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> It's very easy to give something you have an abundance of. I don't see how his good is better than other rich peoples, just because we know about it? Because
by croon 9y ago
> It's very easy to give something you have an abundance of. I don't see how his good is better than other rich peoples, just because we know about it? Because it's front page news? That makes it "good"?
Tell that to the Kochs/Mercers/etc of the world.
I doubt that Gates puts much effort into publicizing their current work. It's front page news because they're doing it.
> Do you know if he is getting a kick back from this payment? Or preferential treatment of some kind? What if he is allowed to hide some heinous acts in Nigeria because of this payment? And it's actually a bribe? Considering how the world works, this seems a more likely explanation.
I strongly disagree. Considering they've put up $3B to cure polio, paying off a loan that was put forth to aid in eliminating polio, I think (until further notice) it's very straightforward to call a spade a spade. Ockham's razor and all that.
> Again, how do you know this is a "good" thing that he paid someone's debt? I mean, in truly absolute terms? I don't see how it's possible to "know". I think you can guess and assume, that is all.
Why do you expect/want this? Why do you demand something like this? What are you withholding until someone delivers something undeliverable? Are you refusing to give a pat on the back until you get an undisputable report with support from multiple trusted third parties?
You are basically asking for someone to prove that a zebra is a zebra, because it might be a painted horse, even if there are no reasonable hints indicating it might be so.
> Look up the financial crises in many other countries, why did he help only Nigeria?
Because it's about polio, not finance.
- RobertRoberts 9y ago>Tell that to the Kochs/Mercers/etc of the world. I am not comparing anyone to anyone, I am asking a simple question, that I think can be extrapolated to all news of this sort. Why do we assume certain news stories to be true/false? If we line up all the news stories that show contradicting ideologies like flat/round earth, holocaust denial, climate change, etc... we'd likely get results of support based on belief in those topics. But Bill Gates? Polio? Debt? What in this story should make one automatically be supportive? And so vehemently? All it takes is a tiny bit of research to show that almost all diseases are cured (massively in society) by clean water, nutrition and clean living conditions. But Gates isn't doing that, he's supporting vaccines. Now this changes the argument from "do we believe Gates is altruistic?" into a vaccine debate. See the problem?
- croon 9y ago> I am not comparing anyone to anyone, I am asking a simple question, that I think can be extrapolated to all news of this sort. You were literally comparing in the line I replied to. > Why do we assume certain news stories to be true/false? Because that's how we build our world model. I would venture a guess and say that what you claim to "know for a fact" in life is to 99% things that you yourself have not verified. That is not to say that you are incorrect, but merely that we build up a reasonability ranking based on trusted networks, authority, plausibility, etc. We decide - not what is true - but what is probable enough to work with, as a world model, as a basis for discussion, as frames of reference. Bill Gates the last decade tries to cure polio, that's his thing. Now there's a story about him and his wife using their money to pay off a debt related to polio, of a sum a fraction of the amount their charity uses annually to fight polio. You are free to not believe it, but there is no reason not to. There are no conflicting reports. > All it takes is a tiny bit of research to show that almost all diseases are cured (massively in society) by clean water, nutrition and clean living conditions. But Gates isn't doing that, he's supporting vaccines. > Now this changes the argument from "do we believe Gates is altruistic?" into a vaccine debate. See the problem? No, I don't. Getting clean water, nutrition and living conditions set up for millions upon millions of people is both vastly more expensive, but also ridiculously more time consuming, while vaccines are cheap and fast. On top of that, the prior doesn't negate the need for vaccines, so then we're still back to square one. In short: They're trying to do the most within the budget to reach a pre-defined goal. You are employing the Copenhagen Intepretation of ethics to ask why they're not doing Y instead of X, when that wasn't the scoped target. We can illustrate this differently, just give me a random link from news you read daily, and we'll replicate the questioning to see the effects.
- RobertRoberts 9y agoI can see where this is going. And I want to reset. My motive for my first comment was (though ineloquently stated) that something seems off, and I wanted to ask why everyone else was supportive? I got my answer, and it seems that it can only be based on gut reactions, some logic or belief in the reporting from other news stories and the Gates Foundation website. (did I miss something?) But if we treated computer security with the same level of trust, every computer in the world would have a virus or a backdoor... but I guess we have found out the truth about that as well. I really don't expect us to be able to successfully debate this, I think if I were to think through this more thoroughly, I wouldn't have posted my first comment.