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Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt to Japan

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121–130 of 224 posts

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt to Japan

#121
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You may think that "shithole" is too strong of a statement. But that description seems about right to me It's a term that was recently applied, with almost comical precision, to countries that are predominantly black. It was applied in respect of the people from those countries, specifically immigrants, more specifically regarding their individual merit as potential Americans. TL; DR When discussing race, particula…

(Quickly hits Google.) I'm not going to bother keeping up with every tweet from our cheeto-in-chief to keep track of things that might offend politically correct people this week. There is no limit to what can potentially offend others. There is a limit to how much of my attention that I wish to devote to the topic. If that bothers you, perhaps you should reconsider what offends you. Because like it or not, "shithole…

We clearly can and clearly should do much better on HN than bicker about whether '"shithole" is an accurate description of Nigeria"'. This is embarrassing. Please don't feed it.

Same goes for everyone else in this subthread of course.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt to Japan

#122
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your appeal to authority is naked

his fake offense on behalf of others is a faux pas. its a common term. we can't use "shit hole" because some people recently decided that was the case?

Would you please stop doing flamewars on Hacker News? It's against the guidelines and beyond tedious, and you've done a lot of it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt to Japan

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn’t seem immediately relevant, could you explain why you mentioned it here?

Might be irrelevant per HN guidelines. I took it as a reminder that doing something good may require not only exceptional courage, but one's life. I'm ok with the off-topic aspect of the post. I continue to be amazed and grateful we have such people.

>I continue to be amazed and grateful we have such people

That's a good thing to mention.

Sometimes when I look at Washington, Wall St., or corporate actions, it makes me fear everyone is a hyper-rational sociopath willing to seek out and screw over the other for any profit. But sometimss I'm reminded of the ones who do good for the future of humanity, not just for their bank accounts.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt to Japan

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed what you pointed out is fairly common especially recently, but it wasn't always the case. Moreover, it's incumbent on us to be better than that so to reverse the trend.

It's not a new problem. The term TFA is at least 18 years old; predates reddit, digg, and maybe even slashdot itself. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=TFA

This is a side discussion, but what a fascinating piece of internet history, I had no idea.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt to Japan

#125
post #16

Why does the 6th largest oil exporter in the world need a $76M loan paid? Edit: Downvotes? Legitimate question guys. Can someone explain how that works?

> Edit: Downvotes?

This breaks the site guidelines. You've done that a lot and we've had to warn you a lot. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow them if you want to keep commenting here.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt to Japan

#126

Awesome. I used to think very badly of Bill Gates. (New corporate PCs often came bundled with Word. The newest PCs wouldn't be compatible with older ones, so everyone had to constantly upgrade. It was a huge scam.) But it's nice he's giving his money away. I look forward to hearing about more acts of charity in the years ahead.

[deleted]

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt to Japan

#127
post #125
post #16

Why does the 6th largest oil exporter in the world need a $76M loan paid? Edit: Downvotes? Legitimate question guys. Can someone explain how that works?

> Edit: Downvotes? This breaks the site guidelines. You've done that a lot and we've had to warn you a lot. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow them if you want to keep commenting here.

I legitimately don't see which guideline this violates and I thought it was a good question, even if it turns out that the case for paying off the debt is strong.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt to Japan

#128
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Edit: Downvotes? This breaks the site guidelines. You've done that a lot and we've had to warn you a lot. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow them if you want to keep commenting here.

I legitimately don't see which guideline this violates and I thought it was a good question, even if it turns out that the case for paying off the debt is strong.

The offending element is quoted: commenting on downvotes violates the guidelines.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt to Japan

#129
post #21

I'm I the only one who thinks that Japan kinda looks bad here? I mean, Bill's foundation is already dedicating $3B a year on development assistance, couldn't Japan just say to Nigeria: "You don't have to pay us back. Consider it a donation". How could they reasonably expect Nigeria to pay them back $76M?

Making the Japanese and Nigerian elite look bad, could be a large part of the intent here. That $76M might mainly be a political comment.

In perspective, oil and gas companies spend more than double that lobbying the US government every year and in Mayfair in London, a house went on sale last year for $120M.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt to Japan

#130

This is awesome and it's inspiring to see the Gates' making huge moves in philanthropy. It makes me wonder what the philanthropy would look like if other business leaders like Warren Buffet were also to run major charitable institutions.

Buffett is a trustee of their foundation and pledged most of his money to it a decade ago.

https://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/General-Informati...

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