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Bill Gates Has Regrets
- jfengel 6y agoGiven how much denial there is of the threat now that it is a fait accompli, it's hard to imagine convincing a sufficient number to deal with it as an abstraction.
- champagneben 6y agoIt might be harder for some to accept it now, given that it might hurt their preferred political outcome.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- empath75 6y agoReminds me of this scene: https://youtu.be/qIp_8RNNX4k?t=85 https://youtu.be/qIp_8RNNX4k?t=85
- vezycash 6y agoI think he should shut his mouth next time and here's why - conspiracy theorists and click baity bloggers. Right now, Bill Gates is huge topic in many African countries. My dad keeps infuriating me with stupid statements and questions like: He's not a doctor, so how did he know? What gives him the qualification to make such statements? The covid virus is man made - he must be involved some how. He's going to make money by selling vaccines. His wife said there would be dead bodies all over Africa. Bill gates is a satanist - he and Steve jobs. Nigerian government is pushing a mandatory vaccination bill for covid 19. And a Nigerian senator claimed on twitter that Bill Gates is behind the bill and that he bribed people... I respect the man with his big heart. I'd pull my money and wait for these same people to come begging.
- jonny_eh 6y ago> He's not a doctor, so how did he know? It was no different than warning us to get ready for the next Earthquake. Gates didn't know which virus or when, only that we weren't ready. You don't need to be a doctor to know that.
- bluGill 6y agoThere are many things to be ready for that we don't know of. It happened to be a virus, but there are many that never happen that you need to be ready for. Solution: be resilient and ready for whatever. When a real problem happens adjust to it.
- SteveNuts 6y agoBut, why not prepare for the most likely ones, especially when there's a very specific plan you can follow to be optimally prepared (stockpiled ppe, respirators,etc)?
- bluGill 6y agoYou are looking at this with hindsight. There are specific things that you can do to prepare for an invasion of your country that I'm sure you are not doing. There are things you can do to prepare for unemployment that we know a lot of people didn't do (unemployment is a bigger worry than ppe for many people, perhaps wrong but it is)
- kauffj 6y agoPrivacy and user-friendly archive link: http://archive.is/KdcDA http://archive.is/KdcDA
- junaru 6y agoArchive.is is not privacy friendly: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828317
- bransonf 6y agoPersonally, I’m a huge fan of the Gates foundation and their public health efforts. However, I recognize that not everyone shares this sentiment. The anti-vax crowd had painted Gates as the devil, and a non-insignificant number of people just don’t like him because he’s wealthy. In these ways, I don’t think there was anything more he really could have done. The reason that Covid has hit the United States so hard is because of a blatant culture of denial. As a country, we deny the news, we deny science. Had Gates tried to speak up more, it would have been met with denialism.
- sildur 6y agoA lot of people don’t like him not because he’s wealthy, but because the ways he used to become wealthy.
- pstrateman 6y agoI think outside of tech circles you will find very few people that have issue with how he became wealthy.
- butterfi 6y agoTrue, but the end still doesn't justify the means.
- piercebot 6y agoEven if that means the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation wouldn't exist today? At the cost of the hundreds of millions[0] of lives they've saved? Not attacking, just starting a discussion. What if we frame this in the context of the Trolley Problem? Bill pulled the lever, and the trolley deviated from its mandated course, but now many lives have been saved as a result. Does the end still not justify the means? 0: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/14/bill-gates-philanthropy-warren-buffett-vaccines-infant-mortality https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/14/bill-gates-phi...
- s5300 6y agoSigh... while journalism does need money - can somebody post non paywalled text? I'd like to read this.
- kick 6y agowsj's paywall can be circumvented by clicking that 'web' button below the HN title, then hitting the WSJ link that follows.
- perardi 6y agoSigh…how do people expect journalism to happen if nobody pays for it? https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/02/14/fast-facts-about-the-newspaper-industrys-financial-struggles/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/02/14/fast-facts-... Unless you want to create a BBC-esque public broadcasting and news-gathering operation. In which case, you'll still be paying, just via taxes. (Also, right now the WSJ has a $1 for 2 months option. Which is probably a pain to cancel, but still.)
- s5300 6y agoPardon me if I'm not doing my due diligence in research... It's called the Wall Street Journal, correct? Didn't Wall Street just get... y'know, a few trillion un-traced doll-hairs? Perhaps... they could fund the journalism. In all seriousness: In a civil society, what the U.S. claims to be (IIRC, somebody correct me if I'm mistaken) - Journalism should be funded by institutions. Perhaps - funded by the government, at a loss - for the sake of informing the populace. I think, in a functional civil society, that's atleast somewhat close to how things should work. I believe it may not go hand in hand with human nature though... Thanks to all who helped for my first question though.
- esmi 6y ago> Journalism should be funded by institutions. Perhaps - funded by the government, at a loss - for the sake of informing the populace. state run media... i think that's been tried before. maybe a couple of times.
- burntoutfire 6y agoFor a second, I was hoping it is going to be about his business practices while running Microsoft...
- MattGaiser 6y agoDon't feel bad Bill. Getting non-technicals to understand risk is near impossible.
- Diederich 6y agoGetting 'technicals' to understand risk is also rather difficult. Perhaps one difference is that many 'technicals' (whatever group that is) might feel like they do understand risk, even when they don't.
- erikig 6y agoThe Dunning–Kruger effect is real even among 'technicals'. I would say more but I fear I'd be overstepping how much I understood about the whole thing.
- legitster 6y agoA bit of a bait-y headline. I think the crazy thing is that we are worse prepared than if the virus broke out 5 or 6 years ago. If you think of the millions of dollars the Gates Foundation spent on lobbying government to be more prepared, it actively had a negative return rate.
- CrazyStat 6y agoPerhaps we would be even worse prepared than we are if they hadn't lobbied.
- ksdale 6y agoThat implies that if the Gates Foundation hadn't done anything, we'd be better prepared, which doesn't necessarily follow...
- legitster 6y agoThe implication I was trying to draw is that it made sense for them at the time to spend their resources elsewhere.
- vezycash 6y ago> it made sense for them at the time to spend their resources elsewhere. Not necessarily. Government officials can be quite petty. They love to take the glory for good things. And outsource blames. If Bill gave out millions of masks, food, bought ventilators and stuff, the narrative would still be negative. Politicians would assume he's trying to run for office and act accordingly. The anti-vaccine movement would take his preparations as PROOF that he created the virus.
- tyree731 6y agoI think it's fair to imagine the reason the US is less prepared than it was a few years ago not being the Gates Foundations work, but the state of the US Government in 2020.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
- code4tee 6y agoSadly there are few in leadership positions willing to step up and do something today to help with a long term problem that’s not obviously going to matter in the very short term. Climate change and crumbling infrastructure are other examples of this. It’s easy to just ignore it until later... until later is today. CEO focus on the next quarter over longer term impacts is another common issue with this “short term gain for long term pain” mindset. Real leaders know how to take the flak today to tackle the hard problems of tomorrow. Sadly such leaders are rare. A true global pandemic was never a question of if, just when. The world had several clear warning shots across the bow (SARS, Ebola, ...) Maybe we need to give anyone seeking a leadership role the “marshmallow test” (look it up)
- bluGill 6y agoReal leaders also know how to conserve political capital. "Great programs" spend it often before accomplishing the goal.
- sabman83 6y agoWhile there are some conspiracy theories that are hard to believe, this piece raises some important questions : https://off-guardian.org/2020/05/09/who-controls-the-british-government-response-to-covid-19/ https://off-guardian.org/2020/05/09/who-controls-the-british...
- MattGaiser 6y agoRun out of 5G towers to burn?
- perardi 6y agoDid they specifically choose a URL that looks, in passing, like The Guardian?
- orwin 6y agoIn this paper (i continued reading after the carefully cherrypicked graph because it seems everyone cherrypick those days): """Instead of offering proactive and positive suggestions that will enable our immune systems to combat the disease""" Yeah, right. You can train your immune system, this is a well known fact in every pseudo-scientific paper [0] /s I'm not asking anyone to be an expert, but man this is 1rst year med school. I mean anybody who took biology lessons in college know about this. My sister just started a school to become dietitian (not even nutritionist) and learnt about this. How can people trust someone who write something so uninformed? [0] https://www.hunterandbligh.com.au/life-and-style/8-ways-to-boost-your-immune-system/ https://www.hunterandbligh.com.au/life-and-style/8-ways-to-b...
- sabman83 6y agoIsn’t the line following that say the same thing? That the lockdown will suppress the immunity system?
- orwin 6y agoNot exactly, as you can be immunodeficient. It is still inaccurate. If lockdown was proved to prevents you from sleeping well and to cause enough nutritional deficiencies (don't have the english word, sorry), yes, maybe it could perturb the endocrine system enough ot "suppress" your immune system. But i'm fairly sure everybody that was not eating in restaurants every lunch ate better than usual (still too much sugar but...). And fitbit data in the US seems to shows that people are sleeping better during the lockdown[0]. This argument is based on bad logic, bad science, bad everything. Honestly, i'm not sure if overall, lockdown is better or worst for the health of everyone. Im sure some people will have a lot of positive effects (me at least), some people might suffer more negatives effects, and for other it might balance out. From the quick search i did with sleep quality and eating habits, it seems that overall health is better. However i have two addiction doctors in my family and anecdotal data seems to suggest that for other people, it was deadly (one of the two was involved in a Covid unit until last week and just started counting deaths). [0] https://www.fastcompany.com/90499017/fitbit-data-shows-were-sleeping-better-during-the-covid-19-lockdown https://www.fastcompany.com/90499017/fitbit-data-shows-were-...
- mcv 6y agoHe did what he could. The people who should feel terrible are the people who didn't listen to him.
- fossuser 6y agoI don't see how he could have done more than he did. I think the problems are bigger, a mixture of incentive problems, and the political nonsense that comes from that as a result. Along with a newly digitally connected public that is largely uneducated, easily manipulated, and bad at critical thinking. Disinformation attacks are more effective than they used to be.
- vezycash 6y ago>largely uneducated I don't think schooling is the issue. Both schooled and unschooled are falling for lies - especially when the reader is not knowledgeable in the topic. >easily manipulated, and bad at critical thinking I agree here and would add, once people have made up their mind on a topic, they tend to stick to that position and tune out counter evidence. And their initial position is due to luck or randomness of which position they first get exposed to.
- fossuser 6y agoYeah - I think that's a fair criticism. I'd suspect uneducated makes it worse, but that might not even be true (maybe uneducated people are more willing to change their mind? maybe they're less effective at rationalizing bullshit?). Maybe it's less about education and more about intelligence broadly defined or less about both and more about practicing 'rationality' specifically, but that ties into critical thinking. I could see it being either way, or likely some combination of all of it.
- s9w 6y ago> Everyone that doesn't agree with me is stupid
- fossuser 6y agoI didn't say this (didn't even imply it), and this kind of lazy attack is what brings down discourse generally.
- 6y ago
- product50 6y agoThis is what leadership looks like. Rather than just saying that I warned the world and no one listened - and thus it is not my problem, he is actually reflecting that I could have done a lot more so that the world listened. I feel this is important to note in current day and age where the world is so polarized and blame-gaming is the name of the hour.
- hardright 6y agoI'm sure he will be sobbing when he sells 7 billion vaccines. I wonder what his pricing structure will be?
- SupriseAnxiety 6y agoI see things like Gates does, because everhthing is just 0123455789 and ABDCEFGHIJ. In which music took out the HIJ. Bach turned the H into a B flat.
- adultSwim 6y agoPhilanthropy serves many purposes but it certainly paid to wash his image. He was publicly hated, notoriously ruthless.