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Bill and Melinda Gates 2016 Annual Letter

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Re: Bill and Melinda Gates 2016 Annual Letter

#31

Post by dominotw »

latj wrote: post #12
dominotw wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paul Graham would disagree with you on that definition of Poverty. In his world poor people can wake up one fine day and start a business. Aaron : What drove the decision to go start a business? Paul : Poverty. Aaron : Poverty. Paul : I was tired of being poor. I was working as a freelance programmer, and it was this sort of boom/bust thing where I would get money and then I would run out of money, and then it would…

Thats not what I think of when I think of poverty. Paul got tired of being broke. When you're tired of being broke, but you're educated, young, healthy, and/or from a privileged class-- you go to school, open a business, hustle, whatever. People living in poverty live the lives they do for various reasons-- born into poverty, low education, mental illness, substance abuse, poor health, elderly, single mothers raising…

Its scary how a gatekeeper like PG doesn't even have the basic understanding of poverty.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates 2016 Annual Letter

#32

Post by tempestn »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #20

Bill's focus on new tech still seems odd to me. Maybe he's thought about it, and as a famous geek thinks that the number one thing he can do is champion tech innovation. But he specifically talks about increasing energy efficiency. An obvious opening to talk about carbon taxes that bake efficiency decisions into everything we buy (and provides a ready made market for new, low-carbon tech). Or he talks about coal, aga…

I think the point is that those sorts of smaller innovations can be a trap. As he says at the start, even reducing CO2 emissions by 50% isn't enough. By focusing on low hanging fruit, we might feel like we're making a difference, and lose the urgency to search for more innovative solutions.

I'm sure Bill supports anything that can reduce CO2 emissions, but I expect his feeling is that we don't need more encouragement to look for little efficiencies; rather we need to find a big solution. Or maybe we need encouragement on both fronts, but he didn't want to dilute the main point of this particular essay by focusing on existing tech.

(That said, he does talk also about improved energy storage and power lines and such, things that would build on existing clean energy sources.)

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates 2016 Annual Letter

#34

Post by scholia »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #20

Bill's focus on new tech still seems odd to me. Maybe he's thought about it, and as a famous geek thinks that the number one thing he can do is champion tech innovation. But he specifically talks about increasing energy efficiency. An obvious opening to talk about carbon taxes that bake efficiency decisions into everything we buy (and provides a ready made market for new, low-carbon tech). Or he talks about coal, aga…

Gates doesn't govern any countries and he's not in charge of any global policies. Also, he is not superman and he doesn't have infinite resources. He's just trying to find niches where a rich geek can make a difference. Child vaccination was a good example.

Significantly, he's trying to do practical things to improve the lives of poor people in the third world, as opposed to founding libraries or building more William Gates computer buildings at elite universities.

It's fair to judge what he does against what he could do, but it's unreasonable to judge him for what he can't do.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates 2016 Annual Letter

#35

Post by crackpotbaker »

I'm surprised Gates, for all his work in this field, has failed to recognise that we're burning up more food growing cattle and farming animals, than if we were to just eat the plant resources we use to feed the animals.

It's mathematically crazy that, during a mass shortage of food in some parts of the world, we're feeding a net loss of food in order to eat animal produce.

He's even insane enough to support getting more meat, dairy and eggs to Africa, instead of just bringing the nutrient filled crops.

With his attitude about energy and carbon footprint reduction, there's no way, India, China and Africa live sustainably on a meat filled diet.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates 2016 Annual Letter

#36

Post by FlyingLawnmower »

crackpotbaker wrote: post #35

I'm surprised Gates, for all his work in this field, has failed to recognise that we're burning up more food growing cattle and farming animals, than if we were to just eat the plant resources we use to feed the animals. It's mathematically crazy that, during a mass shortage of food in some parts of the world, we're feeding a net loss of food in order to eat animal produce. He's even insane enough to support getting…

I'm inclined to agree here -- the energy inefficiency of meat is really quite astonishing when you look into it [1].

Not to mention the global environmental benefits, etc.

[1] http://news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-mi...

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates 2016 Annual Letter

#37

Post by BurningFrog »

vezycash wrote: post #9
dmix wrote: post #5

This seems like a great opportunity for African countries to build on their energy infrastructure which would both generate revenue for governments and provide a stable industrial environment for development. It sounds like a critical missing component in Africa's economy. Although this would also depend on the public's ability to pay for monthly/yearly energy fees which might depend on subsidies. I've read a few art…

In Nigeria and Ghana, important projects are left undone by the ruling parties because they are long term projects. Because, the opposing party would be the ones to reap the rewards, and praise from the populace. They'd instead focus on building new roads instead of maintaining existing ones, building new schools instead of improving existing ones, starting new high sounding schemes instead of continuing projects the…

That's how government works everywhere, to some degree.

The planning horizon does not stretch further than the next election. For long term projects, private entities do much better.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates 2016 Annual Letter

#39

Post by neves »

dmix wrote: post #5

This seems like a great opportunity for African countries to build on their energy infrastructure which would both generate revenue for governments and provide a stable industrial environment for development. It sounds like a critical missing component in Africa's economy. Although this would also depend on the public's ability to pay for monthly/yearly energy fees which might depend on subsidies. I've read a few art…

In Brazil, the greatest amount of CO2 emissions come from deforestation.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates 2016 Annual Letter

#40

Post by neves »

hanniabu wrote: post #21

While I commend this, there's still also a clean water/pollution crisis that plagues the world. And in this sense, I don't mean air pollution, but as in trash - tons and tons of trash. While the US has its fair share of pollution and clean water issues, other countries like the Philippines, Brazil, and African countries allow mass amounts of garbage and pollutants into the waterways and ocean. Huge amounts of toxic w…

And don't forget that the developed countries like to export their most pollutant industries. So great part of China pollution is for producing things for USA and Europe.
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