10 ms·

2015 Gates Annual Letter

172 points by nichodges 12y ago

karatehammer 12y ago
I love it when the richest people in the entire history of civilization tell me how much they are helping us!
- thorin 12y ago
  There are plenty of other rich people doing nothing and also plenty of poor people that help others everyday!
- mehwoot 12y ago
  I love it when the richest people in the entire history of civilization By dollar value, maybe, but adjusted for inflation they aren't even close.
  - adventured 12y ago
    Gates is richer than Rockefeller was, by a factor of upwards of two. So yeah, he's definitely among the richest in world history. He's also easily the richest private citizen (non-government, non-military) in history. Rockefeller's wealth peaked at between $1 and $2 billion, according to the best records on him, including his biographies and records from the Rockefeller Archives. Inflation adjusting those numbers based on the 1890-1910 time frame in which the dollar was extremely stable for the most part, you get between $20 (20x$1b) and $60 (30x$2b) billion, depending on if you want to use the low ball on his wealth plus a low ball on the inflation adjustment vs the opposite end of the spectrum.
    - doughj3 12y ago
      Forbes has estimated Rockefeller's wealth at greater than 300 billion dollars (adjusted to 2006). http://www.businessinsider.com/richest-people-in-history-2010-8?tru=HV6w6#1-john-d-rockefeller-20 http://www.businessinsider.com/richest-people-in-history-201...
      - tomhigg 12y ago
        Better explanation: "John D. Rockefeller, who became the world’s first billionaire in 1916, a sum equal to $30 billion today, adjusted for inflation. In a sense, this underestimates the oil scion’s wealth. By the time Rockefeller died in 1937, his assets equaled 1.5% of America’s total economic output. To control an equivalent share today would require a net worth of about $340 billion dollars, more than four times that of Bill Gates, currently the world’s richest man." http://www.forbes.com/sites/carlodonnell/2014/07/11/the-rockefellers-the-legacy-of-historys-richest-man/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/carlodonnell/2014/07/11/the-rock...
rmason 12y ago
I think Gates needs to find the next Norman Borlaug, whether it be at a university or in industry and fund him or her to set up a research facility in an African country.
yRetsyM 12y ago
A little off topic but would love to know more about the platform/tech behind his site. My casual observations sees: Azure, New Relic, FB/Twitter integrations. Perhaps some scss/sass? Ruby or .Net?
- Hytosys 12y ago
  http://i.imgur.com/CC6CNf3.png http://i.imgur.com/CC6CNf3.png
- pdevr 12y ago
  It is more or less what you observed: http://builtwith.com/gatesnotes.com http://builtwith.com/gatesnotes.com
- Sniperfish 12y ago
  PC reading, I've not tried it on mobile, but I always enjoy the layout / setup of the Gates Notes. Very clear to read and navigate.
- manyxcxi 12y ago
  The actual letter site is built with .NET MVC and a lot of fancy JS/SASS/etc. deployed to Azure. It fits into an ecosystem of other more complex components (Akamai, CMS, proxies, etc.).
aramadia 12y ago
I'm skeptical online education will have any significant impact at an elementary school level, especially when you consider the cost effectiveness of such a strategy. If were talking about video lectures (especially live) you need to figure out how to hook up reliable internet into these schools. Most of the internet access projects are just enough to get wikipedia loaded. And not to mention the cost of the hardware itself, a tablet per student isn't even feasible in western public schools.
- Hytosys 12y ago
  We definitely have had a long history of "this changes everything for education!"[1], but 15 years is a long time for internet infrastructure to change and spread. The article seems to allude to such innovations. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEmuEWjHr5c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEmuEWjHr5c
  - tim333 12y ago
    The video makes a good point
- johnloeber 12y ago
  I also doubt that online education at that level will have a big impact, but that's because of the properties of that age-group. Online education usually already requires some educational foundations -- an app to help you learn trigonometry might be effective, but I doubt that an app to help you learn to read would be very effective. I also think that young children in this age-group tend to learn more by watching, interacting with, and mimicking adults than from objects. The educational foundations of the primary school level will likely have to be supplied by adults.
- ggreer 12y ago
  Have you seen Batman (the Chris Nolan movie)? It's pretty frickin' awesome. You've got incredible special effects, great script, multiple takes, amazing actors, and great sound and it's very engaging. ... If instead of having movies- say we're going to have that script performed by the local town troupe. So in every small town in America (if movies didn't exist), they would have to then recreate The Dark Knight. You know, with home-sewn costumes and jumping across the stage and not getting their lines quite right, and not really looking like the people in the movie, and no special effects or anything. That would suck! It would be terrible. That's education. -- Elon Musk (chatting with Sal Khan)[1] I think there's a ton of improvement to be had in the education space. People have used technology to make many forms of entertainment more compelling, but education is pretty similar to half a century ago: classrooms, teachers, lectures, etc. A lot of the stagnation is due to bureaucratic and legislative inertia, which isn't such a big problem in countries lacking widespread public schooling. With regards to cost and bandwidth issues: Remember, Gates's predictions/goals are for the next 15 years. Technology is only going to get cheaper and faster. In 2000, iPods didn't exist. In 2030, even low-end tablets will put current hardware to shame. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDwzmJpI4io#t=2280 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDwzmJpI4io#t=2280
chime 12y ago
1. Wiping out major diseases - brings tears to my eyes knowing that GF, Carter and other foundations will permanently get rid of so many horrible diseases. 2. African crop yield - If US can grow 159 bushels of corn per acre, and African countries are currently at 29, why is the 15 year goal for African countries only 48 bushels per acre instead of somewhere close to the US? Is that because of tech-transfer difficulties or rather the soil/environment? 3. Mobile banking - Wish US would get on with it too. All the problems he listed apply to the poor in US too. There is no way for me to immediately send $100 to anyone in the US without resorting to BTC or wire-transfers. Even with https://www.clearxchange.com/ https://www.clearxchange.com/ it still takes 2-3 days. 4. Software for education - Couldn't agree more. However, I'm still not sure if we've achieved the correct "global education" format yet. Check out these two KA links: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/becoming-modern/romanticism/romanticism-in-france/a/ingres-portrait-of-madame-rivire https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/becoming-modern/roman... and https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-history-basics/Art-1010/v/renaissance-art-introductoin https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-history-basics/Ar... - the first reads like a dull Wikipedia page with nested commenting for interaction and the other is a droll Youtube edutainment video. Is this really going to help a 16 year old in Vietnam, Mongolia, or Sierra Leone learn about Art History especially if they cannot understand the accents or localized references? I'm not suggesting that every video or text be translated/localized but before we aim for better software, we should at least figure out the format first. What if you are 12 year old and want to learn the same topic? What if you are 34 with two degrees in sciences? If online education was space exploration, we are in the Wright-brothers stage, decades from even Wernher von Braun stage. Instead of every major university just uploading their video lectures and syllabi online, I'd love to see someone try to create a real global school (non-commercial) that presents the education material fit for each learner. I don't mean tests like what KA is doing but the course material itself.
- onion2k 12y ago
  * If US can grow 159 bushels of corn per acre, and African countries are currently at 29, why is the 15 year goal for African countries only 48 bushels per acre instead of somewhere close to the US?* Irrigation probably presents the biggest barrier, especially in the Northern equatorial regions of Africa. Once you're utilizing 100% of the water available you can't grow anything else.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
afoot 12y ago
I'm always so inspired when I see these. The idea that it's possible to make such a significant impact in the world by taking a smarter, more focused approach is so simple but so powerful. Some of the cheap and practical steps around saving newborn lives are exactly the kind of actions that have a huge impact. Although Gates clearly has significant resources, it makes me feel that I too can help, and that's really important.
chris-at 12y ago
Great work! But the presentation is awful. Why do sites feel the need to hijack my scroll wheel?
- tim333 12y ago
  Yeah, resorted to Clearly
iamdanfox 12y ago
Are there opportunities for hackers to volunteer in projects like mobile payments? I feel like donating a bit of development time to the right project has the potential to have a bigger impact than just donating money.
- DominikPeters 12y ago
  Probably not, sadly. The technologies currently in use (such as M-PESA in Kenya or bKash in Bangladesh) seem to be corporate and proprietary which to some extent is necessary given the need for lots of physical places to offer cash-to-mobile-money exchanges. There seems to be little involvement from charities so far, except maybe GiveDirectly, though so far they're just using M-PESA.
- joshz404 12y ago
  I'm not aware of any for mobile money, however there are a number of projects that focus on health: http://openmrs.org http://openmrs.org http://openlmis.org http://openlmis.org (*full disclosure I'm involved here and we could use help organizing a community) Generalized data collection: http://opendatakit.org http://opendatakit.org SMS: http://rapidpro.io http://rapidpro.io http://frontlinesms.com http://frontlinesms.com
- hgh 12y ago
  Hi there, I work for a mobile payments company called Zoona (check us out at http://www.ilovezoona.com http://www.ilovezoona.com). Our tech team is based in Cape Town but all of our actual operations are in Zambia, Malawi and expanding to a few more countries soon. Getting some help on the dev would be awesome, and I'd be happy to chat more about what might make sense. Feel free to get in touch and we can see if something makes sense - hans@ilovezoona.com. (Same goes for anyone else reading this! Depending on your interests, may be able to link you to a few other projects doing some interesting stuff)
TeMPOraL 12y ago
Wait... where's the letter? All I get is a box that asks for my e-mail.
- icebraining 12y ago
  Weird, I didn't get that box. Have you tried closing it and scrolling?
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    Surprisingly, the box is gone now. But first few times I visited the site, I got just a subscription box as main page content. I actually typed in a random e-mail, got "Thanks!" as a reply, and that was all.
dignick 12y ago
I love the positivity of his messages and the work he is doing to improve the lives of those that need it most. His call for us to become global citizens is greatly needed to tackle many of the problems we face and stop thinking, acting and voting just for ourselves. However, global warming is such a big and immediate issue — we have until 2017 to start reducing carbon dioxide output, after that we lock in >2C dangerous, irreversible warming — that despite all the progress being made in developing countries today, the effects of climate change are likely to negate much of that work in the future. Gates is bound by capitalist ideology, his emphasis on the need to develop a 'miracle cure' source of energy is evidence of that — we have the technology we need to solve the problem today, but it will require a fundamental shift of focus and wealth. We are putting profit before the place we live. We are betting big on the miracle cure in the future. What if the miracle never happens? edit: I've written a post with a bit more detail and sources: https://shamocracy.org/2015/01/22/2015-gates-annual-letter/ https://shamocracy.org/2015/01/22/2015-gates-annual-letter/
- collyw 12y ago
  Got a few deniers of global warming on this site. As well as believers in the economic status quo.
  - dignick 12y ago
    :(
    - tim333 12y ago
      Not sure it's deniers of warming so much as people who are skeptical that there is a 2017 cut off date.
- chroma 12y ago
  Even if one accepts your claims about the severity of global warming, there's a slight flaw in your proposal: It has zero chance of being implemented. Reduce emissions in two years? You may as well ask everyone to breathe less. No civilization has voluntarily reduced its resource consumption. China and India (along with the developing world) are more than offsetting any minor reductions by OECD countries.[1] If the situation is as dire as you suggest, the only solution to global warming is technological. Compared to carbon-neutral energy, fossil fuels are cheaper and more convenient to use. Until that's not the case, CO2 emissions will continue to increase. 1. http://cdiac.ornl.gov/GCP/images/countries_co2_emissions.jpg http://cdiac.ornl.gov/GCP/images/countries_co2_emissions.jpg
tempodox 12y ago
Concerning the form of this presentation, if it were gauged in WTFs per minute, this one would score a rather high count.
seeingfurther 12y ago
What Bill and Melinda are doing is amazing and quite admirable. My only question after reading this is... Shouldn't there also be some focus on lowering birth rates in poor areas? Am I missing something, or wouldn't that go hand in hand toward achieving their goals?
- AndrewKemendo 12y ago
  Reducing infant mortality rates and lowering poverty rates is thought to have this exact effect. The data between these statistics is correlated but the exact mechanism of action is still poorly understood.
- snowwrestler 12y ago
  Birth rates decline as overall health and living standards increase. This is an empirical relationship (we've observed it but don't know the exact mechanisms), but it has been quite consistent in societies throughout the world for decades now. This is the reason that the 1970s overpopulation doom scenarios never came to pass. And it is the reason that foundations today focus on improving health and living standards, rather than birth rates specifically.
  - speleding 12y ago
    That has been true since the 1970's but unfortunately the latest numbers paint a very different picture. Birth rates are not dropping anymore in recently-rich countries according to the UN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_growth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_growt...)
- goodJobWalrus 12y ago
  In addition to previous answers, Melinda is working hard on giving access to contraception to the women. In fact, contraception is her "signature issue" (in her own words).

172 points by nichodges 12y ago

karatehammer 12y ago

I love it when the richest people in the entire history of civilization tell me how much they are helping us!

thorin 12y ago
There are plenty of other rich people doing nothing and also plenty of poor people that help others everyday!
mehwoot 12y ago
I love it when the richest people in the entire history of civilization By dollar value, maybe, but adjusted for inflation they aren't even close.
- adventured 12y ago
  Gates is richer than Rockefeller was, by a factor of upwards of two. So yeah, he's definitely among the richest in world history. He's also easily the richest private citizen (non-government, non-military) in history. Rockefeller's wealth peaked at between $1 and $2 billion, according to the best records on him, including his biographies and records from the Rockefeller Archives. Inflation adjusting those numbers based on the 1890-1910 time frame in which the dollar was extremely stable for the most part, you get between $20 (20x$1b) and $60 (30x$2b) billion, depending on if you want to use the low ball on his wealth plus a low ball on the inflation adjustment vs the opposite end of the spectrum.
  - doughj3 12y ago
    Forbes has estimated Rockefeller's wealth at greater than 300 billion dollars (adjusted to 2006). http://www.businessinsider.com/richest-people-in-history-2010-8?tru=HV6w6#1-john-d-rockefeller-20 http://www.businessinsider.com/richest-people-in-history-201...
    - tomhigg 12y ago
      Better explanation: "John D. Rockefeller, who became the world’s first billionaire in 1916, a sum equal to $30 billion today, adjusted for inflation. In a sense, this underestimates the oil scion’s wealth. By the time Rockefeller died in 1937, his assets equaled 1.5% of America’s total economic output. To control an equivalent share today would require a net worth of about $340 billion dollars, more than four times that of Bill Gates, currently the world’s richest man." http://www.forbes.com/sites/carlodonnell/2014/07/11/the-rockefellers-the-legacy-of-historys-richest-man/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/carlodonnell/2014/07/11/the-rock...

rmason 12y ago

I think Gates needs to find the next Norman Borlaug, whether it be at a university or in industry and fund him or her to set up a research facility in an African country.

yRetsyM 12y ago

A little off topic but would love to know more about the platform/tech behind his site. My casual observations sees: Azure, New Relic, FB/Twitter integrations. Perhaps some scss/sass? Ruby or .Net?

Hytosys 12y ago
http://i.imgur.com/CC6CNf3.png http://i.imgur.com/CC6CNf3.png
pdevr 12y ago
It is more or less what you observed: http://builtwith.com/gatesnotes.com http://builtwith.com/gatesnotes.com
Sniperfish 12y ago
PC reading, I've not tried it on mobile, but I always enjoy the layout / setup of the Gates Notes. Very clear to read and navigate.
manyxcxi 12y ago
The actual letter site is built with .NET MVC and a lot of fancy JS/SASS/etc. deployed to Azure. It fits into an ecosystem of other more complex components (Akamai, CMS, proxies, etc.).

aramadia 12y ago

I'm skeptical online education will have any significant impact at an elementary school level, especially when you consider the cost effectiveness of such a strategy. If were talking about video lectures (especially live) you need to figure out how to hook up reliable internet into these schools. Most of the internet access projects are just enough to get wikipedia loaded. And not to mention the cost of the hardware itself, a tablet per student isn't even feasible in western public schools.

Hytosys 12y ago
We definitely have had a long history of "this changes everything for education!"[1], but 15 years is a long time for internet infrastructure to change and spread. The article seems to allude to such innovations. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEmuEWjHr5c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEmuEWjHr5c
- tim333 12y ago
  The video makes a good point
johnloeber 12y ago
I also doubt that online education at that level will have a big impact, but that's because of the properties of that age-group. Online education usually already requires some educational foundations -- an app to help you learn trigonometry might be effective, but I doubt that an app to help you learn to read would be very effective. I also think that young children in this age-group tend to learn more by watching, interacting with, and mimicking adults than from objects. The educational foundations of the primary school level will likely have to be supplied by adults.
ggreer 12y ago
Have you seen Batman (the Chris Nolan movie)? It's pretty frickin' awesome. You've got incredible special effects, great script, multiple takes, amazing actors, and great sound and it's very engaging. ... If instead of having movies- say we're going to have that script performed by the local town troupe. So in every small town in America (if movies didn't exist), they would have to then recreate The Dark Knight. You know, with home-sewn costumes and jumping across the stage and not getting their lines quite right, and not really looking like the people in the movie, and no special effects or anything. That would suck! It would be terrible. That's education. -- Elon Musk (chatting with Sal Khan)[1] I think there's a ton of improvement to be had in the education space. People have used technology to make many forms of entertainment more compelling, but education is pretty similar to half a century ago: classrooms, teachers, lectures, etc. A lot of the stagnation is due to bureaucratic and legislative inertia, which isn't such a big problem in countries lacking widespread public schooling. With regards to cost and bandwidth issues: Remember, Gates's predictions/goals are for the next 15 years. Technology is only going to get cheaper and faster. In 2000, iPods didn't exist. In 2030, even low-end tablets will put current hardware to shame. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDwzmJpI4io#t=2280 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDwzmJpI4io#t=2280

chime 12y ago

1. Wiping out major diseases - brings tears to my eyes knowing that GF, Carter and other foundations will permanently get rid of so many horrible diseases. 2. African crop yield - If US can grow 159 bushels of corn per acre, and African countries are currently at 29, why is the 15 year goal for African countries only 48 bushels per acre instead of somewhere close to the US? Is that because of tech-transfer difficulties or rather the soil/environment? 3. Mobile banking - Wish US would get on with it too. All the problems he listed apply to the poor in US too. There is no way for me to immediately send $100 to anyone in the US without resorting to BTC or wire-transfers. Even with https://www.clearxchange.com/ https://www.clearxchange.com/ it still takes 2-3 days. 4. Software for education - Couldn't agree more. However, I'm still not sure if we've achieved the correct "global education" format yet. Check out these two KA links: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/becoming-modern/romanticism/romanticism-in-france/a/ingres-portrait-of-madame-rivire https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/becoming-modern/roman... and https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-history-basics/Art-1010/v/renaissance-art-introductoin https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-history-basics/Ar... - the first reads like a dull Wikipedia page with nested commenting for interaction and the other is a droll Youtube edutainment video. Is this really going to help a 16 year old in Vietnam, Mongolia, or Sierra Leone learn about Art History especially if they cannot understand the accents or localized references? I'm not suggesting that every video or text be translated/localized but before we aim for better software, we should at least figure out the format first. What if you are 12 year old and want to learn the same topic? What if you are 34 with two degrees in sciences? If online education was space exploration, we are in the Wright-brothers stage, decades from even Wernher von Braun stage. Instead of every major university just uploading their video lectures and syllabi online, I'd love to see someone try to create a real global school (non-commercial) that presents the education material fit for each learner. I don't mean tests like what KA is doing but the course material itself.

onion2k 12y ago
* If US can grow 159 bushels of corn per acre, and African countries are currently at 29, why is the 15 year goal for African countries only 48 bushels per acre instead of somewhere close to the US?* Irrigation probably presents the biggest barrier, especially in the Northern equatorial regions of Africa. Once you're utilizing 100% of the water available you can't grow anything else.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

afoot 12y ago

I'm always so inspired when I see these. The idea that it's possible to make such a significant impact in the world by taking a smarter, more focused approach is so simple but so powerful. Some of the cheap and practical steps around saving newborn lives are exactly the kind of actions that have a huge impact. Although Gates clearly has significant resources, it makes me feel that I too can help, and that's really important.

chris-at 12y ago

Great work! But the presentation is awful. Why do sites feel the need to hijack my scroll wheel?

tim333 12y ago
Yeah, resorted to Clearly

iamdanfox 12y ago

Are there opportunities for hackers to volunteer in projects like mobile payments? I feel like donating a bit of development time to the right project has the potential to have a bigger impact than just donating money.

DominikPeters 12y ago
Probably not, sadly. The technologies currently in use (such as M-PESA in Kenya or bKash in Bangladesh) seem to be corporate and proprietary which to some extent is necessary given the need for lots of physical places to offer cash-to-mobile-money exchanges. There seems to be little involvement from charities so far, except maybe GiveDirectly, though so far they're just using M-PESA.
joshz404 12y ago
I'm not aware of any for mobile money, however there are a number of projects that focus on health: http://openmrs.org http://openmrs.org http://openlmis.org http://openlmis.org (*full disclosure I'm involved here and we could use help organizing a community) Generalized data collection: http://opendatakit.org http://opendatakit.org SMS: http://rapidpro.io http://rapidpro.io http://frontlinesms.com http://frontlinesms.com
hgh 12y ago
Hi there, I work for a mobile payments company called Zoona (check us out at http://www.ilovezoona.com http://www.ilovezoona.com). Our tech team is based in Cape Town but all of our actual operations are in Zambia, Malawi and expanding to a few more countries soon. Getting some help on the dev would be awesome, and I'd be happy to chat more about what might make sense. Feel free to get in touch and we can see if something makes sense - hans@ilovezoona.com. (Same goes for anyone else reading this! Depending on your interests, may be able to link you to a few other projects doing some interesting stuff)

TeMPOraL 12y ago

Wait... where's the letter? All I get is a box that asks for my e-mail.

icebraining 12y ago
Weird, I didn't get that box. Have you tried closing it and scrolling?
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  Surprisingly, the box is gone now. But first few times I visited the site, I got just a subscription box as main page content. I actually typed in a random e-mail, got "Thanks!" as a reply, and that was all.

dignick 12y ago

I love the positivity of his messages and the work he is doing to improve the lives of those that need it most. His call for us to become global citizens is greatly needed to tackle many of the problems we face and stop thinking, acting and voting just for ourselves. However, global warming is such a big and immediate issue — we have until 2017 to start reducing carbon dioxide output, after that we lock in >2C dangerous, irreversible warming — that despite all the progress being made in developing countries today, the effects of climate change are likely to negate much of that work in the future. Gates is bound by capitalist ideology, his emphasis on the need to develop a 'miracle cure' source of energy is evidence of that — we have the technology we need to solve the problem today, but it will require a fundamental shift of focus and wealth. We are putting profit before the place we live. We are betting big on the miracle cure in the future. What if the miracle never happens? edit: I've written a post with a bit more detail and sources: https://shamocracy.org/2015/01/22/2015-gates-annual-letter/ https://shamocracy.org/2015/01/22/2015-gates-annual-letter/

collyw 12y ago
Got a few deniers of global warming on this site. As well as believers in the economic status quo.
- dignick 12y ago
  :(
  - tim333 12y ago
    Not sure it's deniers of warming so much as people who are skeptical that there is a 2017 cut off date.
chroma 12y ago
Even if one accepts your claims about the severity of global warming, there's a slight flaw in your proposal: It has zero chance of being implemented. Reduce emissions in two years? You may as well ask everyone to breathe less. No civilization has voluntarily reduced its resource consumption. China and India (along with the developing world) are more than offsetting any minor reductions by OECD countries.[1] If the situation is as dire as you suggest, the only solution to global warming is technological. Compared to carbon-neutral energy, fossil fuels are cheaper and more convenient to use. Until that's not the case, CO2 emissions will continue to increase. 1. http://cdiac.ornl.gov/GCP/images/countries_co2_emissions.jpg http://cdiac.ornl.gov/GCP/images/countries_co2_emissions.jpg

tempodox 12y ago

Concerning the form of this presentation, if it were gauged in WTFs per minute, this one would score a rather high count.

seeingfurther 12y ago

What Bill and Melinda are doing is amazing and quite admirable. My only question after reading this is... Shouldn't there also be some focus on lowering birth rates in poor areas? Am I missing something, or wouldn't that go hand in hand toward achieving their goals?

AndrewKemendo 12y ago
Reducing infant mortality rates and lowering poverty rates is thought to have this exact effect. The data between these statistics is correlated but the exact mechanism of action is still poorly understood.
snowwrestler 12y ago
Birth rates decline as overall health and living standards increase. This is an empirical relationship (we've observed it but don't know the exact mechanisms), but it has been quite consistent in societies throughout the world for decades now. This is the reason that the 1970s overpopulation doom scenarios never came to pass. And it is the reason that foundations today focus on improving health and living standards, rather than birth rates specifically.
- speleding 12y ago
  That has been true since the 1970's but unfortunately the latest numbers paint a very different picture. Birth rates are not dropping anymore in recently-rich countries according to the UN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_growth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_growt...)
goodJobWalrus 12y ago
In addition to previous answers, Melinda is working hard on giving access to contraception to the women. In fact, contraception is her "signature issue" (in her own words).