Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 495 posts

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#421

Post by blub »

refurb wrote: post #36

Maybe it’s just me, but I find it odd that Gates is the go to source for public health issues. His biggest contribution is money, which pays for really smart people to tackle these issues. So why not talk to the really smart people he hired?

Rich elites have a long history of oversized influence on public policy in the US. I'm not sure why exactly this is happening, but I think it's at least partly because of the relatively low involvement of the government in various social topics.

If you think about it, having public policy being at least partially dictated by unelected and unaccountable individuals is not a good place to be.

Hasan Minhaj had an episode on the Patriot Act about this topic and how:

a) the huge sums of money and foundations these billionaires manage have less of an impact than one would think because of the staggered way that the money is handed out, organizational bureaucracy and the fact that most problems that they're trying to tackle don't really lend themselves to being quashed just by throwing money at them. Many pursue such philanthropy also in part to clean up their public image and as a tax reduction strategy.

b) those huge sums distort the domains that they are injected in and could in some cases cause harm. The Gates Foundation is known for favoring high-impact project and sucking the air out of the room for other initiatives for example.

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#422

Post by reillyse »

reillyse wrote: post #236
tptacek wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's frustrating about this question is that it (inevitably!) commands the top of the HN thread with a discussion of the least interesting thing in the article. It's an article about COVID and Facebook, and here we're recapitulating the end-to-end encryption debate for the 8-zillionth time.

Yea, I feel bad about this tangent. I actually enjoyed the article, I just got annoyed about what I felt was a mischaracterization of the entire piece, leading to that mischaracterization dominating the discussion, I'm going to upvote the next comment..

I'm very confused, why did this get downvoted ? If anything downvote the entire thread...

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#423

Post by blub »

mdoms wrote: post #71
refurb wrote: post #36

Maybe it’s just me, but I find it odd that Gates is the go to source for public health issues. His biggest contribution is money, which pays for really smart people to tackle these issues. So why not talk to the really smart people he hired?

Bill Gates is a public health expert. He has been working on these problems with some of the smartest minds in the field for decades now. How long does someone need to be working on a problem before they're worthy of being a "go to source", in your opinion?

Goes to show that with enough money and effort one can not only clean up their tarnished image, but also become a public authority.

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#424

Post by artellectual »

flocial wrote: post #304
solarhoma wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that this statement from Bill is the most interesting. This statement shows Bill Gates, someone who has influence on legislatures, making a statement against encryption.

COVID will eventually pass even with unnecessary fatalities in its wake. E2e encryption and loss of rights will stay around much longer.

That in and of itself is a testament to how problematic our man-made legal system is.

Compare a nature made system to a man made system.

Nature changes over time. Our laws and regulations however do not get updated to reflect the times. That is the reason why human progress is slow. It's because humans don't change. That is the root cause of all evil. Humans like the comfort of not having to change.

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#425

Post by beholder1 »

philliphaydon wrote: post #399
Buge wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you or your correspondent view a web page related to the product before or after the conversation? Viewing web pages is quite common. Facebook also has a button next to ads saying why you were shown the ad. What does that say? Also the causation might be in the other direction. You and your correspondent might have seen an ad that then caused you to have the conversation.

Nope. So my current apartment is on the 28th floor. It's common to have gates/grills on the windows here in Singapore. But this apartment, AFAIK the family didn't have kids so they never got it done. So I messaged my agent and said "i love the apartment but the windows don't have any gates or safety catches, my understanding is gates are pretty expensive, would it be possible to atleast get safety catches on the wind…

Can keyboard be the cause? A spellchecker "stats collection" for example.

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#426

Post by blub »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #401
refurb wrote: post #36

Maybe it’s just me, but I find it odd that Gates is the go to source for public health issues. His biggest contribution is money, which pays for really smart people to tackle these issues. So why not talk to the really smart people he hired?

Because he's not just randomly throwing money around and has a well earned reputation for getting a decent return on his investments: he tends to spend money on things that work. So given that he's actively spending money and getting results, his perspective on what things need to be invested in and why is very interesting. There are plenty of rich philanthropists but very few with Gates's level of understanding and…

Managing the foundation as a business with the goal of maximizing return on investment is precisely one of the criticism leveled at Gates. Note that return on investment refers to financial return, not some abstract notion about improving the world.

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#427

Post by reillyse »

sxxahsuxh wrote: post #333
reillyse wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think he is saying that encrypted communication should be illegal. He's saying that spreading lies through encrypted channels should be stopped. It would not be hard for WhatsApp to prevent people from spreading bogus videos, because they have access to the unencrypted information before and after sending. So either preventing people from sharing misinformation or preventing people from reading the misinforma…

You know, Snopes has said that running a fact checking organisation is incredibly difficult. It's easy to see why, you have to: 1) decide what the definition of truth is 2) differentiate between subjectivity and objectivity 3) differentiate between misleading and outright incorrect 4) investigate every piece of media thoroughly 5) avoid bias 6) peer review 7) correct any mistakes And this list is just off the top of…

No one is saying we need to replace Snopes or emulate what they are doing. But if a platform like WhatsApp, Facebook or Twitter fact checked the most spread thousands videos per day, this problem would evaporate. You could do that with a team of 5 people. But you would need the will to do it, which is the part I think is lacking.

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#430

Post by kerng »

ani-ani wrote: post #93

He is easily one of the least bullshit-y sources when it comes to handling of COVID. But then there's this right in the middle of the interview: " And when you have [posts] encrypted, there is no way to know what it is. I personally believe government should not allow those types of lies or fraud or child pornography [to be hidden with encryption like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger] ". Quite literally, encrypted comm…

You are interpreting what he said to fit your understanding, he "literally" did not say what you describe as conclusion.

Also, sad to see the actual meaningful content of the article gotten less attention.

Post reply on HN