5 ms·

It's not really about wealth, though. No one is asking or cares what the Walton heirs would have to say. It's the fact that Bill is smarter than the people in

by Reedx 7y ago

It's not really about wealth, though. No one is asking or cares what the Walton heirs would have to say. It's the fact that Bill is smarter than the people in charge of our institutions. And he has a lot of experience in this domain. And has been warning about exactly this problem for many years. Indeed he warned that pandemics were our biggest blindspot and threat. E.g., See his TED talk from 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Af6b_wyiwI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Af6b_wyiwI

logjammin 7y ago
Put aside for a second the fact that being rich enough from word processing software to surround yourself with experts and repeat what they tell you does not (necessarily) make you an expert. Apart from that, I agree with the thrust of what you're saying: he's not the Waltons, and he's funded meaningful public health work. The point I'm trying to make in my original comment isn't about BG himself, it's exactly about "the people in charge of our institutions". Rereading it, I didn't make this as clear as possible, so let me take another stab: We think of ourselves as an advanced democracy (or democratic republic) and economy. We certainly pay for that in taxes and in other ways (obviously we're not Nordic in terms of income tax, but still). But when it's go-time for that advanced democracy, for the institutions and experts we pay to train through years of schooling in public universities and then pay to command highly specialized bodies at local, state, and federal levels, their performance is, excuse my language, so fucking dismal that the vaunted CDC cannot make a working test, that there are not enough latex gloves in that advanced democracy to keep doctors and nurses from getting sick ... their performance is so dismal and we're so untrusting of the basic decency and competence of our experts and elected officials that we crowd into a Reddit AMA to hear a software magnate maybe have a better solution ... Is that not just bizarre to you? Infuriating? Sad? I fully grant that I may be alone in feeling this way. On some level I'm reacting strongly to the fact that the country I immigrated to as a teenager is revealing itself to be profoundly third-world in certain ways - like, this isn't what I thought I signed up for. Like I said earlier, there's something truly funny about it at the same time that it's terribly sad. (One funny thing is that the solution the guy comes up with is "let's put a microchip in everyone!".) Don't mean to impose my views on anyone, and again, I'm not saying Gates has enabled, via Windows wealth, zero good in the world. It's not about Gates; it's about us.
- thawaway1837 7y ago
  Considering the person who is surrounded by the best experts, and should be in charge, spends his press conferences contradicting what those very experts just said minutes ago, we are kind of forced to listen to other people who have access to the best knowledge here, and that’s usually the wealthy.
  - logjammin 7y ago
    Right, yes, exactly: my point is that that state of affairs you describe is fucking bananas. That's all.
    - FuckButtons 7y ago
      Yeah, it is, but that’s no more true now than it was before Coronavirus. Trumps presidency has laid bare just how enfeebled American democracy is.
- curiousgeorgio 7y ago
  Perhaps this should be viewed as just more evidence that in many cases, private enterprise tends to be more productive than government-sponsored initiatives. Granted, that may not always be the case (China being a counterexample here), but one must also be aware of the costs (in terms of freedom) that are associated with government control of such a large portion of citizens' lives and the means of production. If that's what you happen to prefer, you're free to move to a nation that embraces communism. You might fare better in a pandemic, but you might also get locked up (or worse) for saying something that your government doesn't agree with. As for me, I prefer capitalism and the freedom it gives us to either hoard wealth or (as Gates demonstrates) do tremendous good - not by force, but out of genuine altruism. I'd bet on the success of a Gates-sponsored healthcare solution over a government-sponsored one any day of the week.
  - foldr 7y ago
    >I'd bet on the success of a Gates-sponsored healthcare solution over a government-sponsored one any day of the week. So you'd bet that the US is going to deal with the pandemic more effectively than China has? That doesn't seem likely at the moment.
dwaltrip 7y ago
I don't think it's that he is smarter. I would bet that plenty of people in the relevant agencies were fully aware of how unprepared we were, and that the decision makers were simply unconvinced that is was important enough oe politically expedient.

by Reedx 7y ago

logjammin 7y ago

Put aside for a second the fact that being rich enough from word processing software to surround yourself with experts and repeat what they tell you does not (necessarily) make you an expert. Apart from that, I agree with the thrust of what you're saying: he's not the Waltons, and he's funded meaningful public health work. The point I'm trying to make in my original comment isn't about BG himself, it's exactly about "the people in charge of our institutions". Rereading it, I didn't make this as clear as possible, so let me take another stab: We think of ourselves as an advanced democracy (or democratic republic) and economy. We certainly pay for that in taxes and in other ways (obviously we're not Nordic in terms of income tax, but still). But when it's go-time for that advanced democracy, for the institutions and experts we pay to train through years of schooling in public universities and then pay to command highly specialized bodies at local, state, and federal levels, their performance is, excuse my language, so fucking dismal that the vaunted CDC cannot make a working test, that there are not enough latex gloves in that advanced democracy to keep doctors and nurses from getting sick ... their performance is so dismal and we're so untrusting of the basic decency and competence of our experts and elected officials that we crowd into a Reddit AMA to hear a software magnate maybe have a better solution ... Is that not just bizarre to you? Infuriating? Sad? I fully grant that I may be alone in feeling this way. On some level I'm reacting strongly to the fact that the country I immigrated to as a teenager is revealing itself to be profoundly third-world in certain ways - like, this isn't what I thought I signed up for. Like I said earlier, there's something truly funny about it at the same time that it's terribly sad. (One funny thing is that the solution the guy comes up with is "let's put a microchip in everyone!".) Don't mean to impose my views on anyone, and again, I'm not saying Gates has enabled, via Windows wealth, zero good in the world. It's not about Gates; it's about us.

thawaway1837 7y ago
Considering the person who is surrounded by the best experts, and should be in charge, spends his press conferences contradicting what those very experts just said minutes ago, we are kind of forced to listen to other people who have access to the best knowledge here, and that’s usually the wealthy.
- logjammin 7y ago
  Right, yes, exactly: my point is that that state of affairs you describe is fucking bananas. That's all.
  - FuckButtons 7y ago
    Yeah, it is, but that’s no more true now than it was before Coronavirus. Trumps presidency has laid bare just how enfeebled American democracy is.
curiousgeorgio 7y ago
Perhaps this should be viewed as just more evidence that in many cases, private enterprise tends to be more productive than government-sponsored initiatives. Granted, that may not always be the case (China being a counterexample here), but one must also be aware of the costs (in terms of freedom) that are associated with government control of such a large portion of citizens' lives and the means of production. If that's what you happen to prefer, you're free to move to a nation that embraces communism. You might fare better in a pandemic, but you might also get locked up (or worse) for saying something that your government doesn't agree with. As for me, I prefer capitalism and the freedom it gives us to either hoard wealth or (as Gates demonstrates) do tremendous good - not by force, but out of genuine altruism. I'd bet on the success of a Gates-sponsored healthcare solution over a government-sponsored one any day of the week.
- foldr 7y ago
  >I'd bet on the success of a Gates-sponsored healthcare solution over a government-sponsored one any day of the week. So you'd bet that the US is going to deal with the pandemic more effectively than China has? That doesn't seem likely at the moment.

dwaltrip 7y ago

I don't think it's that he is smarter. I would bet that plenty of people in the relevant agencies were fully aware of how unprepared we were, and that the decision makers were simply unconvinced that is was important enough oe politically expedient.