4 ms·

I like Facebook, and I'm happy to see a gazillionaire get into philanthropy this young, but when I see goals like "cure all diseases by the end of this century"

by biztos 11y ago

I like Facebook, and I'm happy to see a gazillionaire get into philanthropy this young, but when I see goals like "cure all diseases by the end of this century" it does make me wonder whether the Foundation might be too disconnected from reality to get good world-changing value for its money.

bhups 11y ago
I see striking similarities between Zuckerberg and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which managed to entirely rid India of polio (!!). I'm not sure that it's totally disconnected from reality.
- tedmiston 11y ago
  A specific disease in a specific country is a bit more concrete than "all diseases" worldwide.
- linuxkerneldev 11y ago
  > Gates Foundation which managed to entirely rid India of polio (!!) Uhm, that's completely inaccurate, where are you getting such data? The Gates foundation only got started in 2000, and it isn't clear when they started getting involved in polio vaccination programs. You may give them credit for helping towards the end of the project, but vaccination against polio was started by the Indian taxpayers (Universal Immunization Program) in 1978 and reached about 50% coverage of all infants born in India (including millions of refugees/migrants from Tibet, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka) by 1984. The programs immunized hundreds of millions of children well before 2000. [1] http://www.mohfw.nic.in/WriteReadData/l892s/Immunization_UIP.pdf http://www.mohfw.nic.in/WriteReadData/l892s/Immunization_UIP... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse_Polio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse_Polio [3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4078488/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4078488/ Giving all of the credit to Bill&Melinda seems like something Hollywood would do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_savior_narrative_in_film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_savior_narrative_in_film

by biztos 11y ago

bhups 11y ago

I see striking similarities between Zuckerberg and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which managed to entirely rid India of polio (!!). I'm not sure that it's totally disconnected from reality.

tedmiston 11y ago
A specific disease in a specific country is a bit more concrete than "all diseases" worldwide.
linuxkerneldev 11y ago
> Gates Foundation which managed to entirely rid India of polio (!!) Uhm, that's completely inaccurate, where are you getting such data? The Gates foundation only got started in 2000, and it isn't clear when they started getting involved in polio vaccination programs. You may give them credit for helping towards the end of the project, but vaccination against polio was started by the Indian taxpayers (Universal Immunization Program) in 1978 and reached about 50% coverage of all infants born in India (including millions of refugees/migrants from Tibet, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka) by 1984. The programs immunized hundreds of millions of children well before 2000. [1] http://www.mohfw.nic.in/WriteReadData/l892s/Immunization_UIP.pdf http://www.mohfw.nic.in/WriteReadData/l892s/Immunization_UIP... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse_Polio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse_Polio [3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4078488/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4078488/ Giving all of the credit to Bill&Melinda seems like something Hollywood would do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_savior_narrative_in_film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_savior_narrative_in_film