8 ms·

Tough questions we get asked: 2018 Annual Letter

171 points by kumaranvpl 9y ago

bambax 9y ago
> Submit a question below and we will answer the best ones in the near future. No you won't. You will select some questions you like, and answer them. They will not necessarily be the "best" (whatever that means... according to what criteria??) or the ones most people would like to see answered. Just the ones you feel like answering. A more democratic system would be to let people vote for questions, and promise to answer the ones with the most upvotes. Or maybe (why not) offer to answer ALL questions.
- tjoff 9y ago
  I didn't think they picked "convenient" questions. Also, letting the internet vote always comes with a risk. I think they did alright.
- Agathos 9y ago
  That might lead to better (or more challenging) questions, or they might find themselves obligated to answer 10 variations of "Questiony McQuestionFace." Online polls are weird.
- loceng 9y ago
  "Tough" is relative to the individuals' experiences, it's okay if they select different questions as priorities than you would.
  - bambax 9y ago
    They can do whatever they like of course! But the way they constantly sell themselves and their openness and simplicity and whatnot is hypocritical.
    - loceng 9y ago
      I'm not sure they're efforting to sell themselves as open, it more feels like people are putting them on a pedestal because of Bill Gates' financial success and notability, and giving them unchecked admiration - however they will have a unique world perspective and that's important to hear so we can contrast it with where we're at in our own understanding.
- jasode 9y ago
  >A more democratic system would be to let people vote for questions, and promise to answer the ones with the most upvotes. Internet "democratic voting" sounds great in theory but history has shown that in practice, it just gets hijacked.[1] Basically, the top most upvoted question would end up being, "What is Bill and Melinda's favorite sex position?" ... or something similar. [1] http://mentalfloss.com/article/52524/15-polls-hijacked-internet http://mentalfloss.com/article/52524/15-polls-hijacked-inter...
- sammoorhouse 9y ago
  Having a bad day, mate? Everything alright?
  - somesayso 9y ago
    Overreacting mate? Everything alright?
- dictum 9y ago
  Not even I have the patience/desire/stomach to answer most of the questions the general public could ask about me, and I'm a not a famous billionaire with a well-known business past and well-known philanthropic present of whom, naturally, the masses might inquire much harder questions.
- lkbm 9y ago
  "Are you imposing your values on other cultures?" and "Is it fair that you have so much influence?" are close to the touch question I expected them to not have. The big complaint I see from the left is that billionaires get to determine the direction of philanthropy--two unelected people get to impose their ideas about public education, for example. That said, while those questions are close to the big tough question, I don't think their answers really addressed them in an adequately thoughtful way. (I think the Gates Foundation is mostly making good choices with their philanthropy, but maybe we just got lucky. How about [Soros|Koch] (pick whichever you like least)?)
  - bambax 9y ago
    None of the 10 questions listed is "tough", and at least one (out of ten, so 10%) is of tabloid level: "What happens when the two of you disagree" -- the answer includes the nugget that there's a sculpture in front of their house, of two birds looking ahead in the same direction. Isn't that something. If one doesn't like the idea of Internet voting or answering all questions, then let them hold a press conference with real journalists. But this is not it; this is nothing; this is a show with pictures of the couple laughing and showing a serious face in front of poor people; this is just marketing. An interesting question would be, how do you justify speciesism[1]. When they describe how they're "optimists" and how the world is getting "better", they're obviously only talking about humans. The world is getting much much worse for every species of living things, except (some) humans, so the only way to consider that the world is indeed getting better in general is to consider that humans are so superior to any other living thing that any amount of suffering / extinction of other species is more than offset by the marginal utility we get out of it. If you're religious, maybe your religion offers a way to accept that (depending on the religion). But if, like the Gates (or me), you're atheists, how does this work exactly? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciesism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciesism
ianai 9y ago
Unrelated but the first thing this site did was ask me to fill out a user survey. That’s the exact wrong time to ask a user to fill out a survey.
- zcid 9y ago
  Exactly why I default to no JS. But in cases like this, I load a 20k line webpage and see zero content until it's enabled. Welcome to the modern web.
  - braderhart 9y ago
    There are people working on a decentralized web that doesn't require clunky (impossible-to-fully-audit) web browsers and it is JavaScript free.
    - ianai 9y ago
      Tor/onion?
    - madez 9y ago
      Please elaborate. On a side note, please don't make people ask for essential information, just state it right away.
- braderhart 9y ago
  Just like when you start Windows for the first time, and get asked to sign in or register a Microsoft Online account to continue.
  - WalterGR 9y ago
    And like macOS, iOS, and Android. Not sure about ChromeOS, but I'm guessing that's a yes.
sharkweek 9y ago
I love the self-awareness in their response to question #8 - we are fortunate that “the king is just” in the case of the foundation, but it is very undemocratic for the wealthy to solely pick causes they care about at such a large scale. Just last week, Gates himself was arguing that he and other billionaires need to be paying significantly more taxes. https://phys.org/news/2018-02-gates-billionaires-significantly-taxes.amp https://phys.org/news/2018-02-gates-billionaires-significant...
- qaq 9y ago
  ? It's his money that he actually decided to give away why should you or I have a say in it?
  - makotech222 9y ago
    The argument is, why do we as a society allow people to amass wealth on the scale of nations. Instead, perhaps that wealth should be democratically owned, and then put towards what the society needs, rather than what one person decides.
    - qaq 9y ago
      What is "democratically owned"? State owned companies? That has being tried did not work out too well.
      - sgift 9y ago
        That works very well and is used in many countries. What didn't work well is a state-owned economy. Two different things.
        qaq 9y ago
        OK give a single example that is not related to raw material extraction or power generation. (A company receiving massive government subsidies to not go bankrupt would not be considered a good example at least in my opinion.)
yodsanklai 9y ago
I wonder how Bill Gates can use a huge yacht for its own enjoyment, while at the same time spending money to fight climate change. I'd be curious to know his point of view.
- ianai 9y ago
  I’m never going to ask someone to renounce luxuries when they are clearly donating much or a majority of their wealth. That’s a recipe for no giving.
  - somesayso 9y ago
    It is not about "asking" then to abandon it. It is about a mismatch between what they say and what they actually do (if you look close enough). But is it too much of an ask to think that some one who seem to be so dedicated to such causes, won't actually do everything that is in their powers (including giving on luxuries), to advance their cause?
- pen2l 9y ago
  at least the transaction involves the yatchmaker... who, while rich, wasn’t as ridiculously rich, and in the end the transaction came down to the pockets of people who live around the yatchmaker a little bit. Not perfect but it’s something.
- yequalsx 9y ago
  Free rider problem. People locally optimize for their own benefit and those same people can rightfully decry the effect. We are all hypocrites from time to time. Let’s not let hypocrisy be a reason to discount a thought or idea. The validity of the idea is not based on whether or not proponent is beyond reproach.
- whamlastxmas 9y ago
  I think his answer would be to admit to selfishness. But to also maybe point out that he has trouble responsibily spending his current endowment and his yacht isn't preventing the foundation from getting the budget it needs and can spend.
HillaryBriss 9y ago
Maybe one of the most controversial statements they make is: "In our U.S. work, one premise we start with is that a college degree or career certificate is critical to a successful future. In short, a college education should be a pathway to prosperity for all Americans." I wouldn't dispute that having enough skill/education to offer value to the global/US marketplace is critical, but I have some doubt about whether what we call "college education" is the way really large numbers of people (not just the elite) can obtain that skill/education. Maybe we're over investing in an outdated, inefficient process and it will never be good enough.
- ianai 9y ago
  You don’t even need to be near a campus to go to college these days. It can all be done online provided the infrastructure are there. I see two critical problems to address and a third more radical option. 1-Invest in bridging the last mile gap for broadband. 2-Clear headed planning to address the fundamental employment issues undermining labor/per capital wealth. —-there aren’t enough jobs to employ everyone given current market conditions. Ie lower the full time/OT line to 20-30 hours or so and make better support systems (healthcare for all, housing projects for all that aren’t crimes dens) —-make programs to help college students prepare, correctly for the labor force.
jupp0r 9y ago
It always amazes me how pessimistic people can be in terms of where the world is heading, especially people who tend towards populism (on the left and the right). In debates, I eventually point out actual data about living conditions[1]. Looking at data instead of news stories, it becomes clear that extreme poverty, vaccination, child mortality and education are vastly improving for a majority of humans on this planet. This leaves aforementioned populists with nothing to argue about but the validity of the data they are seeing, unable to reconcile reality with their world view. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/a-history-of-global-living-conditions-in-5-charts https://ourworldindata.org/a-history-of-global-living-condit...
- yequalsx 9y ago
  For me the pessimism stems from the fact that having 8 billion or so well off consumers is not environmentally sustainable. We are polluting on a grand scale. Plastics, toxins, and trash are doing great harm to the environment. Right now it appears we are headed for a crash. Maybe not in my lifetime but within 100 years or so will the planet be so polluted that living in it is hellish?
  - kijin 9y ago
    This assumes that humanity will not find a way to reduce, recycle, convert, or find better uses for trash in the next 100 years. Coming from a country where nearly everything that can be recycled gets recycled, and having seen this change take place in a span of less than 30 years, your assumption does seem a bit too pessimistic. The same kind of pessimistic assumption underlines the ridiculously high death tolls that people often predict will be caused by global warming. Most of those deaths are attributed to infectious diseases such as malaria. This assumes that humanity will not find a way to prevent and/or cure such diseases on a large scale in the next 100 years.
    - yequalsx 9y ago
      The reverse is also true. You assume humanity will find a way to deal with the trash. Not just the trash that will be made but also the trash that has already found it's way into the oceans. The number of people who recycle a lot is quite small in relation to the total population. Is the increase in recycling enough to offset the increase in trash and toxins? I'm skeptical that this will happen soon enough. Since you come from a country where nearly everything is recycled I'm going to assume you come from a wealthy country. If so then you, yes you, consume far more than most humans. You are a drain on the resources of the planet. Your consumption leads to strip mining, deforestation, and industrial pollution. This damage has been conveniently shipped off to poor regions of the world but the ultimate cause is consumers like you and I. Your recycling hardly makes up for the damage that is done for your consumption. http://www.worldwatch.org/node/810 http://www.worldwatch.org/node/810 From the above article: “If the levels of consumption that...the most affluent people enjoy today were replicated across even half of the roughly 9 billion people projected to be on the planet in 2050, the impact on our water supply, air quality, forests, climate, biological diversity, and human health would be severe.”
gullibleAndVain 9y ago
Duh. Why not clean water instead of vaccines? http://www.organiclifestylemagazine.com/how-plumbing-not-vaccines-eradicated-disease http://www.organiclifestylemagazine.com/how-plumbing-not-vac...
- teslabox 9y ago
  Providing clean water, infrastructure ('outhouses') and good-enough nutrition are much harder problems than organizing vaccination campaigns.
arca_vorago 9y ago
I wonder if they could quantify the human suffering and death that has happened as their proprietary surveillance operating system has betrayed it's users to totalitarian governments worldwide and just how vital it has been in eroding the constitutional protections of the fourth amendment by essentially backdooring everyone that uses it. Bill Gates was never a good guy, and I don't really give a Fuck if most of you reading this don't like me saying this because you forgot what the word hacker really means because there are too many businesspeople here pretending to be hackers here instead of the other way around.
- braderhart 9y ago
  Well, you can use their OS, which has for years tried to undermine the free and open source communities, but you have to pay for it. And you have to agree for them to spy on you. And you're poor?? That is okay, just give up more of your privacy rights and we already sold all your data, so you will be a good consumer now. You run Windows. Your mind belongs to us. Your ability to think beyond .NET and C# will soon diminish, and we will give you some mediocre job now based on your mediocre proprietary skills, and your role as a tech worker now be to spread your love for MS to everyone, because if you don't we will stop paying you, and you will have no food and no home. And you will not know how to use anything but Windows.
  - gaius 9y ago
    And you have to agree for them to spy on you. And you're poor?? That is okay, just give up more of your privacy rights and we already sold all your data, so you will be a good consumer now This is hilarious. What OS do you think Google, Facebook and the NSA run?
    - braderhart 9y ago
      Google provided an open source operating system, web browser and built a container solution used by every major cloud provider.
      - 9y ago
detcader 9y ago
"I think he broke the law, so I certainly wouldn't characterize him as a hero" - Bill Gates on Snowden. A question I'd love to hear any rich person answer explicitly: is it impossible for a criminal to be a hero? http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/bill-gates-the-rolling-stone-interview-20140313?page=2 http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/bill-gates-the-roll...
- rorykoehler 9y ago
  I'm pretty sure Bill Gates has a very different view on this than anyone reading this site. He would have doubtless been exposed to the realities of the US government for decades.
  - schoen 9y ago
    In press interviews, he's also expressed criticism toward Apple about the San Bernadino iPhone case and about the goal of deploying end-to-end encryption that nobody can break. (I work on these issues on what's apparently the other side from him.)
    - schoen 9y ago
      A subsequent example on cryptocurrency anonymity (which is a topic that's often controversial here, but with relatively few people taking it as far as Gates did): http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-on-cryptocurrency-2018-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-on-cryptocurrency-...
- whamlastxmas 9y ago
  I think the implication is that he broke a law that Gates agreed with and thought was just. I imagine Gates worked with intelligence agencies a lot at MS and it makes sense he'd share some of their world views.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- mseebach 9y ago
gt_ 9y ago
>We are outspoken about our optimism. These days, though, optimism seems to be in short supply. The headlines are filled with awful news. Every day brings a different story of political division, violence, or natural disaster. Despite the headlines, we see a world that’s getting better. It should take a lot of nerve to open this way. Sympathy, or I guess we call it empathy, who knows, cannot be achieved through optimism alone. The unfettered optimism in this intro seems tone-deaf. I think it undermines the effort they make to the contrary.
- jhbadger 9y ago
  I'd argue the exact opposite. It is all too easy to just throw up your hands and say "The world is fucked; there isn't anything to do about it". Empathy is impossible without the belief that something can be done, which is optimism.
  - gt_ 9y ago
    HN readers are quick to be enthusiastic in celebrating urgent acknowledgement and critical response in the case of server outages and security breaches. Why limit this regard to that? Sure, saying there isn’t anything we can do about it is irresponsible, and so is the lack of nuance of “the world is fucked”. Is this the only alternative you can imagine? >Empathy is impossible without the belief that something can be done, which is optimism. That is not what optimism is. If you can not identify problems, you are multitudes more unlikely to solve them. My critique is as basic as that.
- kijin 9y ago
  They're optimistic, but not brashly so. Bill and Melinda Gates have literally saved millions of children. If that doesn't give them a reason to be optimistic, I don't see what would. Just because Americans are shooting up schools doesn't mean that the lives of people in some other parts of this planet haven't improved by leaps and bounds in the last few years alone.
- ianai 9y ago
  That may be a contrast with a widespread negative view. Much of current media are dominated by negative stories. For instance, every time I’ve tuened on local news the top stories are murders or rapes. Everytime he can Trump says the people are worse off and etc. anything that doesn’t fit the “wallpaper” stands out.
detaro 9y ago
previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16366263 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16366263
Codestare 9y ago
I sometimes wonder what would happen if Bill Gates and say Warren Buffet spent a ridiculous amound of money on lobbying, in order to drastically change the political landscape.
spectrum1234 9y ago
The first 2 questions remind me of the (fantastic) book I'm reading Doing Good Better. This is basically effective altruism. This book argues that a dollar goes a lot farther in the third world. (Obviously.) It also has a great story about how money spent on educational resources can have almost no effect while money spent on deworming (yes, worms) can greatly increase educational results. (Not so obvious.) This is a third world example but its fairly obvious the problems with US education aren't' resource or efficiency based.
- randomstring 9y ago
  Another good book on effective altruism is The Most Good You Can Do by Peter Singer. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23168483-the-most-good-you-can-do https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23168483-the-most-good-y... It's clear that Bill and Melinda Gates are practicing effective altruism in an effort to do the most good with their money.
soperj 9y ago
I can't be the only one who wishes they spent nothing in the US on Education and direct it all to homelessness, so they can stop screwing up Education. Common Core is horrendous.
alexashka 9y ago
I am irked to no end how off the mark their entire foundation is. It's like the person with the least imagination on earth, got handed billions of dollars. What is the lowest hanging fruit of all time? Right, the night-time ads on TV with poor children in a foreign country. What is the least imaginative way of helping a developed nation? 'Better education'. Sigh. Really? We just need to stop children from dying, educate the parents, and everything will be fine? It's not that people are pessimistic - they are just REALISTIC, about what a crock of shit they're being handed, and Bill and Melinda's answer is to meet Steven Pinker and go 'hey, statistics show that everything's better than it ever was!' My god... We're talking billionaires, having no ideas, no imagination, and no idea that they have neither, and wondering why things kind of suck? Because people with no ideas, no imagination, are the ones who get to make billions of dollars in our society? Maybe, just maybe, that has something to do with it Bill...
- Daishiman 9y ago
  This is completely uninsightful.
  - alexashka 9y ago
    If you had cancer and didn't know it, and someone named Melinda came and gave you a nice bed, some pain-pills and told you she cared, you'd feel a bit better. Except you'd still have cancer. When someone got you to a doctor, who operated on you quickly and saved your life, you'd not only consider the person who got you to the doctor insightful, but far more helpful than Melinda, and be rightfully outraged at Melinda's well-meaning but clueless efforts to help you. I am the person getting you to the doctor, Melinda is Melinda Gates, and the insightful bit is figuring out what cancer is, and what a doctor would be, in this metaphor. Melinda and Gates think it's lack of education in the USA. You tell me.
- dennis_jeeves 9y ago
  alexashka- pity you were downvoted. I upvoted you. I agree with all that you said. What you stated are uncomfortable truths that not many want to confront. Bill is not really a smart guy in my standing. May be one could argue that he is smart in a narrow band - that of making money. I certainly can think of a few of my acquaintances who can be more creative than him in ways to "help" others.

171 points by kumaranvpl 9y ago

> Submit a question below and we will answer the best ones in the near future. No you won't. You will select some questions you like, and answer them. They will not necessarily be the "best" (whatever that means... according to what criteria??) or the ones most people would like to see answered. Just the ones you feel like answering. A more democratic system would be to let people vote for questions, and promise to answer the ones with the most upvotes. Or maybe (why not) offer to answer ALL questions.

tjoff 9y ago
I didn't think they picked "convenient" questions. Also, letting the internet vote always comes with a risk. I think they did alright.
Agathos 9y ago
That might lead to better (or more challenging) questions, or they might find themselves obligated to answer 10 variations of "Questiony McQuestionFace." Online polls are weird.
loceng 9y ago
"Tough" is relative to the individuals' experiences, it's okay if they select different questions as priorities than you would.
- bambax 9y ago
  They can do whatever they like of course! But the way they constantly sell themselves and their openness and simplicity and whatnot is hypocritical.
  - loceng 9y ago
    I'm not sure they're efforting to sell themselves as open, it more feels like people are putting them on a pedestal because of Bill Gates' financial success and notability, and giving them unchecked admiration - however they will have a unique world perspective and that's important to hear so we can contrast it with where we're at in our own understanding.
jasode 9y ago
>A more democratic system would be to let people vote for questions, and promise to answer the ones with the most upvotes. Internet "democratic voting" sounds great in theory but history has shown that in practice, it just gets hijacked.[1] Basically, the top most upvoted question would end up being, "What is Bill and Melinda's favorite sex position?" ... or something similar. [1] http://mentalfloss.com/article/52524/15-polls-hijacked-internet http://mentalfloss.com/article/52524/15-polls-hijacked-inter...
sammoorhouse 9y ago
Having a bad day, mate? Everything alright?
- somesayso 9y ago
  Overreacting mate? Everything alright?
dictum 9y ago
Not even I have the patience/desire/stomach to answer most of the questions the general public could ask about me, and I'm a not a famous billionaire with a well-known business past and well-known philanthropic present of whom, naturally, the masses might inquire much harder questions.
lkbm 9y ago
"Are you imposing your values on other cultures?" and "Is it fair that you have so much influence?" are close to the touch question I expected them to not have. The big complaint I see from the left is that billionaires get to determine the direction of philanthropy--two unelected people get to impose their ideas about public education, for example. That said, while those questions are close to the big tough question, I don't think their answers really addressed them in an adequately thoughtful way. (I think the Gates Foundation is mostly making good choices with their philanthropy, but maybe we just got lucky. How about [Soros|Koch] (pick whichever you like least)?)
- bambax 9y ago
  None of the 10 questions listed is "tough", and at least one (out of ten, so 10%) is of tabloid level: "What happens when the two of you disagree" -- the answer includes the nugget that there's a sculpture in front of their house, of two birds looking ahead in the same direction. Isn't that something. If one doesn't like the idea of Internet voting or answering all questions, then let them hold a press conference with real journalists. But this is not it; this is nothing; this is a show with pictures of the couple laughing and showing a serious face in front of poor people; this is just marketing. An interesting question would be, how do you justify speciesism[1]. When they describe how they're "optimists" and how the world is getting "better", they're obviously only talking about humans. The world is getting much much worse for every species of living things, except (some) humans, so the only way to consider that the world is indeed getting better in general is to consider that humans are so superior to any other living thing that any amount of suffering / extinction of other species is more than offset by the marginal utility we get out of it. If you're religious, maybe your religion offers a way to accept that (depending on the religion). But if, like the Gates (or me), you're atheists, how does this work exactly? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciesism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciesism

ianai 9y ago

Unrelated but the first thing this site did was ask me to fill out a user survey. That’s the exact wrong time to ask a user to fill out a survey.

zcid 9y ago
Exactly why I default to no JS. But in cases like this, I load a 20k line webpage and see zero content until it's enabled. Welcome to the modern web.
- braderhart 9y ago
  There are people working on a decentralized web that doesn't require clunky (impossible-to-fully-audit) web browsers and it is JavaScript free.
  - ianai 9y ago
    Tor/onion?
  - madez 9y ago
    Please elaborate. On a side note, please don't make people ask for essential information, just state it right away.
braderhart 9y ago
Just like when you start Windows for the first time, and get asked to sign in or register a Microsoft Online account to continue.
- WalterGR 9y ago
  And like macOS, iOS, and Android. Not sure about ChromeOS, but I'm guessing that's a yes.

sharkweek 9y ago

I love the self-awareness in their response to question #8 - we are fortunate that “the king is just” in the case of the foundation, but it is very undemocratic for the wealthy to solely pick causes they care about at such a large scale. Just last week, Gates himself was arguing that he and other billionaires need to be paying significantly more taxes. https://phys.org/news/2018-02-gates-billionaires-significantly-taxes.amp https://phys.org/news/2018-02-gates-billionaires-significant...

qaq 9y ago
? It's his money that he actually decided to give away why should you or I have a say in it?
- makotech222 9y ago
  The argument is, why do we as a society allow people to amass wealth on the scale of nations. Instead, perhaps that wealth should be democratically owned, and then put towards what the society needs, rather than what one person decides.
  - qaq 9y ago
    What is "democratically owned"? State owned companies? That has being tried did not work out too well.
    - sgift 9y ago
      That works very well and is used in many countries. What didn't work well is a state-owned economy. Two different things.
      - qaq 9y ago
        OK give a single example that is not related to raw material extraction or power generation. (A company receiving massive government subsidies to not go bankrupt would not be considered a good example at least in my opinion.)

yodsanklai 9y ago

I wonder how Bill Gates can use a huge yacht for its own enjoyment, while at the same time spending money to fight climate change. I'd be curious to know his point of view.

ianai 9y ago
I’m never going to ask someone to renounce luxuries when they are clearly donating much or a majority of their wealth. That’s a recipe for no giving.
- somesayso 9y ago
  It is not about "asking" then to abandon it. It is about a mismatch between what they say and what they actually do (if you look close enough). But is it too much of an ask to think that some one who seem to be so dedicated to such causes, won't actually do everything that is in their powers (including giving on luxuries), to advance their cause?
pen2l 9y ago
at least the transaction involves the yatchmaker... who, while rich, wasn’t as ridiculously rich, and in the end the transaction came down to the pockets of people who live around the yatchmaker a little bit. Not perfect but it’s something.
yequalsx 9y ago
Free rider problem. People locally optimize for their own benefit and those same people can rightfully decry the effect. We are all hypocrites from time to time. Let’s not let hypocrisy be a reason to discount a thought or idea. The validity of the idea is not based on whether or not proponent is beyond reproach.
whamlastxmas 9y ago
I think his answer would be to admit to selfishness. But to also maybe point out that he has trouble responsibily spending his current endowment and his yacht isn't preventing the foundation from getting the budget it needs and can spend.

HillaryBriss 9y ago

Maybe one of the most controversial statements they make is: "In our U.S. work, one premise we start with is that a college degree or career certificate is critical to a successful future. In short, a college education should be a pathway to prosperity for all Americans." I wouldn't dispute that having enough skill/education to offer value to the global/US marketplace is critical, but I have some doubt about whether what we call "college education" is the way really large numbers of people (not just the elite) can obtain that skill/education. Maybe we're over investing in an outdated, inefficient process and it will never be good enough.

ianai 9y ago
You don’t even need to be near a campus to go to college these days. It can all be done online provided the infrastructure are there. I see two critical problems to address and a third more radical option. 1-Invest in bridging the last mile gap for broadband. 2-Clear headed planning to address the fundamental employment issues undermining labor/per capital wealth. —-there aren’t enough jobs to employ everyone given current market conditions. Ie lower the full time/OT line to 20-30 hours or so and make better support systems (healthcare for all, housing projects for all that aren’t crimes dens) —-make programs to help college students prepare, correctly for the labor force.

jupp0r 9y ago

It always amazes me how pessimistic people can be in terms of where the world is heading, especially people who tend towards populism (on the left and the right). In debates, I eventually point out actual data about living conditions[1]. Looking at data instead of news stories, it becomes clear that extreme poverty, vaccination, child mortality and education are vastly improving for a majority of humans on this planet. This leaves aforementioned populists with nothing to argue about but the validity of the data they are seeing, unable to reconcile reality with their world view. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/a-history-of-global-living-conditions-in-5-charts https://ourworldindata.org/a-history-of-global-living-condit...

yequalsx 9y ago
For me the pessimism stems from the fact that having 8 billion or so well off consumers is not environmentally sustainable. We are polluting on a grand scale. Plastics, toxins, and trash are doing great harm to the environment. Right now it appears we are headed for a crash. Maybe not in my lifetime but within 100 years or so will the planet be so polluted that living in it is hellish?
- kijin 9y ago
  This assumes that humanity will not find a way to reduce, recycle, convert, or find better uses for trash in the next 100 years. Coming from a country where nearly everything that can be recycled gets recycled, and having seen this change take place in a span of less than 30 years, your assumption does seem a bit too pessimistic. The same kind of pessimistic assumption underlines the ridiculously high death tolls that people often predict will be caused by global warming. Most of those deaths are attributed to infectious diseases such as malaria. This assumes that humanity will not find a way to prevent and/or cure such diseases on a large scale in the next 100 years.
  - yequalsx 9y ago
    The reverse is also true. You assume humanity will find a way to deal with the trash. Not just the trash that will be made but also the trash that has already found it's way into the oceans. The number of people who recycle a lot is quite small in relation to the total population. Is the increase in recycling enough to offset the increase in trash and toxins? I'm skeptical that this will happen soon enough. Since you come from a country where nearly everything is recycled I'm going to assume you come from a wealthy country. If so then you, yes you, consume far more than most humans. You are a drain on the resources of the planet. Your consumption leads to strip mining, deforestation, and industrial pollution. This damage has been conveniently shipped off to poor regions of the world but the ultimate cause is consumers like you and I. Your recycling hardly makes up for the damage that is done for your consumption. http://www.worldwatch.org/node/810 http://www.worldwatch.org/node/810 From the above article: “If the levels of consumption that...the most affluent people enjoy today were replicated across even half of the roughly 9 billion people projected to be on the planet in 2050, the impact on our water supply, air quality, forests, climate, biological diversity, and human health would be severe.”

gullibleAndVain 9y ago

Duh. Why not clean water instead of vaccines? http://www.organiclifestylemagazine.com/how-plumbing-not-vaccines-eradicated-disease http://www.organiclifestylemagazine.com/how-plumbing-not-vac...

teslabox 9y ago
Providing clean water, infrastructure ('outhouses') and good-enough nutrition are much harder problems than organizing vaccination campaigns.

arca_vorago 9y ago

I wonder if they could quantify the human suffering and death that has happened as their proprietary surveillance operating system has betrayed it's users to totalitarian governments worldwide and just how vital it has been in eroding the constitutional protections of the fourth amendment by essentially backdooring everyone that uses it. Bill Gates was never a good guy, and I don't really give a Fuck if most of you reading this don't like me saying this because you forgot what the word hacker really means because there are too many businesspeople here pretending to be hackers here instead of the other way around.

braderhart 9y ago
Well, you can use their OS, which has for years tried to undermine the free and open source communities, but you have to pay for it. And you have to agree for them to spy on you. And you're poor?? That is okay, just give up more of your privacy rights and we already sold all your data, so you will be a good consumer now. You run Windows. Your mind belongs to us. Your ability to think beyond .NET and C# will soon diminish, and we will give you some mediocre job now based on your mediocre proprietary skills, and your role as a tech worker now be to spread your love for MS to everyone, because if you don't we will stop paying you, and you will have no food and no home. And you will not know how to use anything but Windows.
- gaius 9y ago
  And you have to agree for them to spy on you. And you're poor?? That is okay, just give up more of your privacy rights and we already sold all your data, so you will be a good consumer now This is hilarious. What OS do you think Google, Facebook and the NSA run?
  - braderhart 9y ago
    Google provided an open source operating system, web browser and built a container solution used by every major cloud provider.
    - 9y ago

detcader 9y ago

"I think he broke the law, so I certainly wouldn't characterize him as a hero" - Bill Gates on Snowden. A question I'd love to hear any rich person answer explicitly: is it impossible for a criminal to be a hero? http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/bill-gates-the-rolling-stone-interview-20140313?page=2 http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/bill-gates-the-roll...

rorykoehler 9y ago
I'm pretty sure Bill Gates has a very different view on this than anyone reading this site. He would have doubtless been exposed to the realities of the US government for decades.
- schoen 9y ago
  In press interviews, he's also expressed criticism toward Apple about the San Bernadino iPhone case and about the goal of deploying end-to-end encryption that nobody can break. (I work on these issues on what's apparently the other side from him.)
  - schoen 9y ago
    A subsequent example on cryptocurrency anonymity (which is a topic that's often controversial here, but with relatively few people taking it as far as Gates did): http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-on-cryptocurrency-2018-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-on-cryptocurrency-...
whamlastxmas 9y ago
I think the implication is that he broke a law that Gates agreed with and thought was just. I imagine Gates worked with intelligence agencies a lot at MS and it makes sense he'd share some of their world views.
deleted 9y ago
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mseebach 9y ago

gt_ 9y ago

>We are outspoken about our optimism. These days, though, optimism seems to be in short supply. The headlines are filled with awful news. Every day brings a different story of political division, violence, or natural disaster. Despite the headlines, we see a world that’s getting better. It should take a lot of nerve to open this way. Sympathy, or I guess we call it empathy, who knows, cannot be achieved through optimism alone. The unfettered optimism in this intro seems tone-deaf. I think it undermines the effort they make to the contrary.

jhbadger 9y ago
I'd argue the exact opposite. It is all too easy to just throw up your hands and say "The world is fucked; there isn't anything to do about it". Empathy is impossible without the belief that something can be done, which is optimism.
- gt_ 9y ago
  HN readers are quick to be enthusiastic in celebrating urgent acknowledgement and critical response in the case of server outages and security breaches. Why limit this regard to that? Sure, saying there isn’t anything we can do about it is irresponsible, and so is the lack of nuance of “the world is fucked”. Is this the only alternative you can imagine? >Empathy is impossible without the belief that something can be done, which is optimism. That is not what optimism is. If you can not identify problems, you are multitudes more unlikely to solve them. My critique is as basic as that.
kijin 9y ago
They're optimistic, but not brashly so. Bill and Melinda Gates have literally saved millions of children. If that doesn't give them a reason to be optimistic, I don't see what would. Just because Americans are shooting up schools doesn't mean that the lives of people in some other parts of this planet haven't improved by leaps and bounds in the last few years alone.
ianai 9y ago
That may be a contrast with a widespread negative view. Much of current media are dominated by negative stories. For instance, every time I’ve tuened on local news the top stories are murders or rapes. Everytime he can Trump says the people are worse off and etc. anything that doesn’t fit the “wallpaper” stands out.

detaro 9y ago

previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16366263 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16366263

Codestare 9y ago

I sometimes wonder what would happen if Bill Gates and say Warren Buffet spent a ridiculous amound of money on lobbying, in order to drastically change the political landscape.

spectrum1234 9y ago

The first 2 questions remind me of the (fantastic) book I'm reading Doing Good Better. This is basically effective altruism. This book argues that a dollar goes a lot farther in the third world. (Obviously.) It also has a great story about how money spent on educational resources can have almost no effect while money spent on deworming (yes, worms) can greatly increase educational results. (Not so obvious.) This is a third world example but its fairly obvious the problems with US education aren't' resource or efficiency based.

randomstring 9y ago
Another good book on effective altruism is The Most Good You Can Do by Peter Singer. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23168483-the-most-good-you-can-do https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23168483-the-most-good-y... It's clear that Bill and Melinda Gates are practicing effective altruism in an effort to do the most good with their money.

soperj 9y ago

I can't be the only one who wishes they spent nothing in the US on Education and direct it all to homelessness, so they can stop screwing up Education. Common Core is horrendous.

alexashka 9y ago

I am irked to no end how off the mark their entire foundation is. It's like the person with the least imagination on earth, got handed billions of dollars. What is the lowest hanging fruit of all time? Right, the night-time ads on TV with poor children in a foreign country. What is the least imaginative way of helping a developed nation? 'Better education'. Sigh. Really? We just need to stop children from dying, educate the parents, and everything will be fine? It's not that people are pessimistic - they are just REALISTIC, about what a crock of shit they're being handed, and Bill and Melinda's answer is to meet Steven Pinker and go 'hey, statistics show that everything's better than it ever was!' My god... We're talking billionaires, having no ideas, no imagination, and no idea that they have neither, and wondering why things kind of suck? Because people with no ideas, no imagination, are the ones who get to make billions of dollars in our society? Maybe, just maybe, that has something to do with it Bill...

Daishiman 9y ago
This is completely uninsightful.
- alexashka 9y ago
  If you had cancer and didn't know it, and someone named Melinda came and gave you a nice bed, some pain-pills and told you she cared, you'd feel a bit better. Except you'd still have cancer. When someone got you to a doctor, who operated on you quickly and saved your life, you'd not only consider the person who got you to the doctor insightful, but far more helpful than Melinda, and be rightfully outraged at Melinda's well-meaning but clueless efforts to help you. I am the person getting you to the doctor, Melinda is Melinda Gates, and the insightful bit is figuring out what cancer is, and what a doctor would be, in this metaphor. Melinda and Gates think it's lack of education in the USA. You tell me.
dennis_jeeves 9y ago
alexashka- pity you were downvoted. I upvoted you. I agree with all that you said. What you stated are uncomfortable truths that not many want to confront. Bill is not really a smart guy in my standing. May be one could argue that he is smart in a narrow band - that of making money. I certainly can think of a few of my acquaintances who can be more creative than him in ways to "help" others.