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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

#151

Post by adaml_623 »

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.

I'm sorry about your nephew. But I'd like to tell you that actually cancer treatment has gotten better:

http://www.macmillan.org.uk/Documents/AboutUs/Newsroom/Livin...

The situation isn't great and that report highlights the problems. And rare cancers are not going to attract research effort until the common ones are solved. But fundamental research is what is required. And I believe that rich philanthropists are going to remain an essential part in funding that research.

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

#152

Post by natural219 »

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 am beyond disgusted with every negative poster in this thread. I have never met or heard of anybody so horrible, awful, and heartless that they would condemn one of the wealthiest people in the world for giving away his entire fortune and retirement to try and save the lives of millions of people.

I want to apologize for these next two words. It's completely out of character for me, and they might get me banned from Hacker News, and that's fine with me. If you are reading this, and you are one of the aforementioned negative posters, I have only two words for you, and I say them from the deepest part of my heart:

edit: redacted. Moment of rage. You can guess what the words are.

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

#153

Post by mc32 »

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.

Doers it matter who is solving problems, so long as problems are getting solved?

In a few years it will be billionaire Chinese who are solving big problems. What will be the negative attribute for that? Lots of people from all places around the world are solving problems for all of us. If Muhammad Yunus had not been local to Bangladesh, would he be some kind of villain? Is it bad that he's male? Would it have been better had he been a woman (most microloans are lend to women, since they appear more dependable and have greater need)?

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

#154

Post by pg »

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.

Precisely what do you mean it "ends up being really condescending?"

Let me tell you what I think you mean. I think you're attributing something happening inside your own head to the person you're reacting to. You're angry. The reason you're angry is that you have a bunch of arbitrary prejudices that have been set off by something you read. But you don't want to attribute your reaction to your own prejudices. So the only place left to attribute it to is the stimulus that made you angry.

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

#155

Post by adaml_623 »

javajosh wrote: post #150
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…

Are you disagreeing with all the studies that have observed that decreases in child mortality lead to a decrease in the birth rate.

So stopping polio not only saves those potential victims but actually encourages less children to be born.

This is something I thought was commonly accepted but maybe I'm wrong.

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

#156

Post by hughlomas »

kevincrane wrote: post #45
reasonattlm wrote: post #26

So far as I'm aware, the Gates Foundation does nothing in regard to the world's biggest problem, which is aging. Aging kills the most people, causes the greatest amount of suffering, causes the greatest loss of wealth and capital, falls most heavily on the poor without access to palliative medical technologies, etc, etc. http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2002/12/death-is-an-outra... You'll see a number of mainstream…

I'd put aging a lot farther down the list of big problems. I'd much rather him dedicate resources to stopping malaria in Africa, granting children and average people a shot at living, than to give money to extend grandma and grandpa's lives by a few more years.

What about extending the prime years of scientists, engineers, etc? More years of experience and wisdom to capitalize on and to reinvest their skills and knowledge into human progress. I for one would prefer that many of the brightest candles in humanity's past were still lit.

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

#158

Post by derefr »

jacoblyles wrote: post #84
technoslut wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Simple folk also cause stock market bubbles. The point of "anti-humanism", as you term it, is not that there should be fewer humans forever--it's that there should be fewer simultaneously. Just like publicly-traded companies, people want to have more direct descendants--greater returns--today, even if it means their "company" (all descendants looking forward) will be worse off after another year/generation. Anti-humanism is basically a recommendation to maximize long-term, instead of short-term, gains: to have fewer children and provide each with more resources such that each child will be more likely to be able to have high-quality descendants of their own.

An interesting analogy can be drawn from dwarf wheat, the grain that allowed the agriculture industry to become exponentially more efficient and productive over the last several decades. Dwarf wheat is a "genetically modified" crop, but not in the way you would imagine; we didn't make it hardier, or higher-producing at its own expense, or anything else. All we did to get massive gains in wheat production, was to turn off the part of the wheat's genetic code that made each stalk of wheat attempt to grow taller than each other stalk of wheat, thus making every stalk expend the majority of its resources on (inedible) stalk, and relatively little on (both edible to us, and reproductively important to it) grain. Since all the wheat has the gene for competitive growth turned off, all the wheat ends up short--and so all the wheat stalks still end up getting just as much sunlight, but can use all the resources they would have put into growth upward to instead sprout hardier, more nutritious grain.

Humans--all animals [1]--have a competitive program of their own: absent certain status-signaling drives that arise in high-intelligence+education groups, each human attempts to have as many children as possible to ensure their line has as many opportunities as it can to be passed on. The length of our stalks is pretty ridiculous :)

[1] Okay, maybe not all animals. I'm sure some parthenogenetic lizard or other such beastie fails this test after careful thought.

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

#159

Post by forgottenpaswrd »

lenkite wrote: post #48

I must say the comments here are extremely cynical and somewhat disturbing. Speaking as a citizen from India, (still third world despite our progress), I can say that the Gates foundation has done a turn of good in our corner of the world. You might dislike Microsoft the corporation, but Gates as a philanthropist deserves praise.

"But Gates as a philanthropist deserves praise."

At least he deserves respect.

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

#160

Post by forgottenpaswrd »

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.

"I see your point, but considering that there are almost no advances in cancer treatment over last decades (despite all that research)"

I understand your hopeless feelings, but this is totally false. My uncle is oncologist.There has been a tremendous advance over the last decades, not as much as we want but it improves.

"may be it would make some sense to spend some of that money to help sick people?"

Some of this money is already being spent on them. I don't know in USA but in Europe it is.

For me the best use of this money should be prevention, like less diesel and cancerous particles in cities, better quality food, and less flame retardant in our polar linings or bed foams.

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