Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

online.wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 212 posts

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

#181

Post by illuminate »

gesman wrote: post #139
gesman wrote: post #78

Dear Bill Gates. Here's yardstick to measure residual value of your efforts: If you'd stop doing whatever you're doing, will the world continue benefit from your past efforts for ages to come? Compare "buying food for the hungry" and "teaching the man to fish" - which effort carry more residual value? You developed DOS, and then Windows. Even when you stopped - the world continued rolling with your software and build…

Dear Bill Gates. Stop buying stuff for people. Be that vaccines or portable toilets or donations to some vague "research" causes. Invest in helping people to discover the powers within. Do not invest in making people think they need to depend on some external rich power to pull themselves out of their misery. That is misservice. This is lie. That warm, fuzzy feeling you get after spending billion on buying stuff for…

"Stop buying stuff for people. Be that vaccines or portable toilets or donations to some vague "research" causes. Invest in helping people to discover the powers within"

"The Secret" is hogwash, not modern medical science. You can't help someone "express their creativity and power" when they're dying of preventable disease.

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

#183

Post by corporalagumbo »

technoslut wrote: post #101
notJim wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a number of flawed assumptions here. The first one is that population growth is naturally unbounded, but that idea has been outdated for a long time. Population growth follows a logistic growth curve. Another bad assumption you're making is that the West's population is growing rapidly, but it's not. In fact, populations in Western countries are barely growing, and often are only growing due to immigration,…

>There are a number of flawed assumptions here. The first one is that population growth is naturally unbounded, but that idea has been outdated for a long time. Population growth follows a logistic growth curve. The curve is on an upward climb while available resources have been declining. >Finally, yet another bad assumption you're making is that we should limit population growth through draconian measures like… wel…

Man... Not trying to attack you, but I think you're in that terrible phase of life where you're a) educated enough to know a bit of history and a bit of social theory, and how to make nice sentences but b) not educated enough to have balanced, forgiving views about human society, so you just lapse into overwhelming, aggressive and largely-unfounded cynicism about everything. I feel for you. I've been through the same phase, and it sucks.

Keep reading though, and keep thinking. You'll get through it soon enough. In the meantime, try to find things worth appreciating. See the good in what people are doing. Go into a big box store, and instead of thinking "look at all this disgusting consumerism sucking up natural resources and destroying the world!" try thinking "wow, isn't it great we've managed to develop such efficient and powerful technologies that we can provide such a dizzying array of products for so cheap to so many people? And isn't it great that our society is so open and undiscriminating that we let anyone buy whatever they want, if they have the money?"

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

#184

Post by corporalagumbo »

jhuni wrote: post #147
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 spen…

It's his money, so he gets to decide what to do with it. Likewise, Microsoft Office was his product, so he got to decide what privileges to offer users. If you didn't like Office, did you build a competitor program? No? Then don't complain.

Seriously, the freedom to enjoy success and the autonomy to use one's own money and run one's own business however one sees fit, within the limits of the law, are like the fundamental principles of capitalism and basically the key to all modern economic and technological progress...

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

#185

Post by danenania »

pg wrote: post #154
jneen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

The argument may not have been stated as well as it could have, but your response reduces to emotional scapegoating what is really a valid concern.

Let's say that during America's period of slavery, there was an extremely wealthy northeastern industrialist who donated a large portion of his wealth to improve the living conditions of slaves. He wanted them to have better food, better clothes, better medical care, etc. But even though his wealth was gained by legitimate free enterprise and not slavery, he had never called for the outright abolition of slavery, just lamented the poor living conditions of the slaves.

The industrialist's contribution should certainly be applauded, as it would certainly do good, but without addressing the fundamental injustice, it only makes a system predicated on vast suffering slightly more tolerable.

In short, hoping for the winners of a corrupt system to save the losers is foolish. If we had real free markets and real democracy, it might be a different story, but we don't. Our situation cannot be remedied by charity, welfare, or incremental reforms. We need fundamental structural transformation of our political and economic institutions. Anything short, however noble the aim, is equivalent to trying to make slaves more comfortable without freeing them.

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

#186

Post by corporalagumbo »

Alex3917 wrote: post #85
kenjackson wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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:/…

Maybe it would surprise you to realise that yes, child-rearing culture can be and is a cause of persistent poor educational outcomes and a large part of the poverty cycle. Watch "Precious" for a taste. Some poor parents are actually scared of and distrustful of education. Some feel jealous if they see their children succeeding.

Re: McDonalds, what's wrong with that? It's not glamorous but it's a solid job which teaches good skills. People need to start somewhere, people from poverty may have no experience with the very most basic financial and life-skills you take for granted: managing expenditure, keeping income regular, putting aside spare cash, staying in one job. Those are the basics people need to learn, and the idea is that someone from poverty who succeeds at that stage can pass on the benefits they gain to their children, who will do even better. Then in a generation or two more they can become a university-educated family.

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

#187

Post by corporalagumbo »

Alex3917 wrote: post #143
hackinthebochs wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Blacks were doing just fine

Citation?

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

#188

Post by stcredzero »

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 process I have described—setting clear goals, choosing an approach, measuring results, and then using those measurements to continually refine our approach

This sounds like a pretty pragmatic plan to me.

Sounds like a good outline for startups.

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

#189

Post by stcredzero »

dllthomas wrote: post #146
9392732 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, to be fair, I think the commenter meant partly malevolent and partly unintentionally harmful.

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

#190

Post by Peaker »

johnchristopher wrote: post #19
pbw wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As Gates points out in the article, these techniques existed before computers. So I agree given Gates's background, he is probably applying what he learned from computers to wider problems. But in the grand scheme of things, computer science adopted these techniques from other disciplines.

I know Gates was a really good (strike that, he was really, really good) hacker and software engineer. But I think he was an even better bussinessman. I am pretty sure he's applying more from the latter background than from the computer field.

Gates was a good business man. I've not heard many call him a good hacker before. I'd like to hear more...
Post reply on HN