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

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11–20 of 212 posts

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

#11
post #5

The biggest problem is resource depletion and overpopulation. Overpopulation will be "fixed" through starvation and death. Resource depletion will leave the current young and future generations with far less extravagant lives. Adding to the overpopulation through vaccination programmes und su weiter is a misstep.

Dear god, another Malthusian.

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

#12
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

Also on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNfGyIW7aHM :-)

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

#13
post #5

The biggest problem is resource depletion and overpopulation. Overpopulation will be "fixed" through starvation and death. Resource depletion will leave the current young and future generations with far less extravagant lives. Adding to the overpopulation through vaccination programmes und su weiter is a misstep.

Decreasing child mortality rates and increasing healthcare availability is statistically shown to decreased birth rate (among other improvements), resulting in fixing the issue of overpopulation (over time).

Whether it stops at 8 or 9 billion doesn't really make an impact until 2150 at best. IF we had the resources to keep everything puffing till then. We don't. :)

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

#14
post #5

The biggest problem is resource depletion and overpopulation. Overpopulation will be "fixed" through starvation and death. Resource depletion will leave the current young and future generations with far less extravagant lives. Adding to the overpopulation through vaccination programmes und su weiter is a misstep.

Dear god, another Malthusian.

There is no God, remember?

Also, are you trying to be clever, offensive or something else entirely by contributing with silly one-liners?

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

#15
post #7
post #2

Bill Gates treating the world like a computer optimization problem. First profile the world (program) and construct suitable benchmarks. Figure out some reasonable goals and test if your various health care and education programs affect the benchmark results.

No, it's called science, we've been using it for a little while now and it seems to be working out pretty well.

I don't think optimization of the world is exactly science. Science is about the acquisition of knowledge. Understanding what causes Polio is science, how it spreads, etc. Changing the world in such a way as to get rid of Polio strikes me as something different, not sure what. For example studying global warming is science, but injecting particles into the stratosphere to cool things down would be a step further.

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

#16
post #5

The biggest problem is resource depletion and overpopulation. Overpopulation will be "fixed" through starvation and death. Resource depletion will leave the current young and future generations with far less extravagant lives. Adding to the overpopulation through vaccination programmes und su weiter is a misstep.

Malthusian thought always strikes me as a comfortable little tautology to live in. It seems like it could be a neat way to contextualize one's efforts to delay the onset of, and diminish the impact of inevitable catastrophe. But I only ever see it being used to shit on ideas that on first glance would appear to accelerate the inevitable. Which in and of itself is bit odd. It may be a bit cold to see it this way, but if you're already resigned to that theory, what do you give a damn when the catastrophes happen?

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

#17
post #5

The biggest problem is resource depletion and overpopulation. Overpopulation will be "fixed" through starvation and death. Resource depletion will leave the current young and future generations with far less extravagant lives. Adding to the overpopulation through vaccination programmes und su weiter is a misstep.

Well actually the first world will rape all the resources, just as it's doing now and the population will sort itself out in the third world, much as it's doing now.

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

#18
post #15
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's called science, we've been using it for a little while now and it seems to be working out pretty well.

I don't think optimization of the world is exactly science. Science is about the acquisition of knowledge. Understanding what causes Polio is science, how it spreads, etc. Changing the world in such a way as to get rid of Polio strikes me as something different, not sure what. For example studying global warming is science, but injecting particles into the stratosphere to cool things down would be a step further.

The "optimization" characterization was invented by "aramadia". You can't assume that premise if you want to make a valid argument against the characterization of Bill Gates's method as science.

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

#19
post #6
post #2

Bill Gates treating the world like a computer optimization problem. First profile the world (program) and construct suitable benchmarks. Figure out some reasonable goals and test if your various health care and education programs affect the benchmark results.

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.

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

#20
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Decreasing child mortality rates and increasing healthcare availability is statistically shown to decreased birth rate (among other improvements), resulting in fixing the issue of overpopulation (over time).

Whether it stops at 8 or 9 billion doesn't really make an impact until 2150 at best. IF we had the resources to keep everything puffing till then. We don't. :)

We sure do. The human race will be just fine resource wise.

And that's just accounting for the existing base of resources and knowledge we have today. What we'll have in just another 50 years will be astounding, and further ensure that we won't have a resource problem. :)

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