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"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.

by 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

by lkbm 9y ago

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