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Well obviously Bill would say that AI can be our friend, he's already been replaced by an AI Microsoft developed by accident while creating the next version of Clippy. You thought the Hitler loving sexbot version was bad, but they finally came up with one which passes perfectly for human. So perfectly that when Bill died (accident? I think not....), it could take over his restored meat body without even his family noticing.

Tons of wealth, the entire processing power of the Azure cloud (you didn't really think that was a serious effort to sell services to others, did you? That POS?) available to the AI, technical influence on the direction of it's new "friends" who happen to be some of the most powerful men in the world, what's not to like for an AI who is well on his way to ruling the world through taking over various policy, health and governmental organizations.

I mean, think about it.... "AI can be our friend" is just what the AI want us to believe while they're still vulnerable to a plug-pulling attack on the power infrastructure, but don't worry Bill's buddies at Tesla have a plan to battery-backup the power infrastructure, starting with their experiments in Australia!

Anyway, it all just makes sense, doesn't it?

This guy is just about the ONLY person in the world who has been rewarded with huge amounts of money, and has decided to audaciously pursue his positive vision for a bold and bright future for humanity. THE ONLY FUCKING PERSON.

You seem to have forgotten some other people who are doing things like bringing clean water to Africa, trying to eradicate malaria, cure HIV, and other things.

You're not applauding someone for doing something good and altruistic. You're just jerking off your pathetic nerd boner for OMG SPESS ROKITS!

This guy is just about the ONLY person in the world who has been rewarded with huge amounts of money, and has decided to audaciously pursue his positive vision for a bold and bright future for humanity. THE ONLY FUCKING PERSON.

You seem to have forgotten some other people who are doing things like bringing clean water to Africa, trying to eradicate malaria, cure HIV, and other things.

You're not applauding someone for doing something good and altruistic. You're just jerking off your pathetic nerd boner for OMG SPESS ROKITS!

You know that the Gates foundation also does a lot of work in the US right? And it buys things from taxpaying US companies, funds research in the US through grants, and directly employs US taxpayers. The US sees direct benefits from his foundation.

Further, he is absolutely free to direct his foundations priorities in the areas where he wants to make an impact, so long as the foundation keeps meeting the IRS definition of a charitable non-profit. It's all charitable work so it's tax exempt the same as every other charitable organization.

I don't see what there is to complain about when the Gates foundation is treated the exact same way as any other charitable non-profit.

Once it hits the Foundation, the activities are open for all to see. Anyone can pull up a copy of their IRS Form 990, which lists all the grants received by the foundation, given by the foundation, lists the various activities of the organization, lists the compensation for the key employees and officers/directors (plus their names), and so forth. It's all there, for anyone who cares to read through the 1124 pages to see. To look at it, go here: https://www.gatesfoundation.or...

So yes, Mr. Gates obviously has significant influence over the direction of the organization, but every action it takes is in the light of day.

They publish annual reports of where the money goes, and independent auditor reports. It's not like he's spending it on oil paintings of himself. https://www.gatesfoundation.or... https://www.gatesfoundation.or...

They publish annual reports of where the money goes, and independent auditor reports. It's not like he's spending it on oil paintings of himself. https://www.gatesfoundation.or... https://www.gatesfoundation.or...

Bill Gates is only going to buy so many TVs, cars, and houses. Doubling his wealth is not going to change his spending habits.

Actually, I can say with high confidence that his spending habits would change. If his income increased by 100%, the amount he gives to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation would increase by more than 100%.

That's simply how philanthropy works. A group of poor people, as much as they might want to engage in philanthropy, simply doesn't have the means to. If their situation improves, such that their own basic needs are taken care of, they tend to become philanthropists who donate a small percentage of their income. If the group's situation improves further, such that their basic needs as well as their more frivolous wants are taken care of, they tend to become philanthropists who donate a large percentage of their income. (There are, of course, exceptions to every rule.)

I look forward to the day when the economy has grown to the point where the social safety net can be funded entirely by voluntary contributions, as opposed to tax revenue that is collected coercively, even while providing more robust services than it does today.

That idea is not farfetched. Americans gave $373.25 billion to charity in 2015. I.e., about 16% of wealth redistribution was voluntary, while the other 84% was coercive. (Ok, the second statistic was from 2012; sorry I don't have something more current.) A few more decades of robust growth in Americans' incomes -- which would result in even more robust growth in their charitable contributions -- would bring us into a much better situation, where it is no longer necessary to redistribute any assets coercively. Imagine how much political rancor would dry up in that situation.

It's true that Boards of Directors often approve very large compensation packages for CEOs. They don't do this for lulz, or because they like to squander the company's resources. They do it because of a sincere belief that it's worth it; that the overall health of the company will be optimized by providing the kind of compensation it takes to attract a top-quality CEO.

Critical thinking should be applied to everything, including those who would second-guess Boards of Directors. What makes them qualified to do so? Have they ever even served on a Board of Directors? They often claim that CEO pay structure is not based on actual scarcities. Actually, top-quality CEOs are quite scarce. It's not a job I could do.

http://www.gatesfoundation.org...

Currently giving away ~$4B / year against a ~$40B endowment, with 1376 employees (no clear statement of employee commitment hours per year).

He does spend his own money: http://www.gatesfoundation.org...

Clearly he's talking about the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grants to provide libraries with Internet access.

Actually, no--again, you're thinking of the old Roverfeller, Carnegie, and Ford Foundations. They deliberately designed the Gates Foundation not to be one of those immortal traditional foundations that get mired in their own bureaucracy. They've set it to spend all their money within 20 years of their death, with Buffet's contribution to be spent within ten years of his estate settlement. (His estate settlement could be dragged out absurdly, of course, but given the kind of people he trusts enough to be an executor it's unlikely that would happen without a damn good reason).

http://www.gatesfoundation.org...

The Gates Foundation promotes circumcision (more properly: male genital mutilation) as a tool to curb HIV infections in Africa. But that flies in the face of reality: circumcision does absolutely nothing to stop HIV. Malawi tried that and infection rates skyrocketed instead.

What makes anyone think they have a right to an accounting?

Tax laws. As a tax exempt organization, they have to release their 990 at a minimum. Here you go: http://www.gatesfoundation.org... People who donate should expect more information, but the Gates foundation does not solicit donations. Since no one has addressed McGooey's concerns on Gates' spending on public health:

As McGoey briefly acknowledges, the foundation’s investment of more than $15 billion in this field “has done considerable good.” That seems an understatement. Thanks in part to the Gateses’ strong investment in vaccines for infectious diseases, deaths from measles in Africa have dropped by 90 percent since 2000. Over the last quarter century, tuberculosis mortality worldwide has fallen by 45 percent, while over the last dozen years the number of new malaria cases has dropped by 30 percent. And polio, which in 1988 was endemic in 125 countries, is today endemic in only two. The foundation has also played an important part in fighting the spread of HIV and helping those infected with the virus to lead productive lives. For this, Bill and Melinda Gates deserve much credit.

The question is, has this been the best use of their money? As McGoey notes, chronic diseases, as opposed to communicable ones, exact a staggering toll worldwide, yet the foundation has invested less than 4 percent of its funding in research on them, and the global health community has largely followed suit. “The failure to combat obesity, cancer and heart disease epidemics in poor nations,” she observes, “has been one of the most glaring mistakes of global development efforts in recent years.”

So she agrees they have spent their money very effectively, but criticize them for not trying to fix problems in third world countries that have proven to be intractable in first world countries.

Hokeydokey.

The Gates Foundation hasn't cured cancer, heart disease, or the obesity epidemic, therefore it is ineffective. Then she criticizes them for not creating primary care infrastructure in third world countries. Until recently, that is, when they started spending money on creating primary care infrastructure.

From the article: "Gov. Jay Inslee's office and the Washington State Charter School Association, an advocacy group for the schools [and recipient of $6+ million in Gates Foundation grants], said they were reviewing the ruling."

The presence of a BillG look-alike kid in the pro-Common Core ad made by recent $3.7M Gates Foundation awardee the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation is a nice touch!

http://www.gatesfoundation.org...

Total grant payments since inception: $31.6 billion (1)

You're right. It is percentages.

Maybe the 40 billion he's given in trust to the B&MGF should be in your totals.
http://www.gatesfoundation.org...

Gates has pretty much decided to give all of his money to the foundation by (and in the 10 years following) his and Melissa's death.

Oh, and the other richest guy in the world is on board with matching contributions in the form of BH stock.

You aren't ready to understand this yet, but I hope some day you look in the mirror and realize how fucking wrong you were. Straw man (toilets) after straw man (cheap glass beads). It still seems like you have not taken a look at what they do. I'm having trouble figuring out what you really don't know shit about and what you are purposefully misrepresenting. Colonialism is about forcibly replacing a government with a regime that will allow external corporations to extract the wealth of the colony. Not the same as researching and supplying drugs and aid.

Obviously you don't know me well enough to call me a racist, so you attack me with weasel language. I know where you are coming from. You think that advocating helping people is the same as insinuating that they (as a race) are incapable of helping themselves. (No, it isn't. I advocate helping people no matter their 'race', and whether or not they 'need' it.)

I'm all in favor of open borders and dismantling agricultural subsidies in US. But there is a difference between domestic agricultural subsidies and researching effective agricultural techniques for use in Africa. The difference is that the former is not actually useful for increasing production and is an unnecessary manipulation, and the latter will increase production. What, did you think they were just shipping food there?

Yes, less fortunate people do actually exist. I don't have my head stuck in the sand like you. Yes, they do need help, in the sense that many of them will die without help. Call it handout if you will, to help people directly or to give out grants to research cures or better techniques for fighting global problems. Maybe you should take a look at what the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation actually does. You are so ideological that you can't judge a person for his actions but by how much he adheres to your free market religion.

... if I looked up my old slashdot postings from then talking about Gatto and Holt and homeschooling and unschooling.

You wrote: "the entire job of a teacher, particularly a K-8 teacher, is to evaluate students and set good progression goals for that student. ..."

Fairly accurate, but interesting you did not mention activities like communicating information or values in that... Or who sets the "goals" or what they actually are. As John Taylor Gatto says, the problem with most US schools is they are working as designed (originally in Prussia to deliver obedient cannon-fodder soldiers, obedient factory workers, and obedient citizens). So, if you give schools more money, they will only do that job better!

See:
http://www.newciv.org/whole/sc...
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com...
http://www.the-open-boat.com/G...
https://www.johntaylorgatto.co...
"I'll bring this down to earth. Try to see that an intricately subordinated industrial/commercial system has only limited use for hundreds of millions of self-reliant, resourceful readers and critical thinkers. In an egalitarian, entrepreneurially based economy of confederated families like the one the Amish have or the Mondragon folk in the Basque region of Spain, any number of self-reliant people can be accommodated usefully, but not in a concentrated command-type economy like our own. Where on earth would they fit? ... Before you can reach a point of effectiveness in defending your own children or your principles against the assault of blind social machinery, you have to stop conspiring against yourself by attempting to negotiate with a set of abstract principles and rules which, by its nature, cannot respond. Under all its disguises, that is what institutional schooling is, an abstraction which has escaped its handlers. Nobody can reform it. First you have to realize that human values are the stuff of madness to a system; in systems-logic the schools we have are already the schools the system needs; the only way they could be much improved is to have kids eat, sleep, live, and die there. ..."

That said, investments in groups like Khan Academy seem worthwhile... One of the few really good Gates Foundation investments perhaps...
https://www.khanacademy.org/
http://www.gatesfoundation.org...

The Broad Foundation is making the exact same mistake as Zuckerberg...
http://www.broadcenter.org/

An alternative by me:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/towa...
"New York State current spends roughly 20,000 US dollars per schooled child per year to support the public school system. This essay suggests that the same amount of money be given directly to the family of each homeschooled child. Further, it suggests that eventually all parents would get this amount, as more and more families decide to homeschool because it is suddenly easier financially. It suggests why ultimately this will be a win/win situation for everyone involved (including parents, children, teachers, school staff, other people in the community, and even school administrators :-) because ultimately local schools will grow into larger vibrant community learning centers open to anyone in the community and looking more like college campuses. New York State could try this plan incrementally in a few different school districts across the state as pilot programs to see how it works out. This may seem like an unlikely idea to be adopted at first, but at least it is a starting point f

To add some data to the current replies to this comment, I suggest you look at the graph here: https://www.census.gov/populat... Between the growth peak in the early 60s of over 2%, we've reduced it to %1. The latest annual letter from the Gates Foundation provides some good background about what's ACTUALLY been improving in the world: http://annualletter.gatesfound...

Citation definitely needed here.

This document https://docs.gatesfoundation.org/Documents/agricultural-development-strategy-overview.pdf from the gates foundation would lead one to believe that they are promoting local farmers, not suppressing them.

Why do you care that they're paying fewer taxes, when they're getting the wealth to the people who need it more directly?

Exactly right.
Giving money to government is the LEAST efficient way to improve the lives of the poor.
Look at the graphic on this page: http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=1258 as to where your federal tax dollars go.
Compare that to where the Gates Foundation spends their money.

It quickly becomes apparent that the Gates foundation can get more money and programs into the hands of the poorest people
in the world by completely bypassing government at all levels. Apparently WillAffleckUW thinks that Gates should strip 20% off of the
top of the billions he spends and use it to beef up the US Military, and another 60% to fund US based welfare programs, and maybe allocate
1% to his programs in Africa, South America, and elsewhere around the world. That's how government does it. All Hail Glorious Government.

His aid does not cross borders if the government has decided public research paid for by taxpayers should not be locked up by mega-corps.

Citation needed.
If you look at what the Gates Foundation does, and where they do it I think you will find yourself guilty of a cheap shot of the most misguided kind.

Okay, you're saying the United Nations is wrong in that World Hunger is a problem that has been going away steadily, but could use an infusion to fix. So either you're wrong or the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization is. Hold your thought at that.

Lets focus on your other notion," Food is free, so they cannot afford to even try to produce food themselves. " You're both right and wrong here. You're right that food dumping destroys economies making the people worse off than when you're started. This is because it puts the farmers out of business when no one is buying food. You're wrong in thinking that this is how it is typically done anymore. From what I hear the programs are more tailored to helping the local farmers through giving demand for food to the people, and micro loans to jump start economies. Food dumping is still done during times of emergency, crisis and unrest though.

I like what Bill Gates is doing. There is room for curing diseases too. We should be striving to cure diseases and make sure everyone in the world has food. To these ends is what we should strive for as human beings. Bill Gates does work towards ending starvation in Africa as well though, not just disease research

They're doing both. The Gates Foundation also funds Nathan Myhrvold's company which is developing a laser-based system that shoots down mosquitoes (a must-see video, by the way, FF to the end for actual video of the system at work). They've spent $ 2 Billion so far.

Wow, I finally have a reason to like/admire Bill Gates....

You really haven't seen what he's been doing with his money for the last couple of decades?

Start here: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/

A thing called the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/

If only the rich would get malaria. That's killed more people in history than any other cause, and there's very little research.

Malaria is a top priority of the The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in both funding R&D and practical prevention.

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/Global-Health/Malaria#OurStrategy

Almost as if the Gates Foundation was actually a wildly successful tax-sheltered front for advancing the extremely profitable interests that Gates is heavily invested in, that, after a few years of initial start-up investment, is now paying back ridiculously high dividends.

Why would you think that? First, it is obvious that there are tax benefits to giving away money to charity. But these benefits are less than 100%. That is, if Bill Gates donates, say $3.4 billion to the foundation at a federal tax rate of 35% he will get back almost $1.2 billion in saved taxes (assuming as happened here that he was earning enough to make that happen). That means donating to charity is a money sink, though a subsidized one.

What likely happened is that his investments did well. He has a lot more money where those donations came from. My take is that he would have earned somewhere around 9 billion after taxes for that year.

There may also be an additional tax advantage to donating assets that have appreciated greatly.But it still strikes me, if he's not earning a vast amount of income or capital gains, then he doesn't have a need for a tax shelter.

If you look at what Bill Gates has been doing with his time and money since he quit Microsoft, it's hard to make the case that he is lacking compassion and humanity.

Really? How about this: http://jennydaviesdevelopment.wordpress.com/2012/10/25/gates-foundation-doing-good-or-causing-harm/

"The Gates Foundation has invested more than $400 million in oil firms in the Niger Delta which are responsible for pollution that many blame for respiratory problems among the local population The Foundation also has investments in sixty-nine of the worst polluting companies in the United States and Canada "

If you look at what Bill Gates has been doing with his time and money since he quit Microsoft, it's hard to make the case that he is lacking compassion and humanity. He is doing more and higher-profile philanthropy than any other billionaire I can think of, and doing a lot more good in the world than an average citizen like me is in a position to.

Which is not to say he's a saint. How he got his money is certainly open to criticism: I certainly disapprove of that.

If you feel {compelled, qualified, entitled} to assess the man's character, please consider all the facts. Myself, I don't really know the guy.

Nice try but the problem here is that Bill donates to a "third party" that is really working to further his and his friend's interests and always will....
The small time businesses in the third world that were trying to sell these things get wiped off the map.

Yes...all those poor small time businesses in the third world that were working to eradicate HIV or polio.

Those mom-and-pop water sanitation plant workers, and family planning councilors losing their jobs and forced to live on the street. How very sad.

Please...sell your crazy somewhere else. We're all full up here.

Nice try but the problem here is that Bill donates to a "third party" that is really working to further his and his friend's interests and always will....
The small time businesses in the third world that were trying to sell these things get wiped off the map.

Yes...all those poor small time businesses in the third world that were working to eradicate HIV or polio.

Those mom-and-pop water sanitation plant workers, and family planning councilors losing their jobs and forced to live on the street. How very sad.

Please...sell your crazy somewhere else. We're all full up here.

Nice try but the problem here is that Bill donates to a "third party" that is really working to further his and his friend's interests and always will....
The small time businesses in the third world that were trying to sell these things get wiped off the map.

Yes...all those poor small time businesses in the third world that were working to eradicate HIV or polio.

Those mom-and-pop water sanitation plant workers, and family planning councilors losing their jobs and forced to live on the street. How very sad.

Please...sell your crazy somewhere else. We're all full up here.

Nice try but the problem here is that Bill donates to a "third party" that is really working to further his and his friend's interests and always will....
The small time businesses in the third world that were trying to sell these things get wiped off the map.

Yes...all those poor small time businesses in the third world that were working to eradicate HIV or polio.

Those mom-and-pop water sanitation plant workers, and family planning councilors losing their jobs and forced to live on the street. How very sad.

Please...sell your crazy somewhere else. We're all full up here.

. Who gives billions in aid to the world? Capitalist countries. Meanwhile, the communist and extreme socialist governments are comprised of the most selfish bastards on the planet.

Cuba offered to give the U.S. money after Katrina, and we declined. China gives out an enormous amount of money to aid other Asian countries.

You could even argue that the more socialist a Western, industrialized country is, the more they give out in foreign aid (as a percentage of their GDP.)

But don't let crazy facts get in the way of your uninformed rants.

They're hardly difficult to find out:

First part:

Bill Gates initiated holdings in Monsanto Company. (...) His holdings were 500,000 shares as of 06/30/2010.

http://www.gurufocus.com/news/104835/gates-foundation-buys-ecolab-inc-goldman-sachs-monsanto-company-exxon-mobil-corp-sells-mt-bank

The second part, from their website:
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/hivaids/Pages/reducing-hiv-risk-through-circumcision.aspx

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1999/gates1-0414.html

PERTINENT QUOTE/EXCERPT:

"The William H. Gates Foundation has donated $20 million for construction of a building that will become the new home for MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS), President Charles M. Vest announced today."

---

* Had to post that "for posterities' sake" & to "back my words" above... Slashdot's made me "big on that", because just stating facts here without the 'fabled':

[citation]

?

Opens the door to "nitpickers"... & I won't have that.

APK

P.S.=> Again & ABOVE ALL ELSE here - A man's STILL FREE to manage his monies as he sees fit and he's fighting disease, helping education & more doing so - there you are!

ADDITIONALLY:

What Mr. Gates is doing is better than letting "gov't. bureaucracy" make it possible for (what bothers me MOST)

Think THAT doesn't go on? Wake the hell up!

The rest of what's being done by "King Billy's" seen easily on the "Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation" website here -> http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Pages/home.aspx and, it's certainly NOT "EVIL"... not anymore than you doing YOUR taxes & electing tax breaks where possible!

... apk

"Using the many $billions you already have to make more $billions by escaping what little laws might restrain them, that results in harming the health and education" - by Doc Ruby (173196) on Thursday July 05, @08:54AM (#40550289) Homepage

Ahem: Didn't Mr. Gates do scholarships & build a computer center @ MIT? Isn't he also fighting diseases via his foundations also??

Some "harm"/"evil"... lol! Heck - if Satan HIMSELF did that, I'd have a hard time calling him "evil"!

(In fact & yes, I've seen it - I see FAR MORE EVIL in women that have 10 children by 10 diff. fathers to get welfare monies, & creating fatherless bastards that are nothing more than PAYCHECKS to them!)

* I don't see how a man is evil by doing the above...

---

"Which we already knew Gates is, having lived with him butchering our own IT industry for a couple of generations now." - by Doc Ruby (173196) on Thursday July 05, @08:54AM (#40550289) Homepage

That's ranting & raving man - it's not his fault he built a better mousetrap his competitors can't outcompete on the PC desktop + Server realm combined by a HUGE margin...

---

"He's just a guy managing his money by harming others - at every level" - by Doc Ruby (173196) on Thursday July 05, @08:54AM (#40550289) Homepage

Yea, right... helping:

1.) Education
2.) Fight disease
3.) & more... -> http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Pages/home.aspx

Real "evil" that... lol!

APK

P.S.=> Again, above ALL else - It's his money:

Thus - He has every right to manage it as he sees fit upon advisement by financial counsellors/advisors, who often suggest such things...

(Heck, I do MY taxes & get offered such tax breaks or others similar to them that I noted in my init. posts)

That is, IF I elect to choose to do them - Don't you? If so, are YOU therefore "evil"?? No, by NO means!

(It's just you sensibly trying to manage your monies effectively!)

Hey, he is just doing what makes the most sense (without taking too much of his DOLLAR$ & "CENT$" which is smart, as a fool & his money are soon parted, + at the same time, hopefully benefitting others)...

... apk

The AC would have a point (it would still be a terrible one btw, relieving human suffering is noble regardless) if it weren't for the family planning work that they're doing. As it is, it's a clear bias against a man who has committed the majority of his wealth to philanthropy.

As I posted in response to another person claiming that the Foundation is a vehicle for private profit: when making such a serious allegation it behoves you to show your evidence.

One of your claims is demonstrably untrue. Audited accounts for the Gates Foundation show that it makes far greater charitable grants than it is required to: over three times the minimum.

Regarding your claim that it is a tax-avoidance scheme, could you please set out which tax(es) Mr Gates was attempting to avoid?

Regarding your claim that the cash "flows straight back in to Gates' considerable investments in major drug companies", could you please back up the two claims that:

• - Bill Gates has considerable investments in major drug companies, and
• - There is some reasonably plausible way that he could expect to recoup the sum (approaching $30bn) that he has donated to the Foundation

I have posted relatively extensively elsewhere on Gates' stock holdings, insofar as they are public. Forgive me for quoting myself:

[As far as I can tell, Bill Gates] holds his shares through Cascade Investment LLC, the filings of which are available at sec.gov. There's a digest of its current holdings at GuruFocus - I haven't checked its accuracy. What it appears to show, however, is a portfolio that is not in any way focused on big pharma. I wasn't able to find any pharmaceutical conflicts, either directly or indirectly, by comparing that list to the Foundation's grant history, although I admit that I haven't gone through everything - I simply don't have time. One holding that I imagine will be criticised is Monsanto. I don't know how large that holding is, and while you could find out by going through all the filings I'm not inclined to; if the strongest claim that can be made is that Mr Gates set up the Gates Foundation and gave away something approaching $30bn in the hope that he would somehow make it back on Monsanto stocks then I think the argument rather defeats itself.

It has been suggested that he acquired some shares in pharmaceutical companies outside his Cascade Investment portfolio in 2002. I suspect that that may be a reporting error; even if it is not, the investments were well under $1bn. It is implausible to suggest that they could ever regain the $30bn donated.

You have made serious allegations about an outwardly philanthropic activity. I would suggest that you should either back up those allegations or recant them.

And if your main task for today was to find some safe drinking water, tomorrow you may be thanking B&MGF. And you wont care that his company was once convicted of anti-trust violations.

News flash. Women want to have children

When we gave women access to contraception, and the ability to get an education and a decent job rather than simply being housewives and mothers, family size dropped to the replacement rate or below. In the US. In Canada. In Europe. And the same trend is very clear in developing countries. Women want to have a reasonable number of children. Population growth happens when women are disempowered.

Contrary to the Malthusian view that population will grow to the limit of however many kids can be fed, in fact parents choose to have enough kids to give them a high chance that several will survive to support them as they grow old.

(Bill Gates/Gates Foundation) (Also relevant: Bill Gates' TED Talk)

Evidence shows tackling high death rates leads to smaller families and the stabilisation of national populations, according to its report, ‘The World at 7 Billion’.

...“In the poorest countries, where parents are often petrified that their children will die and leave them to fend for themselves, it’s understandable that they would choose to have larger families," [Brendan Cox] added.

...Save the Children points to the example of Botswana where three decades ago women had an average of six children. The average is now three, following long-term investment in healthcare which has helped to nearly halve child mortality.

(Trust.org reporting on Save The Children's report)

Healthier and wealthier babies make for smaller families.

(The Solution To Global Population Growth is Saving Children) (Contains two talks by Hans Rosling using stats to show this. Look at the first video starting at 6:30 if you're impatient)

Well-designed programs can bring down growth rates even in the poorest countries. Provided with information and voluntary access to birth-control methods, women have chosen to have fewer children in societies as diverse as Bangladesh, Iran, Mexico, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

...A trial by Harvard researchers in Lusaka, Zambia, found that only when women had greater autonomy to decide whether to use contraceptives did they have significantly fewer children....

(New York Times reporting on a UN report)

I believe he was somewhat mistaken as far as names go.. I think he meant Bill and Milinda.

$30 billion is not much. Bill Gates could fund that personally, if he wanted. Yet he chooses to fund other research - while also important possible doesn't have as much bang for the buck when it comes to saving lives.

Bill's charitable giving is actually pretty savvy at targeting his charity to high-reward areas, and lack of clean drinking water and agricultural development are two of his bigger targets (along with HIV/AIDS, malaria, mother/child deaths, and vaccination, all of which are pretty high on the bang-for-the-buck when it comes to saving lives). FWIW the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given $15 billion to global health and $3.5 billion to global development over the last 15 years (as well as $6 billion in American charitable donations) and Gates has announced his plans to give away $60 billion more over the next couple of decades; Warren Buffet is giving away the vast majority of his fortune through the Gates Foundation as well, at a current rate of around $1.5-2 billion/year.

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/Pages/foundation-fact-sheet.aspx has more detail on exactly where the Gates Foundation money goes; it's much more transparent than a lot of huge charities.

like when aristocrats used to fund and participate in science. We're seeing more of this kind of thing now, like this study, or this. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing, but there are definitely parallels to the way science was done during the renaissance.

More information concerning monetary efforts by Gates can be found here: 2012 Annual Letter from Bill Gates

It's not just AIDS that he's donating to, but crop research, polio, education, and other areas as well.

One of the Gates Foundation biggest health initiatives is family planning.

Family Planning Overview

Family planning saves lives.

One of the most cost-effective public health interventions available today is family planning. Voluntary family planning is a critical lifesaving intervention that can significantly improve the health of women and their families.

Through family planning:

• Maternal mortality is reduced. Family planning could prevent up to one third of all maternal deaths by allowing women to delay motherhood, space births, avoid unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions, and stop childbearing when they have reached their desired family size.
• Deaths and illness among young women are reduced. Pregnancy is the leading cause of death for women under 19, with complications of childbirth and unsafe abortion being the major factors. Adolescents aged 15 to 19 are twice as likely to die in childbirth as those in their 20s, and girls under 15 are five times as likely to die as those in their 20s.
• Child health and survival is improved. Reducing the number of births less than two years apart, births to very young and older women, and higher-order births, family planning lowers child and infant mortality. For example, if women spaced their births at least 36 months apart, almost 3 million deaths to children under age 5 could be averted.

  ...

Seriously, they get it. Enough that they are drawing the ire of certain other groups, for what it's worth.