5 ms·

Melinda Gates at Stanford: "All lives have equal value"

33 points by lominming 14y ago

jobigoud 14y ago
At first I thought this would be a case for veganism.
meaty 14y ago
Until a profit is to be made... Yes that's a jab at capitalism and commercial healthcare.
- GuiA 14y ago
  I believe she meant it in a moral sense, rather than as a truth upheld by our current societal system (because it isn't)
oboizt 14y ago
I agree that travel can definitely open our eyes to various conditions outside our own culture. However, the cost of travelling often could be put directly towards donations. There are so many opportunities to serve close to home in our own communities that often get overlooked because that kind of volunteering doesn't sound as glamorous as building schools in Africa.
- Pwnguinz 14y ago
  Giving money to charitable organizations that have 30~% waste ratio isn't the way to go. What you want are driven, motivated and open-minded individuals that can create disruptive innovation; entrepreneurs. Edit: typos.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - pretoriusB 14y ago
    >What you want are driven, motivated and open-minded individuals that can created disruptive innovation; entrepreneurs. As if the problems of the third world are not already in large part created by greedy enterprises operating there?
    - wheels 14y ago
      No, mostly not. At least not without help from regional oligarchs or colonialists. There's very little utility to the west in most of Africa being poor. Like, most of sub-saharan Africa isn't especially resource rich, their food production isn't very efficient so we don't source much of that, nor do we outsource much labor there. Economic growth is pretty clearly the most effective means of lifting populations out of poverty. In the early steps it often looks pretty ugly (as industrialization did in the now rich countries), but it works, over time. It'd be hard to argue at the moment that China is getting the short end of the stick in their economic relationship to the west. Being poor sucks, and the kind of work poor people get usually sucks, but taking away that suckage for the most part requires helping people become not poor rather than trying to ease the suckage of being poor. South Korea and Taiwan are both interesting case studies in development -- both were impoverished about 30-40 years ago and are modern, rich democracies now. When I was a kid, Taiwan sounded like a magical country. The only way I knew of it was that every toy I'd ever owned seemed to have been made there. Contrary to the grandparent's statement, entrepreneurs aren't always (or perhaps even usually) the catalysts of that growth; a lot of it comes from foreign investment, mega-conglomerates, etc. Most of the drop in poverty in Eastern Asia in recent decades has not come from small business owners.
      - pretoriusB 14y ago
        >No, mostly not. At least not without help from regional oligarchs or colonialists. Those two types tend to be at best relationships with new "enterpreneurs" in the areas. >There's very little utility to the west in most of Africa being poor. Like, most of sub-saharan Africa isn't especially resource rich, their food production isn't very efficient so we don't source much of that, nor do we outsource much labor there. Well, I wouldn't be so sure. See Shell and Nigeria, Congo and blood diamonds, C.A.R, etc. Things like this: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/inside-frances-secret-war-396062.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/inside-france... And the West might not get much utility of some particular African states being poor, but it gets much utility of them not being richer and stronger: it gets to keep the nearby states at the status quo it wants. A stronger sub-saharan state might alter the power status in the region for states the west _does_ get utility from. It's for that very reason that the West would never allow some "pan-african" federation to operate freely.
scotty79 14y ago
I'd rather say: Life l1, l2; # initialises by default to unique value l1 > l2; # false l1 < l2; # false l1 == l2; # false Calling lives equal means that any life is replaceble by any other and you can allow for someone to die to save someone else without any trouble.
- alexanderh 14y ago
  Agreed. Saying everyone is equal is a nice elementary school thought, meant to inspire people. But it simply isn't factually true. We're so far disconnected from the tribal traditions of our distant ancestors, we forget that different values can be very easily bestowed upon an individuals life, for very legitimate reasons in some cases (when its life or death... and survival of the fittest, in an ancient society). I guess I can sort of see some truth in "we all have equal potential" but even thats shaky concept at best, just meant to inspire people. Thats all this speech appears to be though, an inspirational talk. Not something thats going to stand to the logical rigor most HN readers are going to want to apply to it.
jonah 14y ago
Except that she's in favor of population control...
- gsk 14y ago
  I am sure you recognize a better reflection of what she favors is in the life-changing work that Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is doing.
  - jonah 14y ago
    They definitely do good work in many areas. However, on one hand they work to reduce deaths from diseases[0] while on the other, people are just a drain on natural resources.[1] It's not consistent. [0] http://www.gatesfoundation.org/malaria/Pages/home.aspx http://www.gatesfoundation.org/malaria/Pages/home.aspx etc. [1] http://www.gatesfoundation.org/infographics/Pages/family-planning-saves-lives-info.aspx http://www.gatesfoundation.org/infographics/Pages/family-pla...
    - gjm11 14y ago
      The document you cite as [1] does not, in fact, say anything even slightly like "people are just a drain on natural resources". Here are the first few things it says: (1) "Family planning saves the lives of mothers and infants." (2) It "can significantly improve the health of women and their families." (3) "It can save millions of lives per year." The page claims -- I don't know whether it's correct, but actually that isn't relevant for this purpose -- that universal access to contraception could prevent about 90k maternal deaths, 640k infant deaths, and 14M unsafe abortions, per year. The only thing on that page that at all resembles "people are just a drain on natural resources" is this: at the end of the page there are five "Additional benefits for society": reduced HIV transmission, reduced pressure on natural resources, improved education and employment opportunities for women, improved economic growth, improved status for women. So. They give many reasons for supporting family planning. They say it saves lives and improves health and helps the economy and improves the status of women. Tucked in towards the end is the remark that, by the way, it also reduces "pressure on natural resources". Do you, really, think it is fair to summarize this by saying they think that "people are just a drain on natural resources"? Personally, I think it's grotesquely dishonest.
confluence 14y ago
All lives don't have equal current value, but the do have equal eventual value - I'll explain that in a moment (please note: I mean financial/economic value as I believe the term "moral/intrinsic" value to be so vague and undefined as to be completely useless as a thought model or reasoning tool - I understand what Melinda means). This is empirically correct - a poor person in Africa is worth less than a rich American - by definition of earning capacity, consuming capacity, life expectancy and investment in their quality of life. Please note: This does not mean the American is better than the African - it's merely an accident of birth. Now here's the point I'm going to make. Keeping people alive has exponential value - irrelevant of current value (e.g. African vs. American). What is the cost of keeping a poor African alive? I'm going to say for ~90% of the population it'll be around $1-4K a year. Now this is relatively expensive - however you must remember, this African will go on to consume and work all their lives, have kids who themselves will have kids and so forth - a combinatorial explosion of development and production making us all the richer. Think of it like this: We are all descendant from a group of ~2000 people from Central Africa ~250,000 years ago. They produced ~7 billion people over the course of a few hundred thousand years - that's some seriously insane value generation right there. Imagine if we did the same with the ~7 billion we have now - we could be the ~2000 of the next millennium. Each life you save today means hundreds or even thousands in the future - it's like an exponential investment. This is why we should protect poor people - apart from fuzzy moralistic reasons. It is a financially sound investment. Each poor person will be an eventual consumer and producer - we must maximise their ability to do so - and that is why we must fundamentally help them. It also feels good. This is what I find so toxic about the entire Republican/private health care in America debate. You invest millions over the course of people's lives to keep them alive (schools/roads/bridges/cheap loans/national security/etc.) and all of a sudden, if they get sick, you're happy that they metaphorically shoot themselves in the head because of their sickness (bankruptcy/can't afford/die etc.). Hence, you must also be happy when this kills the ability of their families to consume, produce and reproduce by an order of magnitude for the foreseeable future. We must keep people alive not merely because it's a good investment in aggregate, and not merely because it is the correct thing to do, but also because it's financially nonsensical to do otherwise - especially in a first world country. People are expensive, they take huge amounts of resources to bring up, and they have a high ROI - we should protect these investments for the sake of protecting our collective future. Secondly, pushing birth control doesn't do jack to population growth. The vast majority of variance in development/population rates between countries is explained by GDP per capita. Or as Karan Singh, a former minister of population in India once stated: > Development is the best contraceptive. -- Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic-economic_paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic-economic_paradox Disclaimer: Just to reiterate - I am not saying that one human is better than another in any sense of fundamental long-term value. I merely state that current value of any one human is grossly unequal due to path-dependent birth (born in America vs. Afghanistan) - however I mean to strongly imprint upon you that that the current value of a human doesn't matter in the long term - because humans in aggregate are worth the same over many generations because: > In the long run we are all dead. -- John Maynard Keynes What matters is how we ensure the survival of a vibrant next generation, regardless of race, creed or birth.
berito 14y ago
No lives have different values. Bin Laden != Paul Graham
johncoltrane 14y ago
All lives should have equal value, maybe.
stuaxo 14y ago
Wow, and a crazy trolling biblical comment on it already, saying that people in the third world must deserve what they get because their idle ... amazing.
batgaijin 14y ago
I hate the Gates foundation. You know what would help those kids a lot more than your medicine? Copies of all existing textbooks in an electronic format and access to all of our patents. When the polio vaccine was created the inventor refused to get a patent for it, saying no one has the right to own it just like no one has the right to own the sun. I just find it very hard to support the Gates foundation when I believe that it is playing by the rules to make the founders look and feel good instead of actually challenging laws and cultural assumptions, which it truly should.
- andreasvc 14y ago
  Why would you hate the Gates foundation for the state of affairs concerning intellectual property? There's a democratic process to change those laws, that change doesn't have to come from their foundation. I don't believe that dumping a load of textbooks and lifting some patents would do much in itself, that's just one of the barriers that's keeping the poor poor.
- tzs 14y ago
  > You know what would help those kids a lot more than your medicine? Copies of all existing textbooks in an electronic format and access to all of our patents. Dead kids can't read.
jl6 14y ago
There is no such thing as intrinsic value, whether economic value or moral value, whether of goods or of people. Value is subjectively assigned by people, according to the push and pull of their own internal motivations. So it is meaningless to talk about value without asking: valued by who? Some people (say, my family) are hugely more "valuable" to me than others.
pserwylo 14y ago
I agree with the sentiment about all lives being equal. That is why I enjoyed challenging myself to think about it purely from an economic perspective one day. We were on the plane, and the guy next to us was studying "humanitarian economics". It is somewhat related to the issues that the gates foundation has to think about when distributing their funds. There was some curious dilemmas you need to face, and most of them seem to be faced by removing yourself somewhat from the moral aspect, and thinking purely about assigning a monetary value to them. The bit that I remember was thinking about the financial value of a human life, as determined by its remaining potential. What this means is [0]: - Small babies: haven't invested much time and effort into developing them, so they are not worth as much. - Teenagers: Have spent considerable amount of time getting them ready to contribute to society. - Older people: Although there has been a lot of effort invested in them, and they have contributed a lot to society, there is only so much more "potential" left. Another interesting thing about this approach, is that in a funny way, it mimics the sentiment of Belinda's statement of all lives being equal. This is because (equally aged) people from Africa and Australia have the same monetary value according to this. [0] - Please don't hate me! I' actually quite a nice person, I just found this interesting :) It's not how I normally think about people.
- confluence 14y ago
  Actuaries need to do the same things all the time e.g. - probabilistic value of remaining life for life insurance settlement/pricing. Yes it feels weird to discuss these things - but it doesn't make you an evil person or anything - life insurance must be priced, taxes distributed and money donated. The problem with "hands up in the air - everything is precious!" thinking is that you can't make any decisions. If you assume that - all your money should be flooding Africa. You'll notice that this isn't the case. You'll also notice that people only pay lip service to their morals - but they never back it up with cash - and that's where actuaries and economists come in.
pingou 14y ago
I think the idea that all lives have equal values, while it sounds good, is paradoxical. If a life has a potential to save plenty of other lives (for example : healthcare worker, great scientist on the verge of discovering a new cure, engineer working on a more efficient way to get drinking water), doesn't that mean that their lives are worth more ? On the other hand I can't help myself thinking that a surgeon isn't worth more than an unemployed guy who does nothing except watching TV (for example), moral isn't always about logic.
Jach 14y ago
http://hardtruthsfromsoftcats.tumblr.com/post/35274152116 http://hardtruthsfromsoftcats.tumblr.com/post/35274152116 (Same amount of justification as Melinda gave. To the point of traveling to open one's eyes, I have a friend who gave up on the African continent entirely after learning more about its countries.)

33 points by lominming 14y ago

jobigoud 14y ago

At first I thought this would be a case for veganism.

meaty 14y ago

Until a profit is to be made... Yes that's a jab at capitalism and commercial healthcare.

GuiA 14y ago
I believe she meant it in a moral sense, rather than as a truth upheld by our current societal system (because it isn't)

oboizt 14y ago

I agree that travel can definitely open our eyes to various conditions outside our own culture. However, the cost of travelling often could be put directly towards donations. There are so many opportunities to serve close to home in our own communities that often get overlooked because that kind of volunteering doesn't sound as glamorous as building schools in Africa.

Pwnguinz 14y ago
Giving money to charitable organizations that have 30~% waste ratio isn't the way to go. What you want are driven, motivated and open-minded individuals that can create disruptive innovation; entrepreneurs. Edit: typos.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- pretoriusB 14y ago
  >What you want are driven, motivated and open-minded individuals that can created disruptive innovation; entrepreneurs. As if the problems of the third world are not already in large part created by greedy enterprises operating there?
  - wheels 14y ago
    No, mostly not. At least not without help from regional oligarchs or colonialists. There's very little utility to the west in most of Africa being poor. Like, most of sub-saharan Africa isn't especially resource rich, their food production isn't very efficient so we don't source much of that, nor do we outsource much labor there. Economic growth is pretty clearly the most effective means of lifting populations out of poverty. In the early steps it often looks pretty ugly (as industrialization did in the now rich countries), but it works, over time. It'd be hard to argue at the moment that China is getting the short end of the stick in their economic relationship to the west. Being poor sucks, and the kind of work poor people get usually sucks, but taking away that suckage for the most part requires helping people become not poor rather than trying to ease the suckage of being poor. South Korea and Taiwan are both interesting case studies in development -- both were impoverished about 30-40 years ago and are modern, rich democracies now. When I was a kid, Taiwan sounded like a magical country. The only way I knew of it was that every toy I'd ever owned seemed to have been made there. Contrary to the grandparent's statement, entrepreneurs aren't always (or perhaps even usually) the catalysts of that growth; a lot of it comes from foreign investment, mega-conglomerates, etc. Most of the drop in poverty in Eastern Asia in recent decades has not come from small business owners.
    - pretoriusB 14y ago
      >No, mostly not. At least not without help from regional oligarchs or colonialists. Those two types tend to be at best relationships with new "enterpreneurs" in the areas. >There's very little utility to the west in most of Africa being poor. Like, most of sub-saharan Africa isn't especially resource rich, their food production isn't very efficient so we don't source much of that, nor do we outsource much labor there. Well, I wouldn't be so sure. See Shell and Nigeria, Congo and blood diamonds, C.A.R, etc. Things like this: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/inside-frances-secret-war-396062.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/inside-france... And the West might not get much utility of some particular African states being poor, but it gets much utility of them not being richer and stronger: it gets to keep the nearby states at the status quo it wants. A stronger sub-saharan state might alter the power status in the region for states the west _does_ get utility from. It's for that very reason that the West would never allow some "pan-african" federation to operate freely.

scotty79 14y ago

I'd rather say: Life l1, l2; # initialises by default to unique value l1 > l2; # false l1 < l2; # false l1 == l2; # false Calling lives equal means that any life is replaceble by any other and you can allow for someone to die to save someone else without any trouble.

alexanderh 14y ago
Agreed. Saying everyone is equal is a nice elementary school thought, meant to inspire people. But it simply isn't factually true. We're so far disconnected from the tribal traditions of our distant ancestors, we forget that different values can be very easily bestowed upon an individuals life, for very legitimate reasons in some cases (when its life or death... and survival of the fittest, in an ancient society). I guess I can sort of see some truth in "we all have equal potential" but even thats shaky concept at best, just meant to inspire people. Thats all this speech appears to be though, an inspirational talk. Not something thats going to stand to the logical rigor most HN readers are going to want to apply to it.

jonah 14y ago

Except that she's in favor of population control...

gsk 14y ago
I am sure you recognize a better reflection of what she favors is in the life-changing work that Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is doing.
- jonah 14y ago
  They definitely do good work in many areas. However, on one hand they work to reduce deaths from diseases[0] while on the other, people are just a drain on natural resources.[1] It's not consistent. [0] http://www.gatesfoundation.org/malaria/Pages/home.aspx http://www.gatesfoundation.org/malaria/Pages/home.aspx etc. [1] http://www.gatesfoundation.org/infographics/Pages/family-planning-saves-lives-info.aspx http://www.gatesfoundation.org/infographics/Pages/family-pla...
  - gjm11 14y ago
    The document you cite as [1] does not, in fact, say anything even slightly like "people are just a drain on natural resources". Here are the first few things it says: (1) "Family planning saves the lives of mothers and infants." (2) It "can significantly improve the health of women and their families." (3) "It can save millions of lives per year." The page claims -- I don't know whether it's correct, but actually that isn't relevant for this purpose -- that universal access to contraception could prevent about 90k maternal deaths, 640k infant deaths, and 14M unsafe abortions, per year. The only thing on that page that at all resembles "people are just a drain on natural resources" is this: at the end of the page there are five "Additional benefits for society": reduced HIV transmission, reduced pressure on natural resources, improved education and employment opportunities for women, improved economic growth, improved status for women. So. They give many reasons for supporting family planning. They say it saves lives and improves health and helps the economy and improves the status of women. Tucked in towards the end is the remark that, by the way, it also reduces "pressure on natural resources". Do you, really, think it is fair to summarize this by saying they think that "people are just a drain on natural resources"? Personally, I think it's grotesquely dishonest.

confluence 14y ago

All lives don't have equal current value, but the do have equal eventual value - I'll explain that in a moment (please note: I mean financial/economic value as I believe the term "moral/intrinsic" value to be so vague and undefined as to be completely useless as a thought model or reasoning tool - I understand what Melinda means). This is empirically correct - a poor person in Africa is worth less than a rich American - by definition of earning capacity, consuming capacity, life expectancy and investment in their quality of life. Please note: This does not mean the American is better than the African - it's merely an accident of birth. Now here's the point I'm going to make. Keeping people alive has exponential value - irrelevant of current value (e.g. African vs. American). What is the cost of keeping a poor African alive? I'm going to say for ~90% of the population it'll be around $1-4K a year. Now this is relatively expensive - however you must remember, this African will go on to consume and work all their lives, have kids who themselves will have kids and so forth - a combinatorial explosion of development and production making us all the richer. Think of it like this: We are all descendant from a group of ~2000 people from Central Africa ~250,000 years ago. They produced ~7 billion people over the course of a few hundred thousand years - that's some seriously insane value generation right there. Imagine if we did the same with the ~7 billion we have now - we could be the ~2000 of the next millennium. Each life you save today means hundreds or even thousands in the future - it's like an exponential investment. This is why we should protect poor people - apart from fuzzy moralistic reasons. It is a financially sound investment. Each poor person will be an eventual consumer and producer - we must maximise their ability to do so - and that is why we must fundamentally help them. It also feels good. This is what I find so toxic about the entire Republican/private health care in America debate. You invest millions over the course of people's lives to keep them alive (schools/roads/bridges/cheap loans/national security/etc.) and all of a sudden, if they get sick, you're happy that they metaphorically shoot themselves in the head because of their sickness (bankruptcy/can't afford/die etc.). Hence, you must also be happy when this kills the ability of their families to consume, produce and reproduce by an order of magnitude for the foreseeable future. We must keep people alive not merely because it's a good investment in aggregate, and not merely because it is the correct thing to do, but also because it's financially nonsensical to do otherwise - especially in a first world country. People are expensive, they take huge amounts of resources to bring up, and they have a high ROI - we should protect these investments for the sake of protecting our collective future. Secondly, pushing birth control doesn't do jack to population growth. The vast majority of variance in development/population rates between countries is explained by GDP per capita. Or as Karan Singh, a former minister of population in India once stated: > Development is the best contraceptive. -- Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic-economic_paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic-economic_paradox Disclaimer: Just to reiterate - I am not saying that one human is better than another in any sense of fundamental long-term value. I merely state that current value of any one human is grossly unequal due to path-dependent birth (born in America vs. Afghanistan) - however I mean to strongly imprint upon you that that the current value of a human doesn't matter in the long term - because humans in aggregate are worth the same over many generations because: > In the long run we are all dead. -- John Maynard Keynes What matters is how we ensure the survival of a vibrant next generation, regardless of race, creed or birth.

berito 14y ago

No lives have different values. Bin Laden != Paul Graham

johncoltrane 14y ago

All lives should have equal value, maybe.

stuaxo 14y ago

Wow, and a crazy trolling biblical comment on it already, saying that people in the third world must deserve what they get because their idle ... amazing.

batgaijin 14y ago

I hate the Gates foundation. You know what would help those kids a lot more than your medicine? Copies of all existing textbooks in an electronic format and access to all of our patents. When the polio vaccine was created the inventor refused to get a patent for it, saying no one has the right to own it just like no one has the right to own the sun. I just find it very hard to support the Gates foundation when I believe that it is playing by the rules to make the founders look and feel good instead of actually challenging laws and cultural assumptions, which it truly should.

andreasvc 14y ago
Why would you hate the Gates foundation for the state of affairs concerning intellectual property? There's a democratic process to change those laws, that change doesn't have to come from their foundation. I don't believe that dumping a load of textbooks and lifting some patents would do much in itself, that's just one of the barriers that's keeping the poor poor.
tzs 14y ago
> You know what would help those kids a lot more than your medicine? Copies of all existing textbooks in an electronic format and access to all of our patents. Dead kids can't read.

jl6 14y ago

There is no such thing as intrinsic value, whether economic value or moral value, whether of goods or of people. Value is subjectively assigned by people, according to the push and pull of their own internal motivations. So it is meaningless to talk about value without asking: valued by who? Some people (say, my family) are hugely more "valuable" to me than others.

pserwylo 14y ago

I agree with the sentiment about all lives being equal. That is why I enjoyed challenging myself to think about it purely from an economic perspective one day. We were on the plane, and the guy next to us was studying "humanitarian economics". It is somewhat related to the issues that the gates foundation has to think about when distributing their funds. There was some curious dilemmas you need to face, and most of them seem to be faced by removing yourself somewhat from the moral aspect, and thinking purely about assigning a monetary value to them. The bit that I remember was thinking about the financial value of a human life, as determined by its remaining potential. What this means is [0]: - Small babies: haven't invested much time and effort into developing them, so they are not worth as much. - Teenagers: Have spent considerable amount of time getting them ready to contribute to society. - Older people: Although there has been a lot of effort invested in them, and they have contributed a lot to society, there is only so much more "potential" left. Another interesting thing about this approach, is that in a funny way, it mimics the sentiment of Belinda's statement of all lives being equal. This is because (equally aged) people from Africa and Australia have the same monetary value according to this. [0] - Please don't hate me! I' actually quite a nice person, I just found this interesting :) It's not how I normally think about people.

confluence 14y ago
Actuaries need to do the same things all the time e.g. - probabilistic value of remaining life for life insurance settlement/pricing. Yes it feels weird to discuss these things - but it doesn't make you an evil person or anything - life insurance must be priced, taxes distributed and money donated. The problem with "hands up in the air - everything is precious!" thinking is that you can't make any decisions. If you assume that - all your money should be flooding Africa. You'll notice that this isn't the case. You'll also notice that people only pay lip service to their morals - but they never back it up with cash - and that's where actuaries and economists come in.

pingou 14y ago

I think the idea that all lives have equal values, while it sounds good, is paradoxical. If a life has a potential to save plenty of other lives (for example : healthcare worker, great scientist on the verge of discovering a new cure, engineer working on a more efficient way to get drinking water), doesn't that mean that their lives are worth more ? On the other hand I can't help myself thinking that a surgeon isn't worth more than an unemployed guy who does nothing except watching TV (for example), moral isn't always about logic.

Jach 14y ago

http://hardtruthsfromsoftcats.tumblr.com/post/35274152116 http://hardtruthsfromsoftcats.tumblr.com/post/35274152116 (Same amount of justification as Melinda gave. To the point of traveling to open one's eyes, I have a friend who gave up on the African continent entirely after learning more about its countries.)