Bill Gates' Philanthropic Impact Put in Perspective • Hacker News Board

Re: Bill Gates' Philanthropic Impact Put in Perspective

#61

Post by ZeroGravitas » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 7:26 AM UTC

muntac wrote: post #20

The size of the Gates Foundation is only impressive if you believe public policy should be disproportionately influenced by the whims of a few rich individuals. Philanthropists may not be motivated by profit like lobbyists, but that doesn't mean they understand the needs of the people any better. For issues related to relatively concrete sciences like medicine this matters less. But in areas such as education for exa…

It would appear that taxing people and then using the money for ill-thought out, centrally planned, self-aggrandizing projects is fine as long as it's rich people or corporations, not democratically elected governments doing it.

Re: Bill Gates' Philanthropic Impact Put in Perspective

#62

Post by agumonkey » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 7:39 AM UTC

amelius wrote: post #6

dharmon wrote: post #5

If you put aside the "M$ was evil and he is just atoning" arguments, Gates is a huge inspiration, at least for me. This guy finds problems that he's passionate about and attacks them with such ferocity that it is truly awe inspiring. I'm mildly embarrassed to admit it, but he was my childhood hero through the 90's. Even later when everyone thought Jobs was the bee's knees, I wanted to be as effective as Gates.

Also worth mentioning is that, over the years, Microsoft has published an impressive amount of research, whereas (e.g.) Apple has always been disappointingly closed.

With the ironic effect that I and a friend were often disappointed by the lack of innovation in MS products (that changed a bit recently).

Re: Bill Gates' Philanthropic Impact Put in Perspective

#63

Post by agumonkey » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 7:41 AM UTC

chongli wrote: post #43

atdt wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This qualifies as goodness in my books. No one is free of egoism and selfishness. People are good if they subordinate their egoism and selfishness to a higher principle of care for others, and seek satisfaction of their baser impulses through actions that are socially constructive and beneficial.

It's hard to guess what motivated the grandparent's comment but if I had to guess, it has something to do with the cultural aversion to public philanthropy which traces back to Matthew 6:3 But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: As an atheist who was raised Catholic, many of the teachings of Jesus still make sense to me from a moral standpoint. This one does not. Keeping your c…

You have a point, but I'd say it's only try to say to avoid doing it for your own benefit.

Re: Bill Gates' Philanthropic Impact Put in Perspective

#64

Post by agumonkey » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 7:47 AM UTC

ploxiln wrote: post #40

WalterBright wrote: post #11

Bill Gates was a tough competitor, to be sure, and you had to bring your A game when dealing with Microsoft. But the complaints that he was 'evil', when you drill down to see what the actual complaint is, just seem to fade away. Most of it seems to be simply envy. See "In Search of Stupidity" by Chapman. P.S. I was in the industry throughout that era, and competed directly against Microsoft in programming languages.

Sure, it was just smart business plays in the tech industry, not really "evil" like physically harming people or stealing stuff from them. But as an engineer (well, at that time, a tinkerer in high school), it was very frustrating how they had their own flawed formats and protocols. They made it as difficult as possible to interoperate in order to entrench their dominant position. I guess it's what all the biggest te…

> They made it as difficult as possible to interoperate in order to entrench their dominant position.

That reminds me of governments too. Administration is .. well, known synonym for latency, resistance etc etc, yet when it's in the interest of the government/state (finding bad taxpayers) all of a sudden everything is lean, fast, beautifully smart.[1]

It's a survival effect crossing through the layers.

[1] A friend told me how he received a letter explaining the state found his job and relationship status through cross relating pieces of data between two families that indicates the 'couple' shouldn't benefit some 'student loans' anymore.

Re: Bill Gates' Philanthropic Impact Put in Perspective

#65

Post by simula67 » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 7:47 AM UTC

chongli wrote: post #43

atdt wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This qualifies as goodness in my books. No one is free of egoism and selfishness. People are good if they subordinate their egoism and selfishness to a higher principle of care for others, and seek satisfaction of their baser impulses through actions that are socially constructive and beneficial.

It's hard to guess what motivated the grandparent's comment but if I had to guess, it has something to do with the cultural aversion to public philanthropy which traces back to Matthew 6:3 But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: As an atheist who was raised Catholic, many of the teachings of Jesus still make sense to me from a moral standpoint. This one does not. Keeping your c…

Here is the preceding verse, Mathew 6:2

"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full."

I think what Jesus meant was that letting others know was not the problem, but giving alms for the sake of being honored by others. These good deeds were not done out of mercy for fellow human beings, but to improve their stature in society.

Re: Bill Gates' Philanthropic Impact Put in Perspective

#66

Post by lazaroclapp » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 7:54 AM UTC

I was surprised to not find a comparison between those private charitable contributions and the money spent by nations all over the world on similar programs. Unless I am missing something, it would look to me like the Giving Pledge, all together, spent more money on the fight against AIDS in the last 10 years than the U.S. government did [0]. If that is true, then there are still the questions left of who spent money more efficiently, whether and which other uses of taxes are more important than the fight against AIDS, as well as the general philosophical question of whether we should allow a few individuals to control how a huge proportion of the resources of the world are used, and under which circumstances. But beyond all those delta-from-the-ideal-world questions, it is indeed a pretty huge amount of good likely being done there.

[0] http://kff.org/global-health-policy/fact-sheet/u-s-federal-f...

Re: Bill Gates' Philanthropic Impact Put in Perspective

#67

Post by TheLogothete » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 8:01 AM UTC

eru wrote: post #57

TheLogothete wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Donating money if you are not (filthy) rich is foolish. Those money would be MUCH better spent on you. If you want to help, do it with personal efforts.

What makes you think so?

Because your money would not be spent efficiently.

Re: Bill Gates' Philanthropic Impact Put in Perspective

#68

Post by FeepingCreature » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 8:10 AM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #63

chongli wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to guess what motivated the grandparent's comment but if I had to guess, it has something to do with the cultural aversion to public philanthropy which traces back to Matthew 6:3 But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: As an atheist who was raised Catholic, many of the teachings of Jesus still make sense to me from a moral standpoint. This one does not. Keeping your c…

You have a point, but I'd say it's only try to say to avoid doing it for your own benefit.

Wow. It's not often you find a situation where straight-up capitalism is morally superior to Jesus. You do charity for recognition and your own ego? Awesome. Rock on, dude.

The important thing is that the charity gets done.

Re: Bill Gates' Philanthropic Impact Put in Perspective

#69

Post by fauigerzigerk » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 8:21 AM UTC

muntac wrote: post #20

The size of the Gates Foundation is only impressive if you believe public policy should be disproportionately influenced by the whims of a few rich individuals. Philanthropists may not be motivated by profit like lobbyists, but that doesn't mean they understand the needs of the people any better. For issues related to relatively concrete sciences like medicine this matters less. But in areas such as education for exa…

But there is no global public policy funded by global taxation and based on global democracy.

On a national level, I would agree with you that outsized influence of charity vs public policy is a bad sign, even if the results may not be so bad at some point in time.

But on a global level, things are very different. Those who distribute public development funds cannot be voted out of office by those who receive or don't receive those funds. So charity is all we have. Even public development spending is basically charity as it's not based on rights or on democratic participation.

Re: Bill Gates' Philanthropic Impact Put in Perspective

#70

Post by paganel » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 8:22 AM UTC

mrep wrote: post #34

visarga wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, he is giving back the money he took, and then more. That also buys him a lot of forgiveness.

What money did he "take"?

At least $200 million or so from my Government, the result of straight-up corruption. From here http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/20/technology/us-said-to-look...:

> The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission have both opened preliminary investigations into bribery accusations involving Microsoft in China, Italy and Romania, according to the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the inquiry is a confidential legal matter.

The article is 3-year old and of course nothing came out of it, but based on the very happy coincidence that our Government signed a big contract with MS just days after Ballmer had paid a quick visit to our God-forsaken country back in 2004 and that the PM at the time was a corrupt guy (who later on went to prison for other stuff) I'm 100% sure that MS (and Gates) actually took that money out of our pockets.