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2014 Gates Annual Letter: Myths that block progress for the poor

490 points by pyduan 13y ago

gregwtmtno 13y ago
I think myth number 3, that saving children’s lives leads to overpopulation, misses the central concern. People are concerned about world resource depletion, not overpopulation. And while it is 100% true that bringing countries out of poverty reduces population growth, it does not reduce consumption. In fact, it does the opposite.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  Minus the awful solutions, the best long term strategy to reduce resource consumption is to reduce population growth. It doesn't miss the central concern, it reasons through it within some reasonable moral framework.
- mikeash 13y ago
  It appears that the only non-murderous way to reduce population growth to a replacement level is to make people wealthier. It's the only thing that's done the job so far, anyway. So given a poor country and two choices, here's what happens: if it stays poor, the population continues to increase and consumption likewise continues to increase. If it becomes wealthy, the population stabilize and consumption, after increasing to feed that increased wealth, also stabilizes. There's an easy solution to the problem of resource depletion. You simply take the Benderist approach of killing all humans. Problem solved! The trick is doing it in a way that isn't horrible, and while that's completely unsolved, it doesn't look like keeping people poor helps at all.
- g8oz 13y ago
  Lifestyle accounts for resource depletion far more than raw population numbers. A mall addicted American SUV driver who flies twice a year is far worse for the planet than than a village woman in Mozambique with 6 children.
acconrad 13y ago
> There are still slums and pockets of poverty, but by and large when I visit there now I think, “Wow, most people who live here are middle-class. What a miracle.” Overall I enjoyed his letter, but I find this quote a bit deceptive. A recent photo (http://i.imgur.com/atxDiw6.jpg http://i.imgur.com/atxDiw6.jpg) of the poverty line in Mexico City paints a very different picture than Gates' conclusion that most people there are "middle-class." Another source (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/30/us-mexico-poverty-idUSBRE96T01F20130730 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/30/us-mexico-poverty-...) claims that Mexico's poverty line is nearly 50%, far different than "pockets of poverty."
- beachstartup 13y ago
  1. the photo you provided shows far more middle-class high rise dwellings than the low-lying tenament slums. 2. he was talking specifically about mexico city, not mexico as a whole. the point is real, tangible progress is obviously being made, and that the work needs to continue. it's not "hopeless".
- humanrebar 13y ago
  I'm surprised he chose Mexico as an example as well, but because of the issues it has with corruption, emigration, and violence. Even a middle-class country with those problems seems like a bad example of progress.
  - sp332 13y ago
    Does Mexico still have an emmigration problem? I know that for the last few years, the USA has had net-negative immigration from Mexico, as people are moving back.
    - humanrebar 13y ago
      I'm not an expert, but I understand that was more a function of the economic downturn than anything. Relevant: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/24/us/immigrant-population-shows-signs-of-growth-estimates-show.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/24/us/immigrant-population-sh... That article reports that immigration from Mexico may be on the rise again. It also cites that half of the undocumented immigrants in the U.S. (about 6 million people) were born in Mexico. I guess my point is that Mexico has significant issues to deal with and therefore it may not be a good anecdote and instead be a better candidate for the special-considerations bucket.
sdegutis 13y ago
"Creating societies where people enjoy basic health, relative prosperity, fundamental equality, and access to contraceptives is the only way to secure a sustainable world." I suppose I'm one of the 0% (rounded) who disagree with putting contraception in this list. When this gets thrown around, it makes me feel like an outsider in a programming community where I otherwise agree with probably everything else.
- btian 13y ago
  Do you mind explaining why? Providing contraception (especially condoms) can prevent STDs in addition to preventing unwanted child birth.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - humanrebar 13y ago
    Of the many replies to this post, this is the best response (so far) because it promotes discussion instead of trying to presume, argue, or pre-emptively invalidate sdegutis's opinion.
    - sdegutis 13y ago
      I posted one of my reasons as a reply to my original comment, but I think it's going to get drowned out in all the requests for it. Irony?
      - Crito 13y ago
        That's not irony. That is just the expected result of not being forthright.
        sdegutis 13y ago
        Lesson learned. Won't make that mistake again.
pessimizer 13y ago
The myth in this article is that a per capita average of income tells you anything about the condition of the poor. Many countries can raise that number significantly by simply asking Mr. Gates to visit for a day.
- rmah 13y ago
  GDP is a reasonably good measure of a nation's economic activity and per Capita GDP is a reasonably good measure of overall well being under all but the most extreme circumstances. Using purchasing power adjusted GDP is a bit better. IMO, using median income is even better. But GDP figures tend to be more accurate and less subject to bias and thus more commonly used. To address your snide side comment... Gates visiting would not change the per Capita GDP. GDP and per capita GDP is not calculated that way. GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports − imports) and Per Capita GDP = GDP / Population Visiting rich foreigners, or even rich expats who just reside somewhere but have no business activity do not change GDP except through their local spending (private consumption). Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GDP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GDP for more info.
mikeash 13y ago
This is a fascinating letter that helps combat some of the "doom and gloom" that's so prevalent in... well, everything. I kept coming back to one thought while reading this: why are people so mistaken about Africa in particular? The article covers misconceptions all over the place, but it keeps coming back to Africa, and it seems that the disparity between what people think and what's actually the case is far larger there than anywhere else. It would be easy to blame this on casual racism and move on. And I'm sure that's a factor. But there must be more. I wonder if there might just be a cliff effect in people's perceptions. The perception of China, for example, changed rapidly from "shithole" to "where all our stuff is made". India quickly switched from "shithole" to "where our IT gets outsourced". (And reminder, I'm talking about perceptions here, specifically in the US, or possibly the western world as a whole.) I wasn't around for it, but I have the impression that more or less the same thing happened for e.g. Taiwan and Japan. If that's the case, then Africa is still in the "shithole" perception category simply because we don't see much of them. Not much of our stuff comes with a "Made in Kenya" label on it, and our experience with IT-related outsourcing to Africa is mostly limited to Nigerian scammers. Once that changes, the perception will rapidly go from "those guys have no food" to "those guys are taking all of our jobs". A counterpoint would be South America, which is not overall perceived as "shithole" but nor is it a place we interact with a whole lot. Perhaps it's just mental inertia. The places that are changing most rapidly will be the most incorrectly perceived.
- philwelch 13y ago
  Japan has been a relatively developed, industrialized country for a very long time, judging by the fact that they spent the 1930's and 1940's trying to conquer east Asia and were doing a decent job of it.
  - Apocryphon 13y ago
    True, but there was a time prior to that, before modernization. "Those sandal-wearing goldfish tenders? Ha ha! Bosh! Flimshaw!"
  - stan_rogers 13y ago
    Postwar Japan was a different beast for quite a while. Weird Al Yankovic's line "don't you know that other kids are starving in Japan" was what parents used to guilt their kids into eating until Biafra happened. A "Made in Japan" joke was funny in the '50s and '60s because it was true, for the most part. "Toyota" was a word that to most people meant "poor bugger couldn't even afford a Beetle". My '71 Datsun (Nissan) pickup could barely reach highway speed (although it did have a sort of tractor-like utility about it) and I don't think there was a single original body panel left on it by '79. But the cameras weren't bad. And then the "miniature" electronics (a radio you could put in your pocket!) happened. It took a while to get back up to speed. Now people look for "Made in Japan" as a sign of quality instead of a warning.
pnathan 13y ago
Fascinating. This addresses one of my key concerns, that aid often is a bag of cash to high officials, who then go buy 6-10 Lamborghinis and a new apartment rather than actually helping people out.
- yobb 13y ago
  It is still that, perhaps not in such a distilled fashion, but corruption is rampant throughout the world. Those in power in the "third world" are as susceptible, if not more so, to greed as those here in the "first world." Aid does work to an extent simply because not all of humanity is evil, there are some in positions of power who actually do wish to do good. His report just appears too idyllic and utopian compared to reality.
  - localhost 13y ago
    One of the aid organizations in his letter, The Global Fund found, during an audit, bribes paid to corrupt Cambodian officials. That's an anecdote in his paper. Do you have facts to back up your assertion that it is "too idyllic and utopian compared to reality"?
  - pnathan 13y ago
    Honestly, like Gates, if a small amount of corruption happens - if some % get skimmed off to pad some salaries or expense reports, I'm not going to get too excited. People do that. It's the gratuitous bag of cash -> palace transfer that bothers me.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    Are you seriously saying that one of the most significant philanthropists alive today, who has given tens of billions of dollars of his own personal money in aid, who has a large role in overseeing the aid organization he built, and who has seen the results of corruption as applied to that aid, is "too idyllic and utopian compared to reality"? If Gates says that X is true when it comes to aid, and you say that X is not true, what reason could I possibly have to believe you over him?
dragonwriter 13y ago
I've been to Mexico City fairly recently, and I guarantee that in the right places -- possibly the same place the 1986 picture was taken -- you could take something very much like that 1986 picture today (which is perhaps even more tragic today, since its not just after the major earthquake). And I've seen Mexico City pictures just like that 2011 one, barring changes in fashion, from the 1980s. And even the 1960s. On a bigger problem with Myth 1, not only are the pictures distortion, so is the main set of economic claims supporting the myth thesis they are meant to illustrate. Gates makes claims about "per person income", but the statistic he uses and treats as if it meant that is actually GDP per capita. Because much of the value of goods produced in developing countries is captured by foreign capital holders owning the firms doing the production, and because all that value extracted from the country's economy still shows up as part of the GDP of the country it is extracted from, GDP per capita, particularly in the developed world, is often very different than income per person.
- localhost 13y ago
  Bill Gates is not saying that everywhere in Mexico City is like the picture on the right. "There are still slums and pockets of poverty, but by and large when I visit there now I think, “Wow, most people who live here are middle-class. What a miracle.”" Sadly, I don't understand what you are saying in your second paragraph. I don't see how your criticism refutes Myth 1 "Poor Countries are Doomed to Stay Poor"? Take a metric, look at it over time. Watch it change. That's exactly what Bill Gates did in his piece.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > I don't see how your criticism refutes Myth 1 I'm not refuting that the myth is a myth (though I think its more of a strawman that Gates attacks poorly than a myth), I'm pointing out that Gates particular attempt to argue from so-called "income per person" trends (that starts with mistreating GDP per capita as "income per person") line of argument against the "myth" is fundamentally flawed. I don't think poor countries are "doomed to stay poor". But I don't think Gates attacks on that supposed myth (which I don't think is really a particularly dominant belief) are very good, and particularly I don't think they support the alternative thesis he is presenting to the "myth" (which seems to nbe not merely that they aren't "doomed to stay poor", but that the "poor" countries are in fact not poor now.) > Take a metric, look at it over time. Watch it change. That's exactly what Bill Gates did in his piece. Except that the metric he takes (which he attempts to conceal by presenting it as something it is not) includes wealth extracted from the nation to other nations, as well as income earned in the nation, so it isn't actually a good measure to show whether the poor nations are actually getting less poor over time. Taking a metric that doesn't actually measure the thing you are using it to measure is, well, wrong.
spodek 13y ago
His third point, "Saving lives leads to overpopulation," is a weird straw man. I've never heard of anyone ever suggesting letting suffering children die as some way to keep the population low. He brings up Malthus as another straw man. I'm not sure the point he's trying to make. To stop people from stopping people from saving people's lives? I think he's trying to suggest that the planet has too many people on it but that shouldn't stop us from saving people's lives. I know a lot of people who consider the planet overpopulated and I've never heard of anyone suggesting letting babies die would help, let alone consider it remotely human. He seems to conclude educating women and making birth control available helps most. Why not just make that point? I feel like he's trying to imply those who disagree with him or agree with Malthus are tantamount to baby-killers. On another (lighter) note, since dromedaries are camels too, calling the "camel world" a "bactrian world" would be more clear. The fun mnemonic for camel names is that the Dromedary has one hump and the Bactrian has two, like the first letters of their names, 'D' and 'B', turned sideways. EDIT: Moreover, these statements are at odds, or at least need more explanation to connect them. "It may be counterintuitive, but the countries with the most deaths have among the fastest-growing populations in the world. This is because the women in these countries tend to have the most births, too." and "Human beings are not machines. We don’t reproduce mindlessly. We make decisions based on the circumstances we face." The first point suggests people have extra babies in anticipation of some of them dying before adulthood. The second implies they would target a certain number to reach adulthood, which would not itself lead to overpopulation. What would lead to overpopulation on a broad scale would be individuals benefiting from more children than the planet would, which is more like a tragedy of the commons. If people decide based on circumstances, then they wouldn't have too many children for whatever their values decide, independent of child mortality. They'd have the right number. If they are having the right number for themselves, then food and medicine wouldn't affect their target number of children. Bringing up food and medicine is a red herring. There may be a myth (which they don't establish), but it's irrelevant to the point made in that section: increase education and birth control. It confuses unrelated issues and paints people concerned with population as ignorant and cruel. It's not clear to me where their logic suggests I should contribute resources. Should I favor food causes over education causes, the other way around, a mix, or neither?
- 13y ago
pella 13y ago
"How Occupy Wall Street Won In One Chart" --> "income inequality has been the #1 global risk." http://www.businessinsider.com/how-occupy-wall-street-won-in-one-chart-2014-1 http://www.businessinsider.com/how-occupy-wall-street-won-in...
Symmetry 13y ago
The Gates are quite correct that we shouldn't ordinarily worry too much if some of the aid is siphoned off into government corruption. But while if 2% of the money goes into the creation of some official's new manor that isn't too bad, there are much worse things that money can go to. In the Great Lakes Crisis[1] the perpetrators of the genocide in Rwanda were charging aid organizations for access to the the refugees they controlled. They were using the money to try to buy enough weapons to re-conquer Rwanda and finish what they had started. Most private aid organizations wisely decided they weren't willing to pay the genocidaires off, but the UN was willing to and the army of the new Rwandan government ended up invading to stop them, touching off the Congolese civil war. Paying for access to refugees can also turn refugees into a de-facto lootable resource that can help sustain conflicts the same way that diamonds can. Corruption in stable states isn't a huge problem for aid (development is another story), but it's interactions with aid are much worse in unstable areas. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes_refugee_crisis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes_refugee_crisis
agarwlGaurav 13y ago
Yesterday I read the Oxfam report that 85 people own half of the world's wealth. http://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressrelease/2014-01-20/rigged-rules-mean-economic-growth-increasingly-winner-takes-all-for-rich-elites http://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressrelease/2014-01-20/ri... Now this is amazing and simple fact. This shows we have completely failed at distribution of wealth. If we could fix this many many problem will vanish. Now instead of what Gates has written this extreme inequality is blocking the progress of poor.
- Kiro 13y ago
  > this extreme inequality is blocking the progress of poor How so?
  - agarwlGaurav 13y ago
    Lets say we distribute this wealth in a more equitable way. That will mean a little more dollars in the hand of poor and a little less in the hand of super rich. Now if we assume(reasonable as far as I can see) that if you are feed and have home you will spend next dollars into healthcare and education. So poor people with little more dollars would attract more workforce towards providing education and healthcare to their kids (instead of writing code for Bill Gates and make him rich) and thus making this world more peaceful and beautiful for all.
    - TimJRobinson 13y ago
      Every action has a reaction, while redistributing wealth seems like it would create a utopian world there are consequences and problems it would also create. These billions of dollars aren't simply sitting around in bank accounts doing nothing, they're being invested in companies which are (should be) providing some form of value to the world thus increasing the wealth of the world as a whole. If that money was taken and given to those less well off it could be squandered and then we're in a worse off position than now. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, it seems fantastic, but there are always consequences and the reason we have capitalism is because so far it's proven itself as the best method of improving the wealth of everyone (through technology and cheaper goods.
misterbishop 13y ago
This should be titled "Strawmen that block progress for the poor". Few serious thinkers actually believe any of those supposed myths. Not one word about the exploitation of labor and natural resources in "poor nations" by rich nations (&corporations). Not one word about economic sanctions imposed on several poor nations by the US and its allies. Gates sounds like the optimist against a world of cynics, but he ignores major reasons why these nations are poor in the first place.
humanrebar 13y ago
> It is ironic that the foundation has a reputation for a hard-nosed focus on results, and yet many people are cynical about the government aid programs we partner with. The foundation does a lot to help these programs be more efficient and measure their progress. It's not ironic. Some people value government charity spending less than they value private nonprofit spending. Gates implicitly acknowledges that government aid has weak points (poor focus on outcomes, inefficiency, and lack of good measurement). Aside from that, there are also principled concerns about using tax dollars for aid projects.
- Guvante 13y ago
  > there are also principled concerns about using tax dollars for aid projects Are you using the typical "let the church handle it logic" not specifically religious entities, but that if the government didn't waste money on aid then people would make up the difference? Because if that is what you are saying it is based on the flawed logic that aid is a zero sum thing. It is certainly not at this point. I can guarantee that the US stopping foreign aid would reduce available foreign aid by nearly the entire amount it currently spends, given that the total budget is around 0.1% and no one would notice an increase of 0.1% of their income. This is not to say that the US should increase their aid, just saying that some level of aid makes sense since it has a significant impact for a nearly negligible cost on the total scale.
  - humanrebar 13y ago
    I didn't say those things. I was saying that it's not ironic and pushing back against a particular straw man in the letter. 1. Government aid has its problems. The fact that the Gates Foundation helps government programs implies that private organizations execute better, at least in some aspects. Gates later admits that government aid has its problems, so it's odd that he dismisses objections in this way. 2. Philosophical objections should be acknowledged and addressed. At another point in the letter, Gates hypothetically asked, "Imagine that the income tax form asked, 'Can we use $30 of the taxes you’re already paying to protect 120 children from measles?' Would you check yes or no?" Many people would have no problem with that arrangement but do have a problem with not-optional line items in the federal budget. The point is that right now donations are enforced by the IRS, which is an odd form of charity, and I think it's reasonable (and certainly not ironic) to have philosophical problems with that and to prefer more democratic forms of aid. Perhaps the benefits are worth overruling the drawbacks (point 1) and philosophical objections (point 2), but calling reservations about government aid ironic is either sloppy or disingenuous.
hawkharris 13y ago
The United States' news coverage concerning Africa perpetuates these myths. It seems as if 95% of news stories focus on poverty, war and chaos in the continent. They rarely go so far as to differentiate among countries. In fact, many African nations are great centers for innovation. Kenya and Nigeria spring to mind for higher education and mobile computing. As a way of confronting condescending stereotypes, I have often fantasized about organizing a group of Nigerian school children to "help build a school somewhere in America" — a twist on the cliche trip that many U.S. students take to Africa — because education in some Nigerian cities is far superior to most U.S. high schools.
- gnerd 13y ago
  > because education in some Nigerian cities is far superior to most U.S. high schools. Do you know that for sure though? Isn't it possible that you are drawing a conclusion on a far away place based on some events/cultural ideas that are provocative enough to make it to your screen as a topic of interest? Isn't that the same thing you are complaining about, just in reverse?
  - hawkharris 13y ago
    I base that conclusion on a comparison of students' performance on various aptitude tests, the likelihood that they will go to college and the percentage of those who find jobs related to their fields of study.
    - gnerd 13y ago
      So then show us so we can take your conclusions seriously.
- JumpCrisscross 13y ago
  >It seems as if 95% of news stories focus on poverty, war and chaos in the continent. They rarely go so far as to differentiate among countries. I can't go a month without an FT special on Nigeria or Tanzania. This may be more a critique of the news sources you are exposed to than media as a whole.
bfe 13y ago
This is a great and wise overview of some of the most important aspects of the state and trajectory of humanity today. I wish there were more widespread exposure to analysis like this.
kilroy123 13y ago
In regards to "people believe the world is getting worse", is mostly Americans and the US media. I believe things are getting worse, or at least harder for the majority of Americans; not the rest of the world. Unemployment, large disparity in wealth, massive problems with debt (student debt), and highly dysfunctional political system. Americans see things as getting worse, here at home. We don't really focus on the rest of the world.
elwell 13y ago
Breaks back button...
crazygringo 13y ago
It's an excellent piece. I'll admit to being a bit confused by the assertion, however: > "letting children die now so they don’t starve later—doesn’t actually work, thank goodness. It may be counterintuitive, but the countries with the most deaths have among the fastest-growing populations in the world. This is because the women in these countries tend to have the most births, too." I spent five months in Kenya, and a couple weeks with the Samburu tribe during a drought. All their animals were dead, piled up, because there were no more leaves to eat. We were driving a caravan of food to distribute in the region, since otherwise the people would have been next. And the dilemma was explained to me clearly: we can't just let people die. But it means we have to send food aid all the time now, unlike decades ago, because the population is simply larger than the land can support, except in its best years, and it makes the people essentially permanently dependent on outside aid. So I'll admit to being stumped by what Melinda Gates means when she says that overpopulation isn't the result of aid. Simply asserting that "countries with the most deaths have among the fastest-growing populations in the world" doesn't explain anything -- it's just a correlation, and might very well be due to the fact that such countries already receive the most food aid, for example. I'm certainly not arguing that I am against, or that anyone should be against, food aid. But I am utterly unconvinced by Melissa Gates saying that "saving lives leads to overpopulation" is a myth -- she doesn't substantiate it, and it seems like the weakest part of the whole post. It all depends on how you define overpopulation, but I just don't see it yet. Of course, rising income and education lowers birth rates in the future, but that doesn't change the simple fact that, at low levels of income and education, more food aid directly results in more people, which is often more than traditional local practices and agriculture can reliably and sustainably support.
- chime 13y ago
  I think it is important to distinguish between the different method of aids and different causes of deaths here. Let: P1 = % of human population who live in tribes and will die in droughts P2 = % of human population who are children, live in villages/urban areas, and will die without vaccinations/medicine M1 = Multiplier for P1 (to replace the tribal people who died of hunger) M2 = Multiplier for P2 (to replace the children who died due to lack of medication) If we give food to P1 and medicine to P2, the population will be: 100% If we don't do anything, Earth's population will be: 100% - P1 - P2 + M1xP1 + M2xP2 So basically if M1 or M2 are > 1, the population due to P1 or P2 will rise. M1 might be 0 if the entire tribe dies out. But it could be > 0 if another tribe now takes over the land. M2 is most likely > 1, even as much as 3-4 depending on the location as the letter pointed out. This letter was primarily addressing P2 population. Sir David Attenborough has spoken out against foreign food aid for P1.
jl6 13y ago
I would be interested to hear how HN readers approach charity. I personally am constantly struggling with questions like: once my basic needs are met, how can I possibly justify not giving the rest of my income to life-saving causes? My working theory is a combination of (a) my basic needs are actually quite high when you consider the many potential rainy days for which I must save, (b) I don't know enough to donate with confidence that my money is doing more good than harm (this Gates letter addresses some of my concerns here), and (c) I must simply come to terms with being selfish to the point where I would rather spend money on a candy bar than a life-saving vaccination for someone else.
- peterashford 13y ago
  Personally I don't believe that you need to save the world. Just making a contribution now and then and being aware of the issues and speaking / voting with empathy for the poor is enough.
- slackson 13y ago
  If you want to know enough to donate with confidence, GiveWell has good charity recommendations. In any case, don't let indecision paralyse you into inaction. Put some proportion of money aside for charity, start doing research, etc. We're not perfect, it's okay to be a bit selfish, and it's good to want to do better. There's any number of options between a spartan life where you donate most of your money, and donating nothing.
deleted 13y ago
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jfoster 13y ago
Is it just me, or is there some bias in the before & after photos? Mexico city "before" is just one dwelling versus a full street in the "after". Nairobi "before" is taken when most of the city was dark due to clouds, whereas the "after" is a bright, sunny day. Similarly, Shanghai "before" looks like it was taken with an unfavourable filter on a hazy day. I'm not doubting that the world is improving, especially in those places. I just find it unusual that they used such obviously biased photos.
- cowls 13y ago
  Yes, that also put me off somewhat. There's an air of dishonesty about it.
- mathgenius 13y ago
  Yeah that was enough for me to close that tab. Meow.
pikewood 13y ago
I appreciated the fractal poetry in including the story of Sadi Seyni's village well (an example of the need for spreading accurate information to our fellow villagers), which is itself wrapped in a letter which calls on the reader to spread accurate information on the myths being presented.
grecy 13y ago
> Four of the past seven governors of Illinois have gone to prison for corruption, and to my knowledge no one has demanded that Illinois schools be shut down or its highways closed. Brilliant.
- dnautics 13y ago
  yes, but we have demanded that the funds no longer be transferred through those governors.
  - grecy 13y ago
    It will just be transferred through the next governor... who, based on history, has a pretty good chance of being corrupt too.
jokoon 13y ago
I view this as a political sensitization, and I think it's greater than trying to talk numbers and topics about charities and myths. I think this foundation is showing that you can be optimistic and right at the same time for many things about charities, but it's not the organization and the means and the money sent that will effectively change things. I don't know how this foundation works at the political level, and what are the political issues, but I hope it will make people really reflect their view on the world. You don't often have billionaires initiating a communication campaign and articles about charities, and attracting that much attention. I don't think Bill Gates would really like to answer the question "when did you encounter politics in that work, and what was good and what was not ?", because I don't think that he's a very political guy, but at least he has enormous talent for everything else. I honestly thinks that diplomacy and politics can immensely help charities. I wish this foundation is not just doing this mission without minding the geopolitics, and has at least a few political partners and advisors. I wonder if they tried to do some lobbying, if just think there is a lot of potential if you try to approach foreign aid with a moderate amount of politics.
dredmorbius 13y ago
There are multiple problems with Gates's predition, but two of the biggest are these: 1. Growth in real economic wealth is very strongly tied to growth in real resource consumption. The master resource is energy, but numerous other resources are in tight supply, with a critical set being "bauxite whose production peaked in 1943), copper (1998), iron ore (1951), magnesium (1966), phosphate rock (1980), potash (1967), rare earth metals (1984), tin (1945), titanium (1964), and zinc (1969)" (from Richard Heinberg's The End of Growth[1]) I've explored the concept of decoupling in greater length using Wolfram+Alpha data to show the relationship between energy use and GDP for the G8 nations plus China, India, and Brazil, as well as global growth, in the periods of 2000 - 2010, 1990 - 2012, and 1980-2012 (not all data available for all periods, though the 2000 - 2010 data are complete for all nations analyzed). While there's some sign of very weak decoupling of energy and GDP growth, principally in Japan and the USA, for global GDP growth, there's a very strong relationship between GDP and energy usage, and both have been increasing. With limited exceptions, global per capita energy use has also been increasing. http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1vlksg/economic_decoupling_the_recent_relationship/ http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1vlksg/economic... As I write this, I'm listening to a news story that the IEA has announced that US oil consumption, flat for years, is up 2% http://www.marketplace.org/topics/world/rising-demand-oil-growth-easy-when-youve-been-pits http://www.marketplace.org/topics/world/rising-demand-oil-gr... 2. The second major problem is that the so-called Demographic Transition which Gates and Hans Rosling like to trumpet is little more than a largely unexplained phenomenon observed in some but not all data series. Tom "Do the Math" Murphy, UCSD physics professor, has specifically looked at this with regards to oil states, and makes the observation that "surplus energy makes babies"[2]. This is significant for two reasons: it means that the demographic transition isn't being observed in all countries, and it means that population growth, and hence domestic energy consumption growth, is highest in the major oil exporting nations. Growing domestic consumption means reduced availability of energy for export markets -- a phenomenon known as the "export lands model". Other research suggests that the causality link between development rates and birth rates is less clear than popularly portrayed[3]. I could bore (or terrify) you with numerous other challenges: flat or falling agricultural productivity, EROEI deficiencies in virtually every non-fossil energy alternative, pandemics risks. There's a reason I don't get invited to parties much .... But I think these two will do. While I have respect for some of Bill Gates's work (and I'm by no means an uncritical fan of his), his optimism here seems misplaced and founded on a very incomplete portrayal of the situation. ____________________________ Notes: 1. Sources: http://minerals.usgs.gov/ds/2005/140/ http://minerals.usgs.gov/ds/2005/140/ and http://www.culturechange.org/cms/content/view/597/2/ http://www.culturechange.org/cms/content/view/597/2/ 2. "The Real Population Problem" http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2013/09/the-real-population-problem/ http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2013/09/the-real-populat... 3. "Revisiting demographic transition: correlation and causation in the rate of development and fertility decline." http://www.iussp.org/sites/default/files/event_call_for_papers/OSullivan_IUSSP27_DemographicTransition_FullPaper.pdf http://www.iussp.org/sites/default/files/event_call_for_pape...
higherpurpose 13y ago
Too bad Gates doesn't think the Internet helps progress in countries, because technology and the Internet are huge factors in the progress and conditions of living in a country.
- jhull 13y ago
  What good is technology if you are sick or hungry? If you have no electricity? It would be the first thing sold.
dnautics 13y ago
#2 is really tortured. first he makes the argument that foreign aid works, then narrows it down to "development aid" and then when it comes time to presenting evidence he really pares it down to "health aid". And addressing the second part of myth #2(aid breeds dependence), is it not possible that the countries that escaped aid are getting better in spite of foreign aid, and not because of it? There are a lot of other things that have happened to those countries in the era in which foreign aid was given, like political shifts, introduction of technology, improvement of trade relations with neighboring countries, no longer being at war with other countries, etc, etc, etc. Seems like a standard correlation/causation fallacy.
excellence24 13y ago
best line in the letter: "As public knowledge goes up, corruption goes down, and more money goes where it’s supposed to." This means you NSA and US black budget. Computers and robots have no need for money. Our black budget goes to paying PEOPLE off and keeping secrets.
niio 13y ago
ignore... testing saved articles.
wowsig 13y ago
Some major ground has been covered in the article, and sparked a few more pointers. I come from a country receiving substantial aid, and yet I see that a lot of new initiatives could be kickstarted by the wealthy citizens themselves. Covering the reasons why the middle-class and the rich hesitate to lean in philanthropy would also instigate more people to contribute.
Datsundere 13y ago
Never mind the fact that the divide between the rich and the poor is growing, and only growing.
goggles99 13y ago
Darn, I was hoping that he was talking about the domestic poor.

490 points by pyduan 13y ago

I think myth number 3, that saving children’s lives leads to overpopulation, misses the central concern. People are concerned about world resource depletion, not overpopulation. And while it is 100% true that bringing countries out of poverty reduces population growth, it does not reduce consumption. In fact, it does the opposite.

maxerickson 13y ago
Minus the awful solutions, the best long term strategy to reduce resource consumption is to reduce population growth. It doesn't miss the central concern, it reasons through it within some reasonable moral framework.
mikeash 13y ago
It appears that the only non-murderous way to reduce population growth to a replacement level is to make people wealthier. It's the only thing that's done the job so far, anyway. So given a poor country and two choices, here's what happens: if it stays poor, the population continues to increase and consumption likewise continues to increase. If it becomes wealthy, the population stabilize and consumption, after increasing to feed that increased wealth, also stabilizes. There's an easy solution to the problem of resource depletion. You simply take the Benderist approach of killing all humans. Problem solved! The trick is doing it in a way that isn't horrible, and while that's completely unsolved, it doesn't look like keeping people poor helps at all.
g8oz 13y ago
Lifestyle accounts for resource depletion far more than raw population numbers. A mall addicted American SUV driver who flies twice a year is far worse for the planet than than a village woman in Mozambique with 6 children.

acconrad 13y ago

> There are still slums and pockets of poverty, but by and large when I visit there now I think, “Wow, most people who live here are middle-class. What a miracle.” Overall I enjoyed his letter, but I find this quote a bit deceptive. A recent photo (http://i.imgur.com/atxDiw6.jpg http://i.imgur.com/atxDiw6.jpg) of the poverty line in Mexico City paints a very different picture than Gates' conclusion that most people there are "middle-class." Another source (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/30/us-mexico-poverty-idUSBRE96T01F20130730 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/30/us-mexico-poverty-...) claims that Mexico's poverty line is nearly 50%, far different than "pockets of poverty."

beachstartup 13y ago
1. the photo you provided shows far more middle-class high rise dwellings than the low-lying tenament slums. 2. he was talking specifically about mexico city, not mexico as a whole. the point is real, tangible progress is obviously being made, and that the work needs to continue. it's not "hopeless".
humanrebar 13y ago
I'm surprised he chose Mexico as an example as well, but because of the issues it has with corruption, emigration, and violence. Even a middle-class country with those problems seems like a bad example of progress.
- sp332 13y ago
  Does Mexico still have an emmigration problem? I know that for the last few years, the USA has had net-negative immigration from Mexico, as people are moving back.
  - humanrebar 13y ago
    I'm not an expert, but I understand that was more a function of the economic downturn than anything. Relevant: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/24/us/immigrant-population-shows-signs-of-growth-estimates-show.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/24/us/immigrant-population-sh... That article reports that immigration from Mexico may be on the rise again. It also cites that half of the undocumented immigrants in the U.S. (about 6 million people) were born in Mexico. I guess my point is that Mexico has significant issues to deal with and therefore it may not be a good anecdote and instead be a better candidate for the special-considerations bucket.

sdegutis 13y ago

"Creating societies where people enjoy basic health, relative prosperity, fundamental equality, and access to contraceptives is the only way to secure a sustainable world." I suppose I'm one of the 0% (rounded) who disagree with putting contraception in this list. When this gets thrown around, it makes me feel like an outsider in a programming community where I otherwise agree with probably everything else.

btian 13y ago
Do you mind explaining why? Providing contraception (especially condoms) can prevent STDs in addition to preventing unwanted child birth.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- humanrebar 13y ago
  Of the many replies to this post, this is the best response (so far) because it promotes discussion instead of trying to presume, argue, or pre-emptively invalidate sdegutis's opinion.
  - sdegutis 13y ago
    I posted one of my reasons as a reply to my original comment, but I think it's going to get drowned out in all the requests for it. Irony?
    - Crito 13y ago
      That's not irony. That is just the expected result of not being forthright.
      - sdegutis 13y ago
        Lesson learned. Won't make that mistake again.

pessimizer 13y ago

The myth in this article is that a per capita average of income tells you anything about the condition of the poor. Many countries can raise that number significantly by simply asking Mr. Gates to visit for a day.

rmah 13y ago
GDP is a reasonably good measure of a nation's economic activity and per Capita GDP is a reasonably good measure of overall well being under all but the most extreme circumstances. Using purchasing power adjusted GDP is a bit better. IMO, using median income is even better. But GDP figures tend to be more accurate and less subject to bias and thus more commonly used. To address your snide side comment... Gates visiting would not change the per Capita GDP. GDP and per capita GDP is not calculated that way. GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports − imports) and Per Capita GDP = GDP / Population Visiting rich foreigners, or even rich expats who just reside somewhere but have no business activity do not change GDP except through their local spending (private consumption). Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GDP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GDP for more info.

mikeash 13y ago

This is a fascinating letter that helps combat some of the "doom and gloom" that's so prevalent in... well, everything. I kept coming back to one thought while reading this: why are people so mistaken about Africa in particular? The article covers misconceptions all over the place, but it keeps coming back to Africa, and it seems that the disparity between what people think and what's actually the case is far larger there than anywhere else. It would be easy to blame this on casual racism and move on. And I'm sure that's a factor. But there must be more. I wonder if there might just be a cliff effect in people's perceptions. The perception of China, for example, changed rapidly from "shithole" to "where all our stuff is made". India quickly switched from "shithole" to "where our IT gets outsourced". (And reminder, I'm talking about perceptions here, specifically in the US, or possibly the western world as a whole.) I wasn't around for it, but I have the impression that more or less the same thing happened for e.g. Taiwan and Japan. If that's the case, then Africa is still in the "shithole" perception category simply because we don't see much of them. Not much of our stuff comes with a "Made in Kenya" label on it, and our experience with IT-related outsourcing to Africa is mostly limited to Nigerian scammers. Once that changes, the perception will rapidly go from "those guys have no food" to "those guys are taking all of our jobs". A counterpoint would be South America, which is not overall perceived as "shithole" but nor is it a place we interact with a whole lot. Perhaps it's just mental inertia. The places that are changing most rapidly will be the most incorrectly perceived.

philwelch 13y ago
Japan has been a relatively developed, industrialized country for a very long time, judging by the fact that they spent the 1930's and 1940's trying to conquer east Asia and were doing a decent job of it.
- Apocryphon 13y ago
  True, but there was a time prior to that, before modernization. "Those sandal-wearing goldfish tenders? Ha ha! Bosh! Flimshaw!"
- stan_rogers 13y ago
  Postwar Japan was a different beast for quite a while. Weird Al Yankovic's line "don't you know that other kids are starving in Japan" was what parents used to guilt their kids into eating until Biafra happened. A "Made in Japan" joke was funny in the '50s and '60s because it was true, for the most part. "Toyota" was a word that to most people meant "poor bugger couldn't even afford a Beetle". My '71 Datsun (Nissan) pickup could barely reach highway speed (although it did have a sort of tractor-like utility about it) and I don't think there was a single original body panel left on it by '79. But the cameras weren't bad. And then the "miniature" electronics (a radio you could put in your pocket!) happened. It took a while to get back up to speed. Now people look for "Made in Japan" as a sign of quality instead of a warning.

pnathan 13y ago

Fascinating. This addresses one of my key concerns, that aid often is a bag of cash to high officials, who then go buy 6-10 Lamborghinis and a new apartment rather than actually helping people out.

yobb 13y ago
It is still that, perhaps not in such a distilled fashion, but corruption is rampant throughout the world. Those in power in the "third world" are as susceptible, if not more so, to greed as those here in the "first world." Aid does work to an extent simply because not all of humanity is evil, there are some in positions of power who actually do wish to do good. His report just appears too idyllic and utopian compared to reality.
- localhost 13y ago
  One of the aid organizations in his letter, The Global Fund found, during an audit, bribes paid to corrupt Cambodian officials. That's an anecdote in his paper. Do you have facts to back up your assertion that it is "too idyllic and utopian compared to reality"?
- pnathan 13y ago
  Honestly, like Gates, if a small amount of corruption happens - if some % get skimmed off to pad some salaries or expense reports, I'm not going to get too excited. People do that. It's the gratuitous bag of cash -> palace transfer that bothers me.
- mikeash 13y ago
  Are you seriously saying that one of the most significant philanthropists alive today, who has given tens of billions of dollars of his own personal money in aid, who has a large role in overseeing the aid organization he built, and who has seen the results of corruption as applied to that aid, is "too idyllic and utopian compared to reality"? If Gates says that X is true when it comes to aid, and you say that X is not true, what reason could I possibly have to believe you over him?

dragonwriter 13y ago

I've been to Mexico City fairly recently, and I guarantee that in the right places -- possibly the same place the 1986 picture was taken -- you could take something very much like that 1986 picture today (which is perhaps even more tragic today, since its not just after the major earthquake). And I've seen Mexico City pictures just like that 2011 one, barring changes in fashion, from the 1980s. And even the 1960s. On a bigger problem with Myth 1, not only are the pictures distortion, so is the main set of economic claims supporting the myth thesis they are meant to illustrate. Gates makes claims about "per person income", but the statistic he uses and treats as if it meant that is actually GDP per capita. Because much of the value of goods produced in developing countries is captured by foreign capital holders owning the firms doing the production, and because all that value extracted from the country's economy still shows up as part of the GDP of the country it is extracted from, GDP per capita, particularly in the developed world, is often very different than income per person.

localhost 13y ago
Bill Gates is not saying that everywhere in Mexico City is like the picture on the right. "There are still slums and pockets of poverty, but by and large when I visit there now I think, “Wow, most people who live here are middle-class. What a miracle.”" Sadly, I don't understand what you are saying in your second paragraph. I don't see how your criticism refutes Myth 1 "Poor Countries are Doomed to Stay Poor"? Take a metric, look at it over time. Watch it change. That's exactly what Bill Gates did in his piece.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > I don't see how your criticism refutes Myth 1 I'm not refuting that the myth is a myth (though I think its more of a strawman that Gates attacks poorly than a myth), I'm pointing out that Gates particular attempt to argue from so-called "income per person" trends (that starts with mistreating GDP per capita as "income per person") line of argument against the "myth" is fundamentally flawed. I don't think poor countries are "doomed to stay poor". But I don't think Gates attacks on that supposed myth (which I don't think is really a particularly dominant belief) are very good, and particularly I don't think they support the alternative thesis he is presenting to the "myth" (which seems to nbe not merely that they aren't "doomed to stay poor", but that the "poor" countries are in fact not poor now.) > Take a metric, look at it over time. Watch it change. That's exactly what Bill Gates did in his piece. Except that the metric he takes (which he attempts to conceal by presenting it as something it is not) includes wealth extracted from the nation to other nations, as well as income earned in the nation, so it isn't actually a good measure to show whether the poor nations are actually getting less poor over time. Taking a metric that doesn't actually measure the thing you are using it to measure is, well, wrong.

spodek 13y ago

His third point, "Saving lives leads to overpopulation," is a weird straw man. I've never heard of anyone ever suggesting letting suffering children die as some way to keep the population low. He brings up Malthus as another straw man. I'm not sure the point he's trying to make. To stop people from stopping people from saving people's lives? I think he's trying to suggest that the planet has too many people on it but that shouldn't stop us from saving people's lives. I know a lot of people who consider the planet overpopulated and I've never heard of anyone suggesting letting babies die would help, let alone consider it remotely human. He seems to conclude educating women and making birth control available helps most. Why not just make that point? I feel like he's trying to imply those who disagree with him or agree with Malthus are tantamount to baby-killers. On another (lighter) note, since dromedaries are camels too, calling the "camel world" a "bactrian world" would be more clear. The fun mnemonic for camel names is that the Dromedary has one hump and the Bactrian has two, like the first letters of their names, 'D' and 'B', turned sideways. EDIT: Moreover, these statements are at odds, or at least need more explanation to connect them. "It may be counterintuitive, but the countries with the most deaths have among the fastest-growing populations in the world. This is because the women in these countries tend to have the most births, too." and "Human beings are not machines. We don’t reproduce mindlessly. We make decisions based on the circumstances we face." The first point suggests people have extra babies in anticipation of some of them dying before adulthood. The second implies they would target a certain number to reach adulthood, which would not itself lead to overpopulation. What would lead to overpopulation on a broad scale would be individuals benefiting from more children than the planet would, which is more like a tragedy of the commons. If people decide based on circumstances, then they wouldn't have too many children for whatever their values decide, independent of child mortality. They'd have the right number. If they are having the right number for themselves, then food and medicine wouldn't affect their target number of children. Bringing up food and medicine is a red herring. There may be a myth (which they don't establish), but it's irrelevant to the point made in that section: increase education and birth control. It confuses unrelated issues and paints people concerned with population as ignorant and cruel. It's not clear to me where their logic suggests I should contribute resources. Should I favor food causes over education causes, the other way around, a mix, or neither?

13y ago

pella 13y ago

"How Occupy Wall Street Won In One Chart" --> "income inequality has been the #1 global risk." http://www.businessinsider.com/how-occupy-wall-street-won-in-one-chart-2014-1 http://www.businessinsider.com/how-occupy-wall-street-won-in...

Symmetry 13y ago

The Gates are quite correct that we shouldn't ordinarily worry too much if some of the aid is siphoned off into government corruption. But while if 2% of the money goes into the creation of some official's new manor that isn't too bad, there are much worse things that money can go to. In the Great Lakes Crisis[1] the perpetrators of the genocide in Rwanda were charging aid organizations for access to the the refugees they controlled. They were using the money to try to buy enough weapons to re-conquer Rwanda and finish what they had started. Most private aid organizations wisely decided they weren't willing to pay the genocidaires off, but the UN was willing to and the army of the new Rwandan government ended up invading to stop them, touching off the Congolese civil war. Paying for access to refugees can also turn refugees into a de-facto lootable resource that can help sustain conflicts the same way that diamonds can. Corruption in stable states isn't a huge problem for aid (development is another story), but it's interactions with aid are much worse in unstable areas. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes_refugee_crisis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes_refugee_crisis

agarwlGaurav 13y ago

Yesterday I read the Oxfam report that 85 people own half of the world's wealth. http://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressrelease/2014-01-20/rigged-rules-mean-economic-growth-increasingly-winner-takes-all-for-rich-elites http://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressrelease/2014-01-20/ri... Now this is amazing and simple fact. This shows we have completely failed at distribution of wealth. If we could fix this many many problem will vanish. Now instead of what Gates has written this extreme inequality is blocking the progress of poor.

Kiro 13y ago
> this extreme inequality is blocking the progress of poor How so?
- agarwlGaurav 13y ago
  Lets say we distribute this wealth in a more equitable way. That will mean a little more dollars in the hand of poor and a little less in the hand of super rich. Now if we assume(reasonable as far as I can see) that if you are feed and have home you will spend next dollars into healthcare and education. So poor people with little more dollars would attract more workforce towards providing education and healthcare to their kids (instead of writing code for Bill Gates and make him rich) and thus making this world more peaceful and beautiful for all.
  - TimJRobinson 13y ago
    Every action has a reaction, while redistributing wealth seems like it would create a utopian world there are consequences and problems it would also create. These billions of dollars aren't simply sitting around in bank accounts doing nothing, they're being invested in companies which are (should be) providing some form of value to the world thus increasing the wealth of the world as a whole. If that money was taken and given to those less well off it could be squandered and then we're in a worse off position than now. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, it seems fantastic, but there are always consequences and the reason we have capitalism is because so far it's proven itself as the best method of improving the wealth of everyone (through technology and cheaper goods.

misterbishop 13y ago

This should be titled "Strawmen that block progress for the poor". Few serious thinkers actually believe any of those supposed myths. Not one word about the exploitation of labor and natural resources in "poor nations" by rich nations (&corporations). Not one word about economic sanctions imposed on several poor nations by the US and its allies. Gates sounds like the optimist against a world of cynics, but he ignores major reasons why these nations are poor in the first place.

humanrebar 13y ago

> It is ironic that the foundation has a reputation for a hard-nosed focus on results, and yet many people are cynical about the government aid programs we partner with. The foundation does a lot to help these programs be more efficient and measure their progress. It's not ironic. Some people value government charity spending less than they value private nonprofit spending. Gates implicitly acknowledges that government aid has weak points (poor focus on outcomes, inefficiency, and lack of good measurement). Aside from that, there are also principled concerns about using tax dollars for aid projects.

Guvante 13y ago
> there are also principled concerns about using tax dollars for aid projects Are you using the typical "let the church handle it logic" not specifically religious entities, but that if the government didn't waste money on aid then people would make up the difference? Because if that is what you are saying it is based on the flawed logic that aid is a zero sum thing. It is certainly not at this point. I can guarantee that the US stopping foreign aid would reduce available foreign aid by nearly the entire amount it currently spends, given that the total budget is around 0.1% and no one would notice an increase of 0.1% of their income. This is not to say that the US should increase their aid, just saying that some level of aid makes sense since it has a significant impact for a nearly negligible cost on the total scale.
- humanrebar 13y ago
  I didn't say those things. I was saying that it's not ironic and pushing back against a particular straw man in the letter. 1. Government aid has its problems. The fact that the Gates Foundation helps government programs implies that private organizations execute better, at least in some aspects. Gates later admits that government aid has its problems, so it's odd that he dismisses objections in this way. 2. Philosophical objections should be acknowledged and addressed. At another point in the letter, Gates hypothetically asked, "Imagine that the income tax form asked, 'Can we use $30 of the taxes you’re already paying to protect 120 children from measles?' Would you check yes or no?" Many people would have no problem with that arrangement but do have a problem with not-optional line items in the federal budget. The point is that right now donations are enforced by the IRS, which is an odd form of charity, and I think it's reasonable (and certainly not ironic) to have philosophical problems with that and to prefer more democratic forms of aid. Perhaps the benefits are worth overruling the drawbacks (point 1) and philosophical objections (point 2), but calling reservations about government aid ironic is either sloppy or disingenuous.

hawkharris 13y ago

The United States' news coverage concerning Africa perpetuates these myths. It seems as if 95% of news stories focus on poverty, war and chaos in the continent. They rarely go so far as to differentiate among countries. In fact, many African nations are great centers for innovation. Kenya and Nigeria spring to mind for higher education and mobile computing. As a way of confronting condescending stereotypes, I have often fantasized about organizing a group of Nigerian school children to "help build a school somewhere in America" — a twist on the cliche trip that many U.S. students take to Africa — because education in some Nigerian cities is far superior to most U.S. high schools.

gnerd 13y ago
> because education in some Nigerian cities is far superior to most U.S. high schools. Do you know that for sure though? Isn't it possible that you are drawing a conclusion on a far away place based on some events/cultural ideas that are provocative enough to make it to your screen as a topic of interest? Isn't that the same thing you are complaining about, just in reverse?
- hawkharris 13y ago
  I base that conclusion on a comparison of students' performance on various aptitude tests, the likelihood that they will go to college and the percentage of those who find jobs related to their fields of study.
  - gnerd 13y ago
    So then show us so we can take your conclusions seriously.
JumpCrisscross 13y ago
>It seems as if 95% of news stories focus on poverty, war and chaos in the continent. They rarely go so far as to differentiate among countries. I can't go a month without an FT special on Nigeria or Tanzania. This may be more a critique of the news sources you are exposed to than media as a whole.

bfe 13y ago

This is a great and wise overview of some of the most important aspects of the state and trajectory of humanity today. I wish there were more widespread exposure to analysis like this.

kilroy123 13y ago

In regards to "people believe the world is getting worse", is mostly Americans and the US media. I believe things are getting worse, or at least harder for the majority of Americans; not the rest of the world. Unemployment, large disparity in wealth, massive problems with debt (student debt), and highly dysfunctional political system. Americans see things as getting worse, here at home. We don't really focus on the rest of the world.

elwell 13y ago

Breaks back button...

crazygringo 13y ago

It's an excellent piece. I'll admit to being a bit confused by the assertion, however: > "letting children die now so they don’t starve later—doesn’t actually work, thank goodness. It may be counterintuitive, but the countries with the most deaths have among the fastest-growing populations in the world. This is because the women in these countries tend to have the most births, too." I spent five months in Kenya, and a couple weeks with the Samburu tribe during a drought. All their animals were dead, piled up, because there were no more leaves to eat. We were driving a caravan of food to distribute in the region, since otherwise the people would have been next. And the dilemma was explained to me clearly: we can't just let people die. But it means we have to send food aid all the time now, unlike decades ago, because the population is simply larger than the land can support, except in its best years, and it makes the people essentially permanently dependent on outside aid. So I'll admit to being stumped by what Melinda Gates means when she says that overpopulation isn't the result of aid. Simply asserting that "countries with the most deaths have among the fastest-growing populations in the world" doesn't explain anything -- it's just a correlation, and might very well be due to the fact that such countries already receive the most food aid, for example. I'm certainly not arguing that I am against, or that anyone should be against, food aid. But I am utterly unconvinced by Melissa Gates saying that "saving lives leads to overpopulation" is a myth -- she doesn't substantiate it, and it seems like the weakest part of the whole post. It all depends on how you define overpopulation, but I just don't see it yet. Of course, rising income and education lowers birth rates in the future, but that doesn't change the simple fact that, at low levels of income and education, more food aid directly results in more people, which is often more than traditional local practices and agriculture can reliably and sustainably support.

chime 13y ago
I think it is important to distinguish between the different method of aids and different causes of deaths here. Let: P1 = % of human population who live in tribes and will die in droughts P2 = % of human population who are children, live in villages/urban areas, and will die without vaccinations/medicine M1 = Multiplier for P1 (to replace the tribal people who died of hunger) M2 = Multiplier for P2 (to replace the children who died due to lack of medication) If we give food to P1 and medicine to P2, the population will be: 100% If we don't do anything, Earth's population will be: 100% - P1 - P2 + M1xP1 + M2xP2 So basically if M1 or M2 are > 1, the population due to P1 or P2 will rise. M1 might be 0 if the entire tribe dies out. But it could be > 0 if another tribe now takes over the land. M2 is most likely > 1, even as much as 3-4 depending on the location as the letter pointed out. This letter was primarily addressing P2 population. Sir David Attenborough has spoken out against foreign food aid for P1.

jl6 13y ago

I would be interested to hear how HN readers approach charity. I personally am constantly struggling with questions like: once my basic needs are met, how can I possibly justify not giving the rest of my income to life-saving causes? My working theory is a combination of (a) my basic needs are actually quite high when you consider the many potential rainy days for which I must save, (b) I don't know enough to donate with confidence that my money is doing more good than harm (this Gates letter addresses some of my concerns here), and (c) I must simply come to terms with being selfish to the point where I would rather spend money on a candy bar than a life-saving vaccination for someone else.

peterashford 13y ago
Personally I don't believe that you need to save the world. Just making a contribution now and then and being aware of the issues and speaking / voting with empathy for the poor is enough.
slackson 13y ago
If you want to know enough to donate with confidence, GiveWell has good charity recommendations. In any case, don't let indecision paralyse you into inaction. Put some proportion of money aside for charity, start doing research, etc. We're not perfect, it's okay to be a bit selfish, and it's good to want to do better. There's any number of options between a spartan life where you donate most of your money, and donating nothing.

deleted 13y ago

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jfoster 13y ago

Is it just me, or is there some bias in the before & after photos? Mexico city "before" is just one dwelling versus a full street in the "after". Nairobi "before" is taken when most of the city was dark due to clouds, whereas the "after" is a bright, sunny day. Similarly, Shanghai "before" looks like it was taken with an unfavourable filter on a hazy day. I'm not doubting that the world is improving, especially in those places. I just find it unusual that they used such obviously biased photos.

cowls 13y ago
Yes, that also put me off somewhat. There's an air of dishonesty about it.
mathgenius 13y ago
Yeah that was enough for me to close that tab. Meow.

pikewood 13y ago

I appreciated the fractal poetry in including the story of Sadi Seyni's village well (an example of the need for spreading accurate information to our fellow villagers), which is itself wrapped in a letter which calls on the reader to spread accurate information on the myths being presented.

grecy 13y ago

> Four of the past seven governors of Illinois have gone to prison for corruption, and to my knowledge no one has demanded that Illinois schools be shut down or its highways closed. Brilliant.

dnautics 13y ago
yes, but we have demanded that the funds no longer be transferred through those governors.
- grecy 13y ago
  It will just be transferred through the next governor... who, based on history, has a pretty good chance of being corrupt too.

jokoon 13y ago

I view this as a political sensitization, and I think it's greater than trying to talk numbers and topics about charities and myths. I think this foundation is showing that you can be optimistic and right at the same time for many things about charities, but it's not the organization and the means and the money sent that will effectively change things. I don't know how this foundation works at the political level, and what are the political issues, but I hope it will make people really reflect their view on the world. You don't often have billionaires initiating a communication campaign and articles about charities, and attracting that much attention. I don't think Bill Gates would really like to answer the question "when did you encounter politics in that work, and what was good and what was not ?", because I don't think that he's a very political guy, but at least he has enormous talent for everything else. I honestly thinks that diplomacy and politics can immensely help charities. I wish this foundation is not just doing this mission without minding the geopolitics, and has at least a few political partners and advisors. I wonder if they tried to do some lobbying, if just think there is a lot of potential if you try to approach foreign aid with a moderate amount of politics.

dredmorbius 13y ago

There are multiple problems with Gates's predition, but two of the biggest are these: 1. Growth in real economic wealth is very strongly tied to growth in real resource consumption. The master resource is energy, but numerous other resources are in tight supply, with a critical set being "bauxite whose production peaked in 1943), copper (1998), iron ore (1951), magnesium (1966), phosphate rock (1980), potash (1967), rare earth metals (1984), tin (1945), titanium (1964), and zinc (1969)" (from Richard Heinberg's The End of Growth[1]) I've explored the concept of decoupling in greater length using Wolfram+Alpha data to show the relationship between energy use and GDP for the G8 nations plus China, India, and Brazil, as well as global growth, in the periods of 2000 - 2010, 1990 - 2012, and 1980-2012 (not all data available for all periods, though the 2000 - 2010 data are complete for all nations analyzed). While there's some sign of very weak decoupling of energy and GDP growth, principally in Japan and the USA, for global GDP growth, there's a very strong relationship between GDP and energy usage, and both have been increasing. With limited exceptions, global per capita energy use has also been increasing. http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1vlksg/economic_decoupling_the_recent_relationship/ http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1vlksg/economic... As I write this, I'm listening to a news story that the IEA has announced that US oil consumption, flat for years, is up 2% http://www.marketplace.org/topics/world/rising-demand-oil-growth-easy-when-youve-been-pits http://www.marketplace.org/topics/world/rising-demand-oil-gr... 2. The second major problem is that the so-called Demographic Transition which Gates and Hans Rosling like to trumpet is little more than a largely unexplained phenomenon observed in some but not all data series. Tom "Do the Math" Murphy, UCSD physics professor, has specifically looked at this with regards to oil states, and makes the observation that "surplus energy makes babies"[2]. This is significant for two reasons: it means that the demographic transition isn't being observed in all countries, and it means that population growth, and hence domestic energy consumption growth, is highest in the major oil exporting nations. Growing domestic consumption means reduced availability of energy for export markets -- a phenomenon known as the "export lands model". Other research suggests that the causality link between development rates and birth rates is less clear than popularly portrayed[3]. I could bore (or terrify) you with numerous other challenges: flat or falling agricultural productivity, EROEI deficiencies in virtually every non-fossil energy alternative, pandemics risks. There's a reason I don't get invited to parties much .... But I think these two will do. While I have respect for some of Bill Gates's work (and I'm by no means an uncritical fan of his), his optimism here seems misplaced and founded on a very incomplete portrayal of the situation. ____________________________ Notes: 1. Sources: http://minerals.usgs.gov/ds/2005/140/ http://minerals.usgs.gov/ds/2005/140/ and http://www.culturechange.org/cms/content/view/597/2/ http://www.culturechange.org/cms/content/view/597/2/ 2. "The Real Population Problem" http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2013/09/the-real-population-problem/ http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2013/09/the-real-populat... 3. "Revisiting demographic transition: correlation and causation in the rate of development and fertility decline." http://www.iussp.org/sites/default/files/event_call_for_papers/OSullivan_IUSSP27_DemographicTransition_FullPaper.pdf http://www.iussp.org/sites/default/files/event_call_for_pape...

higherpurpose 13y ago

Too bad Gates doesn't think the Internet helps progress in countries, because technology and the Internet are huge factors in the progress and conditions of living in a country.

jhull 13y ago
What good is technology if you are sick or hungry? If you have no electricity? It would be the first thing sold.

dnautics 13y ago

#2 is really tortured. first he makes the argument that foreign aid works, then narrows it down to "development aid" and then when it comes time to presenting evidence he really pares it down to "health aid". And addressing the second part of myth #2(aid breeds dependence), is it not possible that the countries that escaped aid are getting better in spite of foreign aid, and not because of it? There are a lot of other things that have happened to those countries in the era in which foreign aid was given, like political shifts, introduction of technology, improvement of trade relations with neighboring countries, no longer being at war with other countries, etc, etc, etc. Seems like a standard correlation/causation fallacy.

excellence24 13y ago

best line in the letter: "As public knowledge goes up, corruption goes down, and more money goes where it’s supposed to." This means you NSA and US black budget. Computers and robots have no need for money. Our black budget goes to paying PEOPLE off and keeping secrets.

niio 13y ago

ignore... testing saved articles.

wowsig 13y ago

Some major ground has been covered in the article, and sparked a few more pointers. I come from a country receiving substantial aid, and yet I see that a lot of new initiatives could be kickstarted by the wealthy citizens themselves. Covering the reasons why the middle-class and the rich hesitate to lean in philanthropy would also instigate more people to contribute.

Datsundere 13y ago

Never mind the fact that the divide between the rich and the poor is growing, and only growing.

goggles99 13y ago

Darn, I was hoping that he was talking about the domestic poor.