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Comment by algorias | Hacker News Reader

Getting rid of Malaria is obviously a higher priority than internet access from the perspective of any one person living in the third world today. I have much respect for Bill Gates for the work he's doing in that area.

However, there is a kind of shortsightedness in his attitude: The thing is, societies evolve because of technology and opportunities. So while it is preferable for each individual to have no internet and no malaria, society as a whole might progress more by taking care of the fundamental causes of poverty (lack of education and opportunity, government corruption, etc) rather than fighting the symptoms.

Even if it turns out that Gates is right and I'm wrong, dismissing the relevance of the internet as flippantly as he has done is intellectually dishonest to a certain extent.

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You can't educate school children if the teachers are dying of malaria, or the people who feed he teachers or the children are dying of HIV/AIDs.

You're right, it's a complex bundle of interacting problems and there's plenty of space for them all to be tackled at the same time.

Knowing that Gates is pouring cash and expertise into malaria is re-assuring enough that it gives other people the opportunity to do other stuff.

> it's a complex bundle of interacting problems and there's plenty of space for them all to be tackled at the same time

This is probably the most realistic and sensible response that I've ever seen in any priority opinion flamewar

He's not dismissing it. He is saying we have got our priorities wrong.

You are being intellectually dishonest by adopting an artificially contrarian position and trying to pretend he was saying we had to choose one or the other just, it seems, for the sake of having a contrarian position.

You are wrong, but despite having an idiotic opinion you're not an idiot, tempting as it is to think that. You are just someone who thinks that just because they can form a banal opinion that means the opinion has any worth. It doesn't.

> “As a priority? It’s a joke.”

Those words from Gates irk me somewhat. He seems to have the attitude that he's so obviously right we shouldn't even be having the discussion. That is something I very strongly disagree with.

I'm not adopting a contrarian position for the sake of it. I'm adopting the position that we need to open our minds and think deeply about problems without letting emotions cloud our judgment of what is important. I conceded from the start that I could be wrong, Gates has obviously spent a great deal more mental energy thinking about this problem than I ever will. Still, it's a discussion worth having, and the answer, whatever it turns out to be, is not obvious.

He actually said "priorities" and "to a certain extent" so he is not all that contrarian nor intellectually dishonest; plus you are the one using offensive wording in your comment.

Well if that's your thinking maybe you ought to start advocating/doing something about hookworm: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hookworm "In susceptible children hookworms cause intellectual, cognitive and growth retardation,"

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