"As someone who has built your life on science and logic, I'm curious what you think when you see so many people signing onto this anti-science view of the world.
Well, strangely, I'm involved in almost everything that anti-science is fighting. I'm involved with climate change, GMOs, and vaccines. The IRONY [emphasis added] is that it's DIGITAL [emphasis added] social media that allows this kind of titillating, oversimplistic explanation of, "OK, there's just an evil person, and that explains all of this."
Well, you're friends with Mark Zuckerberg. Have you talked to him about this?
After I said this publicly, he sent me mail. I like Mark, I think he's got very good values, but he and I do disagree on the trade-offs involved there. The lies are so titillating you have to be able to see them and at least slow them down."
Gates has a reason to be against the spreading of information on social media because recently he became a target of conspiracy theories spread on social media.
If encryption is an imediment to stoping people from spreading theories about him, then he obviously has a reason to be against encryption when used to spread these theories.
Maybe what is more interesting is when he uses the word irony right before he states he is against encryption.
What does he mean?
What is ironic about the fact that it is "digital social media" that allows "oversimplistic explanation[s]"?
HN readers can probably make better guesses than me. Disgreement with the guesses I make is expected.
For example, perhaps it is ironic because:
He has been such a strong proponent of using computers for anything and everything.
Gates was initially a skeptic of the internet, but later believed Microsoft's "internet strategy" was of primary importance. This led to projects like Internet Explorer and MSN. The company is now preparing to spend billions to acquire a social media company.
In amassing the fortune that allows him to pursue these philanthropic causes he and his company presented countless titillating, oversimplistic explanations of the value of using computers for seemingly anything. He wanted us to believe that the computer (running Windows of course) was the great enabler.
I have no idea what he meant and I am grasping at straws.