It's not how long it took that person to demonstrate this. It's that Gates kinda hasn't really done it.
He's far from terrible but he gets pretty low scores on most of those attributes. He's not going to be listened to if he didn't bring the money. His experience in making microsoft a juggernaut in the 80s and 90s is not super-relevant here but that's why he's being held up as an "authority." That position of authority is one he seems very happy to hold and use as a pulpit.
Is it deserved at all? Maybe it is. He did bring the money to a lot of programs and I believe he is even bankrolling the WHO nowadays (worthwhile after their multiple screwups that continue? I don't know. Maybe it is and a vital service he's performed there). Gates an expert? Hmm. Don't think he's really demonstrated that conclusively. He'd use his position to get advice from one or more, one would think.
To be clear. More power to him giving his vast wealth away to try and make the world better in tangible ways. You can't possibly spend more than $100m in your life on consumption even if you're totally nuts. Go for immortality. Do it in a way that's kinda good. Go Bill! I pray your good intentions don't pave a road you don't want built as I do everyone's good intentions, including my own.
Look at his prepandemic warnings of a pandemic and how it would play out. And real money and action in trying to prevent it. That's why he is being held up as an authority.
And in his current field of "global health" he hopefully has as good of a grasp of the issues, the proposed solutions, and since he's a smart man he's hopefully able to separate the bullshit from the effective solutions.
You’d presume he’s learned a fair amount about it over the years. But I’ve learned a fair amount about accountancy through my years of working with corporate accountants. I’m definitely not an accountancy expert though.
What qualifications do you imagine he has? What significant work do you believe he has personally contributed to?
As far as I can tell, the person who actually leads the Gates Foundation health division is Trevor Mundel. Even then, the work of the Gates Foundation has been in funding projects lead by other organisations, rather than in implementing those projects themselves.
If they do it very well and can point to measurable results of success, I would think so!
His work in eradicating Polio. Choosing which projects to finance is a skill in itself, something he's likely more capable of than a traditionally credentialed expert. I can't help but think that you have an arbitrarily narrow definition of expertise.
There is no basis at all for claiming he’s a public health expert. He might be an effective philanthropist, but that’s a completely different topic.
The difference between a trained lawyer or accountant and someone with a lot of exposure to such knowledge is very specific skills and procedures. The difference between someone who is a trained manager with a degree and someone who's managed a medium sized organization is more or less nothing just an ability to use jargon.
I've actually looked online courses and documentation on epidemiology and public health. Unlike medicine (which I know nothing of) or advance mathematics (which I know and I know it take specialized skills), epidemiology seems to be a "smattering" sort of fields. A mix of public policy, simple medicine, biology and experimental methods and statistics. I could be wrong but it seems a field that's wide, not deep.
Why get information thirdhand from the money guy?
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge...
Okay let me try to show my side of “0%“ is wrong”
“author, coauthor, or editor of more than 1,300 scientific publications, including several textbooks.“
“Dr. Fauci ranked 7th out of more than 1.8 million authors in the field of immunology by total citation count between 1980 and January 2020.”
Note this isn’t just 2020. It’s a long history.
“Dr. Fauci was appointed director of NIAID in 1984.” And has served under 6 presidents. Most of which had more than 1 term.
If you are looking for a long list of awards and honorary doctorates head over to his Wikipedia page.
To the replies I got - I don’t consider 30’s middle aged. I guess I was thinking if you were around with AIDS news in the 80’s you might remember him. Oxford dictionary considers middled aged 45-65 - google trending searches isn’t how I would evaluate the history of someone over decades of time.
For fun I did fin a bunch of videos of times he was on TV via YouTube. So again my point is that 0% is far from right.
It is you who have to go on the defensive, especially if it gets spread far and wide, regardless if it is true or not. But the lie is out there and your truth has to catch up.
1. About his work at Microsoft
2. Or some conspiracy theory about world domination, population control etc
I'd be interested to read more on how societies he's directly worked with think of him, if you have any links
It'd be like saying it's a conflict of interest to promote access to clean water, while also investing in companies that supply clean water. Sure. It's a conflict. It's also exactly what you would do if you just wanted people to have clean water.
He had this huge presentation about a laser zapping mosquitoes. The patent was fed to a patent troll, the whole board was stacked with his friends, the company produced nothing and was set up to sue anyone who did try and produce anything. 10 years later they still haven't produced more than the one prototype. The 'charitable' donations were literally just tax write offs that paid for his friends salary.
Since then I really don't take him seriously at all. His charities are just a way to reduce his tax bill and look like he cares, while he's just paying his friends to work on projects they find interesting regardless of the chance of success.
In short: hubris, corruption, white collar rico and tax evasion.
If I were in his shoes I'd focus more on issues like education, improving basic utilities in urban areas, fighting corruption and enabling economies to expand.
3 : he wants to use his money for philanthropic cause. I can't overstate how great it is. The way he uses his money though, has been pretty controversial. From pushing a pro patent agenda in countries that are too poor to afford medicine made under that system to accusations of straight up using his money so his ideas are applied, even when they go against actual experts with data (and actual expertise) to back their positions.
For the lazy, there was a recent video on the topic : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-fqcFaZKHQ
Because each and every person who promotes public health and (particularly) vaccination, eventually has so much baseless shit thrown at them that they become 'tarnished' before long.
Or should we try to make some sort of stand, and let the wingnuts know their opinions don't matter?
We see the effects of this sort of compromise in the vaccine space - perfectly safe additives were removed in an effort to assuage fears, but that action was twisted into a victory by antivax campaigners - "see, we were right, it was harmful, they lied, we forced them to remove it".
(Gates is tarnished in my eyes for computer industry reasons, but I have no issue with his record in public health)