Sounds quite laudable, but I always wonder about the unintended consequences of things like this. Saving millions of lives, particularly in poorer regions, seems like an unpredictable situation at best.
He's making the same point. This is why you will probably be down voted.
It is exactly like marciovm123 says, "This sort of spending tugs at the heart strings but unfortunately it can actually be quite counter-productive at improving the lives of people in undeveloped regions."
If a country is really that badly off, what difference does it make if we save people from one form of suffering only to have them be subjected to a different form. I agree with some of the above statements that the money would be better spent developing the infrastructure of 3rd world countries, rather than trying to solve a more isolated problem. Simply making vaccines cheaper is treating a symptom and not the problem itself.
It would matter to me if someone saved my life from sickness, even if I did die of starvation shortly afterwards.
>If a country is really that badly off, what difference does it make if we save people from one form of suffering only to have them be subjected to a different form
I don't understand. By that logic, action is only worthwhile if there is exactly one form of suffering. Surely that can't be right.
I'm not sure if the money would stretch this far, but what if instead of saving you, the money was spent developing the country in a way that would save 10x more people. Looking at this problem from a personal perspective gets in the way of doing the most good for the most number of people.
>I don't understand. By that logic, action is only worthwhile if there is exactly one form of suffering. Surely that can't be right.
Or action is worthwhile if it treats multiple forms, which I believe infrastructure development would do.
Perhaps I'm wrong and vaccination is the first step in the path to pull the countries out of poverty.
But as I said, I could be wrong. Either ways, props to Gates for trying to help out.
The essay Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor from 1974 is probably the essay available online that is more applicable to the current discussion.
I do not yet have a well-formed opinion on this one way or the other, I simply find Garrett Hardin's arguments to be thought-provoking. Saving millions of lives will mean that those millions of lives need to be sustained in some way. The resources to do this have to come from somewhere. By saving those millions of lives is that going to lower the quality of life of millions of others? It is a tough problem with, as Hardin mentions, "no technical solution".
Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor essay: http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_lifeboat_et...
Tragedy of the Commons essay: http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_tragedy_of_...
I am fully aware that if someone close to me was sick that I would do what I could to help them. It doesn't change the problem. I was replying to a question about unintended consequences. One of the potentially unintentional consequences of this is that it might make a lot more people suffer in the future overall.
It is a tough problem.
I can't believe I never read that before - thanks for link. Disagree with a good bit (I'm very pro-immigration/open borders to anyone who can support themselves) but the discussion on how programs like Food For Peace are lobbied hard and silently for by businesses who stand to profit was crazy. Wow, what an interesting summary. Can't believe I haven't seen that one before.
Who's to decide that person x is to live while person y is to die? Everyone deserves a chance to be the one that lives. Yes, sure, with the famine and the wars and the political problems in these regions it is an interesting thought that perhaps more people will lead to more problems, but it is so very cruel to say that maybe it's best that people die to disease and sickness rather than be given a chance to prove themselves.
It seems like there are a lot of other pieces to the puzzle that you need to figure out before you introduce a population swell, otherwise you could be creating a generational problem. Save a few million lives today and at the expense of future misery for rather more people.
On the other hand, it could work out great and alleviate a lot of the problems that are holding people back in the first place.
So the current situation is high birth rates with high death rates, which keeps population in a grim equilibrium while the rest of society's resources are spent trying to keep as many people alive as possible rather than engaged in productive development. Reducing the burden of disease is a necessary first step in freeing up these resources to be used in other ways, like girl's education, which will help to alleviate many of the problems of a "sudden" population boom that you mention.
mberning didn't say that. Just because dying of dysentery is bad, doesn't mean that throwing money at the problem in isolation is necessarily better.
It would seem to me that focusing on only one aspect of the hardships suffered by a people is like you said, going to give rise to many unintended consequences. Granted "improving infrastructure" isn't quite as sexy as "providing vaccines", it would probably make more sense to focus on a holistic approach than an isolated problem.
The video linked above talks about exactly this issue.