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Bill Gates warns on future disease epidemic
- KFW504 12y agoFor more, http://fusion.net/story/57515/darpa-thinks-it-has-a-solution-to-ebola-and-all-other-infectious-diseases/ http://fusion.net/story/57515/darpa-thinks-it-has-a-solution... Premise is fair, though more details are needed to discuss the validity of any particular approach.
- allending 12y agoThe Guardian (yeah, I know) had a very in-depth look at how the current progress in fighting Ebola from the viewpoint of Prof. Tom Solomon: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/14/meet-the-man-leading-britains-fight-against-ebola http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/14/meet-the-man-le.... Long read, so make sure you have a cup of coffee handy.
- SirMeow 12y agoNot a brit, so I'm curious: what's wrong with The Guardian?
- irremediable 12y agoI'm not actually sure what his specific criticism is. Some people don't like it because it's quite leftwing. Possibly, though, he just said that because no newspaper is going to have great scientific content.
- puranjay 12y agoI was under the impression that Guardian was one of the last remaining British news outlets that wasn't completely morally compromised?
- blumkvist 12y agoHaving political inclination does not make you morally compromised. Le Diplo and its parent organization are openly left-wing. This doesn't stop them from attracting one of the most sophisticated audiences on the planet. Same with Le Figaro, which is a lot more like my taste.
- irremediable 12y agoExactly as blumkvist replied: immorality and neutrality are quite different things. In fact, I'd argue that the Guardian's political alignment is strongly linked to its integrity.
- gesman 12y ago“To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” ― Mark Twain
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- Vektorweg 12y agoHow about to try to cure the proprietary software disease?
- Vektorweg 12y agoYes I know ... Hacker News / YC isn't the place to make aggressive jokes about proprietary software ... :/
- alayne 12y agoThis isn't an article about software. You're hijacking the discussion.
- Vektorweg 12y agoThis article is more about the man than about what he does. There are lots of people who try to stop diseases and epidemics. The difference is, its Bill Gates and its posted on a tech-heavy news site.
- Ensorceled 12y agoThe time to criticize Carnegie is when he is monopolizing the steel industry; not while he is building thousands of libraries.
- Vektorweg 12y agoI have one question: is it right to destroy a whole culture just to be the good guy afterwards?
- Loughla 12y agoThat depends. If it is a truly just, and wise society that comes out in the end, one where everyone is better off. . . . It's the chaotic good versus lawful good argument. If the end result is peace and prosperity for all people in equal ways, then why not? What's the saying about omelettes and eggs?
- jobu 12y ago"Nato plays war games to check that people are well-trained and prepared. Now we need germ games," he said. It's actually a bit surprising that NATO or the UN don't have practice runs for disease outbreaks or natural disasters.
- Kenji 12y agoThat's like deploying software without any unit testing. If it compiles, it works ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
- sanoli 12y agoSorry man (and I know I'll get downvoted), but your emoticon looks like a ballsack.
- taybin 12y agoHow do we know that they don't? I'm sure they have procedures for biological warfare responses.
- jobu 12y agoAnything is possible, but I couldn't find anything with a quick google, and I'm assuming Bill Gates has more time and resources than myself to verify that statement before making it.
- mootothemax 12y agoGoogle tracks Flu-related search queries to give indications of current flu outbreaks: http://www.google.org/flutrends/ http://www.google.org/flutrends/ I'd imagine that they track other possible trends indicating an epidemic, and share the result with government health departments and NGOs. Does anyone know if they actually do this, though?
- duaneb 12y agoI would imagine this would be something that Google would be skittish to get into. Flu symptoms are a) common and b) well known. Tracking symptoms of arbitrary potential epidemics could be very difficult to design, let alone verify, and there's little benefit to Google. Not even PR if they raise a false flag.
- mootothemax 12y agoTracking symptoms of arbitrary potential epidemics could be very difficult to design Does it need to be terribly precise, though? If, for example, lots of searches spring up for vomiting or sweating in a small radius, I'd imagine that'd raise a "Hey, you might like someone to look at this flag," which could be useful - just as long as the computers aren't shouting all day long.
- odonnellryan 12y agoIt's awesome, because companies use this to drive profit. I worked IT for a company that had an entire department (think up to ten people!) just crawling sites like this all day to determine where to increase their advertising. They made flu-related medicines.
- areyoukiddinme 12y agoBill Gates, diseases, large contributions to pharmaceutical companies. Me thinks I see an association here that adds up to making lots of money using scare tactics.
- webnrrd2k 12y agoHighly recommended If you're interested in this sort of thing: This Coming Plague, by Laurie Garrett. It's a very good book about, in a nutshell, how easy international travel is, and how lower investment in medical infrastructure and social services affect us all.