Bill Gates: Rich nations should shift to synthetic beef

In one respect, it's all relative. My guilty pleasure would be having bonfires or driving unnecessarily. Relative to my influence and impact on the world, these are fossil-fuel heavy activities. Bill Gates, on the other hand, might use that jet to attend conferences which lead to further clean tech transition. It may be a guilty pleasure or indulgence, but he might "atone" slightly by changing society on a massive scale.

That said, it's not necessary to have a private jet or Porsche. Those are temporary pleasures that a true Stoic, someone truly in control of their urges and desires, does not need. Do we require our most influential and innovative thinkers and actors to also be the most Stoic individuals?

Look at the US founding fathers, they created a nation of liberty and small farmers, and yet loved expensive french wine and the pecuniary benefits of owning slaves and indentured servants. They also held back women of their own caste and race, for no good reason except sexism. And yet, these founding fathers perpetuated a nation that aided democracy in many ways, and that became an instructive example and lesson in democracy for future nations.

All this to say, most famous people have mixed legacies and mixed personal lives.

It would certainly help if Gates was not constantly lecturing people about stuff he has no particular authority over, like our health or what we should eat.

I won’t be the one preventing him from eating bugs or having tracing chips under his skin, if that’s what he’s into.

Meh, you don't have to go into crazy theories to find weird things about Gates and his foundation

I'm cautious about Gates, his foundation and anything he has to say about health in general since the Haiti cholera situation. It's hard to tell exactly what happened but it sounds extremely shady, it basically goes like this:

- Cholera was eradicated from Haiti, no cases for 2 years, after 3 years Haiti would have been officially declared as cholera free. (apparently the cause of cholera there wasn't environmental but caused by sanitation issues that were solved in the meantime https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/05/leaked-un-repo...)

- 1 year before the official eradication deadline, 4 teams, including 3 indirectly financed by the Gates foundation, came to the conclusion that a large scale vaccination was the only way to get rid of the cholera in Haiti

- They somehow fail to mention that there hasn't been a single case of cholera in 2 years, they also fail to mention their link to the Gates foundation and other entities involved in the vaccine production

- Large scale vaccination happens

- Gates claim victory over Cholera even though no cases were reported before the vaccination started

It would appear that his philanthropist actions are at least partly motivated by some kind of fame or other personal interests to the point of mandating vaccination campaigns on healthy population who already eradicated both the virus and its cause.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-1...