34 ms·

Bill Gates: My Plan to Improve Our World, and How You Can Help

392 points by digital55 13y ago

antonius 13y ago
With all of the philanthropy that Bill and his wife are doing, my gut feeling is that centuries from now, Bill will go down as being remembered more so for his contributions to humanity than everything he did in his professional career. Regardless, a great human being.
- jorgem 13y ago
  Perhaps. Here's a quiz: Name a big Philanthropist from 300 years ago. From 150 years ago. From 50 years ago...
  - Fomite 13y ago
    50 years: Rockafeller. 100 years: Andrew Carnegie, Vanderbilt. 150 years: Alfred Nobel. 300 years: John Harvard. What do I win?
    - Gigablah 13y ago
      The thing is, I don't remember those people as philanthropists...
      - Fomite 13y ago
        You didn't watch enough PBS as a child then ;) What do you remember Alfred Nobel as? John Harvard? You could make a case for the industrialists, but I'd give good money people can name "Rockafeller Center" before they can name "Standard Oil".
        Gigablah 13y ago
        I didn't watch PBS since I'm not American :( I read about Alfred Nobel in a children's encyclopaedia in primary school; I mostly remember him as the inventor of dynamite who got a crisis of conscience and thus created the Nobel prizes (I didn't think of those as philanthropy, and I'm not sure if the "crisis of conscience" part is factually accurate). John Harvard, purely name association with Harvard University. I guess I should check his Wikipedia page out. Edit: It's actually Harvard College. Shows how much I know.
        Fomite 13y ago
        The name association with Harvard is remembering him as a philanthropist. The name of the college was changed because of a generous gift upon his death.
cnlwsu 13y ago
It makes me feel incredibly guilty for how much a lot of people (myself) hated this man over things that seem so petty now a mere decade or so later.
- pstuart 13y ago
  It's ok to hate Bill Gates (the Monopolist), and to admire Bill Gates (the Philanthropist).
  - Peroni 13y ago
    I think it's reasonable to forgive the Monopolist because of the Philanthropist.
    - Refefer 13y ago
      The ends justify the means?
      - justin66 13y ago
        The means were pretty mild. Leveraging a monopoly on desktop software to force people to see IE as their default browser, pricing your product so low operating systems centered around spinning teapots can't possibly compete, and so on? The nerdrage over all that was a little hard to take seriously even before we had historical perspective on it. edit: I'm actually HAPPY that MSFT were found guilty of abusing their monopoly power. I just want to keep it in perspective, not just in the omg BillG is saving the world perspective, but frankly in perspective relative to all the evil that corporations are capable of doing...
        Refefer 13y ago
        I fully agree with you in this particular case; it's clear the philanthropist has added more value to humanity than was taken away. Still, it's worth evaluating the person within different contexts: a ruthless businessman taking a run at Sainthood. Quite the dichotomy.
mtalantikite 13y ago
"I tend to trace it back to a trip Melinda and I took to Africa in 1993. We went on a safari to see wild animals but ended up getting our first sustained look at extreme poverty" All of us with privilege need to stop referring to the place as just 'Africa'. It's an incredibly diverse place, and just smacking that label on it to refer to every place on the continent trivializes the population. Sure, the national boundaries are just some lines colonists in Europe drew on a map when divvying up the resources they were going to steal, but we need to be able to have a respect for people while we're talking about these problems.
- tertius 13y ago
  Being an African I don't really get offended as you seem to think I would. Mr. Gates obviously isn't saying "Africa" because he's a privileged white man, but because that's how people talk and write. And contrary to your response, he obviously knows what you are saying to a degree that neither of us will ever know.
  - mtalantikite 13y ago
    Yeah, I get that he knows how complicated the issues are, but the point is that that language helps reinforce an idea of superiority. Many people that read that article are going to continue to lump the entire continent together and continue to think "poverty, disease, black, rural, other", whereas the reality is much different.
- heartbreak 13y ago
  Chill out. He was simplifying his discussion throughout the essay so that his writing would be accessible to a broader audience. For all you know, his trip covered several African countries and he didn't care to list them all in that sentence.
  - mtalantikite 13y ago
    I get that, and it's the simplification of an incredibly complex situation that is the problem
gesman 13y ago
Did anyone asked Bill Gates to fund research efforts that could potentially have global benefits? Anyone succeeded?
- Blahah 13y ago
  Yes, we have Gates funding for the C4 rice project.
- Fomite 13y ago
  The Gates Foundation regularly makes grants for exactly that.
spodek 13y ago
> "40 percent of Earth’s population is alive today because, in 1909, a German chemist named Fritz Haber figured out how to make synthetic ammonia." More people living doesn't necessarily mean people living better lives. In a finite world with limits to growth, relaxing one bottleneck only leads to the next bottleneck. (I use the term limits to growth in reference to the book Limits To Growth -- http://joshuaspodek.com/the_best_book_on_the_environment_economy_and_ecology http://joshuaspodek.com/the_best_book_on_the_environment_eco... -- which strongly informs my perspective and I recommend to others as particularly relevant here. It offers a systems perspective -- http://joshuaspodek.com/systems-perspective-population http://joshuaspodek.com/systems-perspective-population -- necessary to create effective strategies to help everyone in the context of a finite planet.) Reducing suffering caused by disease undoubtedly improves people's lives, but increasing the population without the ability to provide everyone resources doesn't. We know that simply having enough resources for everyone doesn't mean everyone will get enough resources. How we distribute resources matters and that's a social issue, not technical. Trying to solve social issues with technology doesn't work that well. Changing social patterns is much harder. Capitalism is great at increasing the pie, but poor at distributing it to those without capital. I applaud his optimism and support for reducing suffering from disease and supporting education. I suspect he's helping create a world with similar fraction of people suffering versus happy, just more of them. And accelerating toward limits to growth, some of which we can't overcome with technology. (If you challenge the belief that the planet has limits to growth or even that we're near any, I recommend the excellent blog "Do the Math" -- http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/post-index http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/post-index -- which looks at physical consequences to growth by a Caltech-trained physicist. I also recommend it if you like reading thoughtful, intelligent blogs by knowledgeable people who do the math behind what they talk about.)
- lifeisstillgood 13y ago
  Oh come on that does not even make sense. >>> More people living doesn't necessarily mean people living better lives. In a finite world with limits to growth, relaxing one bottleneck only leads to the next bottleneck. Its not that people think gosh I have 1000 more calories, I will have another child, its that without those 1000 calories either the mother dies before or during pregnancy or the child dies after, of starvation. Granted there are now lots of other things to kill the child, malaria etc, but I guarantee every single person on HN will rather take the chance of malaria than the certainty of not being born in the first place. I also guarantee that most of HN places themselves on the "not yet happy" side of the fence, so I find your argument which seems to be "its no good bringing another child into this world, they might not die of starvation but something will get them, and they will never be happy" to fly in the face of, well, millions of years of evolution. We've always been unhappy. More people is a good thing, more people, and in a world that knows it should use its wealth to provide decent sanitation, opportunities, education, peace and justice, it is an unalloyed good.
Blahah 13y ago
"If you write great code or are an expert in genomics or know how to develop new seeds, I’d encourage you to learn more about the problems of the poorest and see how you can help." Check, check, check. And actually it was a previous article of Bill's that made me want to become a scientist, and now we're Gates funded to develop more efficient crops. Coders of the world - we have awesome data to play with. Come and help :)
- lifeisstillgood 13y ago
  Who is we and what sort of playing is needed?
  - jmpe 13y ago
    Click his handle, check the profile.
- onebaddude 13y ago
  >to develop more efficient crops. Forgive me, I'm a bit out of my element here: I assume you're talking about "genetically modified foods"? How do you plan on dealing with the anti-GMO doomers? That perspective seems to be pervasive.
  - erikpukinskis 13y ago
    I'm relatively pro-GMO for a liberal, but I hang out with a lot of alarmists so I have a sense of their position. There are some "naturalists" who are just fundamentally against it, but I think a lot of people just don't like that they're so untested. If we can do more long- term studies feeding animals these foods I think you could make inroads with those folks. Also, though there's nothing inherent about GMOs that encourages pesticide use, in practice many of the existing GMO crops are designed to facilitate heavy use of Roundup, which makes people uncomfortable. Again, because there is limited science about what the long-term effects of that are. So maybe when you're thinking about GMO research it's good to keep in mind that "research" includes not just development, but testing, which helps address the challenge you raise.
qwertyasd 13y ago
Bill gates is basically an moron and his wife is ugly as sin
chappi42 13y ago
It's great what he and Melinda are doing. I'd put the focus much more towards reducing or even reversing the tremendous population growth. Malaria, Polio, fertilizers.. all about more people (yes it helps them, is good...; complicated, I don't know how to argue). But - if you ask the overstretched seas, overhunted animals and so on - less are needed. And each one will be more valuable.
- bmajz 13y ago
  The general idea, as I understand it, is that as child survival and education rates go up, population growth will eventually reverse itself as it has in developed countries. Check out Bill Gates' favorite TED talks for some Rosling, as well as Melinda Gates on birth control: http://www.ted.com/playlists/35/bill_gates_my_13_favorite_tal.html http://www.ted.com/playlists/35/bill_gates_my_13_favorite_ta...
alexmchale 13y ago
Step 1: Stop pushing GMO foods on people who can't afford to choose otherwise.
- tdfx 13y ago
  I have not seen any well-constructed study showing that GMO foods are harmful, but I see the argument you are advancing fairly frequently. Could you share why you think GMOs in general are bad? I'm not informed enough to make a determination either way at this point so I'd be very curious to see what is compelling other people to have such strong opinions about it.
  - sleepyhead 13y ago
    I don't trust science at the current state to understand the long term impact of GMO. Besides, I prefer to eating natural ingredients regardless if science finds no problems with GMO in the future as well.
    - hackinthebochs 13y ago
      >Besides, I prefer to eating natural ingredients regardless if science finds no problems with GMO in the future as we This statement is absurdly irrational. I'm surprised to see this sentiment on here.
      - nollidge 13y ago
        Wanted to comment that I downvoted not because of your first sentence, but because of the second. Hackers have not proven themselves more rational than society at large and I wish we would stop arrogantly thinking of ourselves that way.
        hackinthebochs 13y ago
        Yeah, I was a little hesitant about that second part also. It was more for effect; I fully realize we're definitely not an insular bunch who can be expected to be rational in all parts of our lives in comparison to the irrational unwashed masses.
pstuart 13y ago
Simple things that could be done now by simply "changing the rules" 1. Change "Foreign Aid" to be based on direct micro-loans rather than dumping excess agricultural commodities and destroying local markets and pumping money into corrupt governments that steal it. 2. End the Drug War. It's killing people and is the foundation of organized crime. And why grow food when you can make more money growing dope? 3. Recognize women's rights: unfettered access to contraception/abortion and education. I realize the "sex" part of #3 may be controversial to some, but those who are offended can just fuck off.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- tdfx 13y ago
  I realize this is a social news aggregation site and not a diplomatic summit, but I think you'll find people a lot more receptive to your ideas if you can refrain from adding the last touch in your post. It reminds me of how I feel about Bill Maher: I agree with him on almost every major policy issue, but he comes across as so smug that it actually annoys you to hear him say things that you agree with.
  - pstuart 13y ago
    Yeah.... It was kind of a play on words, however, the faction that it was addressed to is so militant that it isn't completely out of place. Try talking to an anti-abortion protester about preventing abortions via sex education and contraception and they will reject even that. I'll do my best to be nicer next time.
  - eruditely 13y ago
    Just stop being a pussy.
    - tdfx 13y ago
      Unfortunately this is the internet, and you have no idea who I am, so I can't offer my personality as a counterpoint. I definitely understand the idea that catering to the overly sensitive part of our population is a losing battle. However, to even bother posting something like that, you have to be trying to do one of two things: (1) Trying to convert others with differing opinions to your side (2) Make yourself feel superior and smarter by talking down to those with different opinions #1 seems to be a more meaningful use of one's time, so I was offering some insight as to how to be more effective in doing that. If #2 is what you're after, then by all means, please continue.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
JacksonGariety 13y ago
It's a common misconception that inherently social problems (drug abuse, mistreatment of children, crime, war) can be solved with technical solutions. The answer isn't in a new drug or a new device or a new kind of weapon, it's in ourselves, and we don't need a foundation of rich entrepreneurs to catalyze this change.
- MLfan 13y ago
  Do you really think that poor kids stop dying of preventable diseases if every single person who’s reading HN changes? Inner change is not the vaccine, it can’t feed people, it can’t help with improving living conditions for the poor countries. It’s Doing something for them that should help. Bill Gates is so right at having his own plan how to help people and offering us to take part in it. The actions should help not mere inner change.
  - JacksonGariety 13y ago
    Internal change can solve most every problem, because most every problem is a reflection of an internal conflict. It sounds far fetched, but when you boil people's problems down to what they really are, you'll see the traditional western way of fixing things tends to invent a technical solution to make up for where the previous one failed. For example, factory-made pesticides that cause hyper-evolution in weeds that try to resist. A newer more powerful pesticide can't fix the problem created by the old pesticide.
chernevik 13y ago
"Wars are becoming less frequent." He wrote, as we approach the centenary of The War To End All Wars. No one with an appreciation of human history would write such a thing. Nor would they imagine that the technological innovations between us and that war have been marginally more important than those in the century proceeding WW I. The Green Revolution is fine, but it seems hard to believe its productivity improvements outstrip those from the mechanization of agriculture, or the use of railroads to move grain. Polio prevention is awesome, but its gains pale before those from imposing simple sanitation codes and providing clean water. And perhaps the "salvation through technology" set should reflect on the impact of the addition of mobilization by railroad to the diplomatic problems following the assassination of Ferdinand. Or on the confusion, to horrifying cost, of military and grand strategy by the introduction of the machine gun. The unintended consequences of those innovations, and the complete failure of technology to solve them, made for the costliest and stupidest war to its date. By all means, pursue better and better technology. But the world's deepest and most serious problems have always been political, and always will be, and will always be beyond resolution by better gadgets.
- Symmetry 13y ago
  The claim is usually that inter-state violence has been falling steadily since the end of WWII, the same way that inter-personal violence has been falling since, well, basically since civilization started. He's probably referring to the arguments in this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature
- ef4 13y ago
  That's not just a soundbite, it's a measurable fact. Even when we include the horrors of the world wars, the 20th century had fewer per-capita battle deaths (both civilian and military) than the centuries before it. The same trend is detectable at decade timescales, and shows that we are still improving since the world wars. Stephen Pinker's book "The Better Angels of our Nature" goes into the underlying statistics to support these assertions.
  - hershel 13y ago
era86 13y ago
One of the greatest philanthropist of our time.
rbanffy 13y ago
I know it will be a wildly unpopular question to ask but, after his own history at the helm of Microsoft, where he made most of the money he's using now, can we trust him? Is there a way we can be sure his donations (and the donations of people and companies that decide to donate because he is doing so) are not furthering his own agenda and creating a market for the companies he invests in? Even if they are beneficial to the affected populations, can we call that philanthropy?
- ef4 13y ago
  > Even if they are beneficial to the affected populations, can we call that philanthropy? This is just silly zero-sum thinking. Obviously ending world poverty is hugely beneficial to anyone who can sell things to those newly enriched people. But that doesn't make it "not philanthropy". Even if he's really thinking "let's save 10 million children from dying of malaria so some of them will buy Windows phones" (which is silly), that's still fine by me. What matters are outcomes, not motives.
  - rbanffy 13y ago
    > Even if he's really thinking "let's save 10 million children from dying of malaria so some of them will buy Windows phones" It's more like "let's donate 10% of the money needed to save 10 million children so others can donate the 90% needed to finish developing my vaccine and test it on the kids". Or something like it. > What matters are outcomes, not motives. We have to be careful about that. The most obvious are not necessarily the only outcomes, nor the most relevant and lasting.
    - Lucy_karpova 13y ago
      I completely agree. The whole article seems to be a mix of what people would like to hear re philanthropy and what Bill Gates would like other people to do. Not sure he tells out all the motives he has. But the main idea of the article is good –getting hands on helping the world but doing what you can do the best is cool. What many idealists who work in this area lack is co-working with those who can help them use cutting edge technologies and get reasonable funding. The ideas are great, let’s see what the implementation will be like. And is the Gates foundation the only one that does that?
tanvach 13y ago
Personally, I feel that the biggest problem in developing countries is corruption. Imagine all the wealth being created to disappear into bureaucracy. I've seen police bully businesses, engineering projects finish that is woefully substandard, rigged market competition, stolen aid money, abuse of monopoly, and so on. I truly feel that this is the sauce of problems many poor people face. I really admire Bill Gates help with poverty and education. I only wish that people start looking into anti-corruption. Maybe we should start creating anti-corruption technologies.
- shmerl 13y ago
  > Personally, I feel that the biggest problem in developing countries is corruption. Isn't it a problem in "developed" countries as well?
  - rayiner 13y ago
    People in developed countries can't even imagine the corruption that exists in developing countries. In Bangladesh, my dad once had to pay a bribe just to get his telephone service hooked up. Going to lobby for an industry after leaving political office is what people in developed countries call "corruption." Tens of billions of dollars in aid money just getting "lost" is what people in developing countries call "corruption."
    - shmerl 13y ago
      Yeah, that's actually not hard to imagine.
  - nathancahill 13y ago
    Yes, but it goes by different names.
  - tanvach 13y ago
    I agree, it is unfortunately much more rampant in those areas. Starting there should have the biggest social payoff. I think it's such an important area neglected by tech industry. One reason is that there is no commercial payoff. In fact, the opposite is going to be the case. We need someone like him who has the fortune to invest in these projects.
darkFunction 13y ago
How can I contribute my skills as a programmer to directly help out charity organisations?
- JeffJenkins 13y ago
  Find an organization and reach out on twitter, or via email if they aren't on twitter. You'll probably find they would love the help.
patrickg_zill 13y ago
Maybe he could have Microsoft disclose the deal they made with the NSA over the purchase of Skype and the change in encryption practices. Or is that not the kind of improvement he is talking about?
- bernardom 13y ago
  It's not. He's talking about something much more important.
  - sparkie 13y ago
    He is talking about the same thing, which can be summarized as control of the many by the few. "We, the privileged, decide what's best for everyone else."
    - diydsp 13y ago
      > "people who have escaped poverty represent a huge market opportunity" - B. Gates, 11/12/13, Wired Magazine
      - atonse 13y ago
        Not sure why you quoted this. Is that not true?
a3voices 13y ago
The way to improve the world is to have a global minimum income. Give every person on Earth $5-10k per year, no strings attached. If you are living and breathing, you get the money.
- the_economist 13y ago
  The per capita GDP of planet earth is around $12,400, so this is theoretically possible. You might want to look at how well socialism has worked out in the past before getting serious about such an idea, though.
  - mempko 13y ago
    that is a trick question. Socialism hasn't happened to a wide scale in the past.
- ianburrell 13y ago
  You wouldn't need to have minimum income that large to make a big difference. The international poverty line is $1.25/day. A minimum income of $500/yr would make a big difference to absolute poverty. More importantly, it would be affordable ($3.5 trillion or 4% of world GDP) while your proposal would be huge burden. It would have little effect on the relative poverty in developed nations. But there are a surprising numbers of people in the US ((1.65 million households) in extreme poverty (defined as $2/day) that would be helped by a low minimum income.
  - a3voices 13y ago
    That's a pretty good point. Even $500 per year would be an enormous help.
- humannature 13y ago
  what would that solve? ever hear of inflation?
jjoe 13y ago
Now that's an outstanding man! I lived in Africa for almost half my life and not once did I step foot outside of my comfort zone in the north west. If anything I feel ashamed but thankfully enlightened and looking forward to take the initiative to do something, anything.
Thiz 13y ago
> 'That innovation is the key to a bright future' The road to innovation is a minefield of patents and lawsuits.
ck2 13y ago
Good luck stopping religions that don't believe in birth control, which sadly the largest part of the population seems to follow, regardless where in the world they live - one of our last major presidential candidates has FIVE children.
erikpukinskis 13y ago
One of the things I really respect about Bill Gates is that he actually goes and talks to poor people. I know so many people who will go on and on about what poverty is and how to solve it, whether it's funding education or creating a culture of responsibility or whatever. But unless you're chatting with actual poor people, saying "hey how's it going?" at least every couple months, I just don't think you can really have a workable understanding of the problems.
ffrryuu 13y ago
Good jobs for everyone + managed population growth/stability.
Havoc 13y ago
Reading the article I can't help but feel awestruck at how lucky the global community is that Gates turned out the way he did. Here is someone who thinks clear thoughts, behaves in an altruistic manner and has the raw power to make it happen - a near impossible combination in today's world. And as if that is not spectacular enough he is in a position to persuade other rich people to follow suit.
amalag 13y ago
If you want to see real work on improving the rural Africa, we have to look at sustainability, not bringing Monsanto into every corner of the world with GMOs and ammonia fertilizers. This is the kind of work that is needed: http://workingvillages.org/about/ http://workingvillages.org/about/ Getting African farmers into self sufficiency, not dependent on Monsanto or any oil company. There is nothing wrong with doing manual labor on a farm. Why should we measure progress by how many people stop working on a farm and work in a factory instead. We should aim to improve efficiencies on a farm not by minimizing the people per acre, but by maximizing the output per acre.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  As people become self sufficient, they are going to look for ways to increase their income. This will drive mechanization and the use of fertilizers. I'm not saying that is the only way forward or that it will always be happening, I'm just saying that at least some of the people you are talking about will be motivated to exactly what you are saying they shouldn't.
rogerthis 13y ago
Leave me alone.
outside1234 13y ago
"If you write great code or are an expert in genomics or know how to develop new seeds, I’d encourage you to learn more about the problems of the poorest and see how you can help" I feel like I'm a great coder but I have a hard time connecting the dots and seeing how I can help - am I the only one? I'd love to help - if folks know of opportunities, I'd love to hear about them.
tokenadult 13y ago
Bill Gates writes in the article kindly submitted here, after giving some examples of inventions, "Thanks to inventions like these, life has steadily gotten better. It can be easy to conclude otherwise—as I write this essay, more than 100,000 people have died in a civil war in Syria, and big problems like climate change are bearing down on us with no simple solution in sight. But if you take the long view, by almost any measure of progress we are living in history’s greatest era. Wars are becoming less frequent. Life expectancy has more than doubled in the past century. More children than ever are going to primary school. The world is better than it has ever been." And that is correct. I'll focus on the huge increase in life expectancy, since that is often discussed here on HN. The low-hanging fruit of increasing life expectancy is increasing it for young people, by reducing infant and child mortality. The Gates Foundation does a lot of work in developing and delivering vaccines to protect children against infectious diseases. That means mothers can be more sure of their children surviving infancy, and all over the world (as other comments here have already pointed out), that results in a "demographic transition," of families eventually having dramatically fewer children. Children who grow up healthy and survive to adulthood do a lot to transform societies from backwardness into development and innovation. The increases in lifespan are occurring at the old end of the lifespan too.[1] (This is a point that is often specifically denied in HN discussions, so I thought I should draw attention to it here.) Life expectancy at age 40, at age 60, and at even higher ages is still rising throughout the developed countries of the world. The increase in lifespan in developed countries has been so steady for so long that a girl born in the developed world since the year 2000 has a better than even chance of celebrating her 100th birthday, with boys likely to live almost as long.[2] And this comes from steady, incremental progress in the prevention and treatment of disease and the maintenance of good general health, not at all from any path-breaking research in "life extension." This suggests that similar day-by-day improvements in human life can come about from simple, barely noticed better practice replacing former haphazard practice. The programmers who Bill Gates encourages to join in on solving problems of the world may be able to harness computer power to notice patterns in data that may improve health and longevity, environmental quality, recycling of natural resources, and a variety of other important aspects of human life little by little all over the world. I read The Limits to Growth when I was a kid, soon after the book was published. It was the most spectacularly factually incorrect set of predictions of all the predictions of the future I have ever read. I think Bill Gates here is writing based on a better understanding of how the world works, and I expect when my daughter has her 100th birthday in the twenty-second century that she will enjoy a world almost unimaginably better for almost all people than the world we share today. [1] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=longevity-why-we-die-global-life-expectancy http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=longevity-w... [2] http://www.demographic-challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2860ef54d218ce5ce19abe6a59/dc_biodemography_of_human_ageing_nature_2010_vaupel.pdf http://www.demographic-challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2... http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/humanlongevity.aspx http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/humanlongevity....
yetanotherphd 13y ago
When I was considering a career path, I thought a lot about this sort of thing. Should I devote my career to helping people in the greatest need? In the end, I decided I should not. Bill Gates correctly identifies the need for money to do the things he wants to do, but money comes from economic growth. And I believe that technological progress is a big driver of growth. So I decided to make my career in advancing technological progress. Not necessarily hardware, in fact I'm a software engineer, but I want to work on things that push the boundaries. If I can write a library that makes 1% of programmers 10% more efficient, or saves academic researchers 1% of their time, that is probably a bigger contribution than I could make if I worked directly on global health.
humannature 13y ago
why is no one addressing the problem of overpopulation?
- sprash 13y ago
  There is no problem of overpopulation. The population growth is declining. This means we hit peak population between 2050 and 2100. Also there are enough resources to allow a decent life for everybody. It is all just a matter of distribution.
zamalek 13y ago
Don't get me wrong, I love what Gates is doing. I do believe that while technology has given us so much, it comes with incredible costs. > How far away do these women live? we wondered. Who’s watching their children while they’re away? I was born and raised in Zimbabwe (where the bush/wilderness is very similar to that of Kenya) and this specific quote really shows the good and the bad of technology and innovation. Those women walk miles to get water; technology can now use pipes or boreholes to bring water closer to people - giving them a slightly easier life. However, Bill fails to mention how these women approach this hardship - having come across many of these people during my hikes in youth I can testify that they are singing and laughing for the entire duration of those daily ordeals. You simply won't find a person with that attitude towards hardship in the first world/technology world. Their lives are hard, but they are happy. Our lives are easy, but the first world is struggling with depression[1]. Us people in the first world need to stop making the mistake of assuming that a hard life is an unhappy one. Bring these people water, bring them food, bring them vaccines - but don't destroy one of the last bastions of happiness on the planet with the internet and laziness. As for their children and who is looking after them: they are looking after each other, playing in the dirt and in the sun, making their own toys out of sticks, old tires and coat hanger wire [2][3]. What are your children doing? Sitting on an iPad? Their parents don't have to worry about psychopaths or kidnappers - that is a first world problem in a very real way. I'm a saying that what Bill is doing is wrong? No: he is making a very real and very positive difference in these people's lives. What I am saying is that us people in the first world need to stop assuming that technology solves problems. The reality is that technology replaces problems with other problems. [1]: http://www.inquisitr.com/129438/depression-rates-higher-in-wealthier-countries/ http://www.inquisitr.com/129438/depression-rates-higher-in-w... [2]: http://www.bsmarkham.com/mission/Africa/Apr%2005/huffs/18%2002.jpg http://www.bsmarkham.com/mission/Africa/Apr%2005/huffs/18%20... [3]: http://www.losviajeros.net/fotos/africa/sudafrica/k_lesotho0004.jpg http://www.losviajeros.net/fotos/africa/sudafrica/k_lesotho0...
Datsundere 13y ago
[The last question](http://filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm http://filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm)
speleding 13y ago
"Everyone’s life has equal value" That's a very idealistic premise, but not very realistic. Surely he values the life of his children higher than that of some random hideous criminal.

392 points by digital55 13y ago

With all of the philanthropy that Bill and his wife are doing, my gut feeling is that centuries from now, Bill will go down as being remembered more so for his contributions to humanity than everything he did in his professional career. Regardless, a great human being.

jorgem 13y ago
Perhaps. Here's a quiz: Name a big Philanthropist from 300 years ago. From 150 years ago. From 50 years ago...
- Fomite 13y ago
  50 years: Rockafeller. 100 years: Andrew Carnegie, Vanderbilt. 150 years: Alfred Nobel. 300 years: John Harvard. What do I win?
  - Gigablah 13y ago
    The thing is, I don't remember those people as philanthropists...
    - Fomite 13y ago
      You didn't watch enough PBS as a child then ;) What do you remember Alfred Nobel as? John Harvard? You could make a case for the industrialists, but I'd give good money people can name "Rockafeller Center" before they can name "Standard Oil".
      - Gigablah 13y ago
        I didn't watch PBS since I'm not American :( I read about Alfred Nobel in a children's encyclopaedia in primary school; I mostly remember him as the inventor of dynamite who got a crisis of conscience and thus created the Nobel prizes (I didn't think of those as philanthropy, and I'm not sure if the "crisis of conscience" part is factually accurate). John Harvard, purely name association with Harvard University. I guess I should check his Wikipedia page out. Edit: It's actually Harvard College. Shows how much I know.
        Fomite 13y ago
        The name association with Harvard is remembering him as a philanthropist. The name of the college was changed because of a generous gift upon his death.

cnlwsu 13y ago

It makes me feel incredibly guilty for how much a lot of people (myself) hated this man over things that seem so petty now a mere decade or so later.

pstuart 13y ago
It's ok to hate Bill Gates (the Monopolist), and to admire Bill Gates (the Philanthropist).
- Peroni 13y ago
  I think it's reasonable to forgive the Monopolist because of the Philanthropist.
  - Refefer 13y ago
    The ends justify the means?
    - justin66 13y ago
      The means were pretty mild. Leveraging a monopoly on desktop software to force people to see IE as their default browser, pricing your product so low operating systems centered around spinning teapots can't possibly compete, and so on? The nerdrage over all that was a little hard to take seriously even before we had historical perspective on it. edit: I'm actually HAPPY that MSFT were found guilty of abusing their monopoly power. I just want to keep it in perspective, not just in the omg BillG is saving the world perspective, but frankly in perspective relative to all the evil that corporations are capable of doing...
      - Refefer 13y ago
        I fully agree with you in this particular case; it's clear the philanthropist has added more value to humanity than was taken away. Still, it's worth evaluating the person within different contexts: a ruthless businessman taking a run at Sainthood. Quite the dichotomy.

mtalantikite 13y ago

"I tend to trace it back to a trip Melinda and I took to Africa in 1993. We went on a safari to see wild animals but ended up getting our first sustained look at extreme poverty" All of us with privilege need to stop referring to the place as just 'Africa'. It's an incredibly diverse place, and just smacking that label on it to refer to every place on the continent trivializes the population. Sure, the national boundaries are just some lines colonists in Europe drew on a map when divvying up the resources they were going to steal, but we need to be able to have a respect for people while we're talking about these problems.

tertius 13y ago
Being an African I don't really get offended as you seem to think I would. Mr. Gates obviously isn't saying "Africa" because he's a privileged white man, but because that's how people talk and write. And contrary to your response, he obviously knows what you are saying to a degree that neither of us will ever know.
- mtalantikite 13y ago
  Yeah, I get that he knows how complicated the issues are, but the point is that that language helps reinforce an idea of superiority. Many people that read that article are going to continue to lump the entire continent together and continue to think "poverty, disease, black, rural, other", whereas the reality is much different.
heartbreak 13y ago
Chill out. He was simplifying his discussion throughout the essay so that his writing would be accessible to a broader audience. For all you know, his trip covered several African countries and he didn't care to list them all in that sentence.
- mtalantikite 13y ago
  I get that, and it's the simplification of an incredibly complex situation that is the problem

gesman 13y ago

Did anyone asked Bill Gates to fund research efforts that could potentially have global benefits? Anyone succeeded?

Blahah 13y ago
Yes, we have Gates funding for the C4 rice project.
Fomite 13y ago
The Gates Foundation regularly makes grants for exactly that.

spodek 13y ago

> "40 percent of Earth’s population is alive today because, in 1909, a German chemist named Fritz Haber figured out how to make synthetic ammonia." More people living doesn't necessarily mean people living better lives. In a finite world with limits to growth, relaxing one bottleneck only leads to the next bottleneck. (I use the term limits to growth in reference to the book Limits To Growth -- http://joshuaspodek.com/the_best_book_on_the_environment_economy_and_ecology http://joshuaspodek.com/the_best_book_on_the_environment_eco... -- which strongly informs my perspective and I recommend to others as particularly relevant here. It offers a systems perspective -- http://joshuaspodek.com/systems-perspective-population http://joshuaspodek.com/systems-perspective-population -- necessary to create effective strategies to help everyone in the context of a finite planet.) Reducing suffering caused by disease undoubtedly improves people's lives, but increasing the population without the ability to provide everyone resources doesn't. We know that simply having enough resources for everyone doesn't mean everyone will get enough resources. How we distribute resources matters and that's a social issue, not technical. Trying to solve social issues with technology doesn't work that well. Changing social patterns is much harder. Capitalism is great at increasing the pie, but poor at distributing it to those without capital. I applaud his optimism and support for reducing suffering from disease and supporting education. I suspect he's helping create a world with similar fraction of people suffering versus happy, just more of them. And accelerating toward limits to growth, some of which we can't overcome with technology. (If you challenge the belief that the planet has limits to growth or even that we're near any, I recommend the excellent blog "Do the Math" -- http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/post-index http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/post-index -- which looks at physical consequences to growth by a Caltech-trained physicist. I also recommend it if you like reading thoughtful, intelligent blogs by knowledgeable people who do the math behind what they talk about.)

lifeisstillgood 13y ago
Oh come on that does not even make sense. >>> More people living doesn't necessarily mean people living better lives. In a finite world with limits to growth, relaxing one bottleneck only leads to the next bottleneck. Its not that people think gosh I have 1000 more calories, I will have another child, its that without those 1000 calories either the mother dies before or during pregnancy or the child dies after, of starvation. Granted there are now lots of other things to kill the child, malaria etc, but I guarantee every single person on HN will rather take the chance of malaria than the certainty of not being born in the first place. I also guarantee that most of HN places themselves on the "not yet happy" side of the fence, so I find your argument which seems to be "its no good bringing another child into this world, they might not die of starvation but something will get them, and they will never be happy" to fly in the face of, well, millions of years of evolution. We've always been unhappy. More people is a good thing, more people, and in a world that knows it should use its wealth to provide decent sanitation, opportunities, education, peace and justice, it is an unalloyed good.

Blahah 13y ago

"If you write great code or are an expert in genomics or know how to develop new seeds, I’d encourage you to learn more about the problems of the poorest and see how you can help." Check, check, check. And actually it was a previous article of Bill's that made me want to become a scientist, and now we're Gates funded to develop more efficient crops. Coders of the world - we have awesome data to play with. Come and help :)

lifeisstillgood 13y ago
Who is we and what sort of playing is needed?
- jmpe 13y ago
  Click his handle, check the profile.
onebaddude 13y ago
>to develop more efficient crops. Forgive me, I'm a bit out of my element here: I assume you're talking about "genetically modified foods"? How do you plan on dealing with the anti-GMO doomers? That perspective seems to be pervasive.
- erikpukinskis 13y ago
  I'm relatively pro-GMO for a liberal, but I hang out with a lot of alarmists so I have a sense of their position. There are some "naturalists" who are just fundamentally against it, but I think a lot of people just don't like that they're so untested. If we can do more long- term studies feeding animals these foods I think you could make inroads with those folks. Also, though there's nothing inherent about GMOs that encourages pesticide use, in practice many of the existing GMO crops are designed to facilitate heavy use of Roundup, which makes people uncomfortable. Again, because there is limited science about what the long-term effects of that are. So maybe when you're thinking about GMO research it's good to keep in mind that "research" includes not just development, but testing, which helps address the challenge you raise.

qwertyasd 13y ago

Bill gates is basically an moron and his wife is ugly as sin

chappi42 13y ago

It's great what he and Melinda are doing. I'd put the focus much more towards reducing or even reversing the tremendous population growth. Malaria, Polio, fertilizers.. all about more people (yes it helps them, is good...; complicated, I don't know how to argue). But - if you ask the overstretched seas, overhunted animals and so on - less are needed. And each one will be more valuable.

bmajz 13y ago
The general idea, as I understand it, is that as child survival and education rates go up, population growth will eventually reverse itself as it has in developed countries. Check out Bill Gates' favorite TED talks for some Rosling, as well as Melinda Gates on birth control: http://www.ted.com/playlists/35/bill_gates_my_13_favorite_tal.html http://www.ted.com/playlists/35/bill_gates_my_13_favorite_ta...

alexmchale 13y ago

Step 1: Stop pushing GMO foods on people who can't afford to choose otherwise.

tdfx 13y ago
I have not seen any well-constructed study showing that GMO foods are harmful, but I see the argument you are advancing fairly frequently. Could you share why you think GMOs in general are bad? I'm not informed enough to make a determination either way at this point so I'd be very curious to see what is compelling other people to have such strong opinions about it.
- sleepyhead 13y ago
  I don't trust science at the current state to understand the long term impact of GMO. Besides, I prefer to eating natural ingredients regardless if science finds no problems with GMO in the future as well.
  - hackinthebochs 13y ago
    >Besides, I prefer to eating natural ingredients regardless if science finds no problems with GMO in the future as we This statement is absurdly irrational. I'm surprised to see this sentiment on here.
    - nollidge 13y ago
      Wanted to comment that I downvoted not because of your first sentence, but because of the second. Hackers have not proven themselves more rational than society at large and I wish we would stop arrogantly thinking of ourselves that way.
      - hackinthebochs 13y ago
        Yeah, I was a little hesitant about that second part also. It was more for effect; I fully realize we're definitely not an insular bunch who can be expected to be rational in all parts of our lives in comparison to the irrational unwashed masses.

pstuart 13y ago

Simple things that could be done now by simply "changing the rules" 1. Change "Foreign Aid" to be based on direct micro-loans rather than dumping excess agricultural commodities and destroying local markets and pumping money into corrupt governments that steal it. 2. End the Drug War. It's killing people and is the foundation of organized crime. And why grow food when you can make more money growing dope? 3. Recognize women's rights: unfettered access to contraception/abortion and education. I realize the "sex" part of #3 may be controversial to some, but those who are offended can just fuck off.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
tdfx 13y ago
I realize this is a social news aggregation site and not a diplomatic summit, but I think you'll find people a lot more receptive to your ideas if you can refrain from adding the last touch in your post. It reminds me of how I feel about Bill Maher: I agree with him on almost every major policy issue, but he comes across as so smug that it actually annoys you to hear him say things that you agree with.
- pstuart 13y ago
  Yeah.... It was kind of a play on words, however, the faction that it was addressed to is so militant that it isn't completely out of place. Try talking to an anti-abortion protester about preventing abortions via sex education and contraception and they will reject even that. I'll do my best to be nicer next time.
- eruditely 13y ago
  Just stop being a pussy.
  - tdfx 13y ago
    Unfortunately this is the internet, and you have no idea who I am, so I can't offer my personality as a counterpoint. I definitely understand the idea that catering to the overly sensitive part of our population is a losing battle. However, to even bother posting something like that, you have to be trying to do one of two things: (1) Trying to convert others with differing opinions to your side (2) Make yourself feel superior and smarter by talking down to those with different opinions #1 seems to be a more meaningful use of one's time, so I was offering some insight as to how to be more effective in doing that. If #2 is what you're after, then by all means, please continue.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

JacksonGariety 13y ago

It's a common misconception that inherently social problems (drug abuse, mistreatment of children, crime, war) can be solved with technical solutions. The answer isn't in a new drug or a new device or a new kind of weapon, it's in ourselves, and we don't need a foundation of rich entrepreneurs to catalyze this change.

MLfan 13y ago
Do you really think that poor kids stop dying of preventable diseases if every single person who’s reading HN changes? Inner change is not the vaccine, it can’t feed people, it can’t help with improving living conditions for the poor countries. It’s Doing something for them that should help. Bill Gates is so right at having his own plan how to help people and offering us to take part in it. The actions should help not mere inner change.
- JacksonGariety 13y ago
  Internal change can solve most every problem, because most every problem is a reflection of an internal conflict. It sounds far fetched, but when you boil people's problems down to what they really are, you'll see the traditional western way of fixing things tends to invent a technical solution to make up for where the previous one failed. For example, factory-made pesticides that cause hyper-evolution in weeds that try to resist. A newer more powerful pesticide can't fix the problem created by the old pesticide.

chernevik 13y ago

"Wars are becoming less frequent." He wrote, as we approach the centenary of The War To End All Wars. No one with an appreciation of human history would write such a thing. Nor would they imagine that the technological innovations between us and that war have been marginally more important than those in the century proceeding WW I. The Green Revolution is fine, but it seems hard to believe its productivity improvements outstrip those from the mechanization of agriculture, or the use of railroads to move grain. Polio prevention is awesome, but its gains pale before those from imposing simple sanitation codes and providing clean water. And perhaps the "salvation through technology" set should reflect on the impact of the addition of mobilization by railroad to the diplomatic problems following the assassination of Ferdinand. Or on the confusion, to horrifying cost, of military and grand strategy by the introduction of the machine gun. The unintended consequences of those innovations, and the complete failure of technology to solve them, made for the costliest and stupidest war to its date. By all means, pursue better and better technology. But the world's deepest and most serious problems have always been political, and always will be, and will always be beyond resolution by better gadgets.

Symmetry 13y ago
The claim is usually that inter-state violence has been falling steadily since the end of WWII, the same way that inter-personal violence has been falling since, well, basically since civilization started. He's probably referring to the arguments in this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature
ef4 13y ago
That's not just a soundbite, it's a measurable fact. Even when we include the horrors of the world wars, the 20th century had fewer per-capita battle deaths (both civilian and military) than the centuries before it. The same trend is detectable at decade timescales, and shows that we are still improving since the world wars. Stephen Pinker's book "The Better Angels of our Nature" goes into the underlying statistics to support these assertions.
- hershel 13y ago

era86 13y ago

One of the greatest philanthropist of our time.

rbanffy 13y ago

I know it will be a wildly unpopular question to ask but, after his own history at the helm of Microsoft, where he made most of the money he's using now, can we trust him? Is there a way we can be sure his donations (and the donations of people and companies that decide to donate because he is doing so) are not furthering his own agenda and creating a market for the companies he invests in? Even if they are beneficial to the affected populations, can we call that philanthropy?

ef4 13y ago
> Even if they are beneficial to the affected populations, can we call that philanthropy? This is just silly zero-sum thinking. Obviously ending world poverty is hugely beneficial to anyone who can sell things to those newly enriched people. But that doesn't make it "not philanthropy". Even if he's really thinking "let's save 10 million children from dying of malaria so some of them will buy Windows phones" (which is silly), that's still fine by me. What matters are outcomes, not motives.
- rbanffy 13y ago
  > Even if he's really thinking "let's save 10 million children from dying of malaria so some of them will buy Windows phones" It's more like "let's donate 10% of the money needed to save 10 million children so others can donate the 90% needed to finish developing my vaccine and test it on the kids". Or something like it. > What matters are outcomes, not motives. We have to be careful about that. The most obvious are not necessarily the only outcomes, nor the most relevant and lasting.
  - Lucy_karpova 13y ago
    I completely agree. The whole article seems to be a mix of what people would like to hear re philanthropy and what Bill Gates would like other people to do. Not sure he tells out all the motives he has. But the main idea of the article is good –getting hands on helping the world but doing what you can do the best is cool. What many idealists who work in this area lack is co-working with those who can help them use cutting edge technologies and get reasonable funding. The ideas are great, let’s see what the implementation will be like. And is the Gates foundation the only one that does that?

tanvach 13y ago

Personally, I feel that the biggest problem in developing countries is corruption. Imagine all the wealth being created to disappear into bureaucracy. I've seen police bully businesses, engineering projects finish that is woefully substandard, rigged market competition, stolen aid money, abuse of monopoly, and so on. I truly feel that this is the sauce of problems many poor people face. I really admire Bill Gates help with poverty and education. I only wish that people start looking into anti-corruption. Maybe we should start creating anti-corruption technologies.

shmerl 13y ago
> Personally, I feel that the biggest problem in developing countries is corruption. Isn't it a problem in "developed" countries as well?
- rayiner 13y ago
  People in developed countries can't even imagine the corruption that exists in developing countries. In Bangladesh, my dad once had to pay a bribe just to get his telephone service hooked up. Going to lobby for an industry after leaving political office is what people in developed countries call "corruption." Tens of billions of dollars in aid money just getting "lost" is what people in developing countries call "corruption."
  - shmerl 13y ago
    Yeah, that's actually not hard to imagine.
- nathancahill 13y ago
  Yes, but it goes by different names.
- tanvach 13y ago
  I agree, it is unfortunately much more rampant in those areas. Starting there should have the biggest social payoff. I think it's such an important area neglected by tech industry. One reason is that there is no commercial payoff. In fact, the opposite is going to be the case. We need someone like him who has the fortune to invest in these projects.

darkFunction 13y ago

How can I contribute my skills as a programmer to directly help out charity organisations?

JeffJenkins 13y ago
Find an organization and reach out on twitter, or via email if they aren't on twitter. You'll probably find they would love the help.

patrickg_zill 13y ago

Maybe he could have Microsoft disclose the deal they made with the NSA over the purchase of Skype and the change in encryption practices. Or is that not the kind of improvement he is talking about?

bernardom 13y ago
It's not. He's talking about something much more important.
- sparkie 13y ago
  He is talking about the same thing, which can be summarized as control of the many by the few. "We, the privileged, decide what's best for everyone else."
  - diydsp 13y ago
    > "people who have escaped poverty represent a huge market opportunity" - B. Gates, 11/12/13, Wired Magazine
    - atonse 13y ago
      Not sure why you quoted this. Is that not true?

a3voices 13y ago

The way to improve the world is to have a global minimum income. Give every person on Earth $5-10k per year, no strings attached. If you are living and breathing, you get the money.

the_economist 13y ago
The per capita GDP of planet earth is around $12,400, so this is theoretically possible. You might want to look at how well socialism has worked out in the past before getting serious about such an idea, though.
- mempko 13y ago
  that is a trick question. Socialism hasn't happened to a wide scale in the past.
ianburrell 13y ago
You wouldn't need to have minimum income that large to make a big difference. The international poverty line is $1.25/day. A minimum income of $500/yr would make a big difference to absolute poverty. More importantly, it would be affordable ($3.5 trillion or 4% of world GDP) while your proposal would be huge burden. It would have little effect on the relative poverty in developed nations. But there are a surprising numbers of people in the US ((1.65 million households) in extreme poverty (defined as $2/day) that would be helped by a low minimum income.
- a3voices 13y ago
  That's a pretty good point. Even $500 per year would be an enormous help.
humannature 13y ago
what would that solve? ever hear of inflation?

jjoe 13y ago

Now that's an outstanding man! I lived in Africa for almost half my life and not once did I step foot outside of my comfort zone in the north west. If anything I feel ashamed but thankfully enlightened and looking forward to take the initiative to do something, anything.

Thiz 13y ago

> 'That innovation is the key to a bright future' The road to innovation is a minefield of patents and lawsuits.

ck2 13y ago

Good luck stopping religions that don't believe in birth control, which sadly the largest part of the population seems to follow, regardless where in the world they live - one of our last major presidential candidates has FIVE children.

erikpukinskis 13y ago

One of the things I really respect about Bill Gates is that he actually goes and talks to poor people. I know so many people who will go on and on about what poverty is and how to solve it, whether it's funding education or creating a culture of responsibility or whatever. But unless you're chatting with actual poor people, saying "hey how's it going?" at least every couple months, I just don't think you can really have a workable understanding of the problems.

ffrryuu 13y ago

Good jobs for everyone + managed population growth/stability.

Havoc 13y ago

Reading the article I can't help but feel awestruck at how lucky the global community is that Gates turned out the way he did. Here is someone who thinks clear thoughts, behaves in an altruistic manner and has the raw power to make it happen - a near impossible combination in today's world. And as if that is not spectacular enough he is in a position to persuade other rich people to follow suit.

amalag 13y ago

If you want to see real work on improving the rural Africa, we have to look at sustainability, not bringing Monsanto into every corner of the world with GMOs and ammonia fertilizers. This is the kind of work that is needed: http://workingvillages.org/about/ http://workingvillages.org/about/ Getting African farmers into self sufficiency, not dependent on Monsanto or any oil company. There is nothing wrong with doing manual labor on a farm. Why should we measure progress by how many people stop working on a farm and work in a factory instead. We should aim to improve efficiencies on a farm not by minimizing the people per acre, but by maximizing the output per acre.

maxerickson 13y ago
As people become self sufficient, they are going to look for ways to increase their income. This will drive mechanization and the use of fertilizers. I'm not saying that is the only way forward or that it will always be happening, I'm just saying that at least some of the people you are talking about will be motivated to exactly what you are saying they shouldn't.

rogerthis 13y ago

Leave me alone.

outside1234 13y ago

"If you write great code or are an expert in genomics or know how to develop new seeds, I’d encourage you to learn more about the problems of the poorest and see how you can help" I feel like I'm a great coder but I have a hard time connecting the dots and seeing how I can help - am I the only one? I'd love to help - if folks know of opportunities, I'd love to hear about them.

tokenadult 13y ago

Bill Gates writes in the article kindly submitted here, after giving some examples of inventions, "Thanks to inventions like these, life has steadily gotten better. It can be easy to conclude otherwise—as I write this essay, more than 100,000 people have died in a civil war in Syria, and big problems like climate change are bearing down on us with no simple solution in sight. But if you take the long view, by almost any measure of progress we are living in history’s greatest era. Wars are becoming less frequent. Life expectancy has more than doubled in the past century. More children than ever are going to primary school. The world is better than it has ever been." And that is correct. I'll focus on the huge increase in life expectancy, since that is often discussed here on HN. The low-hanging fruit of increasing life expectancy is increasing it for young people, by reducing infant and child mortality. The Gates Foundation does a lot of work in developing and delivering vaccines to protect children against infectious diseases. That means mothers can be more sure of their children surviving infancy, and all over the world (as other comments here have already pointed out), that results in a "demographic transition," of families eventually having dramatically fewer children. Children who grow up healthy and survive to adulthood do a lot to transform societies from backwardness into development and innovation. The increases in lifespan are occurring at the old end of the lifespan too.[1] (This is a point that is often specifically denied in HN discussions, so I thought I should draw attention to it here.) Life expectancy at age 40, at age 60, and at even higher ages is still rising throughout the developed countries of the world. The increase in lifespan in developed countries has been so steady for so long that a girl born in the developed world since the year 2000 has a better than even chance of celebrating her 100th birthday, with boys likely to live almost as long.[2] And this comes from steady, incremental progress in the prevention and treatment of disease and the maintenance of good general health, not at all from any path-breaking research in "life extension." This suggests that similar day-by-day improvements in human life can come about from simple, barely noticed better practice replacing former haphazard practice. The programmers who Bill Gates encourages to join in on solving problems of the world may be able to harness computer power to notice patterns in data that may improve health and longevity, environmental quality, recycling of natural resources, and a variety of other important aspects of human life little by little all over the world. I read The Limits to Growth when I was a kid, soon after the book was published. It was the most spectacularly factually incorrect set of predictions of all the predictions of the future I have ever read. I think Bill Gates here is writing based on a better understanding of how the world works, and I expect when my daughter has her 100th birthday in the twenty-second century that she will enjoy a world almost unimaginably better for almost all people than the world we share today. [1] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=longevity-why-we-die-global-life-expectancy http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=longevity-w... [2] http://www.demographic-challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2860ef54d218ce5ce19abe6a59/dc_biodemography_of_human_ageing_nature_2010_vaupel.pdf http://www.demographic-challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2... http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/humanlongevity.aspx http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/humanlongevity....

yetanotherphd 13y ago

When I was considering a career path, I thought a lot about this sort of thing. Should I devote my career to helping people in the greatest need? In the end, I decided I should not. Bill Gates correctly identifies the need for money to do the things he wants to do, but money comes from economic growth. And I believe that technological progress is a big driver of growth. So I decided to make my career in advancing technological progress. Not necessarily hardware, in fact I'm a software engineer, but I want to work on things that push the boundaries. If I can write a library that makes 1% of programmers 10% more efficient, or saves academic researchers 1% of their time, that is probably a bigger contribution than I could make if I worked directly on global health.

humannature 13y ago

why is no one addressing the problem of overpopulation?

sprash 13y ago
There is no problem of overpopulation. The population growth is declining. This means we hit peak population between 2050 and 2100. Also there are enough resources to allow a decent life for everybody. It is all just a matter of distribution.

zamalek 13y ago

Don't get me wrong, I love what Gates is doing. I do believe that while technology has given us so much, it comes with incredible costs. > How far away do these women live? we wondered. Who’s watching their children while they’re away? I was born and raised in Zimbabwe (where the bush/wilderness is very similar to that of Kenya) and this specific quote really shows the good and the bad of technology and innovation. Those women walk miles to get water; technology can now use pipes or boreholes to bring water closer to people - giving them a slightly easier life. However, Bill fails to mention how these women approach this hardship - having come across many of these people during my hikes in youth I can testify that they are singing and laughing for the entire duration of those daily ordeals. You simply won't find a person with that attitude towards hardship in the first world/technology world. Their lives are hard, but they are happy. Our lives are easy, but the first world is struggling with depression[1]. Us people in the first world need to stop making the mistake of assuming that a hard life is an unhappy one. Bring these people water, bring them food, bring them vaccines - but don't destroy one of the last bastions of happiness on the planet with the internet and laziness. As for their children and who is looking after them: they are looking after each other, playing in the dirt and in the sun, making their own toys out of sticks, old tires and coat hanger wire [2][3]. What are your children doing? Sitting on an iPad? Their parents don't have to worry about psychopaths or kidnappers - that is a first world problem in a very real way. I'm a saying that what Bill is doing is wrong? No: he is making a very real and very positive difference in these people's lives. What I am saying is that us people in the first world need to stop assuming that technology solves problems. The reality is that technology replaces problems with other problems. [1]: http://www.inquisitr.com/129438/depression-rates-higher-in-wealthier-countries/ http://www.inquisitr.com/129438/depression-rates-higher-in-w... [2]: http://www.bsmarkham.com/mission/Africa/Apr%2005/huffs/18%2002.jpg http://www.bsmarkham.com/mission/Africa/Apr%2005/huffs/18%20... [3]: http://www.losviajeros.net/fotos/africa/sudafrica/k_lesotho0004.jpg http://www.losviajeros.net/fotos/africa/sudafrica/k_lesotho0...

Datsundere 13y ago

[The last question](http://filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm http://filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm)

speleding 13y ago

"Everyone’s life has equal value" That's a very idealistic premise, but not very realistic. Surely he values the life of his children higher than that of some random hideous criminal.