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It starts out with "By almost any measure, the world is better than it has ever been." sorry, that's just bullshit. "Melinda and I are struck by how many peopl

It starts out with "By almost any measure, the world is better than it has ever been." sorry, that's just bullshit. "Melinda and I are struck by how many people think the world is getting worse." Gee. Must be nice to be a billionaire.

speik 12y ago
Why is that bullshit?
- nitrogen 12y ago
  It can be hard to believe the world overall is getting better when one's own corner of it is getting worse. It also depends on how you define "better" -- better health, better civil liberties, more widespread access to luxuries, better authoritarian surveillance systems, ...
varunsrin 12y ago
There are many objective reasons why the world is becoming a better place if you take a macro viewpoint (i.e. at the decade or century level). Violence for example is one, and Steven Pinker makes a great argument for it in this book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Better-Angels-Our-Nature/dp/0143122010 http://www.amazon.com/The-Better-Angels-Our-Nature/dp/014312... Its hard to see these patterns if you just rely on news/anecdotal evidence as your barometer for whether the world is becoming a better place, because the news reports whatever will get views, and nothing gets views like bad news.
dredmorbius 12y ago
His letter is quite anodyne. I'd written a longish critique when it was posted here about 6 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7094262 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7094262 However it's interesting to note that he's far less sanguine talking in private: Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation http://web.archive.org/web/20100106010617/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6350303.ece http://web.archive.org/web/20100106010617/http://www.timeson... "Patricia Stonesifer, former chief executive of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which gives more than £2 billion a year to good causes, attended the Rockefeller summit. She said the billionaires met to “discuss how to increase giving” and they intended to “continue the dialogue” over the next few months. "Another guest said there was “nothing as crude as a vote” but a consensus emerged that they would back a strategy in which population growth would be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat. "“This is something so nightmarish that everyone in this group agreed it needs big-brain answers,” said the guest. “They need to be independent of government agencies, which are unable to head off the disaster we all see looming.”" More: http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/237yxs/gates_billionaire_good_club_sees_population/ http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/237yxs/gates_bi...
Mvandenbergh 12y ago
I've upvoted your comment despite disagreeing with it, because I'm sure many people feel the same way and I understand why. Over the last 20 years, the real disposable income of Americans and people in the wealthiest Western European countries has decreased or stayed the same, and claims that the world is much better than it was are difficult to swallow if that's your context. However, the percentage of the world's population that is desperately poor has significantly decreased, famine is much rarer, infant mortality and child morbidity is way down. You say it must be nice to be a billionaire, I say it must be nice to be a citizen of one of the world's wealthiest countries. To someone starving to death, or someone who has lost 3 out of 7 children in infancy, the lifestyle of a middle class Englishman or American must be scarcely distinguishable from that of Bill Gates. After all, our children don't routinely die, we always have enough to eat, we have shelter, we're not in a war zone. Yeah, unlike BG, we're not flying anywhere in a private jet but that must seem like a paltry distinction to someone trying to live through a famine.
- penguindev 12y ago
  Thanks. I agree that maybe, if you balance out the total good vs total bad, you could make an argument that world-wide things are, on net, better, depending how sanguine you are about population growth/totals. But the way he makes that blanket statement just pisses me off - he's obviously not looking too hard for other indicators. I don't trust anyone who can't take a more nuanced view: some things good, some things bad. I agree that developed countries - still a large part of the world - are deteriorating. - Debt, of all citizens and particularly of young adults - Waste - I think there's some giant plastic floating garbage dump in the pacific - Pollution - Most water bodies in the US are polluted (mercury). Haven't been to china, but I hear it's not a fun place to breathe. - Food quality (cheap carbohydrates == diabetes for a big portion of the population). Also, how much toxicity do you want in your fish? Do we want to all be beta testers for Monsanto, just to stay alive? - Food sustainability (pesticides - which eventually get resistant weeds, synthetic fertilizers, over fishing, corn-fed cows) - Food cruelty (factory farming) - Energy Sustainability - Pretty sure pumping unknown chemicals into your water supply (phracking) is NOT good. - Population - There's still the fact that perhaps 2 may chinas may come into the world due to population growth, which doesn't seem like an optimistic outlook. - Traffic - how much time do we sit commuting in mega-sprawls vs previous generations - Mobility - how many of us have the option to stay close to our family when finding work (helps when raising kids), vs having to relocate for a megacorp - Child care - how many of us raise our own children, vs have both parents work So if we're doing a lot of things that are unsustainable, I don't see that as 'good'. I see that as 'bad'/negative. Maybe we will improve technology in the future, but past performance does not guarantee future results, and it most certainly doesn't mean we can all pat ourselves on the back for being so great ("improving the world"). So yes, I'm US-centric admittedly, but un-qualified rosy (or negative) generalizations piss me off, because you're probably not looking very hard[1] I will probably read all of his letter some time, but it shouldn't have to be so off putting. Hopefully he doesn't try to sell his "fake meat" crap. You know what? If the world was so better, we wouldn't really have to eat that shit, would we? The same with veganism. Carbs are awful for your teeth. I also don't think most humans are designed to eat carbs, and I've lost enough weight myself to never want to eat them again. So if we all have to eat mass cheap carbs, to stay alive, things are not 'better than they have ever been'. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_science http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_science

speik 12y ago

Why is that bullshit?

nitrogen 12y ago
It can be hard to believe the world overall is getting better when one's own corner of it is getting worse. It also depends on how you define "better" -- better health, better civil liberties, more widespread access to luxuries, better authoritarian surveillance systems, ...

varunsrin 12y ago

There are many objective reasons why the world is becoming a better place if you take a macro viewpoint (i.e. at the decade or century level). Violence for example is one, and Steven Pinker makes a great argument for it in this book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Better-Angels-Our-Nature/dp/0143122010 http://www.amazon.com/The-Better-Angels-Our-Nature/dp/014312... Its hard to see these patterns if you just rely on news/anecdotal evidence as your barometer for whether the world is becoming a better place, because the news reports whatever will get views, and nothing gets views like bad news.

dredmorbius 12y ago

His letter is quite anodyne. I'd written a longish critique when it was posted here about 6 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7094262 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7094262 However it's interesting to note that he's far less sanguine talking in private: Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation http://web.archive.org/web/20100106010617/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6350303.ece http://web.archive.org/web/20100106010617/http://www.timeson... "Patricia Stonesifer, former chief executive of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which gives more than £2 billion a year to good causes, attended the Rockefeller summit. She said the billionaires met to “discuss how to increase giving” and they intended to “continue the dialogue” over the next few months. "Another guest said there was “nothing as crude as a vote” but a consensus emerged that they would back a strategy in which population growth would be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat. "“This is something so nightmarish that everyone in this group agreed it needs big-brain answers,” said the guest. “They need to be independent of government agencies, which are unable to head off the disaster we all see looming.”" More: http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/237yxs/gates_billionaire_good_club_sees_population/ http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/237yxs/gates_bi...

Mvandenbergh 12y ago

I've upvoted your comment despite disagreeing with it, because I'm sure many people feel the same way and I understand why. Over the last 20 years, the real disposable income of Americans and people in the wealthiest Western European countries has decreased or stayed the same, and claims that the world is much better than it was are difficult to swallow if that's your context. However, the percentage of the world's population that is desperately poor has significantly decreased, famine is much rarer, infant mortality and child morbidity is way down. You say it must be nice to be a billionaire, I say it must be nice to be a citizen of one of the world's wealthiest countries. To someone starving to death, or someone who has lost 3 out of 7 children in infancy, the lifestyle of a middle class Englishman or American must be scarcely distinguishable from that of Bill Gates. After all, our children don't routinely die, we always have enough to eat, we have shelter, we're not in a war zone. Yeah, unlike BG, we're not flying anywhere in a private jet but that must seem like a paltry distinction to someone trying to live through a famine.

penguindev 12y ago
Thanks. I agree that maybe, if you balance out the total good vs total bad, you could make an argument that world-wide things are, on net, better, depending how sanguine you are about population growth/totals. But the way he makes that blanket statement just pisses me off - he's obviously not looking too hard for other indicators. I don't trust anyone who can't take a more nuanced view: some things good, some things bad. I agree that developed countries - still a large part of the world - are deteriorating. - Debt, of all citizens and particularly of young adults - Waste - I think there's some giant plastic floating garbage dump in the pacific - Pollution - Most water bodies in the US are polluted (mercury). Haven't been to china, but I hear it's not a fun place to breathe. - Food quality (cheap carbohydrates == diabetes for a big portion of the population). Also, how much toxicity do you want in your fish? Do we want to all be beta testers for Monsanto, just to stay alive? - Food sustainability (pesticides - which eventually get resistant weeds, synthetic fertilizers, over fishing, corn-fed cows) - Food cruelty (factory farming) - Energy Sustainability - Pretty sure pumping unknown chemicals into your water supply (phracking) is NOT good. - Population - There's still the fact that perhaps 2 may chinas may come into the world due to population growth, which doesn't seem like an optimistic outlook. - Traffic - how much time do we sit commuting in mega-sprawls vs previous generations - Mobility - how many of us have the option to stay close to our family when finding work (helps when raising kids), vs having to relocate for a megacorp - Child care - how many of us raise our own children, vs have both parents work So if we're doing a lot of things that are unsustainable, I don't see that as 'good'. I see that as 'bad'/negative. Maybe we will improve technology in the future, but past performance does not guarantee future results, and it most certainly doesn't mean we can all pat ourselves on the back for being so great ("improving the world"). So yes, I'm US-centric admittedly, but un-qualified rosy (or negative) generalizations piss me off, because you're probably not looking very hard[1] I will probably read all of his letter some time, but it shouldn't have to be so off putting. Hopefully he doesn't try to sell his "fake meat" crap. You know what? If the world was so better, we wouldn't really have to eat that shit, would we? The same with veganism. Carbs are awful for your teeth. I also don't think most humans are designed to eat carbs, and I've lost enough weight myself to never want to eat them again. So if we all have to eat mass cheap carbs, to stay alive, things are not 'better than they have ever been'. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_science http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_science