8 ms·

He's right. Poverty, disease and basic things like that are things about _survival_, the internet is not. But mainly, the title is provocative and misleading.

He's right. Poverty, disease and basic things like that are things about _survival_, the internet is not. But mainly, the title is provocative and misleading. The article clearly states, he was asked a leading question "asked whether giving the planet an internet connection is more important than finding a vaccination for malaria", and he answered. The title makes it seem like he went out of his way to make the comparison and put himself on a pedestal, but thats not what happened.

bolder88 13y ago
Those things are also about increasing our problems down the line IMHO The world population has doubled in the last 30 years. Doesn't that scare anyone else? Sure, you could save a few million poorly educated people from dying. Then what? They're all going to need food, energy, education, housing, etc etc. Saving people from dying is no good at all if they still have a shitty life and die from something else anyway.
- quink 13y ago
  > The world population has doubled in the last 30 years. Doesn't that scare anyone else? Not that greatly. Birth rates in near enough every country are dropping after having peaked. 7 billion in 2011, 8 billion in 2025, 9 billion in 2043, 10 billion in 2083 is what UNFPA predicts. As education improves and the relative value of each life, and as people live longer on average, the Malthusian catastrophe is one I would think we will avoid. In fact it is this stabilisation of the population that worries me because without any immediate pressure from something else, with no race, no competition and no Sturm and no Drang in progress, will we be destined to find the answer to the Fermi Paradox through our own fate? Look at this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Population_of_Japan_since_1872.svg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Populatio... and then consider that while the case of Japan seems about to be a portent for other countries. Doesn't this scare you even more - the thought of the human race ending with a whimper? Or will each of us be, by our current standards, a god among machines living a life a hundred times more valuable than those of their ancestors in their grasp over the earth. If anything these kinds of questions should probably keep you more awake than the thought of a Malthusian catastrophe at this point.
- sdoering 13y ago
  Funny thing is, we "know" relatively good, what the maximum of earths population will be and why. And we know (also relatively good) how fast we will lift people from poverty, given the actual and historical numbers. Hans Rosling showed it quite well in a TED talk he gave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezVk1ahRF78 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezVk1ahRF78
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- neya 13y ago
  >Saving people from dying is no good at all if they still have a shitty life and die from something else anyway. Wow. That's ultra-elitist. So, let's say you are diagnosed with a rare disease and the doctor gives you two weeks to live unless you get a medicine that costs $1000 which let's assume you can't afford. And you're going to die someday, anyway. Does that mean you have a shitty life and you deserve to die now? So, amount of money = value of life? Is that your point?? So, I own 10x more money than you (assume) and hence compared to my standards, I think you live a shitty life and you deserve to die. How do you feel now? Life is invaluable. Money has nothing to do with it.
  - bolder88 13y ago
    Death is a natural, and essential part of evolution, and is crucial for the survival of the species. If you could magically save everyone from dying tomorrow, then well done! You've just killed everyone from overcrowding.
    - Tmmrn 13y ago
      Since your basis for morality seems to be "evolution" and "nature" (in quotes), would you be in favor of shutting down all hospitals immediately?
    - Zigurd 13y ago
      "Immortality" is really about 1000-2000 years. In that time, accidental death will catch up with you.
- majika 13y ago
  I'm all for having less humans around, but actually, educating women, eradicating poverty, and lowering death rates has shown to be the best way to reduce a country's birth rate. It just takes a generation or two. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition
- Zigurd 13y ago
  Middle class (by developing world standards) life is the most effective brake on population. Give people basic health care, Internet, TV, a phone, and literate daughters and watch the population growth rate fall to replacement level or lower.
Xylakant 13y ago
> He's right. Poverty, disease and basic things like that are things about _survival_, the internet is not. I'd say he's at least partially wrong. Diseases are often cause by lack of knowledge and education, outburst can often be contained with good means of communication. I know people doing projects that use the internet (or cellphone text messages) to allow remote villages to better manage the available health resources. Internet connectivity allows the local healing person, often a nurse or similar level to send pictures and descriptions of wounds and health issues to a qualified doctor. This allows the doctors to actually go to the villages where they're needed most - actually saving lives. So the internet may very well be a live-saving thing. The other point that people forget is that it's extremely hard to completely eradicate a disease. The only disease that I know of that's completely eradicated is the small pox. Polio, leprosy and even the black death are merely contained to a varying degree, often only in developed countries even though vaccines or cheap, effective treatments exist. So investing in connectivity and helping to spread information may actually be a viable path.
- vidarh 13y ago
  > Diseases are often cause by lack of knowledge and education Case in point: Polio is endemic in only three countries today: Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria. While in Afghanistan it'd be possible for it to be down to the war, in Pakistan and Nigeria it is down to skepticism and misinformation from religious groups (often based in past experiences) that are often amongst the most important information bearers in their communities. When people don't have other sources than a government they don't trust and other biased groups giving them false information, it's no wonder many misinformation proliferate.
  - legulere 13y ago
    Also there's an outburst in syria lately.
    - Xylakant 13y ago
      There was an outbreak in the USA in 2005 though no one suffered permanent damage: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/08/health/08iht-polio.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/08/health/08iht-polio.html?pa...
mtgx 13y ago
No, it wasn't "just a leading question". Bill Gates has said something similar before, and quite recently, about Google's Loons: > Bill Gates: Google's Project Loon Doesn't 'Uplift the Poor' Which is a pretty stupid statement to make considering technology does in fact "uplift the poor", since it leads to better economic environment, jobs, and better living conditions. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2422884,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2422884,00.asp
- Volpe 13y ago
  Some technology does uplift the poor, but not always, and not all technologies. Baloons giving internet access to people, doesn't seem to have an obvious uplifting effect on the poor? Could you explain how that will happen?
  - patrickaljord 13y ago
    Increased internet penetration in Kenya creates jobs, improves education http://sabahionline.com/en_GB/articles/hoa/articles/features/2013/01/03/feature-02 http://sabahionline.com/en_GB/articles/hoa/articles/features... But seriously, this is HN, do I really need to explain to you why the internet creates job? Why it helps spread information and education? Is this 1997? I'll give you a first hand experience though, I've lived for 5 years in Peru. There, students told me that Google and the internet has literally changed their life. Before they had to buy expensive books, cross the city or travel to get that book and be able to do copies. Now they just go to the net cafe next door, search on google, get their answer, print it and they're done. For less than half a dollar. A gain in time, money and information and a gain in what these newly educated students will bring to society. I can't even begin to imagine the impact that http://duolingo.com http://duolingo.com and http://khanacademy.org http://khanacademy.org will have on humanity and the poorest.
    - Volpe 13y ago
      Show me the (at the very least) the correlation between internet access and social mobility. You may help educate some people, though the data says educational outcome is more correlated with socio-economic status. And education is correlated with social mobility, but now we are two correlative (at best) steps away from the conclusion you are drawing. We've yet to show any causation... Your outrage of having to explain this, is misplaced. This is not an obvious fact, nor is it backed by any evidence.

bolder88 13y ago

Those things are also about increasing our problems down the line IMHO The world population has doubled in the last 30 years. Doesn't that scare anyone else? Sure, you could save a few million poorly educated people from dying. Then what? They're all going to need food, energy, education, housing, etc etc. Saving people from dying is no good at all if they still have a shitty life and die from something else anyway.

quink 13y ago
> The world population has doubled in the last 30 years. Doesn't that scare anyone else? Not that greatly. Birth rates in near enough every country are dropping after having peaked. 7 billion in 2011, 8 billion in 2025, 9 billion in 2043, 10 billion in 2083 is what UNFPA predicts. As education improves and the relative value of each life, and as people live longer on average, the Malthusian catastrophe is one I would think we will avoid. In fact it is this stabilisation of the population that worries me because without any immediate pressure from something else, with no race, no competition and no Sturm and no Drang in progress, will we be destined to find the answer to the Fermi Paradox through our own fate? Look at this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Population_of_Japan_since_1872.svg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Populatio... and then consider that while the case of Japan seems about to be a portent for other countries. Doesn't this scare you even more - the thought of the human race ending with a whimper? Or will each of us be, by our current standards, a god among machines living a life a hundred times more valuable than those of their ancestors in their grasp over the earth. If anything these kinds of questions should probably keep you more awake than the thought of a Malthusian catastrophe at this point.
sdoering 13y ago
Funny thing is, we "know" relatively good, what the maximum of earths population will be and why. And we know (also relatively good) how fast we will lift people from poverty, given the actual and historical numbers. Hans Rosling showed it quite well in a TED talk he gave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezVk1ahRF78 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezVk1ahRF78
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
neya 13y ago
>Saving people from dying is no good at all if they still have a shitty life and die from something else anyway. Wow. That's ultra-elitist. So, let's say you are diagnosed with a rare disease and the doctor gives you two weeks to live unless you get a medicine that costs $1000 which let's assume you can't afford. And you're going to die someday, anyway. Does that mean you have a shitty life and you deserve to die now? So, amount of money = value of life? Is that your point?? So, I own 10x more money than you (assume) and hence compared to my standards, I think you live a shitty life and you deserve to die. How do you feel now? Life is invaluable. Money has nothing to do with it.
- bolder88 13y ago
  Death is a natural, and essential part of evolution, and is crucial for the survival of the species. If you could magically save everyone from dying tomorrow, then well done! You've just killed everyone from overcrowding.
  - Tmmrn 13y ago
    Since your basis for morality seems to be "evolution" and "nature" (in quotes), would you be in favor of shutting down all hospitals immediately?
  - Zigurd 13y ago
    "Immortality" is really about 1000-2000 years. In that time, accidental death will catch up with you.
majika 13y ago
I'm all for having less humans around, but actually, educating women, eradicating poverty, and lowering death rates has shown to be the best way to reduce a country's birth rate. It just takes a generation or two. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition
Zigurd 13y ago
Middle class (by developing world standards) life is the most effective brake on population. Give people basic health care, Internet, TV, a phone, and literate daughters and watch the population growth rate fall to replacement level or lower.

Xylakant 13y ago

> He's right. Poverty, disease and basic things like that are things about _survival_, the internet is not. I'd say he's at least partially wrong. Diseases are often cause by lack of knowledge and education, outburst can often be contained with good means of communication. I know people doing projects that use the internet (or cellphone text messages) to allow remote villages to better manage the available health resources. Internet connectivity allows the local healing person, often a nurse or similar level to send pictures and descriptions of wounds and health issues to a qualified doctor. This allows the doctors to actually go to the villages where they're needed most - actually saving lives. So the internet may very well be a live-saving thing. The other point that people forget is that it's extremely hard to completely eradicate a disease. The only disease that I know of that's completely eradicated is the small pox. Polio, leprosy and even the black death are merely contained to a varying degree, often only in developed countries even though vaccines or cheap, effective treatments exist. So investing in connectivity and helping to spread information may actually be a viable path.

vidarh 13y ago
> Diseases are often cause by lack of knowledge and education Case in point: Polio is endemic in only three countries today: Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria. While in Afghanistan it'd be possible for it to be down to the war, in Pakistan and Nigeria it is down to skepticism and misinformation from religious groups (often based in past experiences) that are often amongst the most important information bearers in their communities. When people don't have other sources than a government they don't trust and other biased groups giving them false information, it's no wonder many misinformation proliferate.
- legulere 13y ago
  Also there's an outburst in syria lately.
  - Xylakant 13y ago
    There was an outbreak in the USA in 2005 though no one suffered permanent damage: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/08/health/08iht-polio.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/08/health/08iht-polio.html?pa...

mtgx 13y ago

No, it wasn't "just a leading question". Bill Gates has said something similar before, and quite recently, about Google's Loons: > Bill Gates: Google's Project Loon Doesn't 'Uplift the Poor' Which is a pretty stupid statement to make considering technology does in fact "uplift the poor", since it leads to better economic environment, jobs, and better living conditions. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2422884,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2422884,00.asp

Volpe 13y ago
Some technology does uplift the poor, but not always, and not all technologies. Baloons giving internet access to people, doesn't seem to have an obvious uplifting effect on the poor? Could you explain how that will happen?
- patrickaljord 13y ago
  Increased internet penetration in Kenya creates jobs, improves education http://sabahionline.com/en_GB/articles/hoa/articles/features/2013/01/03/feature-02 http://sabahionline.com/en_GB/articles/hoa/articles/features... But seriously, this is HN, do I really need to explain to you why the internet creates job? Why it helps spread information and education? Is this 1997? I'll give you a first hand experience though, I've lived for 5 years in Peru. There, students told me that Google and the internet has literally changed their life. Before they had to buy expensive books, cross the city or travel to get that book and be able to do copies. Now they just go to the net cafe next door, search on google, get their answer, print it and they're done. For less than half a dollar. A gain in time, money and information and a gain in what these newly educated students will bring to society. I can't even begin to imagine the impact that http://duolingo.com http://duolingo.com and http://khanacademy.org http://khanacademy.org will have on humanity and the poorest.
  - Volpe 13y ago
    Show me the (at the very least) the correlation between internet access and social mobility. You may help educate some people, though the data says educational outcome is more correlated with socio-economic status. And education is correlated with social mobility, but now we are two correlative (at best) steps away from the conclusion you are drawing. We've yet to show any causation... Your outrage of having to explain this, is misplaced. This is not an obvious fact, nor is it backed by any evidence.