541–550 of 704 posts
Bill Gates has done more harm to software and innovation than anyone in history. He's a bad dude, and the only reason he does all this is so that waiters don't spit in his food at fancy restaurants. The world suffers under the crippling weight of proprietary M$ Windoze everywhere, and we're far worse off because of it. Want to help, donate money to support Free Software projects with strong copyleft licenses.
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Some government programs are good, but if it went to the US government then Trump could cancel them. (Unless the courts stop it.) It seems fortunate that some charitable funds aren't subject to that risk. They have other risks, but they seem lower. In an imperfect world, government funding alone seems insufficiency diversified. That's too much power in one place.
Charitable funds fall victim to the same fundamental issue, leadership is more interested in benefiting themselves than putting the money towards the aims of the charity. In general I donate to places local to me. I'd much rather see a bench at a local park than hold on to some hope that my money does something meaningful to a large international charity organization.
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Yes, it's called cVDPV. It's caused by the virus in the live vaccine "unweakening" itself, and it's typically happening in people with weakened immune systems (e.g. from chronic malnutrition). It's not causing unvaccinated people to get infected, per se. Most cases are mild, and on average there are about 300-400 cases per _year_ for the entire world. But it's absolutely heinous to accuse Gates of deliberately infect…
I largely agree, but there is essentially no possibility of ever eradicating polio with the current OPV strategy. If you stop vaccinating, cVDPV will spread person to person. Some people carry virus for decades and it can become infectious at any time, many years after they were first vaccinated or infected. There will sparse but significant episodes until all humans who were vaccinated with OPV (or infected with the…
Also, Gates's pet project of a novel OPV has been shown to have caused a few confirmed cases of VAPP now, so it seems that project won't save OPV.
Essentially the best hope for eradicating polio within 20 years seems to be giving out a lot of OPV to places like Afghanistan and the DRC and forcing the local warlord to give it to the kids who need it (the latter has generally been a total failure of the Gates project). Once OPV gets wild-type and cVDPV outbreaks under control, a global switch to IPV seems safe to prevent future outbreaks. But, to get there, it seems a very aggressive OPV campaign is necessary compared to where we are now. It may take a militarized organization to do this, also, given the fact that you necessarily have to deal with tribal warlords. Shame we don't have USAID any more...
We aren't going to do that because it seems we generally aren't capable of doing that. So we're likely stuck with a decent amount of polio for a long time.
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> The waste, fraud, and abuse that runs rampant throughout the government tells us that the powerful often use taxpayer dollars as their own slush fund. I don't know that it's worse than any other institution? At least voters can remove the corrupt, and they are prosecuted. Are you saying these uber-wealthy and CEOs aren't just as corrupt or worse?
What I am saying is that I have a choice whether my money goes to a corporation or to a charity. I don't get to choose whether I pay taxes or not. More often than not, corruption in government does not result in the perpetrator being prosecuted or even removed from office. I am amazed at all the people who are so sure that corporations and/or wealthy investors are corrupt, but give big government a pass. As if the sa…
Where do you find these people? I've never met them. It seems like everyone complains about government waste and corruption - even when it's not happening!
His foundation really does seem to do a good job with 'effective altruism'. There's a reason they're marked as secondary beneficiaries on all my accounts. Also, as a recommendation, you guys should look into whether your employer matches charitable donations to 501Cs in any amount. I find giving a solid chunk of my discretionary budget to charity every year lends a sense of purpose to a job that wouldn't otherwise ha…
Can you provide some sources for this? I'm by no means an expert in this area, but my city happened to receive some of his modified A. Aegypti since 2017 and it didn't make the people here happy, at all. Though I don't even think there's a comprehensive study on how much good or harm came from it.
His foundation really does seem to do a good job with 'effective altruism'. There's a reason they're marked as secondary beneficiaries on all my accounts. Also, as a recommendation, you guys should look into whether your employer matches charitable donations to 501Cs in any amount. I find giving a solid chunk of my discretionary budget to charity every year lends a sense of purpose to a job that wouldn't otherwise ha…
For you (or other folks) working in tech and giving to charity, apart from corporate match, another couple pieces of advice are to consider a Donor Advised Fund. They are really easy to set up, and then you get some benefits, like the ability to "bunch" your donations (can help with tax deductions) or donate appreciated investments (like RSUs) without paying capital gains tax.
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> That much wealth could probably fund every food bank in the country indefinitely That seems like an incredibly stupid way to spend money that has been eradicating diseases and saving lives in countries where food insecurity isn’t a choice.
Food insecurity is a choice in the US? I suppose yes, if you mean it's the government's choice: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/food-banks-usda-cuts-im...
That’s what I mean. Like the housing shortage, food insecurity is trivially solved if voters cared about it. We don’t at almost every political level.
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That's a very narrow aspect of government, and one that I have hardly ever encountered. Law-abiding people don't do it because of government coercion but because they believe in being cooperative members of their community and don't want to hurt others. Another, much larger aspect of government, especially democratic, is people getting together and doing things as a community that can't be done individually.
"I have not encountered something" != "it does not exist." The logical conclusion to defying a government is people with guns showing up to put you in cuffs and take you to jail. Even over something as piddling as a littering fine or parking ticket . . . watch what eventually happens if you refuse to pay it. People getting together and doing things as a community does not require a government. We can and should do th…
That may be logical, but it doesn't happen. I've had unpaid parking tickets for long periods and nobody showed up at all, much less with guns. Where do you live that they jail you for it, much less go out and find you? Your local government must be very well-funded to have resources for that, not to mention having a fascist attitude - how popular is that with constituents?
> People getting together and doing things as a community does not require a government.
It depends - many times it is the most or only effective way. It has decision-making mechanisms - including elected representatives, hearings, experts - and executive mechanisms including employees, equipment, contract managers, processes, institutional information such as maps of infrastructure, and loads of experience. Imagine some neighbors in NYC trying to put in just a new streetlight.
> But labeling them as "people getting together and doing things as a community" ignores their ability to enforce their laws, including the sanctioned use of violence or the threat of violence to coerce people into obeying or to punish them.
It doesn't ignore it, but your prior comment repeats the Internet trope that that's what goverment is - a coercive mechanism with guns. That's only one narrow aspect - the great majority of what government does, and how society works, has nothing to do with that. It's for the outlaws, not for the great majority.
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"I have not encountered something" != "it does not exist." The logical conclusion to defying a government is people with guns showing up to put you in cuffs and take you to jail. Even over something as piddling as a littering fine or parking ticket . . . watch what eventually happens if you refuse to pay it. People getting together and doing things as a community does not require a government. We can and should do th…
> People getting together and doing things as a community does not require a government. That may be true, but government (at least a democratic one) is just people getting together and doing things, so if you already have one you can save the effort of the community trying to organize a second community on top of the community they already have for no good reason. > But labeling them as "people getting together and…
The government is the only one with a legal monopoly on violence; it redistributes resources in the society and it's not run by incorruptible angels but by fallible human beings - human beings who were put there thanks to investments of millions of dollars.
It's a recipe for disaster.
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Yeah, no. A government is not "a group of people engaging in topics they are passionate about." A government is an entity with authority to tell you what you have to do, and if you don't do it, eventually people with guns will show up at your door and take you to jail.
> A government is an entity with authority to tell you what you have to do If it is authoritarian, perhaps, but even that is still a matter of a group of people. Most seem to believe that government should be democratic. You may not find yourself in a democratic state, but that would only continue to contribute to what makes the day funny. Perhaps you didn't read the entire thread and are posting this without underst…
It's nothing to be proud of.
What you can be proud of is in REDUCING dictatorship, by removing power in centralised entities and giving it back to the individuals.