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Good News You Might Have Missed in 2013

thegatesnotes.com

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Re: Good News You Might Have Missed in 2013

#61

Post by bmelton »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #54
Houshalter wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I especially don't think that the act of charity somehow excuses the dodgy business practices or Microsoft or the long-term damage done to the tech industry. How much damage do you think that is? You don't think all the lives saved have "made up" for that? You don't think the world is better off than it would otherwise be without Bill Gates?

No, because I don't think that positive or good acts can somehow "cancel out" (or as you say, "make up for") bad or negative ones. Karma is not a concrete concept, and the question "is the world better off" is objectively unanswerable.

Hate the man's business practices. Love the man for his philanthropical work. They don't need to cancel out, and you don't need to forgive one to appreciate the other.

Michael Vick was put in prison for dog fighting. I absolutely hate him for that. At the same time, I appreciate his talent on the field as a football player.

Orson Scott Card is a rampant homophobe. I absolutely hate him for that. Doesn't affect my opinion of his novels though, not in the least.

There's no logic in idolizing or demonizing anyone. Life's a lot better when you get out of casting a pall over everything a person does by some other things that they've done. People like making villains and heroes of people, whether or not they deserve it.

We see someone we don't like from afar, and it's easy to assume that they're bad at everything, that they're horrible people, that they're bad parents, that they're likely running around kicking puppies all day long. That's very rarely the truth.

With people we're nearer too, it's easier to accept that they have strengths and weaknesses, and I don't know why it's hard to imagine the same thing of famous people, but it is. There's very little to love about Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft. Similarly, there's very little to hate about Bill Gates of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Roll with it.

Re: Good News You Might Have Missed in 2013

#62

Post by jblow »

judk wrote: post #53
jblow wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a carefully-written article. When you buy stock in a public company, that company is not getting your money -- the seller of the stock is! So if you buy a Pepsi stock or a Shell stock, you are investing in that stock, but not investing in the company in a traditional sense (in which they get money from you and expect to pay out more money later, with the surplus coming from their activities). [There is the small…

Come now. If unethical corporations faced divestiture, amoral investors would expect less profits, which would drive down prices all the way to the IPO/VC buyin and the RSU packages for management. You can't seriously believe that the stock market exists while disbelieving that buy-side demand is a fundamental component of launching and running business.

Of course not, but look: you manage the investment arm of a charity fund and your job is to provide more income for that fund in the future.

If you put money into stocks, and get a return on that, that return means very concrete things: more people who get polio vaccines, more people who get dewormed, etc, etc. Very concrete results.

If you don't put money into stocks, because they are unethical ... well, how exactly? As we have mentioned the stock has already been sold. So, you don't do it because by doing so you are helping support a market system that may provide a setting for future unethical corporations to arise in and go public? (Along with many ethical corporations?) Or because by providing demand for the stock now, you retrocausally made it possible for that company to have IPO'd years or decades ago?

These are very abstract and weird concerns when your job is very directly to help people.

You say "if unethical corporations faced divestiture", but even a large fund like this one has no say in that. If they don't invest in McDonald's or Walmart or whatever, it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

So seriously, if you were running the fund, what would you do? For real. If you make less money, actual human beings die who would not have died, in volume.

(All of this said, I would feel pretty dirty about buying the stock of a prison company, anyway. But railing on them for stuff like McDonald's and Walmart just ... doesn't make sense.)

Re: Good News You Might Have Missed in 2013

#64

Post by rbanffy »

bmelton wrote: post #61
matthewmacleod wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because I don't think that positive or good acts can somehow "cancel out" (or as you say, "make up for") bad or negative ones. Karma is not a concrete concept, and the question "is the world better off" is objectively unanswerable.

Hate the man's business practices. Love the man for his philanthropical work. They don't need to cancel out, and you don't need to forgive one to appreciate the other. Michael Vick was put in prison for dog fighting. I absolutely hate him for that. At the same time, I appreciate his talent on the field as a football player. Orson Scott Card is a rampant homophobe. I absolutely hate him for that. Doesn't affect my opi…

> Hate the man's business practices. Love the man for his philanthropical work

At the core of this is trust. Bill lost mine at Microsoft's helm - he has shown a borderline sociopath that will stop at nothing and will destroy anyone on his path.

To give this much credit to someone with such dark history is appallingly naive.

Re: Good News You Might Have Missed in 2013

#65

Post by rbanffy »

ArtDev wrote: post #46
matthewmacleod wrote: post #36

I don't really get the canonisation. I'm very happy the the Gates' foundation is doing good work. You'd be a fool to say that it wasn't. However, I don't believe that the tech industry should be proud as a result, nor do I think that there is a particular difference between the foundation and some other charities, nor do I understand the obvious astroturfing. I especially don't think that the act of charity somehow e…

The Gates Foundation is unlike any other charity or foundation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundati...

Which is not entirely bad:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundat...

Re: Good News You Might Have Missed in 2013

#66

Post by rattray »

tn13 wrote: post #22

As people in Tech industry we should be very proud of Bill Gates and what he has done with Microsoft and his charity work. A lot of people totally miss the point when they say "hey anybody could do all that if they have enough money". That is simply not true. Charity is not just about throwing money at poor, it is a far more difficult job than say building a company. Working for profit is simpler where clear regulati…

USP = Unique Selling Proposition, for those who also didn't know.

Re: Good News You Might Have Missed in 2013

#67

Post by rbanffy »

tptacek wrote: post #41
mateuszb wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude, wtf. How about a private juvenile detention centers ran by a company with a history of child abuse in those prisons? At least more due diligence?

Circulate a petition to end the private prison industry? I will sign it. Come up with a credible plan to fix that public policy problem? I'll donate. Meanwhile: if you're going to manage a forty billion dollar endowment to maximize its impact on global poverty and disease, you're going to be working with large-scale corporate debt and equity. It would be very difficult to maintain diversified exposure to those market…

That's great propaganda. What are a couple juveniles being abused compared to curing polio?

Re: Good News You Might Have Missed in 2013

#68

Post by bmelton »

rbanffy wrote: post #64
bmelton wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate the man's business practices. Love the man for his philanthropical work. They don't need to cancel out, and you don't need to forgive one to appreciate the other. Michael Vick was put in prison for dog fighting. I absolutely hate him for that. At the same time, I appreciate his talent on the field as a football player. Orson Scott Card is a rampant homophobe. I absolutely hate him for that. Doesn't affect my opi…

> Hate the man's business practices. Love the man for his philanthropical work At the core of this is trust. Bill lost mine at Microsoft's helm - he has shown a borderline sociopath that will stop at nothing and will destroy anyone on his path. To give this much credit to someone with such dark history is appallingly naive.

To give him trust might be naive, but giving him credit for the things he has done is just a recognition of fact.

He donated $28,000,000,000 to a philanthropic organization. Refusal to "give him credit" for that is just being petty. He did it.

Conversely, he engaged in anti-competitive behavior with Netscape, so he gets the credit for that too.

Loving him for the former is every bit as pragmatic as hating him for the latter, but neither act means that is who he is as a person. People are far too complex for that.

Re: Good News You Might Have Missed in 2013

#69

Post by rbanffy »

jblow wrote: post #15
salient wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like the Gates Foundation is mostly a front for a profit-seeking venture.

It is the other way around. If you are doing effective altruism, you want to make sure you have money coming in that you can be altruistic with. The bit about Walmart was especially badly done. If the author of this article thinks Walmart employees are poor on the same scale as the poor that the foundation targets, he really has no clue about world poverty. If the minimum standard of living throughout the world were…

So, your argument is that it's right to make Walmart employees poor in order to maximize profits because they are not nearly as poor as the poorest people in the world?

If there is something poor here, it's the excuse.

Re: Good News You Might Have Missed in 2013

#70

Post by tptacek »

rbanffy wrote: post #67
tptacek wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Circulate a petition to end the private prison industry? I will sign it. Come up with a credible plan to fix that public policy problem? I'll donate. Meanwhile: if you're going to manage a forty billion dollar endowment to maximize its impact on global poverty and disease, you're going to be working with large-scale corporate debt and equity. It would be very difficult to maintain diversified exposure to those market…

That's great propaganda. What are a couple juveniles being abused compared to curing polio?

Yes, yes, I understand. I've been here as long as you have and I know where you're coming from. You do. not. like. Microsoft.

https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/comments&q=rbanffy+m...

But you're getting yourself into trouble in this argument, because Bill Gates self-evidently hasn't abused any juveniles, but actually is working to cure polio.

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