5 ms·

The size of the Gates Foundation is only impressive if you believe public policy should be disproportionately influenced by the whims of a few rich individuals.

by muntac 10y ago

The size of the Gates Foundation is only impressive if you believe public policy should be disproportionately influenced by the whims of a few rich individuals. Philanthropists may not be motivated by profit like lobbyists, but that doesn't mean they understand the needs of the people any better. For issues related to relatively concrete sciences like medicine this matters less. But in areas such as education for example, the role of the Gates foundation has been disastrous. https://theintercept.com/2015/11/25/how-the-gates-foundation-reflects-the-good-and-the-bad-of-hacker-philanthropy/ https://theintercept.com/2015/11/25/how-the-gates-foundation...

solipsism 10y ago
Disastrous? Isn't that a bit hyperbolic? Reading the article, perhaps "ineffective" could be argued. Maybe their support of Common Core and such did more harm than good, but they've pivoted based on evidence. They're trying their best to do good with their money. This is more than can be said for most billionaires. Are you suggesting it would be better if all billionaires simply kept their money in the family and didn't try to help others? Any bold investment carries a risk of failure. Does that mean no one should make bold investments, to you?
- mike2477 10y ago
  Amen.
pjscott 10y ago
If you're right, then I'd say that it's still trivially outweighed by the Gates Foundation's efforts on disease reduction. Each billion dollars spent fighting malaria buys a whole lot of indulgences.
- visarga 10y ago
  Also, he is giving back the money he took, and then more. That also buys him a lot of forgiveness.
  - mrep 10y ago
    What money did he "take"?
    - paganel 10y ago
      At least $200 million or so from my Government, the result of straight-up corruption. From here http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/20/technology/us-said-to-look-into-microsoft-bribery-allegations.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/20/technology/us-said-to-look...: > The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission have both opened preliminary investigations into bribery accusations involving Microsoft in China, Italy and Romania, according to the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the inquiry is a confidential legal matter. The article is 3-year old and of course nothing came out of it, but based on the very happy coincidence that our Government signed a big contract with MS just days after Ballmer had paid a quick visit to our God-forsaken country back in 2004 and that the PM at the time was a corrupt guy (who later on went to prison for other stuff) I'm 100% sure that MS (and Gates) actually took that money out of our pockets.
      - forgetsusername 10y ago
        >I'm 100% sure that MS (and Gates) actually took that money out of our pockets. So, Microsoft, which was headed by Ballmer at the time (Gates already years into retirement from operations), took a contract from your corrupt government, that might have broken a law (never proven)...and Bill Gates is to blame? You have a lot of misplaced anger.
        paganel 10y ago
        Bill Gates also visited the country shortly after Ballmer's visit and after the contract had been signed. Yes, Bill Gates is to blame, among many others. > You have a lot of misplaced anger. I'm angered by many other things some of which I have control over, economic colonialism (like it happened in this case) I have no control over so no reason to be angered about. Just wanted to add a different perspective to things.
TheLogothete 10y ago
Only people who do nothing and just watch don't make mistakes.
ZeroGravitas 10y ago
It would appear that taxing people and then using the money for ill-thought out, centrally planned, self-aggrandizing projects is fine as long as it's rich people or corporations, not democratically elected governments doing it.
- lunula 10y ago
  I am trying to understand the sentiment that leads to this perspective. Perhaps people abhor the inefficiency of democratic systems. Or maybe this is a sign of social decay.
  - tunap 10y ago
    Ponder institutional corruption and you may realize capitalism in it's extremest form is as toxic to the common good as is extremes of communism or socialism. We are parasites to our environs and each other, and that can be a GOOD thing(cooperation, trade, specialization) when it is symbiotic, but when one entity takes all it devolves into parisitoidism(aka, harming or killing the host).
fauigerzigerk 10y ago
But there is no global public policy funded by global taxation and based on global democracy. On a national level, I would agree with you that outsized influence of charity vs public policy is a bad sign, even if the results may not be so bad at some point in time. But on a global level, things are very different. Those who distribute public development funds cannot be voted out of office by those who receive or don't receive those funds. So charity is all we have. Even public development spending is basically charity as it's not based on rights or on democratic participation.
- mike2477 10y ago
  It's worth noting that governments contribute far more than private organizations to things like AIDS research. I should have mentioned that in the article. See this article (fig 1) - http://www.avac.org/sites/default/files/resource-files/ResourceTrackingJuly2015.pdf http://www.avac.org/sites/default/files/resource-files/Resou...
bobcostas55 10y ago
>McGoey (along with many others) is sharply critical of this movement. She cites studies that show that charter schools have performed no better or worse than traditional public schools Oh come on now.
arkades 10y ago
I proceeded to your linked article, and while I see that the author's opinion is "Gates' Foundation did far more harm than good in education," I don't actually see the examples put forward supporting their (/your) position on that. The only examples are "The Gates Foundation tried something, found it didn't work, and so stopped doing that thing [smaller schools.]" They're then criticized for attempting teacher metrics, and a couple paragraphs later, "they've since backed off on this, but the damage of their influence has already been suffered!" Which, to me, reads again as "they thought teacher metrics would work. They found it didn't, so they stopped doing that." Actually, a lot of that article basically reads as "no one should ever make calculated experiments to discover what the most effective interventions are. How dare the Gates Foundation not be all-knowing! And if they're not going to be all-knowing, they have no right to admit to a mistake and back off on a failed intervention!" I- what?? What?! Presumably, then, the author (or the people the author is echoing) can put forward a better alternative, rather than just criticize the organization for recognizing failure and re-allocating resources. "Assuming that poverty is not going to be solved overnight, what other, more immediate steps might be taken to address these problems? How might Gates spend its money more wisely? McGoey offers little guidance on this. She seems to have visited few schools and talked to few teachers or parents. Nor does she give much space to the perspective of the Gates Foundation itself." She then slams the Gates Foundation for doing "considerable good" in public health. What's their flaw, then? The author's unsubstantiated assertion that they ignored opportunity cost. Not even that. She sort of /implies/ that other health interventions would have had greater public health ROI (by pointing out that chronic disease is very expensive, she leads us to conclude "why, then we could save a lot of money by intervening there", ignoring whether that larger cost correlates to more lives saved per dollar spent), and that the Gates Foundation ignores them, but doesn't actually provide any stats on that being the case. Which makes sense, of course, because there aren't any good stats to support that argument: the Gates Foundation particularly staked out their interests in extremely high ROI illnesses. It's shit-tons cheaper to save a man-year from malaria than to save one from type 2 diabetes. This is not a great article. The author, Michael Massing, appears to have written it with far more bias than critical attention, and you should reconsider letting it inform your opinions.

by muntac 10y ago

solipsism 10y ago

Disastrous? Isn't that a bit hyperbolic? Reading the article, perhaps "ineffective" could be argued. Maybe their support of Common Core and such did more harm than good, but they've pivoted based on evidence. They're trying their best to do good with their money. This is more than can be said for most billionaires. Are you suggesting it would be better if all billionaires simply kept their money in the family and didn't try to help others? Any bold investment carries a risk of failure. Does that mean no one should make bold investments, to you?

mike2477 10y ago
Amen.

pjscott 10y ago

If you're right, then I'd say that it's still trivially outweighed by the Gates Foundation's efforts on disease reduction. Each billion dollars spent fighting malaria buys a whole lot of indulgences.

visarga 10y ago
Also, he is giving back the money he took, and then more. That also buys him a lot of forgiveness.
- mrep 10y ago
  What money did he "take"?
  - paganel 10y ago
    At least $200 million or so from my Government, the result of straight-up corruption. From here http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/20/technology/us-said-to-look-into-microsoft-bribery-allegations.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/20/technology/us-said-to-look...: > The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission have both opened preliminary investigations into bribery accusations involving Microsoft in China, Italy and Romania, according to the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the inquiry is a confidential legal matter. The article is 3-year old and of course nothing came out of it, but based on the very happy coincidence that our Government signed a big contract with MS just days after Ballmer had paid a quick visit to our God-forsaken country back in 2004 and that the PM at the time was a corrupt guy (who later on went to prison for other stuff) I'm 100% sure that MS (and Gates) actually took that money out of our pockets.
    - forgetsusername 10y ago
      >I'm 100% sure that MS (and Gates) actually took that money out of our pockets. So, Microsoft, which was headed by Ballmer at the time (Gates already years into retirement from operations), took a contract from your corrupt government, that might have broken a law (never proven)...and Bill Gates is to blame? You have a lot of misplaced anger.
      - paganel 10y ago
        Bill Gates also visited the country shortly after Ballmer's visit and after the contract had been signed. Yes, Bill Gates is to blame, among many others. > You have a lot of misplaced anger. I'm angered by many other things some of which I have control over, economic colonialism (like it happened in this case) I have no control over so no reason to be angered about. Just wanted to add a different perspective to things.

TheLogothete 10y ago

Only people who do nothing and just watch don't make mistakes.

ZeroGravitas 10y ago

It would appear that taxing people and then using the money for ill-thought out, centrally planned, self-aggrandizing projects is fine as long as it's rich people or corporations, not democratically elected governments doing it.

lunula 10y ago
I am trying to understand the sentiment that leads to this perspective. Perhaps people abhor the inefficiency of democratic systems. Or maybe this is a sign of social decay.
- tunap 10y ago
  Ponder institutional corruption and you may realize capitalism in it's extremest form is as toxic to the common good as is extremes of communism or socialism. We are parasites to our environs and each other, and that can be a GOOD thing(cooperation, trade, specialization) when it is symbiotic, but when one entity takes all it devolves into parisitoidism(aka, harming or killing the host).

fauigerzigerk 10y ago

But there is no global public policy funded by global taxation and based on global democracy. On a national level, I would agree with you that outsized influence of charity vs public policy is a bad sign, even if the results may not be so bad at some point in time. But on a global level, things are very different. Those who distribute public development funds cannot be voted out of office by those who receive or don't receive those funds. So charity is all we have. Even public development spending is basically charity as it's not based on rights or on democratic participation.

mike2477 10y ago
It's worth noting that governments contribute far more than private organizations to things like AIDS research. I should have mentioned that in the article. See this article (fig 1) - http://www.avac.org/sites/default/files/resource-files/ResourceTrackingJuly2015.pdf http://www.avac.org/sites/default/files/resource-files/Resou...

bobcostas55 10y ago

>McGoey (along with many others) is sharply critical of this movement. She cites studies that show that charter schools have performed no better or worse than traditional public schools Oh come on now.

arkades 10y ago

I proceeded to your linked article, and while I see that the author's opinion is "Gates' Foundation did far more harm than good in education," I don't actually see the examples put forward supporting their (/your) position on that. The only examples are "The Gates Foundation tried something, found it didn't work, and so stopped doing that thing [smaller schools.]" They're then criticized for attempting teacher metrics, and a couple paragraphs later, "they've since backed off on this, but the damage of their influence has already been suffered!" Which, to me, reads again as "they thought teacher metrics would work. They found it didn't, so they stopped doing that." Actually, a lot of that article basically reads as "no one should ever make calculated experiments to discover what the most effective interventions are. How dare the Gates Foundation not be all-knowing! And if they're not going to be all-knowing, they have no right to admit to a mistake and back off on a failed intervention!" I- what?? What?! Presumably, then, the author (or the people the author is echoing) can put forward a better alternative, rather than just criticize the organization for recognizing failure and re-allocating resources. "Assuming that poverty is not going to be solved overnight, what other, more immediate steps might be taken to address these problems? How might Gates spend its money more wisely? McGoey offers little guidance on this. She seems to have visited few schools and talked to few teachers or parents. Nor does she give much space to the perspective of the Gates Foundation itself." She then slams the Gates Foundation for doing "considerable good" in public health. What's their flaw, then? The author's unsubstantiated assertion that they ignored opportunity cost. Not even that. She sort of /implies/ that other health interventions would have had greater public health ROI (by pointing out that chronic disease is very expensive, she leads us to conclude "why, then we could save a lot of money by intervening there", ignoring whether that larger cost correlates to more lives saved per dollar spent), and that the Gates Foundation ignores them, but doesn't actually provide any stats on that being the case. Which makes sense, of course, because there aren't any good stats to support that argument: the Gates Foundation particularly staked out their interests in extremely high ROI illnesses. It's shit-tons cheaper to save a man-year from malaria than to save one from type 2 diabetes. This is not a great article. The author, Michael Massing, appears to have written it with far more bias than critical attention, and you should reconsider letting it inform your opinions.