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Comment by luisdfp | Hacker News Reader

>"We asked ourselves why the world had to be like this and what we could do to help. Our search for answers altered the course of our lives and led us to start our foundation."

It's a shame but it seems to me like Bill came up with the wrong answer due to a bad diagnosis of the problem.

If you really want to help these people, your best bet would be to highlight how rampant corruption affects these countries and how their rulers should be held accountable for it.

Foreign aid, by itself, will never be enough to solve this problem as long as there are tyrannical and corrupt regimes.

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My understanding is that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation only works on projects that are very transparent in their costs and minimise the risk of corruption siphoning away the money. No system is perfect but when I worked in international aid they were always the stick other orgs measured themselves against.

I think the general opinion of Bill Gates would be very different if he'd used his billions to hire mercenaries and overthrow governments, even un-elected ones. (Then again, Ross Perot did something close to this to rescue a few staff in Tehran and was hailed a hero).

Realistically, the only thing that results in a "how their rulers should be held accountable for it" is a violent change of regime. There universally are large groups of local people who'd like their corrupt rulers to be accountable, so you theoretically could support that process by buying and delivering large quantities of weapons to the opposition of the regime so that they can (try to) overthrow it and bring justice to the ruling clique. Or, alternatively, orchestrate an external invasion either by neighboring countries or USA.

However, is this really what Bill Gates should be trying to implement in other countries?

I am impressed how respectfully you make this point. I would advocate strongly against imperialistic views to solve these problems.

I noticed how most of them are trying to save money ‘to better their lives’ or are taking out loans in their local currency. The inflation rate of these currencies is devastating. Perhaps instead of overthrowing a corrupt upper percentage of their country they could find ways to evade their purchasing power and capital accumulation being drained away...

So after reading this your first instinct was to comment how you know better than the world’s greatest philanthropist?

Is he greater than, say, the guy who founded DFS Group, who has now given away all his wealth in line with his plan to do so which he set in place decades ago?

Edit named wrong company initially

DFS as in the duty-free retailer? Given that they made their money from cheap booze & cigarettes, you'd figure they're starting from a pretty big karma deficit -- Windows may be responsible for a lot of things, but not lung cancer or cirrhosis of the liver.

Ummm, yeah? Bill Gates has also famously committed to giving away substantial parts of his wealth to charity, and has even gotten other billionaires to do the same.

Although, let's not actually compare greatness here, anyone voluntarily giving away their vast fortunes to charity deserves applause in my mind, and saying that one is greater than the other is kind of pointless.

Well I was responding to someone who implied that Bill Gates was the greatest. Chuck Feeney lives in a rented apartment drives a modest car and has essentially given away his entire $8 billion dollar wealth. It's hard to top that for generosity in my opinion.

But he gave it mostly to his own charity, as far as I know, so he still has some control over it. So it is not the same, I think.

Like, you are right, but I would phrase it differently - he not only donated most of his money to charity, but he also committed a big part of his time to making the world a better place via his charities. His time/attention on what should be done, coupled with his work in getting other billionaires on board, is quite a bit more valuable than just the money alone.

It's a chicken and egg problem though.

When people are uneducated and barely feeding themselves tyranny and corruption flourish.

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