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The argument given here that they should prioritize "obesity, cancer and heart disease" more is ridiculous. Those are a lot harder to deal with than diseases th

by pjscott 11y ago

The argument given here that they should prioritize "obesity, cancer and heart disease" more is ridiculous. Those are a lot harder to deal with than diseases that you can just vaccinate against, like measles or polio -- so, given a finite number of philanthropic dollars, anyone halfway reasonable is going to prioritize the stuff that gives more bang for the buck.

rjtobin 11y ago
And this argument really stands at odds with the claim that the Gates Foundation has "done more harm than good". Curing the "wrong" diseases is hardly doing harm.
lumberjack 11y ago
The argument is rather that a layman should not be in charge of redirecting talent from one research effort to another, because they are a layman. It's a "utopian should" though. Billionaires can boss people around. Not much to do about it.
- username223 11y ago
  > Billionaires can boss people around. Not much to do about it. Work toward a system that creates fewer billionaires, maybe?
  - adventured 11y ago
    Ideally we would have drastically more billionaires, so long as they're produced out of economic expansion. The rise of the plentiful billionaire has coincided with lower global inequality, radically lower infant mortality, less war, far greater standards of living globally, increasingly plentiful food and scarcity of famines, increased life expectancy, higher real median incomes, etc. Humanity has never had it better, not even remotely close in fact.
    - username223 11y ago
      Ideally we'd have drastically more $100k-ionaires, i.e. people who don't have to worry about basic needs, but who aren't rich enough to manipulate laws and their fellow humans to their own advantage. Unfortunately, things haven't been headed that way for the past few decades.
ghufran_syed 11y ago
Not only are "obesity, cancer and heart disease" harder problems, they are diseases of wealth: if many in your country die of infectious disease, they are not alive long enough to get cancer or heart disease. The author is essentially suggesting that the gates should spend more money on rich people's health rather than that of the poor. Quite astonishing.

by pjscott 11y ago

rjtobin 11y ago

And this argument really stands at odds with the claim that the Gates Foundation has "done more harm than good". Curing the "wrong" diseases is hardly doing harm.

lumberjack 11y ago

The argument is rather that a layman should not be in charge of redirecting talent from one research effort to another, because they are a layman. It's a "utopian should" though. Billionaires can boss people around. Not much to do about it.

username223 11y ago
> Billionaires can boss people around. Not much to do about it. Work toward a system that creates fewer billionaires, maybe?
- adventured 11y ago
  Ideally we would have drastically more billionaires, so long as they're produced out of economic expansion. The rise of the plentiful billionaire has coincided with lower global inequality, radically lower infant mortality, less war, far greater standards of living globally, increasingly plentiful food and scarcity of famines, increased life expectancy, higher real median incomes, etc. Humanity has never had it better, not even remotely close in fact.
  - username223 11y ago
    Ideally we'd have drastically more $100k-ionaires, i.e. people who don't have to worry about basic needs, but who aren't rich enough to manipulate laws and their fellow humans to their own advantage. Unfortunately, things haven't been headed that way for the past few decades.

ghufran_syed 11y ago

Not only are "obesity, cancer and heart disease" harder problems, they are diseases of wealth: if many in your country die of infectious disease, they are not alive long enough to get cancer or heart disease. The author is essentially suggesting that the gates should spend more money on rich people's health rather than that of the poor. Quite astonishing.