7 ms·

These breakthroughs will make 2021 better than 2020

85 points by pama 6y ago

thraneh 6y ago
Has any other philanthropists in history appeared to care about the world (or part of the world) in a more profound way than Bill and Melinda Gates? The question I have, though, is how about continuation? I can't find anything on their website about a (hopefully distant) future without Bill and Melinda. Are the covenants such that the organisation can continue and still have the same impact? And the reason I care is that I always have doubts about the long-term effectiveness of charity contributions. It appears to me that their foundation has a more fundamental long-term impact than other charities. If I had some guarantees about the continuation, I'd be very interested in leaving my worldly possessions to this foundation, when my own time is up. For reference: I'm in my 50s, have no children, and the thought about donating through my will is getting back to me more and more often.
- natmaka 6y ago
  IMHO caring is giving what people want, not trying to do what you declare good for them.
  - youeseh 6y ago
    Like, an end to malaria and food insecurity?
    - sieabahlpark 6y ago
      And the tattoo microchip, really "profound" stuff
    - natmaka 6y ago
      As long as "helped" people are objectively informed of any dependence and known side-effect thanks to some public debate, then accept the deal, and any individual remains free to refuse it for himself.
      - mannykannot 6y ago
        In an adjacent thread [1], you have presented the increasing diabetes and obesity in young people as a problem. According to your argument here, however, it would be 'caring' to assist the poor lifestyle choices that have caused this problem, so long as they are informed of the consequences. It is well-established, however, that this information has little effect, and your concept concept of caring looks to me more like facilitation. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25516165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25516165
        natmaka 6y ago
        People are entitled to their choices when it comes to themselves, and most problems arise when someone try to impose his views. To care is to facilitate what is wanted by the beneficiary, honestly presented to him, and not threatening for anyone else. Some over-consume refined sugar (=> obesity...), for example, because they are unhappy and compensate (some may even be committing a slow suicide), some just prefer an immediate pleasure (even knowing that they will suffer), and some are just dumb. "Such information has little effect" on them, indeed, however imposing anything on them "in order to save them" seems the worse approach to me, and IMHO some will eventually react to it dangerously for all parties. Solving the underlying unhappyness of those who compensate, finding some substitute or a way to enlighten the dumb ones, seems more efficient to me. It is, however, more difficult than not interacting with them while claiming to "care" by selecting an approach then throwing money at projects aiming at imposing it. A fair part of human misery is caused by people imposing stuff to others, I fail to see how it can be a way to "care".
        mannykannot 6y ago
        > most problems arise when someone try to impose his views. I think it would be very hard to make this argument in the specific cases that you chose for making your point with here (diabetes and obesity.)
        natmaka 6y ago
  - scsilver 6y ago
    Sounds like an excuse to not tackle universally despised problems like disease.
    - natmaka 6y ago
      This is also about the ways to do it, and their potential effects. In order to "control" malaria (see "youeseh" answer here) some dispersed tons of DDT. I, for one, sure prefer to tackle mosquitoes than to see "good samaritans" put such products everywhere near me, without my consent (even if they do so while chanting "this is for your own good".)
- alphabettsy 6y ago
  I assume you mean by dollar amount of personal fortune they’ve contributed because I can certainly think of quite a few philanthropists who have sacrificed more by percentage of wealth, time, or given their lives to support worthy causes. This is by no means a dig at the Gates whom I admire greatly. It’s hard to say if a foundation such as theirs can survive their loss. As much as they might clearly define the mission future leaders could still deviate from the founding principles like we’ve seen with many charitable organizations. There are no guarantees.
  - woofie11 6y ago
    It's nearly impossible for a foundation like Gates to survive a loss of visionary leadership. If it were handed to me with no checks-and-balances, and I were given absolute control, I'm pretty sure I could run Gates Foundation as well as Gates. That's not a statement about me; I know a few people who could run it BETTER than myself or Gates. The problem is finding them and the no checks-and-balances bit. Beyond a founder/donor, no checks-and-balances is a really bad way to run an organization because although MANY people would do a great job, MOST people wouldn't. A good dictatorship beats a good democracy, but a typical democracy beats a typical dictatorship. The sorts of arbitrary decisions "Let's dump a billion dollars into making a vaccine for COVID19 economical" become impossible once the founder of a foundation goes away, unless you are willing to accept that whomever comes into control might just as well say "Let's dump a billion dollars into buying paintings of myself at 10x markup." You move into competitive processes. Competitive processes mean people apply for grants under standard criteria. If grants have a strongly positive ROI, you have more people applying to the program, and if a negative ROI, fewer people. This means grant-funded organizations will spend a significant portion of their time applying for grants; grants become thin-margin beasts. And the people who do run late foundations? They're connected people good at climbing corporate ladders.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaw999 6y ago
  I'm not convinced if Gates actually cares about the world. I find his transformation from one of the disliked CEOs of most despised companies into some sort of high tech messiah hard to believe. The phrase "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" was coined in Microsoft when he was the CEO. Google bombing was invented to redirect to Microsoft homepage when searching "more evil than satan himself". Those are facts that confirm the sentiment I remember. In my opinion, his philanthropy work is just another playground. Power is addictive and now he has way to exercise power over world outside the tech industry. Quick Google search shows he spent 45B$ on his foundation... and another search shows his net worth is still 119B$. This is still more money that I can imagine, even if he spent 99.9% of it he would still be richer than I can ever hope for. And honestly, his personal brand is so strong that even after zeroing on his account balance he could become multimillionaire in no time. Maybe I'm overly cynical. Maybe my memory fails me and I'm mistaken about how bad reputation he and his company had back in the day. But it's hard for me to buy this 180 degree turn from ruthless CEO into great philanthropist. Now, I'm not saying his antichrist and he planned the pandemic 20 years ahead; I just would appreciate some healthy skepticism.
  - rohit89 6y ago
    Just because you enjoy crushing business rivals doesn't mean you also want kids to die young. I think Gates simply enjoys the challenge and the technical side of things.
    - throwaw999 6y ago
      I'm not saying he wants kids to die young, please don't strawman me. I think Gates career as CEO points into direction he enjoys acquiring and wielding power. He stepped down from being CEO in 2008, this was long after Windows won. It's also possible that he enjoys both technical side of challenges and being powerful at the same time.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- rohit89 6y ago
  IIRC the Foundation is supposed to close up shop 20 years after both of them die. I guess Bill is aware of the potential for abuse. They do not accept donations anyway. Between Gates and Buffet, they have all the resources they need.
- pcdoodle 6y ago
  Gates has managed to increase his wealth more by "Philanthropy" than the pre Microsoft breakup days. The business he was running was so cut throat that the government had to step in.
- rajlego 6y ago
  Have you heard of effective altruism [1]? You might find it relevant about doing more good efficiently with your money [1] https://www.effectivealtruism.org/ https://www.effectivealtruism.org/
theodpHN 6y ago
Is that mask in the photo accompanying the post photoshopped over an existing picture of Bill? Or is Gates actually wearing the mask that way? In either case, doesn't it appear to be OVER the bottom of his glasses? Don't mean to be too picky, but the post stresses the importance of wearing masks to "slow the spread of the virus and save lives," so one would want to avoid suggesting wearing masks in a way that has been noted to decrease their effectiveness. Btw, tried Googling for another photo of Bill wearing a mask for comparison purposes, but couldn't find any. Guess he's been pretty good about social distancing! :-)
- el_oni 6y ago
  I think its because of black frames over a black mask. When it was greyscaled the contrast was increased it seems to have merged the two
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    You can indeed see outline of the bottom of the frame on top of the mask on the right side of the picture. Also the shape of the top edge suggests some refractive distortion. Which is to say, I think your interpretation is correct - the mask goes under the glasses.
    - theodpHN 6y ago
      Right you both are (as is BillG!). Couldn't see it on my cheap-o laptop (1366x768 display), but the frame on the right side seems to be visible on an iPhone display. Thanks!
- tomcam 6y ago
  I wish I had as much time as you seem to
sumosudo 6y ago
Once upon a time I believe gates said he wants to put a PC on every desktop in the world. But now I think he wants to put a PC inside every body in the world. This man is not a doctor, and neither is his money being used for our good. Only the good he thinks is. But he is a sociopath so his good is warped and nefarious. Not once has clean living or healthy lifestyle been advised from the gates foundation, only corporate profit making items like toxin vaccines and GMO foods. This man should be shot at the bottom of a fast filling hole.
- Huffers2 6y ago
  Does clean living and healthy lifestyle help much with malaria and starvation?
  - sumosudo 6y ago
    Oh, so gates big push to heal us all, with this convid vaccine, in the same breath says lockdowns are going to carry on till 2022, killing and starving far more than the third world coountries ever experienced. Please, this man is evil.
tobbob 6y ago
I'm disappointed that he both mentioned George Floyd and refers to his death as a killing.
- gremlinsinc 6y ago
  What would you characterize it as? Would execution work better? It definitely wasn't an accident, nor was it self-defense. Literally over $20, all the turmoil that followed, this guys life, everything this ignited shows that one life is worth more than a measly $20, the fact that it's caused billions of police dollars to be re-directed says he's at least worth all those billions of dollars that WERE earmarked for cops, and now will go to mental health, social workers, and others to deal with less dangerous mental health issues. As well as hopefully more/better training on what is acceptable and what is not.
  - tobbob 6y ago
    A criminal and drug addict took a massive overdose of drugs shortly before being arrested, while behind the wheel of a car. He was uncooperative with the police, they called an ambulance as they could tell he was high on drugs. He refused to get in the police car, instead asking to lie on the ground. He lay there, being restrained in the standard way, and had a heart attack caused by the 4x lethal dose of drugs he had taken, possibly in an attempt to avoid being charged with their possession. The pathologist report proved that the cause of death was due to the drug overdose. Then, lawyers got involved, paid for a second pathologist to create a phony report, and spun a false narrative that the media swallowed up, and this inspired massive amounts of racists to riot, murdering cops and other citizens, rapes, assaults, arson, looting etc, and then these rioters organized and joined forced with another domestic terrorist organisation with similar aims called antifa.
cybert00th 6y ago
Call me cynical but I'm not convinced by Mr Gates or his foundation. Like many of us on here, I too lived through 'the Microsoft years', I watched Microsoft under his leadership effectively dominate their competition using fair means and foul. Case in point, Microsoft are the first to be mentioned in the Examples section of the Wikipedia page on FUD. I've subsequently listened to him in interviews over the last 10 months, and the man cannot stop himself, he sees a large mound of money and his old cutthroat competitive spirit comes surging back. In some interviews it's like he's out of breath just getting out his own way, to rubbish his rivals and convince us to buy 'his vaccine'.
- daveed 6y ago
  It sounds like you are cynical? He's pledged the vast majority of his money to charity, and he's working on important problems. I haven't listened to him in interviews (is it a tone you're picking up?), but in the things he writes his focus seems very much in the right direction. The investments in vaccines (https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/bill-melinda-gates-foundation-announces-250-million-covid/story?id=74651890 https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/bill-melinda-gates-foundat... ?) seem to be made by his foundation, and I can't tell if it's to the companies themselves or to fund distribution and operational costs (which would be free money for the world). Is there more to this?
partingshots 6y ago
Isn’t it sort of dystopian that rich people in developed countries get to have vaccines with 95% effectiveness while we give poor people in developing countries the vaccine that’s only 70% effective?
- thefiregecko 6y ago
  No, dystopian would be only providing the mRNA (95% effective) vaccines. The storage and distribution requirements are already an issue in the US due to a lack of refrigerators needed to move the vaccines around.
- kyriakos 6y ago
  Whole Europe is getting the 70% vaccine as well so I don't think it's just a matter of GDP. EU made deals with all companies who finished their trials successfully

85 points by pama 6y ago

Has any other philanthropists in history appeared to care about the world (or part of the world) in a more profound way than Bill and Melinda Gates? The question I have, though, is how about continuation? I can't find anything on their website about a (hopefully distant) future without Bill and Melinda. Are the covenants such that the organisation can continue and still have the same impact? And the reason I care is that I always have doubts about the long-term effectiveness of charity contributions. It appears to me that their foundation has a more fundamental long-term impact than other charities. If I had some guarantees about the continuation, I'd be very interested in leaving my worldly possessions to this foundation, when my own time is up. For reference: I'm in my 50s, have no children, and the thought about donating through my will is getting back to me more and more often.

natmaka 6y ago
IMHO caring is giving what people want, not trying to do what you declare good for them.
- youeseh 6y ago
  Like, an end to malaria and food insecurity?
  - sieabahlpark 6y ago
    And the tattoo microchip, really "profound" stuff
  - natmaka 6y ago
    As long as "helped" people are objectively informed of any dependence and known side-effect thanks to some public debate, then accept the deal, and any individual remains free to refuse it for himself.
    - mannykannot 6y ago
      In an adjacent thread [1], you have presented the increasing diabetes and obesity in young people as a problem. According to your argument here, however, it would be 'caring' to assist the poor lifestyle choices that have caused this problem, so long as they are informed of the consequences. It is well-established, however, that this information has little effect, and your concept concept of caring looks to me more like facilitation. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25516165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25516165
      - natmaka 6y ago
        People are entitled to their choices when it comes to themselves, and most problems arise when someone try to impose his views. To care is to facilitate what is wanted by the beneficiary, honestly presented to him, and not threatening for anyone else. Some over-consume refined sugar (=> obesity...), for example, because they are unhappy and compensate (some may even be committing a slow suicide), some just prefer an immediate pleasure (even knowing that they will suffer), and some are just dumb. "Such information has little effect" on them, indeed, however imposing anything on them "in order to save them" seems the worse approach to me, and IMHO some will eventually react to it dangerously for all parties. Solving the underlying unhappyness of those who compensate, finding some substitute or a way to enlighten the dumb ones, seems more efficient to me. It is, however, more difficult than not interacting with them while claiming to "care" by selecting an approach then throwing money at projects aiming at imposing it. A fair part of human misery is caused by people imposing stuff to others, I fail to see how it can be a way to "care".
        mannykannot 6y ago
        > most problems arise when someone try to impose his views. I think it would be very hard to make this argument in the specific cases that you chose for making your point with here (diabetes and obesity.)
        natmaka 6y ago
- scsilver 6y ago
  Sounds like an excuse to not tackle universally despised problems like disease.
  - natmaka 6y ago
    This is also about the ways to do it, and their potential effects. In order to "control" malaria (see "youeseh" answer here) some dispersed tons of DDT. I, for one, sure prefer to tackle mosquitoes than to see "good samaritans" put such products everywhere near me, without my consent (even if they do so while chanting "this is for your own good".)
alphabettsy 6y ago
I assume you mean by dollar amount of personal fortune they’ve contributed because I can certainly think of quite a few philanthropists who have sacrificed more by percentage of wealth, time, or given their lives to support worthy causes. This is by no means a dig at the Gates whom I admire greatly. It’s hard to say if a foundation such as theirs can survive their loss. As much as they might clearly define the mission future leaders could still deviate from the founding principles like we’ve seen with many charitable organizations. There are no guarantees.
- woofie11 6y ago
  It's nearly impossible for a foundation like Gates to survive a loss of visionary leadership. If it were handed to me with no checks-and-balances, and I were given absolute control, I'm pretty sure I could run Gates Foundation as well as Gates. That's not a statement about me; I know a few people who could run it BETTER than myself or Gates. The problem is finding them and the no checks-and-balances bit. Beyond a founder/donor, no checks-and-balances is a really bad way to run an organization because although MANY people would do a great job, MOST people wouldn't. A good dictatorship beats a good democracy, but a typical democracy beats a typical dictatorship. The sorts of arbitrary decisions "Let's dump a billion dollars into making a vaccine for COVID19 economical" become impossible once the founder of a foundation goes away, unless you are willing to accept that whomever comes into control might just as well say "Let's dump a billion dollars into buying paintings of myself at 10x markup." You move into competitive processes. Competitive processes mean people apply for grants under standard criteria. If grants have a strongly positive ROI, you have more people applying to the program, and if a negative ROI, fewer people. This means grant-funded organizations will spend a significant portion of their time applying for grants; grants become thin-margin beasts. And the people who do run late foundations? They're connected people good at climbing corporate ladders.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
throwaw999 6y ago
I'm not convinced if Gates actually cares about the world. I find his transformation from one of the disliked CEOs of most despised companies into some sort of high tech messiah hard to believe. The phrase "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" was coined in Microsoft when he was the CEO. Google bombing was invented to redirect to Microsoft homepage when searching "more evil than satan himself". Those are facts that confirm the sentiment I remember. In my opinion, his philanthropy work is just another playground. Power is addictive and now he has way to exercise power over world outside the tech industry. Quick Google search shows he spent 45B$ on his foundation... and another search shows his net worth is still 119B$. This is still more money that I can imagine, even if he spent 99.9% of it he would still be richer than I can ever hope for. And honestly, his personal brand is so strong that even after zeroing on his account balance he could become multimillionaire in no time. Maybe I'm overly cynical. Maybe my memory fails me and I'm mistaken about how bad reputation he and his company had back in the day. But it's hard for me to buy this 180 degree turn from ruthless CEO into great philanthropist. Now, I'm not saying his antichrist and he planned the pandemic 20 years ahead; I just would appreciate some healthy skepticism.
- rohit89 6y ago
  Just because you enjoy crushing business rivals doesn't mean you also want kids to die young. I think Gates simply enjoys the challenge and the technical side of things.
  - throwaw999 6y ago
    I'm not saying he wants kids to die young, please don't strawman me. I think Gates career as CEO points into direction he enjoys acquiring and wielding power. He stepped down from being CEO in 2008, this was long after Windows won. It's also possible that he enjoys both technical side of challenges and being powerful at the same time.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
rohit89 6y ago
IIRC the Foundation is supposed to close up shop 20 years after both of them die. I guess Bill is aware of the potential for abuse. They do not accept donations anyway. Between Gates and Buffet, they have all the resources they need.
pcdoodle 6y ago
Gates has managed to increase his wealth more by "Philanthropy" than the pre Microsoft breakup days. The business he was running was so cut throat that the government had to step in.
rajlego 6y ago
Have you heard of effective altruism [1]? You might find it relevant about doing more good efficiently with your money [1] https://www.effectivealtruism.org/ https://www.effectivealtruism.org/

theodpHN 6y ago

Is that mask in the photo accompanying the post photoshopped over an existing picture of Bill? Or is Gates actually wearing the mask that way? In either case, doesn't it appear to be OVER the bottom of his glasses? Don't mean to be too picky, but the post stresses the importance of wearing masks to "slow the spread of the virus and save lives," so one would want to avoid suggesting wearing masks in a way that has been noted to decrease their effectiveness. Btw, tried Googling for another photo of Bill wearing a mask for comparison purposes, but couldn't find any. Guess he's been pretty good about social distancing! :-)

el_oni 6y ago
I think its because of black frames over a black mask. When it was greyscaled the contrast was increased it seems to have merged the two
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  You can indeed see outline of the bottom of the frame on top of the mask on the right side of the picture. Also the shape of the top edge suggests some refractive distortion. Which is to say, I think your interpretation is correct - the mask goes under the glasses.
  - theodpHN 6y ago
    Right you both are (as is BillG!). Couldn't see it on my cheap-o laptop (1366x768 display), but the frame on the right side seems to be visible on an iPhone display. Thanks!
tomcam 6y ago
I wish I had as much time as you seem to

sumosudo 6y ago

Once upon a time I believe gates said he wants to put a PC on every desktop in the world. But now I think he wants to put a PC inside every body in the world. This man is not a doctor, and neither is his money being used for our good. Only the good he thinks is. But he is a sociopath so his good is warped and nefarious. Not once has clean living or healthy lifestyle been advised from the gates foundation, only corporate profit making items like toxin vaccines and GMO foods. This man should be shot at the bottom of a fast filling hole.

Huffers2 6y ago
Does clean living and healthy lifestyle help much with malaria and starvation?
- sumosudo 6y ago
  Oh, so gates big push to heal us all, with this convid vaccine, in the same breath says lockdowns are going to carry on till 2022, killing and starving far more than the third world coountries ever experienced. Please, this man is evil.

tobbob 6y ago

I'm disappointed that he both mentioned George Floyd and refers to his death as a killing.

gremlinsinc 6y ago
What would you characterize it as? Would execution work better? It definitely wasn't an accident, nor was it self-defense. Literally over $20, all the turmoil that followed, this guys life, everything this ignited shows that one life is worth more than a measly $20, the fact that it's caused billions of police dollars to be re-directed says he's at least worth all those billions of dollars that WERE earmarked for cops, and now will go to mental health, social workers, and others to deal with less dangerous mental health issues. As well as hopefully more/better training on what is acceptable and what is not.
- tobbob 6y ago
  A criminal and drug addict took a massive overdose of drugs shortly before being arrested, while behind the wheel of a car. He was uncooperative with the police, they called an ambulance as they could tell he was high on drugs. He refused to get in the police car, instead asking to lie on the ground. He lay there, being restrained in the standard way, and had a heart attack caused by the 4x lethal dose of drugs he had taken, possibly in an attempt to avoid being charged with their possession. The pathologist report proved that the cause of death was due to the drug overdose. Then, lawyers got involved, paid for a second pathologist to create a phony report, and spun a false narrative that the media swallowed up, and this inspired massive amounts of racists to riot, murdering cops and other citizens, rapes, assaults, arson, looting etc, and then these rioters organized and joined forced with another domestic terrorist organisation with similar aims called antifa.

cybert00th 6y ago

Call me cynical but I'm not convinced by Mr Gates or his foundation. Like many of us on here, I too lived through 'the Microsoft years', I watched Microsoft under his leadership effectively dominate their competition using fair means and foul. Case in point, Microsoft are the first to be mentioned in the Examples section of the Wikipedia page on FUD. I've subsequently listened to him in interviews over the last 10 months, and the man cannot stop himself, he sees a large mound of money and his old cutthroat competitive spirit comes surging back. In some interviews it's like he's out of breath just getting out his own way, to rubbish his rivals and convince us to buy 'his vaccine'.

daveed 6y ago
It sounds like you are cynical? He's pledged the vast majority of his money to charity, and he's working on important problems. I haven't listened to him in interviews (is it a tone you're picking up?), but in the things he writes his focus seems very much in the right direction. The investments in vaccines (https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/bill-melinda-gates-foundation-announces-250-million-covid/story?id=74651890 https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/bill-melinda-gates-foundat... ?) seem to be made by his foundation, and I can't tell if it's to the companies themselves or to fund distribution and operational costs (which would be free money for the world). Is there more to this?

partingshots 6y ago

Isn’t it sort of dystopian that rich people in developed countries get to have vaccines with 95% effectiveness while we give poor people in developing countries the vaccine that’s only 70% effective?

thefiregecko 6y ago
No, dystopian would be only providing the mRNA (95% effective) vaccines. The storage and distribution requirements are already an issue in the US due to a lack of refrigerators needed to move the vaccines around.
kyriakos 6y ago
Whole Europe is getting the 70% vaccine as well so I don't think it's just a matter of GDP. EU made deals with all companies who finished their trials successfully