.

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

#149

Post by Raphael » Sat, Jan 26, 2013, 11:13 PM UTC

nealabq wrote: post #3

How to rid the world of all known diseases (the Python method) "Well, first of all become a doctor and discover a marvelous cure for something, and then, when the medical profession really starts to take notice of you, you can jolly well tell them what to do and make sure they get everything right so there'll never be any diseases ever again." http://orangecow.org/pythonet/sketches/toridof.htm

Oh, Monty Python. I was racking my brain trying to think of how this is a dig at the programming language.

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

#150

Post by javajosh » Sat, Jan 26, 2013, 11:14 PM UTC

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 bringing a lot of assumptions with him that tacitly validate the incumbent political, social, and economic regimes. I think a lot of us would prefer that Gates do something revolutionary with his money rather than something evolutionary.

First and foremost, the BMGF needs to consider overall-quality of life, not just specific, narrow measurements. It is only within this context that the big problems can be defined, and the correct measurements determined. It may very well be that improved infant mortality and education outcomes are not linked to overall improved quality of life. This might seem counter-intuitive, but it's easy to think of scenarios where this is the case.

Anecdotally, the thing that seems to improve people's quality of life is reducing the risk that they'll win the "you're life is ruined!" lottery. You can win this lottery in ways that are hard to prevent, like disease, accident, or natural disaster. You can win this lottery politically: surprise, the FBI, CIA, or Carmen Ortiz has decided to ruin your life.

Contrast this with what the BMGF is doing. They seem to be focusing on another goal, which is to give more people a life that can be ruined. E.g. a baby that lives is going to have a chance at life. A child who's educated is going to have a better chance at life. Noble indeed. But I have to wonder of that time and money would not be better spent helping those who manage to "naturally" obtain a life avoid winning the your life is now ruined lottery.