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Bill and Melinda Gates 2016 Annual Letter

255 points by comatose_kid 11y ago

suyash 11y ago
Great letter, totally agree with the 'Clean Energy Crisis'. I'm glad Bill Gates stepped into the cause as it will get more lime light now. As an aside, I wish there was a way to turn off/on those side note in his blog, it was bit of distraction - that is why I prefer Safari's reading mode.
- melling 11y ago
  Hear, hear! I agree with my esteemed colleague on HN. Clean energy is important. After 60 years of warnings, let's be happy that Bill Gates has stepped up. http://youtu.be/m-AXBbuDxRY http://youtu.be/m-AXBbuDxRY Now back to that Reader mode thing. Firefox and IE have them too. Can anyone guess why clean energy hasn't been solved? Look at the chart in the 1950's and 1960s. We were barely doing any damage compared to today.
  - petra 11y ago
    Why it hasn't been solved ? Little political will arriving just recently(mostly due to economics i think). Further more many of the energy technologies have slow improvement trends, we didn't work until recently on nuclear innovations due to political and economic reasons, and even with that replacing everything that emits co2 is a huge project.
Reza7865 11y ago
"Poverty is not just about a lack of money. It’s about the absence of the resources the poor need to realize their potential."
- dominotw 11y ago
  Paul Graham would disagree with you on that definition of Poverty. In his world poor people can wake up one fine day and start a business. Aaron : What drove the decision to go start a business? Paul : Poverty. Aaron : Poverty. Paul : I was tired of being poor. I was working as a freelance programmer, and it was this sort of boom/bust thing where I would get money and then I would run out of money, and then it would be a disaster, and I just got tired of it. And then I thought, “I’m just going to work until I won’t run out of money.”
  - latj 11y ago
    Thats not what I think of when I think of poverty. Paul got tired of being broke. When you're tired of being broke, but you're educated, young, healthy, and/or from a privileged class-- you go to school, open a business, hustle, whatever. People living in poverty live the lives they do for various reasons-- born into poverty, low education, mental illness, substance abuse, poor health, elderly, single mothers raising children, or some political or historical context (e.g. slavery, discrimination, unequal access to education/healthcare, language/cultural barriers, recent migration). Poverty (in my mind) means you are stuck on an island where every nation around has guns pointed at you so you cant leave and there are only dirty cookies to eat.
    - dominotw 11y ago
      Its scary how a gatekeeper like PG doesn't even have the basic understanding of poverty.
      - prawn 11y ago
        He used "poverty" instead of "broke". What's the drama?
        jacalata 11y ago
        One is a systemic condition that requires changes from society, the other is a temporary condition caused mostly by factors under your control. Confusing the two encourages ineffective 'solutions' for poverty to be created like 'we just have to make it embarrassing/uncomfortable/illegal to be in that condition'. These rely on motivating the poor person to fix themselves, instead of attempting to fix the surroundings that are the actual cause and address the symptoms that the poor person is unable to fix on their own, and then dismissing the ones that don't bootstrap themselves out as lazy and undeserving.
    - ktRolster 11y ago
      > Poverty (in my mind) means you are stuck on an island where every nation around has guns pointed at you so you cant leave and there are only dirty cookies to eat. I think your mind is the only one that has that definition.
- Shivetya 11y ago
  Sounds nice but poverty persist when governments do not respect private property rights. For many of these countries a strong and partial judicial system will be needed.
dmix 11y ago
This seems like a great opportunity for African countries to build on their energy infrastructure which would both generate revenue for governments and provide a stable industrial environment for development. It sounds like a critical missing component in Africa's economy. Although this would also depend on the public's ability to pay for monthly/yearly energy fees which might depend on subsidies. I've read a few articles mentioning how Africa has been inspired by China in recent years who focused on infrastructure as a base for domestic growth instead of just exports or raw materials. I can't imagine the struggle it must be to survive without access to energy and clean water. Our household recently had our pipes burst from freezing and were nearly at a breaking point after three days without water. Worse yet is the occasional black out. So I'm very sympathetic to this cause. Bill and Melinda are doing some great work. Sidenote: > Changes in weather often mean that their crops won’t grow because of too little rain or too much rain. That sinks them deeper into poverty. That’s particularly unfair because they’re the least responsible for emitting CO2, which is causing the problem in the first place. Is this really true? I thought farms were responsible for the most generation of CO2 and pollutants? At least in North America livestock accounts for something like 50% of the pollution (aka "cow farts"), even more so than oil/coal. The worlds obsession with meat is actually more harmful to the environment than cars/gasoline... but this is never popularly advertised thanks to efforts of the livestock industry and willful blindness by government agencies.
- saint_fiasco 11y ago
  >I thought farms were responsible for the most generation of CO2 and pollutants? That's true for intensive farming with machines and powerful fertilizers and so on. Many people in Africa practice subsistence agriculture which is much less efficient.
- vezycash 11y ago
  In Nigeria and Ghana, important projects are left undone by the ruling parties because they are long term projects. Because, the opposing party would be the ones to reap the rewards, and praise from the populace. They'd instead focus on building new roads instead of maintaining existing ones, building new schools instead of improving existing ones, starting new high sounding schemes instead of continuing projects the previous regime begun. And btw plants convert CO2 to O2.
davesque 11y ago
It's nice knowing that a powerhouse like the Gates foundation is working on clean energy. In my view, that's the most important problem that society is facing right now.
edw519 11y ago
Poverty is not just about a lack of money. Someone who was gifted $1 million on the day he was born preaching about poverty is like someone who has never written a line of code running an I.T. department.
- burkaman 11y ago
  Yeah, or like a doctor who has never had cancer running an oncology department. You know the old saying: "write what you know, and absolutely nothing else because empathy does not exist".
AndyKelley 11y ago
What about nuclear power? Isn't that pretty much the cleanest, most efficient power source we know of today?
- thesimon 11y ago
  With just a few "minor" issues with safety and waste.
  - ghouse 11y ago
    And high cost (relatively speaking to wind in windy areas, sun in sunny areas, and natural gas in North America)
  - zajd 11y ago
    How is being the safest way to generate power an issue, wouldn't that be a benefit?
    - dredmorbius 11y ago
      False premisis: it's not the safest method (see SSREN, the IPCC's study of carbon-neutral energy generation). It is safer than fossil fuel generation, but not solar and wind, nor, in Europe and America, hydro (India and especially China have had some spectacular hydro failures). More specifically, when nuclear works well, it works very, very well. When it fails, however, it fails especially spectacularly.
      - zajd 11y ago
        Actually, it is http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/#587be0a549d2 http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-de...
        dredmorbius 11y ago
        That's not accessible. As I said: IPCC's SRREN gives mortality/GWh statistics, and nuclear is not the safest, by that measure. Data included Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, but not Fukushima. Actually, I've previously discussed both here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/267e5e/what_are_your_arguments_concerning_nuclear_power/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/267e5e/what_are... NB: Conca is a rather partisan pro-nuclear advocate. I've found his credibility wanting and bias quite evident in past. The IPCC's report: http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report/ http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report/ Risks are in one of the appendixes (I'm not on a device which makes sorting this out trivial at the moment).
ZeroGravitas 11y ago
Bill's focus on new tech still seems odd to me. Maybe he's thought about it, and as a famous geek thinks that the number one thing he can do is champion tech innovation. But he specifically talks about increasing energy efficiency. An obvious opening to talk about carbon taxes that bake efficiency decisions into everything we buy (and provides a ready made market for new, low-carbon tech). Or he talks about coal, again a great opening to talk about removing subsidies from that industry and getting the workers retrained in something else. And he seems dismissive of solar, like those will only help African farmers when the sun is shining and so are barely worth even thinking about. In general he seems too focussed on getting carbon to 0, and not enough focussed on the low hanging fruit which, if solved with todays existing tech and policy instruments, would extend the runway we have to find breakthrough tech before our world descends into anarchy and global warfare. Just swapping natural gas for coal gives us much ability to burn fossil fuels, since it halves the carbon per energy output. Might not be as cool as a fusion reactor, but every carbon molecule counts.
- tempestn 11y ago
  I think the point is that those sorts of smaller innovations can be a trap. As he says at the start, even reducing CO2 emissions by 50% isn't enough. By focusing on low hanging fruit, we might feel like we're making a difference, and lose the urgency to search for more innovative solutions. I'm sure Bill supports anything that can reduce CO2 emissions, but I expect his feeling is that we don't need more encouragement to look for little efficiencies; rather we need to find a big solution. Or maybe we need encouragement on both fronts, but he didn't want to dilute the main point of this particular essay by focusing on existing tech. (That said, he does talk also about improved energy storage and power lines and such, things that would build on existing clean energy sources.)
- scholia 11y ago
  Gates doesn't govern any countries and he's not in charge of any global policies. Also, he is not superman and he doesn't have infinite resources. He's just trying to find niches where a rich geek can make a difference. Child vaccination was a good example. Significantly, he's trying to do practical things to improve the lives of poor people in the third world, as opposed to founding libraries or building more William Gates computer buildings at elite universities. It's fair to judge what he does against what he could do, but it's unreasonable to judge him for what he can't do.
hanniabu 11y ago
While I commend this, there's still also a clean water/pollution crisis that plagues the world. And in this sense, I don't mean air pollution, but as in trash - tons and tons of trash. While the US has its fair share of pollution and clean water issues, other countries like the Philippines, Brazil, and African countries allow mass amounts of garbage and pollutants into the waterways and ocean. Huge amounts of toxic waste are being exported to Africa and seeping into the oceans and ground water, or dumped into the ocean. Everything in the world is connected, so pollution on the one side of the world will eventually make its way over to the other. Another reason why this is a huge problem is that a few drops of the right(or wrong) chemical can contaminate hundreds of gallons of water, so when there's tons of pollutants being dumped illegally or stored irresponsibly, just think about the damage that can do.
- neves 11y ago
  And don't forget that the developed countries like to export their most pollutant industries. So great part of China pollution is for producing things for USA and Europe.
ghouse 11y ago
I worked in energy development in sub-sahara Africa. Attempted several solar projects, all of which would have sold electricity at a price considerably lower than the utility's avoided cost from imported petroleum. We were unsuccessful because the country was concerned that by contracting with us they might jeopardize the possibility of a grant from the EU. Law of unintended consequences. Or, great example of compassion disrupting a free market doing more harm than good.
- technotony 11y ago
  There's a whole body of poverty work devoted to these kinds of issues, called Institutionalism. My own experience in poverty reduction was working in Microfinance (in Kenya, Uganda and Philippines). I got disillusioned when I realized that even when our loans helped someone make some additional income there was always some group above them in the food chain who would find some way to leach the additional profit from them. The issue wasn't access to loans, our entrepreneur's work ethic, intelligence or creativity - the issue was systemic corruption. Fixing that though wasn't something the free market or bottom up entrepreneurship can solve.
  - kelvin0 11y ago
    Sometimes I think the 3rd world population most view the western powers as Schizophrenic. On one hand you have some westerners trying to help with micro lending and free solar energy initiatives, fresh water ... (the list goes on). On the other hand, powerful corporations and western governments do everything to counter any efforts by: meddling in local politics (outright financing coup d'etats!), installing their local strongmen to further the profits of the western world and keep the dysfunctional social fabric intact ($$$).
    - mc32 11y ago
      On the other hand when more wealthy countries don't meddle some people claim apathy, not caring, like with the Sudan or Georgia, etc. It's not that simplistic and whatever happens, there is a significant voice against interventionism, except when another faction wants it.
alexashka 11y ago
Oh Bill, oh Melinda... There is so much wrong with their thinking it's sad. Here's one example: "If you’re an American, three out of four moms at your school have a job. Your father probably does at least some cooking. There’s a 35 percent chance you live with one parent" She mentions these things in passing and goes on to claim how women do more 'unpaid' work and that that needs to change. Really Melinda? You think 'equality' is more important than not having the choice to stay at home and raise your children? You think 'equality' is more important than the alarming number of single parents? How many Americans are obese? Are they really happy with themselves? Not for long if they are. Where is that in your letter? When you can't get the 'best country in the world' to stop eating itself to death, have failed marriages and constant fear of unemployment which causes financial ruin, not to mention absence of free education and health care - do you really think the priority is 'unpaid work' between men and women? Unbelievable. Who raised these people? Rich people are so out of touch, even when they try to 'help', it's simply insulting to your average brethren.
- cwal37 11y ago
  I see marriage failures or catastrophic divorce rates bandied about a lot in these types of societal decay rants, and it bothers me. The divorce rate has been dropping for decades[1]. A proposed reason for that actually has to do with more equitable opportunities in career, in that women are more free to pursue a career of their choice, and so value systems have realigned to where marriages could be based more on couples being partners, with similar interests and ambitions. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/upshot/how-we-know-the-divorce-rate-is-falling.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/upshot/how-we-know-the-div...
  - alexashka 11y ago
    You must be confusing me with somebody else - I'm not pointing out decay so much as abysmal state of affairs. Whether things are decaying or not - you can look up how much the prices for the basic human necessities like housing and food have gone up in relation to wages. From what I recall there's no question the middle and lower classes are getting screwed right? Anyhow one can be wrong with 1 instance out of 10, the overall picture remains the same. What you're doing is referred to as nitpicking :)
emgoldstein 11y ago
Whenever I see smart geeks talking about tons of CO2, I always wonder what percentage of them know whether the Arrhenius effect (temperature forcing as a function of CO2 concentration) is exponential, linear, or logarithmic. Answer here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius#Greenhouse_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius#Greenhouse_ef...
crackpotbaker 11y ago
I'm surprised Gates, for all his work in this field, has failed to recognise that we're burning up more food growing cattle and farming animals, than if we were to just eat the plant resources we use to feed the animals. It's mathematically crazy that, during a mass shortage of food in some parts of the world, we're feeding a net loss of food in order to eat animal produce. He's even insane enough to support getting more meat, dairy and eggs to Africa, instead of just bringing the nutrient filled crops. With his attitude about energy and carbon footprint reduction, there's no way, India, China and Africa live sustainably on a meat filled diet.
- FlyingLawnmower 11y ago
  I'm inclined to agree here -- the energy inefficiency of meat is really quite astonishing when you look into it [1]. Not to mention the global environmental benefits, etc. [1] http://news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-million-people-grain-livestock-eat http://news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-mi...
  - ZenoArrow 11y ago
    I think he's wise not to tackle this issue. Food is more than just a means to an end, it's also a core part of human culture. We can't expect to fix cultural issues with money alone, even if philanthropists made it very easy to live a vegan lifestyle there would still be people who chose to eat meat regardless. It has to be a cultural change to stand a chance in succeeding, it's up to us as individuals to make this change.
    - crackpotbaker 11y ago
      Okay, I can definitely agree that this issue shouldn't be tackled by him -- there's too much emotion linked to diet and people seem to think their behavioural changes consisting of recycling and saving water are enough. But he, as the richest man in the world, could just say that he's on a plant based diet (he's currently not). I believe a lot of people would quit the luxurious flesh eating habits if someone as Bill Gates says he's a vegan and just states his reasons. Yes, it would be a pretty hypocritical statement since he's probably having a bigger footprint than most of the people on the planet but still, he shouldn't force his meat-dairy-eggs culture onto the impoverished nations of Africa. He's doing exactly that, stating also that there are enormous health benefits to eating meat - being surely wrong. From just energy perspective it's level-2 diet. Level-0 would be picking berries, trees, hunting animals etc., Level-1 is raising plants, level-2 is raising plants to raise animals. From an energy perspective it is entirely irrational of him to support this in developing world.
Mikeb85 11y ago
> A cheap, clean source of energy would change everything. Like nuclear fission? Or how about solar? Anyhow, while I think the intentions are good, my experience in 3rd world countries has me convinced that all the charity in the world won't help. In general, the problem in 3rd world countries isn't education, or sanitation, or lack of capital, or mosquito nets, etc... The problem is corruption and safety. I've seen it in my wife's country - savings rates are generally high, there's lots of labour, a ton of entrepreneurial spirit and the barrier to entry is more or less zero. The problem is, the second you start any sort of enterprise, someone will rob you. Police will demand bribes. Politicians will demand bribes. If you don't give in, they'll send their criminal friends after you. Even if you do give in, they may anyway. Bandits will come rob you in the night, and if you're unlucky enough to be there at the time, they'll shoot you. If you're lucky, they just take some cash. There's literally zero incentive to do anything, lest you get robbed and/or killed. That's reality. You want to fix the 3rd world, you need to start with law and order. Nothing can happen until people feel safe, and feel like doing something will actually improve their life. After that, it's infrastructure. Power, roads, emergency services, bridges, etc... Infrastructure enables travel, it enables businesses, lights, and so on. When you have infrastructure you can bring your products to market. And so on (most people know the economic benefits of infrastructure). In my experience, families in the third world often have the equivalent of thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars saved. Witness how much money Syrians and Afghans pay to get smuggled into Europe. They won't invest that because they don't feel safe, but they have no qualms giving a smuggler thousands of dollars. So much charity is just a band-aid, or worse, gets siphoned off to corrupt entities. You fix corruption and safety issues, and the third world is the new first world. But no, we give charity with one hand, and with the other are propping up horrible dictators, overthrowing democracies for choosing the wrong ideology, and encouraging corruption and oligarchy. Given what's happened in the world since I've been old enough to follow the news, I'm more convinced than ever that the developed world simply wants to keep the third world as dependent colonies. tl;dr - long rant, something something corruption.
- sremani 11y ago
  There is a paper from IMF, whose authors are current Reserve Bank of India Governor - Raghuram Rajan and India's Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramaniam about How Charity does not work. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2005/wp05126.pdf http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2005/wp05126.pdf
Saikia 11y ago
"...I feel very lucky and blessed that drstanleyspelltemple@hotmail.com were able to turn my marriage around like this with his powerful spell. My husband used to spend as much time as he could away from home with other women. Since he cast the love spell on him, My husband is now so in love with me and committed to our marriage than before. its so funny that my husband had not go out for weeks now!"
epicureanideal 11y ago
Anyone care to do a back of the napkin calculation on whether there is any scenario where mercenaries could offer "law and order as a service"?
- GFischer 11y ago
  Well, that's usually what happens in 3rd world countries. Private Security is an extremely established service in countries such as mine (Uruguay), and even bigger in others like Brazil. One link mentions 4 million security guards in Brazil alone (compared to less than a million policemen). Other links speak of 1.5 million of legally registered security guards. Compare to 600.000 security guards for the entirety of Europe. https://www.opendemocracy.net/opensecurity/flavie-halais/spectacle-and-surveillance-in-brazil https://www.opendemocracy.net/opensecurity/flavie-halais/spe... https://www.oas.org/dsp/documentos/Publicaciones/PUBLIC%20SECURITY-%20URBAN%20CENTERS.pdf https://www.oas.org/dsp/documentos/Publicaciones/PUBLIC%20SE...
  - epicureanideal 11y ago
    But you would want private security that is willing to engage in serious shootouts with roving bands of warlords, but make those warlords fearful of doing that because they expect the security to win decisively.
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255 points by comatose_kid 11y ago

Great letter, totally agree with the 'Clean Energy Crisis'. I'm glad Bill Gates stepped into the cause as it will get more lime light now. As an aside, I wish there was a way to turn off/on those side note in his blog, it was bit of distraction - that is why I prefer Safari's reading mode.

melling 11y ago
Hear, hear! I agree with my esteemed colleague on HN. Clean energy is important. After 60 years of warnings, let's be happy that Bill Gates has stepped up. http://youtu.be/m-AXBbuDxRY http://youtu.be/m-AXBbuDxRY Now back to that Reader mode thing. Firefox and IE have them too. Can anyone guess why clean energy hasn't been solved? Look at the chart in the 1950's and 1960s. We were barely doing any damage compared to today.
- petra 11y ago
  Why it hasn't been solved ? Little political will arriving just recently(mostly due to economics i think). Further more many of the energy technologies have slow improvement trends, we didn't work until recently on nuclear innovations due to political and economic reasons, and even with that replacing everything that emits co2 is a huge project.

Reza7865 11y ago

"Poverty is not just about a lack of money. It’s about the absence of the resources the poor need to realize their potential."

dominotw 11y ago
Paul Graham would disagree with you on that definition of Poverty. In his world poor people can wake up one fine day and start a business. Aaron : What drove the decision to go start a business? Paul : Poverty. Aaron : Poverty. Paul : I was tired of being poor. I was working as a freelance programmer, and it was this sort of boom/bust thing where I would get money and then I would run out of money, and then it would be a disaster, and I just got tired of it. And then I thought, “I’m just going to work until I won’t run out of money.”
- latj 11y ago
  Thats not what I think of when I think of poverty. Paul got tired of being broke. When you're tired of being broke, but you're educated, young, healthy, and/or from a privileged class-- you go to school, open a business, hustle, whatever. People living in poverty live the lives they do for various reasons-- born into poverty, low education, mental illness, substance abuse, poor health, elderly, single mothers raising children, or some political or historical context (e.g. slavery, discrimination, unequal access to education/healthcare, language/cultural barriers, recent migration). Poverty (in my mind) means you are stuck on an island where every nation around has guns pointed at you so you cant leave and there are only dirty cookies to eat.
  - dominotw 11y ago
    Its scary how a gatekeeper like PG doesn't even have the basic understanding of poverty.
    - prawn 11y ago
      He used "poverty" instead of "broke". What's the drama?
      - jacalata 11y ago
        One is a systemic condition that requires changes from society, the other is a temporary condition caused mostly by factors under your control. Confusing the two encourages ineffective 'solutions' for poverty to be created like 'we just have to make it embarrassing/uncomfortable/illegal to be in that condition'. These rely on motivating the poor person to fix themselves, instead of attempting to fix the surroundings that are the actual cause and address the symptoms that the poor person is unable to fix on their own, and then dismissing the ones that don't bootstrap themselves out as lazy and undeserving.
  - ktRolster 11y ago
    > Poverty (in my mind) means you are stuck on an island where every nation around has guns pointed at you so you cant leave and there are only dirty cookies to eat. I think your mind is the only one that has that definition.
Shivetya 11y ago
Sounds nice but poverty persist when governments do not respect private property rights. For many of these countries a strong and partial judicial system will be needed.

dmix 11y ago

This seems like a great opportunity for African countries to build on their energy infrastructure which would both generate revenue for governments and provide a stable industrial environment for development. It sounds like a critical missing component in Africa's economy. Although this would also depend on the public's ability to pay for monthly/yearly energy fees which might depend on subsidies. I've read a few articles mentioning how Africa has been inspired by China in recent years who focused on infrastructure as a base for domestic growth instead of just exports or raw materials. I can't imagine the struggle it must be to survive without access to energy and clean water. Our household recently had our pipes burst from freezing and were nearly at a breaking point after three days without water. Worse yet is the occasional black out. So I'm very sympathetic to this cause. Bill and Melinda are doing some great work. Sidenote: > Changes in weather often mean that their crops won’t grow because of too little rain or too much rain. That sinks them deeper into poverty. That’s particularly unfair because they’re the least responsible for emitting CO2, which is causing the problem in the first place. Is this really true? I thought farms were responsible for the most generation of CO2 and pollutants? At least in North America livestock accounts for something like 50% of the pollution (aka "cow farts"), even more so than oil/coal. The worlds obsession with meat is actually more harmful to the environment than cars/gasoline... but this is never popularly advertised thanks to efforts of the livestock industry and willful blindness by government agencies.

saint_fiasco 11y ago
>I thought farms were responsible for the most generation of CO2 and pollutants? That's true for intensive farming with machines and powerful fertilizers and so on. Many people in Africa practice subsistence agriculture which is much less efficient.
vezycash 11y ago
In Nigeria and Ghana, important projects are left undone by the ruling parties because they are long term projects. Because, the opposing party would be the ones to reap the rewards, and praise from the populace. They'd instead focus on building new roads instead of maintaining existing ones, building new schools instead of improving existing ones, starting new high sounding schemes instead of continuing projects the previous regime begun. And btw plants convert CO2 to O2.

davesque 11y ago

It's nice knowing that a powerhouse like the Gates foundation is working on clean energy. In my view, that's the most important problem that society is facing right now.

edw519 11y ago

Poverty is not just about a lack of money. Someone who was gifted $1 million on the day he was born preaching about poverty is like someone who has never written a line of code running an I.T. department.

burkaman 11y ago
Yeah, or like a doctor who has never had cancer running an oncology department. You know the old saying: "write what you know, and absolutely nothing else because empathy does not exist".

AndyKelley 11y ago

What about nuclear power? Isn't that pretty much the cleanest, most efficient power source we know of today?

thesimon 11y ago
With just a few "minor" issues with safety and waste.
- ghouse 11y ago
  And high cost (relatively speaking to wind in windy areas, sun in sunny areas, and natural gas in North America)
- zajd 11y ago
  How is being the safest way to generate power an issue, wouldn't that be a benefit?
  - dredmorbius 11y ago
    False premisis: it's not the safest method (see SSREN, the IPCC's study of carbon-neutral energy generation). It is safer than fossil fuel generation, but not solar and wind, nor, in Europe and America, hydro (India and especially China have had some spectacular hydro failures). More specifically, when nuclear works well, it works very, very well. When it fails, however, it fails especially spectacularly.
    - zajd 11y ago
      Actually, it is http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/#587be0a549d2 http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-de...
      - dredmorbius 11y ago
        That's not accessible. As I said: IPCC's SRREN gives mortality/GWh statistics, and nuclear is not the safest, by that measure. Data included Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, but not Fukushima. Actually, I've previously discussed both here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/267e5e/what_are_your_arguments_concerning_nuclear_power/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/267e5e/what_are... NB: Conca is a rather partisan pro-nuclear advocate. I've found his credibility wanting and bias quite evident in past. The IPCC's report: http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report/ http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report/ Risks are in one of the appendixes (I'm not on a device which makes sorting this out trivial at the moment).

ZeroGravitas 11y ago

Bill's focus on new tech still seems odd to me. Maybe he's thought about it, and as a famous geek thinks that the number one thing he can do is champion tech innovation. But he specifically talks about increasing energy efficiency. An obvious opening to talk about carbon taxes that bake efficiency decisions into everything we buy (and provides a ready made market for new, low-carbon tech). Or he talks about coal, again a great opening to talk about removing subsidies from that industry and getting the workers retrained in something else. And he seems dismissive of solar, like those will only help African farmers when the sun is shining and so are barely worth even thinking about. In general he seems too focussed on getting carbon to 0, and not enough focussed on the low hanging fruit which, if solved with todays existing tech and policy instruments, would extend the runway we have to find breakthrough tech before our world descends into anarchy and global warfare. Just swapping natural gas for coal gives us much ability to burn fossil fuels, since it halves the carbon per energy output. Might not be as cool as a fusion reactor, but every carbon molecule counts.

tempestn 11y ago
I think the point is that those sorts of smaller innovations can be a trap. As he says at the start, even reducing CO2 emissions by 50% isn't enough. By focusing on low hanging fruit, we might feel like we're making a difference, and lose the urgency to search for more innovative solutions. I'm sure Bill supports anything that can reduce CO2 emissions, but I expect his feeling is that we don't need more encouragement to look for little efficiencies; rather we need to find a big solution. Or maybe we need encouragement on both fronts, but he didn't want to dilute the main point of this particular essay by focusing on existing tech. (That said, he does talk also about improved energy storage and power lines and such, things that would build on existing clean energy sources.)
scholia 11y ago
Gates doesn't govern any countries and he's not in charge of any global policies. Also, he is not superman and he doesn't have infinite resources. He's just trying to find niches where a rich geek can make a difference. Child vaccination was a good example. Significantly, he's trying to do practical things to improve the lives of poor people in the third world, as opposed to founding libraries or building more William Gates computer buildings at elite universities. It's fair to judge what he does against what he could do, but it's unreasonable to judge him for what he can't do.

hanniabu 11y ago

While I commend this, there's still also a clean water/pollution crisis that plagues the world. And in this sense, I don't mean air pollution, but as in trash - tons and tons of trash. While the US has its fair share of pollution and clean water issues, other countries like the Philippines, Brazil, and African countries allow mass amounts of garbage and pollutants into the waterways and ocean. Huge amounts of toxic waste are being exported to Africa and seeping into the oceans and ground water, or dumped into the ocean. Everything in the world is connected, so pollution on the one side of the world will eventually make its way over to the other. Another reason why this is a huge problem is that a few drops of the right(or wrong) chemical can contaminate hundreds of gallons of water, so when there's tons of pollutants being dumped illegally or stored irresponsibly, just think about the damage that can do.

neves 11y ago
And don't forget that the developed countries like to export their most pollutant industries. So great part of China pollution is for producing things for USA and Europe.

ghouse 11y ago

I worked in energy development in sub-sahara Africa. Attempted several solar projects, all of which would have sold electricity at a price considerably lower than the utility's avoided cost from imported petroleum. We were unsuccessful because the country was concerned that by contracting with us they might jeopardize the possibility of a grant from the EU. Law of unintended consequences. Or, great example of compassion disrupting a free market doing more harm than good.

technotony 11y ago
There's a whole body of poverty work devoted to these kinds of issues, called Institutionalism. My own experience in poverty reduction was working in Microfinance (in Kenya, Uganda and Philippines). I got disillusioned when I realized that even when our loans helped someone make some additional income there was always some group above them in the food chain who would find some way to leach the additional profit from them. The issue wasn't access to loans, our entrepreneur's work ethic, intelligence or creativity - the issue was systemic corruption. Fixing that though wasn't something the free market or bottom up entrepreneurship can solve.
- kelvin0 11y ago
  Sometimes I think the 3rd world population most view the western powers as Schizophrenic. On one hand you have some westerners trying to help with micro lending and free solar energy initiatives, fresh water ... (the list goes on). On the other hand, powerful corporations and western governments do everything to counter any efforts by: meddling in local politics (outright financing coup d'etats!), installing their local strongmen to further the profits of the western world and keep the dysfunctional social fabric intact ($$$).
  - mc32 11y ago
    On the other hand when more wealthy countries don't meddle some people claim apathy, not caring, like with the Sudan or Georgia, etc. It's not that simplistic and whatever happens, there is a significant voice against interventionism, except when another faction wants it.

alexashka 11y ago

Oh Bill, oh Melinda... There is so much wrong with their thinking it's sad. Here's one example: "If you’re an American, three out of four moms at your school have a job. Your father probably does at least some cooking. There’s a 35 percent chance you live with one parent" She mentions these things in passing and goes on to claim how women do more 'unpaid' work and that that needs to change. Really Melinda? You think 'equality' is more important than not having the choice to stay at home and raise your children? You think 'equality' is more important than the alarming number of single parents? How many Americans are obese? Are they really happy with themselves? Not for long if they are. Where is that in your letter? When you can't get the 'best country in the world' to stop eating itself to death, have failed marriages and constant fear of unemployment which causes financial ruin, not to mention absence of free education and health care - do you really think the priority is 'unpaid work' between men and women? Unbelievable. Who raised these people? Rich people are so out of touch, even when they try to 'help', it's simply insulting to your average brethren.

cwal37 11y ago
I see marriage failures or catastrophic divorce rates bandied about a lot in these types of societal decay rants, and it bothers me. The divorce rate has been dropping for decades[1]. A proposed reason for that actually has to do with more equitable opportunities in career, in that women are more free to pursue a career of their choice, and so value systems have realigned to where marriages could be based more on couples being partners, with similar interests and ambitions. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/upshot/how-we-know-the-divorce-rate-is-falling.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/upshot/how-we-know-the-div...
- alexashka 11y ago
  You must be confusing me with somebody else - I'm not pointing out decay so much as abysmal state of affairs. Whether things are decaying or not - you can look up how much the prices for the basic human necessities like housing and food have gone up in relation to wages. From what I recall there's no question the middle and lower classes are getting screwed right? Anyhow one can be wrong with 1 instance out of 10, the overall picture remains the same. What you're doing is referred to as nitpicking :)

emgoldstein 11y ago

Whenever I see smart geeks talking about tons of CO2, I always wonder what percentage of them know whether the Arrhenius effect (temperature forcing as a function of CO2 concentration) is exponential, linear, or logarithmic. Answer here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius#Greenhouse_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius#Greenhouse_ef...

crackpotbaker 11y ago

I'm surprised Gates, for all his work in this field, has failed to recognise that we're burning up more food growing cattle and farming animals, than if we were to just eat the plant resources we use to feed the animals. It's mathematically crazy that, during a mass shortage of food in some parts of the world, we're feeding a net loss of food in order to eat animal produce. He's even insane enough to support getting more meat, dairy and eggs to Africa, instead of just bringing the nutrient filled crops. With his attitude about energy and carbon footprint reduction, there's no way, India, China and Africa live sustainably on a meat filled diet.

FlyingLawnmower 11y ago
I'm inclined to agree here -- the energy inefficiency of meat is really quite astonishing when you look into it [1]. Not to mention the global environmental benefits, etc. [1] http://news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-million-people-grain-livestock-eat http://news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-mi...
- ZenoArrow 11y ago
  I think he's wise not to tackle this issue. Food is more than just a means to an end, it's also a core part of human culture. We can't expect to fix cultural issues with money alone, even if philanthropists made it very easy to live a vegan lifestyle there would still be people who chose to eat meat regardless. It has to be a cultural change to stand a chance in succeeding, it's up to us as individuals to make this change.
  - crackpotbaker 11y ago
    Okay, I can definitely agree that this issue shouldn't be tackled by him -- there's too much emotion linked to diet and people seem to think their behavioural changes consisting of recycling and saving water are enough. But he, as the richest man in the world, could just say that he's on a plant based diet (he's currently not). I believe a lot of people would quit the luxurious flesh eating habits if someone as Bill Gates says he's a vegan and just states his reasons. Yes, it would be a pretty hypocritical statement since he's probably having a bigger footprint than most of the people on the planet but still, he shouldn't force his meat-dairy-eggs culture onto the impoverished nations of Africa. He's doing exactly that, stating also that there are enormous health benefits to eating meat - being surely wrong. From just energy perspective it's level-2 diet. Level-0 would be picking berries, trees, hunting animals etc., Level-1 is raising plants, level-2 is raising plants to raise animals. From an energy perspective it is entirely irrational of him to support this in developing world.

Mikeb85 11y ago

> A cheap, clean source of energy would change everything. Like nuclear fission? Or how about solar? Anyhow, while I think the intentions are good, my experience in 3rd world countries has me convinced that all the charity in the world won't help. In general, the problem in 3rd world countries isn't education, or sanitation, or lack of capital, or mosquito nets, etc... The problem is corruption and safety. I've seen it in my wife's country - savings rates are generally high, there's lots of labour, a ton of entrepreneurial spirit and the barrier to entry is more or less zero. The problem is, the second you start any sort of enterprise, someone will rob you. Police will demand bribes. Politicians will demand bribes. If you don't give in, they'll send their criminal friends after you. Even if you do give in, they may anyway. Bandits will come rob you in the night, and if you're unlucky enough to be there at the time, they'll shoot you. If you're lucky, they just take some cash. There's literally zero incentive to do anything, lest you get robbed and/or killed. That's reality. You want to fix the 3rd world, you need to start with law and order. Nothing can happen until people feel safe, and feel like doing something will actually improve their life. After that, it's infrastructure. Power, roads, emergency services, bridges, etc... Infrastructure enables travel, it enables businesses, lights, and so on. When you have infrastructure you can bring your products to market. And so on (most people know the economic benefits of infrastructure). In my experience, families in the third world often have the equivalent of thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars saved. Witness how much money Syrians and Afghans pay to get smuggled into Europe. They won't invest that because they don't feel safe, but they have no qualms giving a smuggler thousands of dollars. So much charity is just a band-aid, or worse, gets siphoned off to corrupt entities. You fix corruption and safety issues, and the third world is the new first world. But no, we give charity with one hand, and with the other are propping up horrible dictators, overthrowing democracies for choosing the wrong ideology, and encouraging corruption and oligarchy. Given what's happened in the world since I've been old enough to follow the news, I'm more convinced than ever that the developed world simply wants to keep the third world as dependent colonies. tl;dr - long rant, something something corruption.

sremani 11y ago
There is a paper from IMF, whose authors are current Reserve Bank of India Governor - Raghuram Rajan and India's Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramaniam about How Charity does not work. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2005/wp05126.pdf http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2005/wp05126.pdf

Saikia 11y ago

"...I feel very lucky and blessed that drstanleyspelltemple@hotmail.com were able to turn my marriage around like this with his powerful spell. My husband used to spend as much time as he could away from home with other women. Since he cast the love spell on him, My husband is now so in love with me and committed to our marriage than before. its so funny that my husband had not go out for weeks now!"

epicureanideal 11y ago

Anyone care to do a back of the napkin calculation on whether there is any scenario where mercenaries could offer "law and order as a service"?

GFischer 11y ago
Well, that's usually what happens in 3rd world countries. Private Security is an extremely established service in countries such as mine (Uruguay), and even bigger in others like Brazil. One link mentions 4 million security guards in Brazil alone (compared to less than a million policemen). Other links speak of 1.5 million of legally registered security guards. Compare to 600.000 security guards for the entirety of Europe. https://www.opendemocracy.net/opensecurity/flavie-halais/spectacle-and-surveillance-in-brazil https://www.opendemocracy.net/opensecurity/flavie-halais/spe... https://www.oas.org/dsp/documentos/Publicaciones/PUBLIC%20SECURITY-%20URBAN%20CENTERS.pdf https://www.oas.org/dsp/documentos/Publicaciones/PUBLIC%20SE...
- epicureanideal 11y ago
  But you would want private security that is willing to engage in serious shootouts with roving bands of warlords, but make those warlords fearful of doing that because they expect the security to win decisively.

Rosario1960 11y ago

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