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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

#131

Post by run4_too »

sdegutis wrote: post #118
cperciva wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My position on birth control comes from seeing human life as something worth bringing into the world. I agree with the view that human life is something worth bringing into the world; but don't you think there's value in letting people choose when they bring human life into the world? Most people I know want to have kids -- just not yet.

Sure, why not? I'm not arguing against the personal choice aspect of this. Just that it changes a culture's attitude toward having children, creating an unfair bias against it in future members of society.

Personally, I don't think this is great danger. The urge to have children is tremendously strong - it's primary purpose of our evolutionary dna, after all!

Although I'm a father of two, I look around me and I see that we could probably benefit more as a society if fewer people didn't bow to that pressure to procreate. Most people that choose not to have children are doing so for very good reasons (whether it is "not now" or "never").

Perhaps you are influenced by an immediate circle that shares a rather harsh view of children, but I can tell you that from my experiences, there is rather little bias in our society against the next generation directly - I will allow that we do a lot of things that indirectly cause harm to our children, and theirs.

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

#132

Post by hawkharris »

gnerd wrote: post #49
hawkharris wrote: post #23

The United States' news coverage concerning Africa perpetuates these myths. It seems as if 95% of news stories focus on poverty, war and chaos in the continent. They rarely go so far as to differentiate among countries. In fact, many African nations are great centers for innovation. Kenya and Nigeria spring to mind for higher education and mobile computing. As a way of confronting condescending stereotypes, I have of…

> because education in some Nigerian cities is far superior to most U.S. high schools. Do you know that for sure though? Isn't it possible that you are drawing a conclusion on a far away place based on some events/cultural ideas that are provocative enough to make it to your screen as a topic of interest? Isn't that the same thing you are complaining about, just in reverse?

I base that conclusion on a comparison of students' performance on various aptitude tests, the likelihood that they will go to college and the percentage of those who find jobs related to their fields of study.

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

#133

Post by reitzensteinm »

sdegutis wrote: post #114
the_af wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but are you somehow saying that procreation should be more or less random? That it's better if people don't get to decide when they will have children? What's your opinion of people who choose to remain celibate?

On an individual level, people can choose to have or not have children. That's not really what I'm getting at. My point is more about the collective mental separation between sex and having children. When children grow up in a society where you can have sex without having children, the default is to just have sex with no regard to this consequence. The thought of having children occurs less and less often. In fact, i…

How would you triage what you're saying against preventing the spread of HIV which, according to the WHO, is greatly helped by condom use?

Would your solution be abstinence?

I've read each of your replies, and it honestly seems to me that you're not treating the subject like these are real people. Additionally, that you would prefer to make their decisions for them.

High minded ideas have a definite place, but until the entire world is up to the standard of living of a mid 20th century working class America, it's hard to see anything else as a priority.

If I may ask a question, do you believe your religion is influencing your views on this subject? Anecdotally, there aren't many non religious people that hold similar views, but correlation is not causation.

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

#134

Post by dragonwriter »

localhost wrote: post #102
dragonwriter wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see how your criticism refutes Myth 1 I'm not refuting that the myth is a myth (though I think its more of a strawman that Gates attacks poorly than a myth), I'm pointing out that Gates particular attempt to argue from so-called "income per person" trends (that starts with mistreating GDP per capita as "income per person") line of argument against the "myth" is fundamentally flawed. I don't think poor count…

I see what you're saying. However, I wouldn't attribute to malice "attempts to conceal by presenting it as something it is not" what could otherwise be explained by the difficulty in getting a different globally available metric. GDP per capita is a metric that is globally available from reputable sources. Is there a different globally available metric from reputable sources that you would suggest?

> However, I wouldn't attribute to malice "attempts to conceal by presenting it as something it is not" what could otherwise be explained by the difficulty in getting a different globally available metric.

Using GDP per capita can be explained by its ready availability compared to better measures.

Calling it "income per person", which it very much is not (and not, in explaining what metric you are actually using, noting the very significant way in which it is not "income per person"), cannot be explained that way.

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

#135

Post by sdegutis »

run4_too wrote: post #131
sdegutis wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, why not? I'm not arguing against the personal choice aspect of this. Just that it changes a culture's attitude toward having children, creating an unfair bias against it in future members of society.

Personally, I don't think this is great danger. The urge to have children is tremendously strong - it's primary purpose of our evolutionary dna, after all! Although I'm a father of two, I look around me and I see that we could probably benefit more as a society if fewer people didn't bow to that pressure to procreate. Most people that choose not to have children are doing so for very good reasons (whether it is "not…

I probably wasn't clear on what I meant by "creating an unfair bias against it in future members of society".

When children grow up in a world where sex doesn't automatically mean children, it biases them towards having sex without having children, and prevents them from considering the option of children as often as they naturally would have. This violates the integrity of future generations, implicitly taking away some amount of their individual personal choice.

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

#136

Post by run4_too »

sdegutis wrote: post #80
zeidrich wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Access to contraceptives allows people who do not intend to have children, but engage in sex, to remain childless. No access to contraceptives means that people who do not intend to have children, but engage in sex, will have children. These children will be unintended or unwanted and may not be cared for either through disinterest or lack of ability to provide for them. A child who grows up in that sort of circumsta…

"A child who grows up in that sort of circumstance is not kept safe, may succumb to disease, may spread disease, will not be educated, and will have difficulty providing for themselves." A person's life is far more than just how they start out. Many people have started in situations like this and have gone on to have wonderful lives. Many have even changed the world. This alone isn't enough to convince me that we sho…

It seems that many people are intent at proving your original point, which is sad, but not entirely unexpected I guess.

Regardless, I agree 100% with this comment of yours. I can't extend the rational to not supporting contraceptives, however. To me it doesn't connect.

Allowing a young couple to increase their earnings/career potential by delaying childbirth directly relates to making the smart investment over the long term, as you relate. I should know, as I've done this myself. My children are much better off now and in the long term with a solid roof over their heads and two loving parents in a committed marriage than they ever would have been with a 20 year old father who was in the army and dating a woman that really wasn't good for him at all.

Your intentions don't seem to connect with the methods you are suggesting; I don't see any issue with your intentions however.

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

#137

Post by chime »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #106
chime wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll bite. I believed it. Not only did I believe it until I read this letter, I thought Gates Foundation was doing an unintentional long-term disservice to the world by saving so many lives that overpopulation in the remote parts of the world will lead to more suffering due to starvation/hunger, poverty, and depression. If X% of children in villages in Ghana are currently starving, how will raising that to 2X% starvi…

Out of curiosity, which was the specific argument which changed your mind?

I just added the "EDIT" section before I saw your question. That was what made me start questioning my beliefs. Here's a few things the letter said that eroded away the assumptions I had built regarding:

POVERTY:

> There are still slums and pockets of poverty, but by and large when I visit there now I think, “Wow, most people who live here are middle-class. What a miracle.”

> There is a class of nations in the middle that barely existed 50 years ago, and it includes more than half of the world’s population.

AFRICA:

> “Sure, the Asian tigers are doing fine, but life in Africa never gets better, and it never will.”... Seven of the 10 fastest-growing economies of the past half-decade are in Africa.

> The percentage of children in school has gone from the low 40s to over 75 percent since 1970.

AID:

> Also remember that healthy children do more than merely survive. They go to school and eventually work, and over time they make their countries more self-sufficient. This is why I say aid is such a bargain.

> Here is a quick list of former major recipients that have grown so much that they receive hardly any aid today: Botswana, Morocco, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, Thailand, Mauritius, Botswana, Morocco, Singapore, and Malaysia

The above one made me realize I can think of foreign aid like student loans. I needed the financial aid to afford college education. My loans are now paid off and I am significantly better off thanks to them.

CORRUPTION:

> Suppose small-scale corruption amounts to a 2 percent tax on the cost of saving a life. We should try to reduce that. But if we can’t, should we stop trying to save lives?

> On the other hand, four of the past seven governors of Illinois have gone to prison for corruption, and to my knowledge no one has demanded that Illinois schools be shut down or its highways closed.

Basically, don't throw the baby away with the bathwater.

> The horror stories you hear about—where aid just helps a dictator build a new palace—mostly come from a time when a lot of aid was designed to win allies for the Cold War rather than to improve people’s lives. Since that time, all of the actors have gotten much better at measurement. Particularly in health and agriculture, we can validate the outcomes and know the value we’re getting per dollar spent.

This was another big seller for me. Gates is brilliant and everyone who has ever worked with him ends up calling him the smartest guy they know. It was naive of me to think that he didn't have measures in place to measure the impact of his investments and make sure waste was minimized.

And then pretty much everything in Myth #3. I was a fool.

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

#138

Post by mikeash »

sdegutis wrote: post #104
mikeash wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you're stating your opinion without appealing to religion, but you haven't argued for it at all. Basically, you stepped into a community that heavily leans atheist and rationalist, stated an opinion based on religion that the community disagrees with, and said that this makes you feel like an outsider. All I can say is, duh . And if you aren't interested in actually defending that opinion, what is the point? As f…

"No, you're stating your opinion without appealing to religion, but you haven't argued for it at all." I'm stating my perspective and trying to back it up by my reasoning: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7097722 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7097478 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7097670 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7097627 But maybe all I'm doing is stating my opinion and that I just don't…

You're just telling us what you feel. You're not giving us any reasons why we might agree with you.

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

#139

Post by BlackDeath3 »

akamaka wrote: post #68
spodek wrote: post #14

His third point, "Saving lives leads to overpopulation," is a weird straw man. I've never heard of anyone ever suggesting letting suffering children die as some way to keep the population low. He brings up Malthus as another straw man. I'm not sure the point he's trying to make. To stop people from stopping people from saving people's lives? I think he's trying to suggest that the planet has too many people on it but…

It's not a straw man. This is a common question that people have, but you may not have heard it voiced publicly, because people are worried about saying it out loud. Here's a perfect example: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/?qid=20081006164746AADzo4l

Unfortunately, when you ask important but controversial questions, people tend to simply jump on you for "lacking compassion and humanity". Sometimes the most uncomfortable discussions are the most important to have.

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

#140

Post by sdegutis »

macspoofing wrote: post #66
humanrebar wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only objections to contraceptive access are religious in nature, and we can safely discard those. I think this is pretty much his (her?) point. You've basically said that no matter what the point is, it's either not cogent or not valid.

Sometimes things are arguable and debatable, and sometimes the evidence is stacked on one-side so much that a contrary position is irrational. Contraceptive access is a cornerstone of health policy in every developed nation. It has been endorsed by WHO and every study done has implicitly or explicitly has supported this position. What are the odds sdegutis has a good reason to object?

Being able to understand and interpret evidence properly is not a universally held trait. That has implications on both sides of any debate. Related note: I often wonder how many people are victim to argumentum ad populum.
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