Bill Gates Has Regrets
wsj.com
wsj.com
The anti-vax crowd had painted Gates as the devil, and a non-insignificant number of people just don’t like him because he’s wealthy. In these ways, I don’t think there was anything more he really could have done. The reason that Covid has hit the United States so hard is because of a blatant culture of denial. As a country, we deny the news, we deny science. Had Gates tried to speak up more, it would have been met with denialism.
Not attacking, just starting a discussion. What if we frame this in the context of the Trolley Problem? Bill pulled the lever, and the trolley deviated from its mandated course, but now many lives have been saved as a result.
Does the end still not justify the means?
0: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/14/bill-gates-phi...
Many people don't know what the foundation means. I found out more recently when defending him against rumor mongers on a forum.
The personal insults I received was immense.
For one, I didn't know he's one of the largest backers of WHO (they said he's the second largest). Yet, the spun this good deed as negative. Claiming, he's manipulating WHO from under the shadows.
But for me, I now know who to thank for free HIV drugs in my country cos I know my government wouldn't give free drugs under any circumstance.
>About infant mortality
Bill gates attackers frequently mentioned a large number of vaccine caused deaths in India. I don't have a come back against this. But I know the deaths and deformations would be worse if there were no Polio vaccines for example.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-...
If Microsoft disappeared overnight, how many businesses (not tech businesses but real businesses, like warehouses etc. not running Macs) would need a functioning version of Windows or Win32 software to get by?? I think Microsoft has a larger effect on the world than Google by a very very large stretch.
Even in development, Microsoft's products are used far more widely. How many Google development tools are people using? I've got Android Studio but my daily dev work is Visual Studio on Windows and VS Code on Mac.
A similar perspective happened with David Rockefeller & his Rockefeller Foundation.
Once you have amassed a three-digit billion dollars amount, giving it away in such an expedited manner is really the best you can do. It's better than some Foundation set up for eternity amassing power over time. And it's also better than the default of creating a dynasty of trust-fund babies where too much economic power meets unpredictable ambitions.
That is laudable. I would like to understand the details of this dispersion. For example, even if a family does not receive the inheritance, a set of institutions, with a particular network & belief system, will. Centralization of power is not just a familial phenomenon, but also pertains to institutions, beliefs, etc. The Catholic Church as an institution is an example of centralization of power & influence that transcended a single family line well over one thousand years...
The Rockefeller Foundation continues to have worldwide influence well after David Rockefeller's death.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_&_Melinda_Gates_Foundatio... and https://www.gatesfoundation.org/who-we-are/general-informati...
First time I'm hearing of this. Anyways, haters are going to hate no matter what he does.
>Once you have amassed a three-digit billion dollars amount, giving it away in such an expedited manner is really the best you can do.
I'm not sure it's the best. I like what he's currently doing though, ensuring the money gets to where it's needed instead and use for what its intended purpose.
If giving it all quickly was his main goal, he'd have just given it all to WHO, Red cross and the thousands of NGOs around the world. But it's an open secret that less than half of the money gets to its destination. The rest are spent on administrative purposes, logistics, marketing, more fund raising...
You'll be happy to hear that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is not just any supporter of WHO, but their second largest.
That's second largest including all the world governments'. Their donation makes up around 10% of WHO's total financing, with only the United States contributing more (for now).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization#Pres...
But your larger point is definitely valid. It's a perennial debate if such individually organised altruistic endeavours aren't liable to waste their money due to incompetence/lack of coordination/self-aggrendization/etc.
Thanks. I knew about it thanks to the anti-Bill gates crowd who managed to spin the huge donation negatively. I.e. he's in control of WHO using it to pursue his 'evil' agendas. And to force mandatory vaccination.
But for me, the knowledge made me know who to thank for the free polio, yellow fever, HIV... vaccines in my country.
I also made it a point to point out how much he's spent on malaria in Africa. I suspect he's subsidizing malaria drugs as well but I don't have any source to back this up.
That's not something Bill Gates himself believes, mind you.
The person with 2000 times as much money as you did more than that.
The person with 200,000 times as much money as you did was never playing the same game at all.
The first is just a feeling without evidence in the hypothetical. If we're talking about a specific case of a specific rich person that did something wrong to get their riches, we can likely agree. But making a blanket statement like that is stereotyping for the sake of creating an "us-vs-them" scenario. It presumes facts not in evidence. It also doesn't address people who truly earned what they have.
The second assumes the economy is a zero-sum system, which betrays a lack of understanding of economics. It is completely reasonable to debate whether a rich person has a moral responsibility to share or help. But it is not reasonable to presume guilt solely because they have means and someone else doesn't.
Being anti-rich is fashionable. I don't think there are good reasons for the stance, though. Being pro-charity, and pro-giving, or in favor of redistribution is not the same as being anti-rich. One comes from philosophy and ethics, the other from the drum-beat of envy and anger.
It’s so frustrating to see and feeling like there isn’t much to be done about it.
I would say it is denial to not admit the fundamental problems with the media these days. So many organizations are desperate for clicks they are pushing whatever sensationalist items they can to the front page.
I mean early on the news was pushing reports that 2 million Americans would die. When it became clear that wasn’t the case how are people supposed to react? Trust them less or trust them more?
I would argue that the problem science faces is due to the poor state of journalism. If the media try and use ‘science says’ and do a poor or sensationalist job, it harms faith in science even it wasn’t any scientists fault.
The Corbett Report has some independent journalism re: Gates. Whether we agree with one perspective or another, we should understand the different perspectives & not paint with broad, sensationalist, brushstrokes. People often have good reasons for believing what they believe or being skeptical of others' beliefs...
I'm also fairly certain all such report noted the large uncertainty of such models, especially at the beginning when almost no data was available.
And I should point out that extrapolating current death rates in New York City (2%) to the entire US comes out to 600,000 deaths. If we further include that total excess deaths in NY are about twice the number of confirmed COVID deaths, and we're above 1,000,000 deaths.
I don't believe we will see such numbers: NY's density and International connections are probably contributing factors that just don't apply to Idaho. But as a worst-case scenario, those 2 million are not quite as ridiculous as you seem to think.
The media didn’t make up the 2 million Americans dying statistic, they merely reported it.
I saw many people calling this fear mongering, but what are they supposed to do just not share information coming from the government or institutions?
Absolutely but the point I am making is -how- the media chooses to communicate science facts or studies leads to people just thinking they were blatantly wrong.
Good scientists optimize for truth, the media optimizes for impact. Both are wrong from time to time but scientists are far more careful at how they quantify certainty (which is so often lost in translation when reported).
When did this become clear? The epidemic is still growing at superlinear speed AFAIK. Total cases are 4x since the last month.
What this does is allow space for conspiracy theorists and the far right to swoop in with their towers of lies, built on top of an acknowledgement of these truths, while liberals retreat into a kind of tribalist, irrational defense of him. Each side then reinforces the other, while both distancing themselves from the reality.
To accurately critique his work, one must first KNOW his work. Bill would have less troubles if he were Elon Musk or Donald Trump because those guys are natural marketers. They would trumpet every of their accomplishments for the world to hear.
Since Bill doesn't do that, it's created a market for rumor mongers. It's the same reason why celebrity gossip is a thing.
>nor account for his ties to the unsavory parts of the global elite
If 10 out of my 100 friends are 'unsavory' does that make me responsible for their actions?
Your “10 out of 100” question isn’t relevant because that not an accurate depiction of Gates and his foundation’s ties to Epstein.
If I had a dollar for every time I see that link to a TED talk where Bill Gates supposedly "advocates" for the "extermination" of 15% of the world's population via "vaccination"... The clip is always out of context, that's not what he's saying, and I suspect at least the person who created the clip did so maliciously, but still there's no reasoning with the people who fall for it. I want to bang my head against a wall every time a well-meaning person links to that clip.
They are very clever in the way they do this. One claim is that he owns 23 million dollars worth of shares in Monsanto an evil agrochemical company... A little googling showed the company was bought by Bayer in 2018.
They claim he already has a vaccine and released the virus to enrich himself. Absolutely ridiculous but quite tantalizing to people who want to hear such and neutral readers.
One other nonsense they are spreading is digital vaccination because he backed a research for an invisible ink that could be placed on the skin of vaccinated people.
To me, the advantage of such is clear since record keeping in the wild is poor and double vaccination could be bad. But to conspiracy theorists, it's "he's going to track people with satellites."
>non-insignificant number of people just don’t like him because he’s wealthy.
Very true and it has little to do with how he made his money. Just plain jealousy.
Capitalism and industrialization have made replaceable widgets of most workers. Many employers view their labor as expendable, reward incompetence, and exercise undue or (seemingly) arbitrary levels of control over how their employees live.
When the architects and winners of such dehumanizing systems, who wield power greater than that of many nations attempt to bypass traditional gates to power and directly influence public policy (especially policy concerning people's bodies) because they 'know' what's best, even with the purest of intentions, people have the right to be suspicious and concerned.
It also doesn't help that Gates seems to favor the diminishment of individual nations in favor of a stronger level of global governance. It's not popular with a lot of people, and on the fringes can even be taken as a form of soft treason.
In an odd way, even though I don't believe in the conspiracies, it was still an eye opener in the sense that it made me realize that I actually knew nothing about this person and that my positive perception of him was as poorly founded as these conspiracies. As well intentioned as he may be, the reality is that we cannot know who he really is and, therefore, it's simply not right to idolize him and in doing so give him as much voice and power as he has.
Climate change and crumbling infrastructure are other examples of this. It’s easy to just ignore it until later... until later is today. CEO focus on the next quarter over longer term impacts is another common issue with this “short term gain for long term pain” mindset.
Real leaders know how to take the flak today to tackle the hard problems of tomorrow. Sadly such leaders are rare.
A true global pandemic was never a question of if, just when. The world had several clear warning shots across the bow (SARS, Ebola, ...)
Maybe we need to give anyone seeking a leadership role the “marshmallow test” (look it up)
I think the crazy thing is that we are worse prepared than if the virus broke out 5 or 6 years ago. If you think of the millions of dollars the Gates Foundation spent on lobbying government to be more prepared, it actively had a negative return rate.
Not necessarily. Government officials can be quite petty. They love to take the glory for good things. And outsource blames.
If Bill gave out millions of masks, food, bought ventilators and stuff, the narrative would still be negative. Politicians would assume he's trying to run for office and act accordingly.
The anti-vaccine movement would take his preparations as PROOF that he created the virus.
And you think this because???
The administrations in charge of developing and preparing our testing response were hollowed out.
Trade wars made our supply chains for things like PPE and testing kits more vulnerable.
After 2005 almost every rich country was stocking on essential medical equipemnt (like masks), had backup supplylines for medical drugs and had procedure in the airport in case of a pandemic (in France notably airport checkups and quarantine + antivirals). Those procedures alone in France were enough to limit the 2009 flu strain to 300 death (although the following years mortality data analysis seems to indicate 2 thousand early deaths)
I'm not putting this on any administration, this is a global trend in western countries.
I think the problems are bigger, a mixture of incentive problems, and the political nonsense that comes from that as a result. Along with a newly digitally connected public that is largely uneducated, easily manipulated, and bad at critical thinking. Disinformation attacks are more effective than they used to be.
I don't think schooling is the issue. Both schooled and unschooled are falling for lies - especially when the reader is not knowledgeable in the topic.
>easily manipulated, and bad at critical thinking
I agree here and would add, once people have made up their mind on a topic, they tend to stick to that position and tune out counter evidence. And their initial position is due to luck or randomness of which position they first get exposed to.
I'd suspect uneducated makes it worse, but that might not even be true (maybe uneducated people are more willing to change their mind? maybe they're less effective at rationalizing bullshit?).
Maybe it's less about education and more about intelligence broadly defined or less about both and more about practicing 'rationality' specifically, but that ties into critical thinking.
I could see it being either way, or likely some combination of all of it.
Since you only seem to communicate via quotes there's no point in going further.
"""Instead of offering proactive and positive suggestions that will enable our immune systems to combat the disease"""
Yeah, right. You can train your immune system, this is a well known fact in every pseudo-scientific paper [0] /s
I'm not asking anyone to be an expert, but man this is 1rst year med school. I mean anybody who took biology lessons in college know about this. My sister just started a school to become dietitian (not even nutritionist) and learnt about this. How can people trust someone who write something so uninformed?
[0] https://www.hunterandbligh.com.au/life-and-style/8-ways-to-b...
But i'm fairly sure everybody that was not eating in restaurants every lunch ate better than usual (still too much sugar but...). And fitbit data in the US seems to shows that people are sleeping better during the lockdown[0]. This argument is based on bad logic, bad science, bad everything.
Honestly, i'm not sure if overall, lockdown is better or worst for the health of everyone. Im sure some people will have a lot of positive effects (me at least), some people might suffer more negatives effects, and for other it might balance out.
From the quick search i did with sleep quality and eating habits, it seems that overall health is better. However i have two addiction doctors in my family and anecdotal data seems to suggest that for other people, it was deadly (one of the two was involved in a Covid unit until last week and just started counting deaths).
[0] https://www.fastcompany.com/90499017/fitbit-data-shows-were-...
But I do think the point of the article isn't about the science but that Gates Foundation has a huge role to play in what the government needs to do and that there is a clear conflict of interest when they add Microsoft to be a partner in the digital identity plan.
Going to see a nutritionist rather than a dietician is like going to see a toothiologist rather than a dentist.
So it is rather an insult to your sister to say that she is "not even a nutritionist".
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/02/14/fast-facts-...
Unless you want to create a BBC-esque public broadcasting and news-gathering operation. In which case, you'll still be paying, just via taxes.
(Also, right now the WSJ has a $1 for 2 months option. Which is probably a pain to cancel, but still.)
It's called the Wall Street Journal, correct?
Didn't Wall Street just get... y'know, a few trillion un-traced doll-hairs? Perhaps... they could fund the journalism.
In all seriousness: In a civil society, what the U.S. claims to be (IIRC, somebody correct me if I'm mistaken) - Journalism should be funded by institutions. Perhaps - funded by the government, at a loss - for the sake of informing the populace. I think, in a functional civil society, that's atleast somewhat close to how things should work. I believe it may not go hand in hand with human nature though...
Thanks to all who helped for my first question though.
state run media... i think that's been tried before. maybe a couple of times.
But its much easier to control narrative if there are only few outlets. And now in post-truth world average Joe doesn't read anything but facebook, or some rage broadcast.
Read Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, to see why the funding has stopped.
I feel this is important to note in current day and age where the world is so polarized and blame-gaming is the name of the hour.