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2014 Gates Annual Letter: Myths that block progress for the poor

annualletter.gatesfoundation.org

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Re: 2014 Gates Annual Letter: Myths that block progress for the poor

#281

Post by sdegutis »

macspoofing wrote: post #279
humanrebar wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe not leaving people room for conscientious objection is irrational.

I'm not sure how I can do that. If he has a conscientious objection that's his right. I neither can nor want to force him to change it. It's a free (speech) country after all. However, I reserve the right to call this objection deranged, insane or stupid. That's my right.

He wasn't talking about verbal conscientious objection. See his reply to the other person who replied to his comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7099573

Re: 2014 Gates Annual Letter: Myths that block progress for the poor

#282

Post by humanrebar »

sdegutis wrote: post #219
humanrebar wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which force are you talking about? I'm talking about the one that mandates that people pay for contraception with tax dollars.

That (combined with your comment right above it) is completely and utterly surprising to hear from someone on HN.

For the record, I don't agree with you about contraception. I'm all for building wells in Africa and setting bins of free condoms right next to them.

But people started talking about force, and the only force I can see in this case is the IRS (or the equivalent).

I'm frankly dismayed that HN seems so opposed to conscientious objection in this case. I presume it's an irrational prejudice against different (or maybe particular?) ethical worldviews.

Re: 2014 Gates Annual Letter: Myths that block progress for the poor

#283

Post by humanrebar »

mikeash wrote: post #241
humanrebar wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which force are you talking about? I'm talking about the one that mandates that people pay for contraception with tax dollars.

Seems pretty negligible compared to the one that mandates people to pay for unjustified foreign wars, incarcerating people because they put a certain molecule into their own bodies, etc. There's an argument to be made against taxation there, but if we're going to have it, you should probably start with the better part of a trillion dollars Americans pay each year for killing brown people (or building the capability t…

It's not worth debating over, but there's clearly a difference in category between drug laws, war policy, and philanthropic aid programs. Opting out of war funding sounds great, but I'm not sure how that would work. As far as drugs, it's harder but we could make drug prohibitions state laws and let people move or make changes at the state level.

Philanthropic aid programs, on the other hand, are clearly optional (even if they are amazingly beneficial). If minorities object to contraception, let them opt out of paying for it on their tax form or something. And let other people choose to pay triple. Like you said, it's not a lot of money, so I don't know why we should grief a minority of people on this point.

Re: 2014 Gates Annual Letter: Myths that block progress for the poor

#284

Post by sdegutis »

humanrebar wrote: post #282
sdegutis wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That (combined with your comment right above it) is completely and utterly surprising to hear from someone on HN.

For the record, I don't agree with you about contraception. I'm all for building wells in Africa and setting bins of free condoms right next to them. But people started talking about force, and the only force I can see in this case is the IRS (or the equivalent). I'm frankly dismayed that HN seems so opposed to conscientious objection in this case. I presume it's an irrational prejudice against different (or maybe pa…

They're just taking the mindset of: "Such and such things are inherently wrong, and I'm 100% certain that I'm right about this; therefore anyone who disagrees about it is an enemy to humanity and the common good, and therefore must be silenced and must not be allowed to affect legislation."

That's all they're doing. And it's understandable. But that's not the part I take issue with.

Re: 2014 Gates Annual Letter: Myths that block progress for the poor

#285

Post by mikeash »

sdegutis wrote: post #249
mikeash wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems pretty negligible compared to the one that mandates people to pay for unjustified foreign wars, incarcerating people because they put a certain molecule into their own bodies, etc. There's an argument to be made against taxation there, but if we're going to have it, you should probably start with the better part of a trillion dollars Americans pay each year for killing brown people (or building the capability t…

As one of those people who doesn't want my tax dollars spent on war, I have no idea what more I can do to stop it from happening. As far as I can tell, the government will spend my money on whatever it wants to, and I have no control over it.

There's plenty of room for debate and argument, but ultimately the whole point of taxes is that you don't get to decide what they're spent on. If this stuff worked when everyone decided for themselves, we wouldn't need taxes in the first place. The good thing is that it means we can pool our resources and e.g. build a bridge that none of us would individually contribute towards, but then we get bad stuff too.

Re: 2014 Gates Annual Letter: Myths that block progress for the poor

#286

Post by mikeash »

nl wrote: post #262
wisty wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not totally wrong about Africa. HIV hit Africa like a sledgehammer, and stopped development cold for 20 odd years. 10 years ago, people had seen Sub Saharan Africa going backwards for a decade. Plus, that was the 20 years when everyone looking for cheap labor went to China. Now, they're much better at preventing and treating HIV. And China is going to Africa for cheap labor. So things are getting much better.

Also, Africa had the 3rd biggest war in human history[1], which probably didn't help development much. There was a major genocide and assorted other significant wars, all of which have been pretty much forgotten in the developed world. [1] In terms of deaths: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Congo_War

This really is a nitpick and I don't mean to detract from your point in any way, nor from the horror of that war, but that war looks like it's quite a bit farther down the list from #3 in terms of death toll.

It's kind of shocking to take this list and sort it by number of deaths:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_...

We're generally taught, at least implicitly, that the two World Wars were uniquely terrible. I'm assuming (and I certainly could be wrong, here) that this is the basis for your "3rd biggest" comment. But it's not really true. Even if you exclude long, ongoing events that aren't really single "wars", like the Mongol conquests, there are still some astonishingly deadly events farther in the past.

The An Lushan Rebellion is the one that amazes me the most, personally. It's one of the deadliest wars in history by absolute death toll, and since it happened so long ago (in the 8th century), that means it killed a huge portion of the world population at the time. The low estimates for deaths in that war amount to 5.5% of the population of the entire planet. The high estimate is over 15% of the world population.

And it's not the only one that rivals the World Wars. The Taiping Rebellion killed 20-100 million. And, well, you can see the list above. It's amazing how many of these things involve China. I mean, that's where all the people were, and thus the greatest potential for killing them, but even so it seems a bit excessive.

Re: 2014 Gates Annual Letter: Myths that block progress for the poor

#287

Post by mikeash »

humanrebar wrote: post #283
mikeash wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems pretty negligible compared to the one that mandates people to pay for unjustified foreign wars, incarcerating people because they put a certain molecule into their own bodies, etc. There's an argument to be made against taxation there, but if we're going to have it, you should probably start with the better part of a trillion dollars Americans pay each year for killing brown people (or building the capability t…

It's not worth debating over, but there's clearly a difference in category between drug laws, war policy, and philanthropic aid programs. Opting out of war funding sounds great, but I'm not sure how that would work. As far as drugs, it's harder but we could make drug prohibitions state laws and let people move or make changes at the state level. Philanthropic aid programs, on the other hand, are clearly optional (eve…

I don't understand what this supposed difference is. In what way are government aid programs optional that war and drug laws aren't? Why does it make sense to allow people to opt out of one but not another?

You say "clearly", but it's definitely not, at least not to me.

Re: 2014 Gates Annual Letter: Myths that block progress for the poor

#288

Post by mkaziz »

dredmorbius wrote: post #258
eru wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] is counting on a patently unsustainable level of resource use to create a massive risk. Can you please elaborate? We sit on a giant ball of matter, and there's enough energy coming in from the sun (or via nuclear power) to last us a few billion years.

You could start here: http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/wiki/index#wiki_that_.22... The reading list starts here, it's a brief introduction to a very broad topic: http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/wiki/index#wiki_so_..._a... (And for anyone stumbling on this comment in the future -- I'm planning on substantially reorganizing that Wiki page though it should link to the appropriate sections). The major issue with t…

Will we still be human at that point?

Re: 2014 Gates Annual Letter: Myths that block progress for the poor

#289

Post by [deleted] »

crazygringo wrote: post #149

It's an excellent piece. I'll admit to being a bit confused by the assertion, however: > "letting children die now so they don’t starve later—doesn’t actually work, thank goodness. It may be counterintuitive, but the countries with the most deaths have among the fastest-growing populations in the world. This is because the women in these countries tend to have the most births, too." I spent five months in Kenya, and…

[deleted]

Re: 2014 Gates Annual Letter: Myths that block progress for the poor

#290

Post by dredmorbius »

mkaziz wrote: post #288
dredmorbius wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could start here: http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/wiki/index#wiki_that_.22... The reading list starts here, it's a brief introduction to a very broad topic: http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/wiki/index#wiki_so_..._a... (And for anyone stumbling on this comment in the future -- I'm planning on substantially reorganizing that Wiki page though it should link to the appropriate sections). The major issue with t…

Will we still be human at that point?

Were we ever?

The timescale of human evolution to date is on the order of 2 million years or so since we branched from our common ancestor with chimpanzees.

Somewhere around 80,000 years ago (plus or minus) we seem to have reached modern levels of cognitive ability, specifically, the capacity to keep 7 +/- 2 things in mind at the same time, as evidenced by the anthropological record -- stone artifacts and such.

Written history and most civilization spans roughly 6,000 years.

So, if you're looking at what "sustainable" might mean, I'd argue for somewhere within that timeframe. A minimum of 6,000 years, a reasonable upper bound of about 2 million.

A few folks have played with this:

http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-next-ten-bil...

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-next-ten-...

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