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Bill Gates Donates $258 Million to Fight Malaria
klubar writes to tell us that Bill Gates has donated approximately $258 million to fight malaria. From the article: "Malaria research accounts for about one-third of 1 percent of the total amount of money spent on medical research and development, even though it accounts for 3 percent of all the productive years of life lost to diseases, according to a report released Sunday." Gates was quoted saying "The report confirms what has been clear, and that is that the world isn't investing nearly enough in malaria R&D."
People receiving the vaccine agreed to only use Microsoft vaccines for the next ten years.
Whatever folks may say about "The Evil Empire," this a true gift of philanthropy. Let's give a hand to Bill Gates...
but at the core, this guy is a saint. I cant fathom the millions if not billions gates + his wife have contributed to humanitarian causes.
I know Microsoft (and accordingly Bill Gates) hasnt been the fairest of competitors, but lets give the guy credit -- he appears to have genuine goodwill. Business is business and Microsoft is far from the most evil. For those on a MSFT warpath, perhaps your anger would be better turned towards Halliburton, Bechtel, Exxon or the NeoConservatives -- they create far more death, destruction, and misery in the world than Microsoft can or will ever do.
Is it really necessary to use the gates borg icon when he does something like this?
Im glad that bill is using some of his fortume to help fight this disease. Africa thanks you.
epic
"Im drowning here, and you're describing the water!"
Bill is a generous guy, although yes it is easy to be generous when you're not putting yourself out. I have a lot of respect for him tackling the important issues rather than the popular ones. (There are a ton of people donating to the charities in the headlines, just to get in the headlines themselves, Red Cross right now at number 1) Bill is going for the forgotten charities which are just as, if not more, important due to the devastation malaria has on the human population. As always, Bill is not being cool, and that's a good thing!
Malaria causes more deaths in children under 5 years old than even AIDS. (http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/impact/) Bill is certainly doing the right thing and I'll feel a bit less dirty writing this post on a WinXP machine because of it.
...he got away from the strictly technology causes and moved on to things that really matter.
This isn't the only donation the foundation has made. According to wikipedia the foundation donates about $1 Billion a year. That's a hefty amount even for the rich Bill Gates.
I still think it is wrong for Microsoft to get into the anti virus market.
That would be a valid criticism if the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation wasn't already giving incredible amounts to charity. Their endowment is around 28 billion dollars and they give over 1 billion dollars to charity every year. I guess that's more than a mere pittance by my reckoning.
Can buy a lot of DDT.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
Evil? Come on now, when it really comes down to it, he's trying to save a few lives; that's a lot more important than being a jerk in the business world. He was mean, got away with it and made some money, at least he's trying to do some good with what he's got and that's a lot more than most people, rich or not can say.
Well the captain of industry (or robber baron), whichever you prefer to call him, is doing his part. Like Carnegie and Rockefeller, he is making himself eternal by donating his wealth. Unlike Carnegie and Rockefeller, Gates has said he plans to spend it all and leave none of it to his kids/family. We will just have to wait and see ;)
That'll buy a hell of a lot of DDT, which is the only thing you need to eradicate malaria.
Unfortunately, a bunch of overwrought environmentalists managed to get the use and manufacture of DDT severely restricted on the basis of some very bad science.
The malaria problem has already been solved. We just need to allow third world countries to use the same solution we used before some trashy 60's book that cried about DDT softening eggshells.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
"A lifetime of evil" is a huge stretch for Mr. Gates. Regardless of your opinions of his business practices, he has done little harm to people who can't handle it, and is dedicated to helping the poor of other countries. Not only has he already given away enormous amounts of money through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, but he shows no signs of stopping. Rather than just give away money to showy projects for the publicity, the Gates Foundation tries to increase the productivity and viability of the poor around the world through well-thought-out gifts. I for one am perfectly willing to deal with a Windows world, if it means that kids around the world will be able to survive malaria, or the poor in America have a better shot at a high-level technical education.
Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
An estimated 350-500 million clinical malaria episodes occur annually. At least 2.7 million die per year from Malaria.
Malaria is responsible for one in four global child deaths. These deaths could be prevented by means which are simple, effective and available.
So lets all give a hand to Bill Gates for helping prevent at least some of these deaths.
Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
Melinda Gates must be one hell of a women. Until he got married, his charitable contributions were non-existent. Since then, his/their contributions have become sigificant.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
It seems primitive compared to other forms of engineering, but it is certainly scientific and it is certainly not quackery. I don't think you know what those words mean.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
This is not Insightful.
Vaccines are not "unscientific quackery" just because we don't build antibodies from scratch. There are many instances in science where we let nature/statistics and build a result from the ground up. For instance, genetic algorithms, universally regarded as sound science, work in a similar way. We simply cast a problem as an optimization of a sequence of chromosomes and let statistics organize a solution. We could build these solutions from the bottom up, but it would require much more effort and may not produce as good of a result.
In other words, good science involves taking advantage of well understood natural processes.
I think Gates will be remembered likewise for his good works in reducing the worst misery in poor countries. I think we owe a lot to Gate's wife, Melinda. He didn't do this stuff before he was married. OTOH, we wouldn't do it if he felt strongly for this also.
I still don't like the Microsoft monopoly, but not all Computer billionaires are so generous and he doesn't have to do this. Thanks Bill!
I hate how people seem to dislike most large corporations for the sake of them being large. I personally have no problem with places like Microsoft or Wal-Mart (I used to be an employee of Wal-Mart) and I'm glad that acts like this are shown to skeptics. I'll give you that they aren't perfect, and that some companies are not good companies. However, by virtue of being large, does not make a company bad. However, I fear that many people will point to this as a donation made to gain public support, which I admit is within the realm of possibility, but is in the realm of my doubts. I'll give you that we haven't heard much from ole Bill Gates recently (a bit in the shadow of Mr. Jobs) but this is about as good as thing as I could hear from him, I suppose.
-Da3vid-
At least according to this article. The current vaccine has to be given each year. Some of the money is also earmarked towards treating malaria, which should help in the interim.
it's sad to see the cynicism over such a big donation
Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your home!
Is it really necessary to use the gates borg icon when he does something like this?
I saw no problem with it. Are you racist against cyborgs? ;-)
He never said he'd leave none to his family. Just relatively little (which given the dozens of billions he has, could mean several million perhaps per child).
The Economist a few weeks ago ran a great article on the nascent field of biosimulation, which promises to yield highly accurate computer models of human biology and pathology. Obviously, this would be of great help in medical research, replacing the cross-your-fingers shotgun approach to pharmacology.
Sorry I don't have a subscription to give out. Anyone?
Bah, in almost all vaccines we don't even understand how the antibodies work. "They work, it doesn't matter how" does not sound like science to me, it sounds like mysticism. That's why vaccines are so fragile. The pathogen mutates and sheds that useless little part of itself that the antibody was latching onto, you get a new outbreak and you need a new vaccine. Whereas if you were to understand the pathogen and engineer an antibody, you could make its affinity more essential, such that no non-lethal mutation can make the pathogen resistant.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Of course using this logic, no one should ever sell anything, because it depresses the price for the folks who have yet to sell.
He's just trying to buy his way into Heaven.
Just my $0.02 worth.
There is a significant amount of throwing the kitchen sink at pathogens and pathogen-related proteins and small molecules, this is true. But I work in a chemical biology lab filled with scientists who I assure you are not quacks, and along with a large academic community are doing their best to further the science involved.
As an example, once a hit is registered for a small molecule (potential drug) in a pathogen-related screen, a set of chemists go about producing analogs of the drug. While this is going on, molecular biologists are busy finding out the protein (or other) target of the small molecule, and why an interaction causes a phenotypic result.
Once the analogs are produced, they (and this is just one approach used of many) can be micro-printed on small glass slides with advanced surface chemistry, and very specific screens can be performed in a high-throughput manner to find out which small molecules are the most potent and specific. Follow-up secondary screens are then performed to find exact binding strengths of the most potent hits. Etc.
So no, there is more to it than voodoo like you seem to imply. I hope you enjoy your troll karma, though.
Sounds like something Bill Gates should be spending his money on.
How we know is more important than what we know.
A mosquito was heard to complain
That a chemist had poisoned his brain
The cause of his sorrow
Was paradichloro
Diphenyltrichloroethane
Heh heh... from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT
but it does give a little insight into Gates...many people have a skewed opinion of him, and this may change that.
This just in, Gates dropped some spare change and couldn't be bothered to pick it up, so he donated it to a charity in a desperate attempt to get some good publicity. When it failed, Balmer threw a chair through a window.
not meaning to sound mean but... if this was some CEO taking his hooker around the world i could see your argument but this is saving lives.. for that you are being rude..... and if your are going to make a comment like that please show proof of the wrong doing.. without proof your comment carries no weight.
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
After reading the article on steve jobs (http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/31 /0355254&tid=3) and now this on bill gates, I move that we should have two icons for each: good steve and bad steve, borg bill and... saint bill?
Does this make my brain look big?
What makes him more qualified? They are HIS shares/options/dividends in HIS company. Every other shareholder has their say in proportion to their holdings. Don't like it? Build your own company.
I don't make predictions, and I never will.
Apparently the environmental movement agrees with you.
... since he got rich on money he stole from all of us, it always feels like I would be doing part of the donating here. And yes, if someone uses illegal methods to enrich himself its like stealing from me in my book.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
Ugh no.
m iles_archive.html#107570569615970184 . In short, the myth of agricultural bans on DDT preventing the public health use of DDT is demonstrably false.
See: http://kenethmiles.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_keneth
--I hate people when they're not polite -"Psycho Killer", Talking Heads
Bill has continually sold shares into the stock market floating millions and millions of shares into the marketplace that buyers have to absorb. Which they do at a relatively cheap price, and the stock has not moved during one of the largest bull runs in Nasdaq history, while company sales and profits have been increasing at a fantastic rate.
Essentially, he is taking his voting shares, converting them into money at the expense of the shareholders and then giving the money away.
If Microsoft PAID him billions of dollars it would not have had the negative effect the millions of extra shares in the marketplace has had on the stock price.
Again, when he cashes in that much stock in the market, it depresses the market. It takes value from the marketplace and transfers it to him. Why is HE better qualified to spend that value than the rest of the owners? Why is he better qualified than most pensioners? Why is HE better qualified than me?
Give him more than a million dollar a year salary. Give him gigantic bonuses. But as a person who is entrusted with enhancing shareholder value, why should he be damaging it so directly.
There's more to this than just killing all the mosquitos in the world. Sure, that'd get rid of malaria, but it'd also screw up the whole ecosystem. Lots of things eat mosquitos, other things eat those things, and so on. It'd completely screw up the predator/prey balance in the area. Personally, I think Africa doesn't need to get any more screwed up.
Should malaria be erradicated? Hell yes. Should it be done by destroying the ecosystem, possibly causing catastrophe? Hell no. What if it somehow led to an overabundence of crop-destroying critters? Even less food for Africa? I don't know if that's a good risk to take.
When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl
You more or less hit one of the biggest issues regarding the supply problem, so I won't bother going into that.
Uh huh, and then after doing thousands and thousands of screenings you end up with a substance that you know is x% more effective than the original substance and yet you still have no idea how it works. So then you put it through clinical trials to try to work out how effective it is on actual patients and observe them for any unwanted side effects. Maybe you combine the substance with some other substances that counteract the side effects and after 7 years you get FDA approval and start giving it to actual suffers and wait for the reports to come in from the field about how well it works compared to the other drugs available on the market. After all that you still have no idea how it works. Then, maybe 15 years later, a microbiologist, as part of their PhD project, will do some research into exactly what part of the pathogen your drug interferes with and compare it with strains of the pathogen that have been found which are resistant to your drug and discover that your drug is only effective because the pathogen has an unnecessary chemical pathway that a single point mutation can eliminate, and will go on to show that the resistant strain of the pathogen is becoming the more provaliant in reported cases. Which, if we had taken a scientific approach in the first place, we would have discovered was the likely outcome and could have avoided by studying the pathogen and engineering a drug to interfere with a chemical pathway that is actually critical to the pathogen avoiding targets that are easily dodged by mutation.
As for troll karma.. yeah, isn't it a bitch when the truth hurts. Hopefully metamoderation will weed out these people who mod things troll just because they don't like what the person is saying.
How we know is more important than what we know.
One of the questions to ask seriously (and I'm not saying I know how the answer would come out, because I don't) is this: what would've happened if Bill Gates hadn't acquired all that money which he is now giving away? Where would it be? In the pockets of millions of ordinary folks, of course. And what would they have done with it?
One possibility, of course, is that they would have frittered it away on DVDs and beer. But it's also possible they would have done a million individual worthy deeds of charity, such as buying some shoes to send a soldier on tsunami relief, who knows a little girl who needs them, or cooking a hot meal for a neighbor with cancer, or buying a textbook for an inner-city school that's short. Or maybe some extra money would've let a brilliant but poor student not drop out of medical school, so he would get the education he needs to invent the malaria vaccine that works for 20 years. You never know, actually.
And that's the rub. Is the good that Bill does with that money necessarily greater than the distributed good that would have been done by the millions of original possessors if they'd kept their money because he sold his products more cheaply? I don't know, of course. You can argue it both ways: (1) Bill has time to study the issues very carefully before investing, make a single "strategic vision" and implement a cohesive overall plan, so maybe "centralizing" the charity decisions makes them better. Or, (2) Bill's only one man, he can't possibly have access to all the information all those millions of people at the "grass roots" level have, so their distributed "Open Source Charity" movement would make better, more flexible and effective decisions.
It really is none of our business at all, but I really think Bill is trying to establish the image of Robin Hood For Himself.
He is robbing the rich (basically everyone on the planet who is 'rich' enough to buy his software, not to mention large corporations through law suits), and giving the money off to the poor.
A modern day Robbing Hood if you will
"When you support Free software, you support malaria!"
-me
What the hell's your problem? Do you like dead babies? Do you???
No, save the precious infants!
or
Yes, let's kill some babies!
...probably because Microsoft Senior Vice President Paul Martiz contracted the disease after a trip to his home in South Africa, eventually resulting in his retirement from MS.
...more than $1bn to fight cancer
Bill's munificence promotes the efforts of pharmaceutical companies who profit from the same intellectual property rules that made Bill a billionare. They profit because as a society, we have decided that the best way to promote progress is to accord these folks monopoly ownership of ideas. Not only of ideas, but also the manufacture and distribution of anything related to those ideas.
Not everyone agrees.
These rules eliminate the efficiency of a free market. Monopolists do not have to compete. In addition, monopolists can, and almost always do, maximize their profits by creating artificial scarcity.
I'm not so cynical to believe it's intentional, but nonetheless an insidious side affect of Bill's generosity is that it promotes a kind of starry eyed worship of an imperfect system. Oh what a wonderful wizard, look at the wonderful things he does!
We can do better. Bill's ability to be so generous comes at the expense of our economy. He accumulated his great wealth at the expense of free markets. Microsoft, and the pharmaceutical companies Bill promotes (he's not bequeathing millions to generic manufacturers now, is he?), contrary to popular mythology, epitomize anti-capitalism.
We could cure malaria a lot faster if we eliminated the the protectionist intellectual property racket that stifles free market capitalism. In particular, idea owners should not be given manufacturing or distribution monopolies. They should be compelled to license their ideas in an equitable fashion to all comers.
So now were going to need a good mix of pesticides, and the ability to spray the areas where we have these mosquitos, without leaving pockets of Malaria. There would also need to be heavy changes to prevent standing water, covering watering-holes with screens, draining swamp areas near towns and villages, agressive treatement of malaria to prevent human carriers.
Storm
Ahhh, he only gave us THE WHOLE FUCKING LINUX KERNEL.
The monetary value of this contribution is diffcult to determine, but it is indeed a gift that helps all of humanity.
5468652047616D65
Quinine is much less effective against malaria than it used to be. There are more effective treatments - particularly interesting is Artemisinin. In the early 70's the Chinese announced they'd found a powerful anti-malarial drug in a traditional chinese medicinal herb. They wouldn't tell anyone what the plant was, as the Chinese government is very protective of Chinese medicine.
Anyway eventually a photo of the plant leaked out, and Western scientists identified the plant as an Artemisia (Wormwood) species and found it growing on the banks of the Potomac river in Washington DC.
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
Thanks for the troll ratings, astroturfers. Ballmer won't be throwing chairs at you. For now.
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
You can find the main article here.
I have never been a fan of Bill Gates, the technologist. I don't harbor the opinion that Bill has made a great contribution to technology. Indeed, I blame Mr Gates for the absurdly bad PC user interface that we all have to put up with--and I don't just mean the Windows interface--I also mean the Apple interface and the two (for-chrissake-make-up-your-mind) Linux interfaces.
By doing little more than slavishly follow innovations introduced by Apple and occasionally coming up with original bad ideas, Microsoft has put no competitive pressure on Apple at all to provide a truly usable PC interface. (When it needed to produce a brilliant interface, as per the iPod, Apple was up to the task). With Linux, it's worse. GUI innovation amongst the Linux desktop crowd has been so invisible that one wonders whether Open Source naturally evolves according to the principles of unintelligent design. It's all a mess.
I have more respect for Bill Gates as a businessman. Admittedly Microsoft's power grew out of a monopoly situation, but Bill Gates was intelligent and focused in establishing that monopoly and outmaneuvered a swathe of competitors. It's difficult to fault it, although it's also easy to conclude that it has not been good for the IT industry.
But never mind, there is an area of activity where, in my view, Bill Gates deserves genuine respect. A current article in the New Yorker provides a detailed account of Bill (and Malinda) Gates' philanthropic activities. Most impressively, Bill Gates is (unarguably) doing more for world health than the WHO itself. The simple fact is that the Bill and Malinda charity provides much more finance to specific world health initiatives than the WHO does--and it is managed (by Bill himself) as if it were a competitive business. It sets targets, invests and reviews progress. According to the New Yorker, at the moment Bill is doing what he can to combat Malaria--which is more deadly to world health than AIDS. The article is worth reading. Not just for what it reveals about Bill Gates but also what it reveals about the health problems the world faces.
Detractors of Bill Gates may well maintain that with his particular pile of dollars it is easy to be philanthropic. Indeed with one tenth of his dollar pile it would also be easy. And indeed there are a few individuals that have such piles, but I don't know of any (with the possible exception of George Soros) that actively engages in the kind of activity that Bill Gates does. Hats off, I think.
only in your fantasy world would $258,000,000 US be considered chump change.
I hate Microsoft and I'd certainly like to know if Gates's charity is doing anything underhanded other than the usual bit of targeting donations to give Microsoft PR boost where needed.
However before accempting your claims in the slightest I would really have to see some sources.
I stole this Sig
You're thinking about this in the reverse. He doesn't call all the shots at MS, but he can still tell the Gates Foundation where to donate. So if MS is focusing on a particular region, while he may not be calling the shots at MS, he CAN call the shots at the Foundation. I heard an interesting interview at the National Press Club with his Father, Bill Gates, Sr. once. It turns out it was VERY hard for Bill Sr. and Melinda to talk Bill Jr. into setting up a charitable fund -- he did not like the idea! And now there's all these posts on this topic saying what a saint he is -- when it was like pulling teeth to get him to set up the charity, and it is the charity that gives the money using his name. I don't recall, but I believe, like many charities, he contributed the seed fund and I'm not sure if he still donates anything to it.
He may not call the shots at MS, but he certainly has more than enough influence to make sure his Foundation gives money to sources that can make him look good or that can back up marketing efforts at MS.
Say a common poster here makes $50,000 and he donates a $.10 to charity. If Bill Gates donating $258 million to charity and that is the equivalent of my dime, than his annual salary would have to be $129 trillion. So, your comment is way off base. $258 million is quite a large donation.
Your criticism may be applicable to drug companies, but it's just not applicable to where I work. You say several times that we don't know how these drugs work, but that's all my lab is focused on in the science that we do. We purposefully don't focus on drug discovery and let drug companies handle that.
:-P
For example, you must have missed the bit where I talk about secondary screens to determine binding strengths. This is an experiment performed with a half-million dollar machine that determines the binding strength between the small molecule and one specific protein (that is the proposed target). Since the small molecule usually acts as an inhibitor by binding the protein, this IS THE WAY IT WORKS. Once you find the protein that the small molecule binds to, you're done -- that's the method of action (assuming there aren't other methods of action).
I get your point about these small molecules not being designed, however, and I agree that our science there is pretty weak at the moment. But there are plenty of PhDs and PhD candidates working on precisely that problem, too. Given time I'm sure we'll be able to take a protein and design a small molecule that inhibits (or promotes) its activity.
As for troll karma.. yeah, isn't it a bitch when the truth hurts.
Ironically, I made the troll comment when your comment was modded up
The latest Gates Foundation money will target three main areas. The largest chunk -- $107.6 million -- will be devoted to the most advanced experimental malaria vaccine and will cover the completion of testing in Africa and the licensing process, should the vaccine prove viable.
Although spending money in causes such as these is a noble thing to say the least..
The above quote makes me wonder how this "donation" can be considered a part of Research and development. This whole artical seems like it is adgenda motivated (like anything from the news) and it goes on about figures of "how much is spent on research" when most of the money is used for vaccine? It does raise the question what the real modivations are behind all of this?
Testing and Licencing, sounds like a pretty done deal to me.
Ok, how much money do you think he makes in Africa?? Over $258 million?? LOL! Sorry but piracy is rampant there. It's possible to suspect everyone of having ulterior motives no matter what they do. If you look with hateful, bitter, and cynical eyes, you can make yourself see selfishness in everyone's actions.
"Mother Teresa liked feeling important and only helped people because it made herself feel good and needed"
Most of the time when people believe such things, it is because they themselves are unable to feel charitable to anyone or anything. So they cannot understand when others do something charitable. All they do is throw stones rather than replicate or surpass the charity they criticize.
After all, who wants someone they hate to be better than themselves?
Bill Gates believes in helping people, and he has given a large portion of his wealth to helping these countries get out of poverty and disease. This is fact. The "Return On Investment" on helping Africa is multiple decades, long after he's dead. And even believing that Africans can be productive enough to provide a ROI to Microsoft is itself above and beyond everyone else's "Africa is a basket case" attitude on Africa.
What someone does in business, however shrewd, does not mean they don't genuinely feel for those who are suffering.
To first order, a company's stock price is the market's judgment of the expected total return of the company over its lifetime. While the total number of shares outstanding is critical to the price of a stock, who actually holds the shares is not that important except insofar as it determines who has control over the company. If Bill Gates were minting new shares, you'd have room to complain, but he's not. If he were moving his money from Microsoft stock to other investments, other investors might take that as evidence that the stock is overvalued, but he's not doing that either.
Probably because those fantasic sales and profits were already figured into the stock price when it doubled several times back in the 90s. The stock price won't change until the outlook for Microsoft's profits change.
I think you should re-read the post you replied to...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Yeah... because I'd want to hand over 250 million and just say "do what you will." Come on. Donating it as grants means they, probably, maintain some oversight on what it is spent on. Which is completely reasonable.
Wow, and here I was thinking that some kind of optimization to the human immune system to more effectively kill the malaria parasite was necessary. But no, you're idea about using powerful chemicals to kill a necessary part of the ecosystems sounds like a much better idea. How about running and hiding from mosquitoes? Perhaps a new kind of skin hardening spray! Then mosquitoes wouldn't be able to bite us. Or maybe some kind of mosquitoe diverting turret! It could use ladar to locate the mosquitoe, triangulate it's position and then blast it with a jet of air. The mosquitoe wouldn't come near you and it would be safe to go off and get eaten by a frog.
Of course, if we went with my original idea, improving the human immune system, we'd not only be able to defend ourselves from malaria, we'd also be able to defend ourselves from other pathogens, like ringworm and giardia lamblia (causes gastroenteritis). Not to mention bacterial infections and viruses. It kinda does make you wonder if we'll ever see an improvement to human organs (the immune system arguably being a decentralized organ). Got trouble controlling your blood sugar levels? Here's a bottle of insulin and a syringe, get ready for a lifetime of inconvenience. If you're lucky, or rich, in 20 years time we might have a working implant that can release the insulin into your bloodstream for you! What's that? Fix you? Hahaha, we don't actually fix people. That would be like the fevered dream of a madman.
How we know is more important than what we know.
And what's more, the book presented the softened shells as a bad thing! Do you know how hard it is to crack enough spotted owl eggs for a decent omelette if they haven't been softened a bit first? They're almost as tough as bald eagle eggs!
http://www.junkscience.com/ddtfaq.htm
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
While I won't get on the I heart Bill bandwagon when he contributes in self serving ways (eg: M$ loaded PCs to Libraries that tie your hands about what you can do with them). I will give him this one.
Way to go Bill!
Min
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
ok, I'm willing to consider that you're right. Got links? other verification?
Let's see, you can deduct up to 50% of your taxable income in charitable contributions, and he already gave the entire MS dividend of $3 billion to his foundation. His taxable income in any given year is certain to be under $1 billion. So do some math. The vast majority of his charitable contributions are taxed.
He has given very close to half his fortune to charity, and he is quite passionate about global health issues.
Well I was talking about drug companies. Tis good to see that there are people out there who are starting to approach the problem in a more scientific way. Even if you're not engineering the substance to interfere with the protein, if you are actively selecting which protein to interfere with after studying the pathogen you're doing more than most drug companies do.
How we know is more important than what we know.
does anyone knows if this kind of donations are deductible from Bill's or MS's taxes?
Its nice to see this kind of donations... but it won't mean much to me if this is just some kind of pay tax or donate to buy some good public opinion, or even goverment contracts strategy... I remember they also donated for aids research, africa suffers most from aids and malaria!?!?
I hope this are just good sincere donations.. but again, Bill is the richest man in the world, so he knows how to move his money.
Look harder, chief.
audioLibre - freedom of music
I can assure you that the millions of people who are afflicted by malaria and other 'third world' endemic diseases every year are not interested in whether or not Microsoft's fixing of the 'quirkiness' of Windows XP is going to trickle down to them in order to save their lives or spare them from a life of suffering.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
Hey, it's my money! Let ME give it!
They have a war-chest, (endowment) and they do what they do with the interest, not the principal.
Gates dropped some spare change and couldn't be bothered to pick it up
Oh come on, be reasonable. Bill's just found another way using with his key competencies. Malaria parasites are bugs after all, and I'm sure he'll be at least as successful at eradicating malaria as he has been at getting rid of Windows bugs.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Sorry to make you look dumb (a simple oversight, I'm sure), but it says "(In thousands)" at the top of that report - which, of course, makes all your "millions" into "billions".
By the way - the PDF (http://www.gatesfoundation.org/NR/Downloads/finan cialreports/2004FinancialStmts.pdf) in the parent post is interesting and it loads pretty quickly.
"I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" -Jesus (John 14:6)
Bill did not want to get into the charity work till he retired. His mother had been after him since early on.
At this point, he is very involved in all the major decisions and directs them on a daily basis. Melinda is there much of thetime, as is Bill Sr.
Melinda goes on several trips a year to find out about the work that the foundation is doing, and the whole family has spent time in clinics in Africa.
As for the funding, it is a foundation, not a regular charity. All the money in the foundation comes from Bill and Melinda, and they are still giving. Do you remember that one time microsoft dividend at the beginning of the year? They gave the entire dividend to the foundation.
They really aren't in it to look good. The only tend to go public on their gifts when they want to bring attention to an issue.
Here's a start:
Bill Gates has sold almost half a billion dollar's worth of Microsoft stock this year [2002], and begun to invest heavily in big pharma. In the second half of this year he bought 2.5 million shares in Eli Lilly, manufacturer of Prozac, and also made major investments in Merck and Pfizer, notes Information Week.
The Gates Foundation's top five stock investments in pharmaceutical firms, in millions:
Merck $76.9
Pfizer $37.3
J & J $29.7
Wyeth $12.7
Abbott Labs $11.9
Read that last link closely. It alleges that the primary goal of the Foundation is to insure that third world companies stay as good customers to Gates' pharma companies so they don't break the world intellectual property treaties which would render BillG's pharmaceutical assets worthless (and maybe Microsoft too, if say Africa decided to legalize piracy of Windows).
The details of the Foundation's financial "grant" transactions are not available in their annual report, just the summaries. I will have to do a little more research, I've seen the whole scam laid out but I haven't been able to relocate the link.
Go back and look at the balance sheet again (pg 3). If you look under the heading you will see "(in thousands)". This means to take every dollar amount on the page and multiply it by 1,000. You will see that the Total Assets of the Foundation is over $36 billion with a B. B&MGF donated nearly $ 1.9 billion with a B in 2004.
If the Foundation only donated $1.88 million in '04 do you think they would of made a jump to $258 million in one donation the next year?
Forgot to actually read the blog, eh.
"DDT is not used for outdoor mosquito control, partly because scientific studies have demonstrated toxicity to wildlife, but mainly because its persistence in the environment rapidly leads to the development of resistance to the insecticide in mosquito populations. There are now much more effective and acceptable insecticides, such as Bacillus thuringiensis, to kill larval mosquitoes outdoors."
This offhanded factoid is in fact, the main point of contention of the parent. namely that the wildlife toxicity was overstated and inferred from unrelated factors and that the use of DDT for wide coverage mosquito control is the main contributing factor in the spread of malaria worldwide.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Keep surfing -- there's a link in the comments section of that blog to an FAQ on DDT that's more convincing, better documented, and entirely in favor of the original poster's thesis.
Based on the available information, I'm going to have to assume that Rachel Carson's critics are closer to the truth.
Of course, nowadays, no responsible corporation would think of advocating the use of DDT... because the patents on it have expired.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
Well we're not *at* that stage yet, so why isn't using the knowledge that we have scientific? Or did you think that the techniques for making vaccines invented themselves?
This is a very good thing he did. Do not let opinions of his company cloud your thinking. See it for what it is. A charitable gesture. Pray for the guy instead.
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
Because he thinks money can buy Philanthropy. We hear one man rich from the efforts of the little workmen; why not hear a story of thousands of honestly rich men gifting because it was always among their choices when funds were available and not a last-ditch tax break? Despite the Officers sitting in the Microsoft seat, let's not forget about the little pall-bearers holding the Microsoft casquette under-neath it all. Who works for Microsoft, and who is claiming the ability to gift?
Hhe spreads FDA jurisdiction onto other continents! How would you like to have a foreign jurisdiction and law imposed upon you, that claims that food is a drug because it can prevent disease, or "monitor" health products and unlawfully diverts funds to the scrutiny of products beyond the scope of its charter? Bill Gates isn't even donating, but granting; as a grantor, the trust is revocable. Does anyone remember when FDA tried to re-classify Vitamin C as a "drug" as defined by FDA? It's a power grab to divert constructs of remedy with ministers of cures and drugs. I have a moldy Orange full of Vitamin C and Penecillium; I have some sun-dried Goji berries containing 15 of the 21 or such known proteins that even animal flesh has 5 or 6; remedy. FDA says drug and cure, yet everyone else says remedy.
They advertise their generosity and philactories on every news stand, and overshadow the generosity of common people that do more with what less they can give and don't ward it over eachother. If Bill Gates wanted to actually help people, he'd go drop his donation off somewhere and then walk away; but instead he is getting fiduciary capacity to where the funds may be spent and on what treatments, bringing all the pharmaceutical monopolies beyond the tidemark and plaguing other countries with the beaurocratic nightmare that Americans and citizens of the United States could never keep at bay on thin anti-trust accord.
without prejudice
OK, I'll cop to it, I missed the "in thousands." But there is still no evidence in that annual report that actual cash money was given away to anyone. They don't list grants other than to describe them as "approved grant committments." The whole Gates Foundation deal is a complex system of arbitrage and investments, they don't give cash grants, they loan stock options or bond futures and then the recipient borrows against them.
I'm currently in a country where Malaria prophylaxis is required... recently we switched from daily Malarone tablets to weekly Mefloquine HCL tablets. "Malaria Mondays" are also known as "movie night" because of the really bizarre dreams this shit induces.
One of my co-workers woke up in the middle of the night, standing in the middle of his B-Hut (basically a wooden tent, sleeps 8-10 with about 9'x7x per man), screaming his head off at nothing.
Last night, I dreamed I was accosted by a giant rooster wearing a shaggy fur coat, a wide brimmed velvet hat, gold chains, and big gold rings. He was giving me shit for eating eggs, and was really pissed off at me. He forced me to sit on this egg until it hatched. When the egg hatched, it was a miniature version of myself, dressed like the rooster, and carrying a pizza!
Non tam praeclarum est scire Latine, quam turpe nescire
-- Cicero
What the hell are you talking about? The letter-writer goes on for several paragraphs saying over and over "well, it's basically true," and then for some reason concludes that "it is demonstrably wrong." That's hardly an overpowering rebuttal.
Fuck it
So I guess they agree with you.
I do know DDT essentially eradicated Malaria in the Panama canal zone years ago. But I'm not a big fan of the environmental fallout. I'm glad I don't have to make tough decisions like choosing between those two things.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
since when does bill gates give even a moment's thought to stopping the proliferation of virii? i bet he is the one who unleashed all the mosquitoes there in the first place.
go get it
Ok, so Bill Gates isn't evil. And his donations to charity are pretty cool. I guess I'm going to have mellow my opinion of him. But his software still sucks.
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
Those investments represent about $200M. The foundation is capitalized at $24B. Thus these represent about 0.8% of the investment of the foundation.
Also, this money is to go to vaccinations. If he were to invest in health scammery, I would imagine he would work towards chronic treatments for maximum return, not vaccinations, which you only buy once and at a price typically of less than a few years' treatments would cost.
Additionally, your link is ridiculous. It says Bill G is scamming, all health companies are scamming and the real solution is belief in Jah. Um, I'm a little to much of a believer in science to fall for this.
Finally, to respond to another poster, the use of the word "grant" here doesn't mean that the money given wasn't cash. Grant is simply the right word. I couldn't say the grants are cash (they likely are not), but even if they aren't I don't see any real evidence Bill G is going to clean up on this kind of thing. Even if this caused his investments in Pharma to triple, it would only increase the money there by 3%. I would think if Bill G were going to pull a scam, he could do a lot better than that.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
The money microsoft and in the end gates made from selling dodgy
software/screwing people and companies over etc, some portion of
it is being spent on important social issues.
The chances are if MS hadn't charged as much for their software
as they did, the money saved by most people buying the software
would likely not have gone to such causes at all. Most likely it
would have gone to buying more aeron chairs and executive ass
scratchers...
Arash Partow's Philosophy: Be a person who knows what they don't know, and not a person who doesn't know.
As much as I'd like to respect Bill Gates, and to see him as something other than a shrewd and souless businessman, I still think this is spin. It hasn't gone unnoticed that no company has seen profit margins like Microsoft's since colonial times when monopolies were gleefully raping and destroying entire cultures and ecosystems for their shareholders' gain, without conscience. Many if not most of the world's modern day problems have their roots in the west's colonial transgressions. What will the future of computing bring?
I think Bill realises that he's done wrong by a signficant portion of the world, and more will come to light as the world's computer users become more savvy (as they are with each generation), and more stories of graft, exploitation, and injustice emerge. Microsoft is a business which routinely uses deceit and law breaking as part of its arsenal of tools to maximise profit. Even if they get caught occasionally (and usually they don't), fighting the occasional law suit with their fleet of lawyers, they still wring more money out of the hapless computer user than if they "did the right thing".
Some might admire Bill's approach, but I don't. Anyone who believes that all is fair in love, war, and business is definitely not someone I'd do business with. The market depends on contract, and ultimately (since we know justice can be bought), contract depends on honour - and the value of reputation. If a business, like Microsoft, finds it cheaper to pay spin doctors to cover up its wrong-doings, then it doesn't really have to worry about its reputation.
Bill realises that eventually, his chickens will come home to roost (so to speak), and the history books will piece together all the really crappy things Microsoft has done under his watchful eye. So, given that a few billion $$ here and there aren't going to have a noticable impact on his lifestyle, why chuck a spare $billion at the masses, targetted with advice from a team of "philathropy advisors" to maximise publicity value. Maybe giving a bit of it away makes him feel better about all the nasty things he did to get that money from the people who earned it in the first place. Who knows, maybe the history books will remember Bill Gates as a beneficent, visonary philanthropist. Maybe they'll see him as a calculating mob-boss who tried too late to exorcise his demons.
All I can say is, the money is great for the people it helps, and I won't knock that. And good for you, Bill... better late than never. I guess we all need to sleep at night. A question one might ask, though: is it really generosity if you have so much you couldn't realistically spend it all yourself anyway?
Either way, sadly Bill donating to charity (especially when it's in the form of MS software licenses, one of MS's favourite tricks, which have 90%+ profit margins, and are thus grossly over-valued as a contribution), doesn't really do anything to polish Microsoft's irreparably tarnished Death Star image.
Dave
Linux on the desktop since 1994.
I didn't get very weird dreams, but I did hallucinate a bit while awake! Basically, things around me seemed to be moving in weird ways. A better look showed they really weren't moving, but it was clearly a mild form of hallucination.
I was back in the US at that time, under the "keep taking it for two or three weeks" directive. Well, I didn't. I stopped taking it immediately.
What's really even stranger is a very small percentage of people who take Lariam go out to lunch and don't come back EVER. Now, that'd be fine if this pill saved you from heart attacks or something and there was no alternative. But there are alternatives, and for many people, the risk of getting Malaria may be low enough (as it was for me in rural Botswana) that it isn't worth the risk of taking Lariam.
At the time, Malarone wasn't available in the US. It is now. If I had to take medication for Malaria now, there is zero chance I'd take Lariam again.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Grants are how all foundations work. And yes, sometimes the grant is in the form of a simple check. Sometimes they buy specific supplies. The research grants are most definitely money, but it is money with strings attached.
... without representation, and the ends do not justify the means.
And I was going to pitch him for a donation to combat cat juggling.
Thats funny, I was just reading up on DDT earlier today.
It is believed that [malaria] afflicts between 300 and 500 million every year, causing up to 2.7 million deaths, mainly among children under five years.
Population control advocates blamed DDT for increasing third world population. In the 1960s, World Health Organization authorities believed there was no alternative to the overpopulation problem but to assure than up to 40 percent of the children in poor nations would die of malaria. As an official of the Agency for International Development stated, "Rather dead than alive and riotously reproducing."
"Science journals were biased against DDT. Philip Abelson, editor of Science informed Dr. Thomas Jukes that Science would never publish any article on DDT that was not antagonistic."
"Extensive hearings on DDT before an EPA administrative law judge occurred during 1971-1972. The EPA hearing examiner, Judge Edmund Sweeney, concluded that "DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man... DDT is not a mutagenic or teratogenic hazard to man... The use of DDT under the regulations involved here do not have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds or other wildlife."
"Many experiments on caged-birds demonstrate that DDT and its metabolites (DDD and DDE) do not cause serious egg shell thinning, even at levels many hundreds of times greater than wild birds would ever accumulate."
http://www.junkscience.com/ddtfaq.htm
You've just got a hole in your head if you think Gates is doing this to make money from "Big Pharma". Lets assume (contrary to fact, which you can verify by a quick trip to the SEC, which will tell you major shareholders of publicly traded companies) that Bill Gates owns 10% of the entirety of the pharmaceutical industry. Lot, stock, and barrel, a dime out of every dollar of profit goes to him. Lets further assume, contrary to fact, that Big Pharma just makes money. And lets assume, contrary to fact, that these grants are actually going 100% to purchase drugs , e.g., do R&D on environmentally friendly pesticides (See here). All of this means that Bill Gates gets back a dime on every dollar he spends. Wow, thats how you become worth $80 billion or whatever it is -- you farm out a couple hundred million a year and get back a couple ten million -- but don't worry, you can make up the difference on volume.
Incidentally, you can see the Foundation's holdings at the SEC. Its a fairly standard portfolio heavy on the blue chips, including a lot of medical stock -- but not enough to either make a drop in the bucket next to either these folks' market capitalizations or Bill Gates' personal wealth (the vast majority of which, by the way, is MSFT stock).
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Malaria vaccine possible within six years
11:18 31 October 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Shaoni Bhattacharya
A malaria vaccine could be available within 6 years if new trials of the most promising candidate prove successful, say experts.
Malaria vaccine research received a $107.6 million injection of funds on Monday, part of a $258.3 million donation from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for the study of malaria and its treatment.
The cash boost will accelerate the development of an effective vaccine, says Melinda Moree, director of the Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI). The anticipated date for a vaccine could be as early as 2011. At one point what the world considered to be fairly unattainable is actually coming along quite rapidly, she told reporters. It is absolutely possible to make a vaccine against malaria."
MVI will work with GlaxoSmithKline on the most promising vaccine candidate yet, called RTS,S, which, in trial in Mozambique, cut the rate of severe malaria in children aged 1 to 4 by 58%. This was the first time that a malaria vaccine candidate had shown protection against severe disease in children.
The new series of planned trials will examine whether the vaccine is safe and effective when given to infants alongside other childhood vaccines. Research will then proceed to a phase III trial to permit licensing. The trials, to be conducted in locations across Africa, will have about 17,000 subjects.
more at the url above.
Professor Karmadillo Songs of Science
The World (a PRI program) mentioned this in part of a larger story on malaria in Africa (WMA file, fittingly enough). The ultimate point was that as much as Bill is being generous in his giving, he largely has wanted to see it go toward technological improvements rather than simple things that work now (eg sleeping mats spayed down with repellent).
It's a good listen overall, though.
I was with you right up to the part where Bill Gates robbed the poor African children in Ethiopia, probably becuase he didn't allow them to install Linux instead of Windows XP on their dual core AMD Athlon64 systems.
It is nice and fancy that Bill Gates is giving money to fight malaria... but at the same time the U.N. is, and most of the countries in the world are, making the most effective Malaria prevention tool illegal, all because of bad science from reactionary enviornmentalist... and tens of millions are dying because of it:
. stm
p 3?&id=146
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3532273
This article addresses the Bill Gates absurdity directly:
http://www.eco-imperialism.com/content/article.ph
Western governments could spend a fraction of the money they are spending now, and eliminate Malaria by at least 90%! The U.N., U.S., Canada, E.U. are esentially ensuring the death of millions in order to score a few token political points with the enviornmental lobby!
This isn't simply a matter of Western governments "not giving enough" to fight Malaria. Fighting malaria is cheap and easy, and most government can handle the problem with just a little help. This is a case of Western governments using their money and power to force policies on other countries that kill millions.
Yes, but Rockefeller had a nice book written about what he did. No books were written, or will be written, about the millions of actions taken by his millions of customers. So how can you compare? You can certainly compare what Rockefeller did to what any one individual you know has done, or is likely to do. But how can you compare to what millions of people would do in small amounts, here and there?
You might as well say that the wisdom of General Eisenhower was far more important than the wisdom of the millions of men under his command in winning the Second World War, because we have many books discussing Eisenhower and the brilliant decisions he made, but all we really know about all those men is they executed his orders successfully. We have no clue about what wisdom or folly they might have deployed in doing so. So we have no way of knowing whether their collective wisdom exceeded Ike's individual wisdom. Maybe yes, maybe no. We don't know which was more critical to winning the war. Consequently we don't know whether it would be better to put even more decision-making authority in Ike's hands, or distribute some of it from Ike down to the grunts.
Of course, we do know that Ike's individual wisdom exceeded the wisdom of most or all individual front-line grunts. Which you may be unconsciously doing when you compare Rockefeller to "ordinary" people -- comparing him to one or a few ordinary people. But that's not fair. The correct comparison is to millions of ordinary people. And that comparison is very hard to make, and it's very hard to know what the result would be. That's my point.
In further news, I donate $15 to charity. I think its great that he's donating money to charity, (and I know my $15 analagy probably isnt accurate, but my point remains), but is it really news when someone who makes as much as he does donates such a small portion of their income to chariy. I say 'good for him', but its no big deal... not like he couldnt spare the money.
Why do we need research? We know how to treat it and how to prevent it. What we need to spend money on is actually /doing just that/.
Okay, R&D is still useful, but when are we going to realise we're spending all our money on finding Yet Another Medical Discover that we're too cheap to actually /use/.
First up Malaria is a "Tropical" disease, ie: found in the tropics, Australia has the strictest quarantine of any Nation, NZ and the Antartic are too cold.
Second, Malaria is an "orphan" disease, ie: Drug companies do not see a future profit so they put little effort into research.
Third, "evil" people sometimes do great deeds. As for "pushing & conjoling" have you ever noticed that is how most "leaders" operate?
Fourth, this is exactly the kind of philanthropy that US capitialism has always touted but has rarely experienced.
Last, Bill & Co have an impressive record of helping people who are largely forgotten by the rest of the world. No he did not start MS in an attempt to wipe out Malaria, but because of MS success as a publicly traded company, Bill now has the oportunity to do so.
Projection: The fact that you can only see a self serving conspiracy on the part of MS says alot more about you than it does about Bill.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I don't think your argument is sound, but I am having difficulty explaing precisely why. Instead, let me give a parallel situation and ask a question:
Recently the price of gas rose from $2 to $3 a gallon. That's a very small amount of money. Even over the course of a year, for most people it's a small additional cost. Maybe $10 a week or so. So by your argument a 50% rise in gasoline energy costs should have zero or negligible effect on the economy. After all, if people were going to do something important with that extra $10 a week -- buy a house or new car, invest in a business, hire someone, place an order for 1,000 new workstations -- they would have already done it, or not done it, and the extra $10 won't make any real difference.
And yet, of course, such a price shock has most definitely had profound and lasting effects on the US economy, even on the world economy, for example in the 70s. And people today get highly lathered up about it, predicting dire effects and proposing drastic remedies (drilling in ANWR, forcing everyone to drive a hybrid, whatever).
How do you explain this?
You speak complete nonense. Of course the foundation gives money (as cheques), destined for specific puroposes.
In opensource, now thats more like it..
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/AboutUs/ Well, this definitely exhibits the kindness of the gentleman. 28.8 Billion dollars is a huge amount, and the causes that it is fighting are really going to be beneficial for mankind in future. In charity, there's no competition...if Bill Gates gave some amount, i m sure he'll be more happy if a competitor gives more thn him...after all, its for the same good cause
I believe the Borg icon relates to the embrace and extend villainy his company has perpetrated on the world. I would claim many trillions of dollars have been lost due to Microsoft's abusive monopoly, which is enabled by their closed formats and embrace and extend tactics. Instead of Microsoft hoarding the wealth, the world could be sharing, cooperating, and growing.
Google gets this. They are making information available to the world, which is enriching us all.
Bill Gates III started giving to charity because he was widely criticized for not doing so, not for any humanitarian reasons.
My issue with the icon is that the Borg are not hypocritical.
I'd rather the government taxed the rich so that this sort of obscene wealth could be spent in a way that is democratically accountable. If the people want it spent on malaria then it'll get spent on malaria. The poor shouldn't depend on the whims of the ultra-rich for this kind of thing.
I commend Bill for his generosity, really. The Gates Foundation is the largest charity organization in the world, and it does many worthwhile things. It follows in the grand tradition of billionaire benefactors, like Rockefeller and Carnegie.
But keep in mind that Gates is the wealthiest man on the face of the planet, worth tens of billions of dollars. There's only so many mansions, exotic cars, yachts, priceless works of art, private jets, islands, and so forth he could purchase before they become ridiculous, if he were even into those things. And still he'd have billions left over.
To put it another way, suppose you've got $100,000 in assets (home equity, retirement savings, property, etc.) minus debt. Suppose Bill Gates is worth US$46.5 billion in 2005, according to Forbes. If you were to give away the same proportion of your ($100,000) net worth as Bill Gates just did in Africa, you'd need to cut a check for...$554.84
If I write a $550 check to charity every year, does that get me sainthood?
Again, I don't mean to minimize Gates' generosity, or the tremendous good that his money is doing around the world. Just to put it in perspective.
The widespread use of DDT had all but wiped out malaria some three decades ago. Then someone named Rachel Carson wrote a fictional book called "Silent Spring" about how DDT was harming birds. The book was fictional, literally. But the irrational so-called "envoronmentalists" of the world took it as a call to action and successfully pressured the government to ban DDT. Now millions die needlessly in Africa as a result of their irrationality.
Wow.
Just, wow man. This is the most ignorant, uninformed post I think I've ever read on Slashdot. Well done!
Here's a Debunking for you - you could have found it yourself with a quick Google.
A simple bit of research would show that something much more interesing happened - a low level contingent of the mosquito population is resistant to DDT and DDT sprayings kill off the rest. The resistant portion reproduce and you're back to a full population again, except this time they're all resistant, rendering the DDT useless.
You're forgetting one thing: history. Wherever and whenever decision-making power has been highly concentrated, the final results have been markedly poorer than when it is more distributed. The USSR is the most spectactular example, of course, a situation in which the decision of where to spend nearly every dollar (well, ruble) in the economy was made by a very few people at the top, allocating huge amounts of money at a time. The results speak for themselves.
The performance of companies that deliberately distribute decision-making authority down to lower levels is also illustrative. Generally when lower-level "front-line" people have as much decision making power as they can handle the company is more agile, more responsive, more successful. All successful companies know this, and take steps to prevent decision making from taking place on too high a level, because the view from the penthouse is often lacking some critical details. Any engineer or salesman who has worked for a large firm knows that the fewer layers of management up through which information must percolate, and down through which decisions must be filtered, the faster problems are solved correctly. This is not news. You just may not be used to thinking of these facts in this context.
Neither of these trends should be robust facts of history if your idea is true, that it's generally "impossible to tell" whether highly centralized or distributed decision-making is best. So do the lessons apply to charitable decision-making, too? Hard to say. But since it definitely applies to many other kinds of decision making, one would have to consider the possibility carefully before saying "Oh goody! Let's give another $250 million to Bill ultimately for charity, instead of spending it where we ourselves choose."
The only point of your brain exercise is to vaguely hint that Bill Gates doesn't deserve his money.
God knows what you mean by deserve. Where does morality creep into economics? I was talking strictly about economic efficiency, nothing else. The question of whether Bill "deserves" his earnings I find meaningless noise. You might as well ask if he "deserves" to be named "Bill." He just is, that's all. He's just rich, that all. Morality doesn't enter into it.
But then this happened:
Oops.As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
...
oh, the silence.
Bill and Melinda Gates are BY FAR the most generous people on earth. And the money THEY give, is not coming with a contract, like most money coming from the western countries, which demand the help is spend with their companies.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
Out of all Gates' billions stolen from you and me and every poor person on the planet
Lets stay with reality ok? People/companies buy software, nobody is forced to buy it.
Repeat after me: We are all individuals
PLUS you've killed most - if not all - of their natural predators as well.
So not only do you get resistant mosquitos there's now no natural mechanism in place to stop them reproducing in even greater numbers!
And some people want to return to this insanity? I guess conspiracy theories are better than real science.
this guy is a saint
I don't think that anybody can really determine the reason for Bill Gates contributing to humanitarian causes.
But, before you decide to claim him a saint, here are some things to consider:
1) Bill Gates is seen as Microsoft, and Microsoft as Bill Gates; the two are inseparable. If Bill, or the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, does something admirable, Microsoft shares in the glory.
2) Bill Gates doesn't offer this money anonymously, and therefore he's certain to have a reaction such as "Oh, Bill can't be a bad man, Microsoft can't be evil!"
3) Microsoft is still mostly portrayed in a bad light, and the misdeeds of the Beast are still fresh in everybody's mind. Microsoft could do with some positive press. Past experiences, where Bill has given money, certainly show that Microsoft comes out in a good light whenever Bill or his Foundation do something good.
4) We have seen, and we're still seeing anti-competitive practises from Microsoft. For example: Microsoft has in the past audited poor schools, attempting and succeeding to suck thousands of dollars out of them.
5) If you force a poor man to give you money, and then offer some of that money to another poor man, does that make you? I'd say it was more like guilt money.
Things need to be put into perspective.
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
Indeed.
Occasionally when I come here, I get the impression that some people feel that societies would magically get better if everyone just used Open Office and submitted kernel patches.
Technology is great and all, but it's a bit lower in priority compared to food, shelter, and medicine. The basics count, and if Bill Gates wants to donate a quarter of a billion dollars to help cut down on the millions of annual deaths from malaria, there really isn't any good reason to criticize him. Malaria certainly isn't a glamorous cause, but it is no less important.
Read the article here I read this article in the print version of the magazine a couple weeks ago and I think it is relevant to this discussion. Most the things I want to say, this article says better. I will leave it to you to read and discuss.
For the record, mosquitos aren't immune to Plasmodium. If I recall undergraduate biology correctly, Plasmodium shortens the life cycle of mosquitos as well, and some have in fact theorized that the way to eliminate malaria would be to create a defense mechanism in the mosquito itself, that would prevent transmission to humans.
At present, Windows XP, with all its quirkiness and vulnerabilities, wastes the time of some of the most educated and capable people in the world. The $258 million donated is completely and utterly trivial compared to the maintenance cost of Windows XP throughout the world. So you're saying sysadmins would fly to Africa and fight malaria for 10 hours a month if Windows fucked up less?
While *Microsoft* tends to only engage in self-serving philanthropy (giving things away to enhance their business interests in the long term), I have to give kudos to Gates for his foundation. Everything I've ever seen the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation give money to has been a very important cause with absolutely no potential to benefit them or MS materially in any way.
In particular, Gates has backed research into treating the maladies that vex the third world. These are diseases that do incredible harm, but frankly aren't commercially worth the spending medical research dollars on because the people they afflict are so poor. This is why a few hundred million here and there from Gates is such a huge thing. He spends the money that no commercial interest could ever justify spending to try to alleviate the suffering of the worlds poorest residents.
Don't get me wrong here, I have nothing positive to say about how Bill made his money, but he does deserver credit for how he disposes of it through his charity.
I think some "R&D" dollars would be really beneficial as malaria is a pretty crappy disease. I hope that we can use the research and development money to develop a new, more powerful version of malaria.
or else!
Consider the source. According to the Skeptic's Dictionary (not exactly a front for environmentalists), corporate whore Steven J. Milloy of junkscience.com is not exactly a source of objective information.
Agenda an order of business for an official work plan.
Keep those potentional customers alive, and give them microsoft altering drugs that make them crave windows fortnightly.
Oct. 2005-Discovered a cure and developed a syrum for malaria.
Jan. 2006-Announced delay in release of said syrum, while the latest features and security enhancements are added. Announced a release date of Q4 2006.
Q4 2006-Malaria, Longhorn Addition(tm) delayed again while bugs are worked out of all the "features" they added. Expected release Q4 2007
Q4 2007-Malaria syrum further delayed, MS announces that they are dropping the capability to cure malaria, but are releasing it with a sweet new UI (User Injection interface). Expected release: Q4 2008
Q4 2008-Syrum still not released, pirated beta versions of the vaccine flood bit torrent, but look just like all the same old medicines.
or else!
I'm not sure how I feel about reading this sort of thing... On one hand it's truly scary to find people this deluded... On the other it's a handy opportunity to use the Slashdot relationship function to lessen the chance I'll be subjected to it in the future.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Wow, dude, pass that joint over here ....
l
...don't bogart that joint, dude!
Dude, I'd say you've been massively hoodwinked. It took me all of two seconds with google to find this:
http://www.junkscience.com/ddtfaq.htm
Now, that article is a bit long for you, and if you don't have time to read it, please at least read this:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,173766,00.htm
Don't worry, Fox News has dumbed it down to your level, dude.
Hey,
I watch Brit Hume on Fox News
While there is much to criticize about Bill Gates, in selecting a target for his philanthropy, he has done a quite brilliant thing in targeting the single area where an investment in research would yield the greatest return in reduction of human misery. Parasitic diseases in the 3rd world are the source of untold suffering, yet they are not a major target of research dollars because they do not afflict wealthy companies and do not offer a great profit potential for big pharma. So Gates has identified an unmet need, and has put his money precisely where it will do the most good.
It is, of course, always tempting to seek a selfish goal for philanthropy, particularly where the donor is such a shark in the business arena. Obviously, these are not anonymous donations, and Gates reaps benefits in terms of reputation and public relations. Still, there are many areas where he could have made donations that would have had greater visibility and appeal to his primary customer base. People can have multiple motivations for their actions, but it is difficult to doubt that at least part of the motivation behind Gates's philanthropy is the desire to do something really good for people in need.
That'll buy a hell of a lot of DDT, which is the only thing you need to eradicate malaria.
And kill half the population, squash two bugs in one go i guess
"If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low
Sorry, but I must reply again. You claim that DDT is breeding resistant mosquitos, and therefore its use against malaria is unwise. According to that line of "reasoning," we should also stop using antibiotics because they are breeding resistant bacteria. Brilliant! I urge you to decline antibiotics the next time you get a serious infection.
People are dying in Africa by the million, and mental midgets like you have a "scientific" excuse to stand by and let them die. Congratulations, dude. And about that joint...
I watch Brit Hume on Fox News
I think that fixing XP has nothing to do with it. However, if you buy a piece of commercial software, some small portion of it may go to treat malaria. Ok, so it's a good thing. And if you download a piece of comparable able free software, you can donate the $20-$500 you saved to Malaria if you so desire. Or less. And both you and Malaria are likely getting more money. I have no problem with any charitable works. I still think Microsoft is a fairly evil company, because of the tactics it uses. But if Bill Gates spends his money in the right way, that's not a bad thing. Google's motto is "Do no evil", but Microsoft's is still not "Do only evil" I mean, they did make Age of Empires.
Let's not fool ourselves into thinking Bill can just "buy" his bad deeds away by making generous donations. Dirty drug money is still dirty drug money whether it's used for good or not.
Preserve old classics: copy your collection onto all hard drives.
I see I have been modded down to 0. Why I waste my time here on slashdot I have yet to figure out. Folks, DDT could be saving millions of lives in Africa, but folks like you prefer to stand around with your thumbs in your rear ends and let it happen even though a simple solution has existed for decades. Please read this article:
l
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,173766,00.htm
I watch Brit Hume on Fox News
I doubt you read my comment carefully.
Hey, genius, how about this:
l
But when DDT is available, the results are nothing short of spectacular. Indoor spraying with DDT, for example, reduced malaria cases and deaths by nearly 75 percent in Zambia over a two-year period and by 80 percent in South Africa in just one year. DDT works like nothing else - there's simply no doubt about it.
from http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,173766,00.htm
I watch Brit Hume on Fox News
Read your own article and the original article again. (Your article IS interesting just not 100% relevant I think) Gates is not spending his money on 'ineffectual nets and drugs'. He is attempting to get a vaccine invented that will not need the spray of anything. Indeed check this out: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4385432.stm He has previously donated money for research into insecticides and other measures. (albeit including netting) I think the real answer may end up being genetically modifying mosquitos to wipe them out or something.
Seriously...
Bill.. Come on buddy... Cant you just see it in my way and just help a poor man out... Seriously.. shit. Peel me off 3 FUCKING BILLS, BILL!
3 MILL It's all i need!
Fucking mosquitos.
If MS hadn't become the power player in PC software then it would
probably be DR who did. So instead of Bill Gates being rich it would
be Gary Kildall (if he didn't die in 1994 too in this alternate universe).
Someone would have pocketed the money for software since people needed
it. Even if PCs had failed taking DR with it then it would be Apple
could well be top dog or if Macs failed then perhaps the Amiga would be
on everyones desktop now , and so on and so forth.... At any rate,
*someone* would be rich from people buying software.
Sorry, but I must reply again. You claim that DDT is breeding resistant mosquitos, and therefore its use against malaria is unwise. According to that line of "reasoning," we should also stop using antibiotics because they are breeding resistant bacteria. Brilliant! I urge you to decline antibiotics the next time you get a serious infection.
In case you're heard of fun bacteria breeding in hospitals which laugh off usual broad-spectrum antibiotics, you'd know already that would have been a great idea 20 years ago. Now it's a bit late. Ditto for "antibacterial" soaps etc. They're great at breeding resistant bacteria strains.
The trick would have been not to stop using antibiotics, but to use them in moderation. But, as I said, bit late now. Problem has sort of solved itself because most popular broad-spectrum antibiotics are being rendered useless and the rest are hopefully being used in a more sensible manner. Not to mention hospital bacterias require fun antibiotic treatments that seriously screw up your symbiotic bacteria as a side effect.
The way you can make it be:
The choice is yours.
That's all fine. I hope Gates is on the right track, and he may well be. But think about what you are suggesting. According to the other folks here who consider me "deluded," what will happen if we "wipe out" mosquitos? The whole ecosystem will collapse like a house of cards. And if we get a vaccine against malaria, won't malaria just become resistant and harder to deal with? Never mind me; how is Gates going to satisfy them? I don't think he can -- short of letting Africans continue to die by the million.
I watch Brit Hume on Fox News
Sorry, but I must reply again. You claim that DDT is breeding resistant mosquitos, and therefore its use against malaria is unwise. According to that line of "reasoning," we should also stop using antibiotics because they are breeding resistant bacteria. Brilliant! I urge you to decline antibiotics the next time you get a serious infection.
I think you know full well that there is a very big difference between administering antibiotics to a person with bacterial infection and mass spraying great swathes of countryside with them.
People are dying in Africa by the million, and mental midgets like you have a "scientific" excuse to stand by and let them die...
Few points/tips for you:
I guess that besides windows we have a new M*soft sponsored virus now!
make: warning clock skew detected
You wrote:
# I had already read the junkscience article you linked to - it discusses socio-political arguments for the banning of DDT and its impact on humans and wildlife. It mentions effectively NOTHING about the effectiveness of DDT as an insecticide with the exception of a small paragraph about how it still repels resistant mosquitos to some degree.
I reply:
Well, the Fox article says this:
But when DDT is available, the results are nothing short of spectacular. Indoor spraying with DDT, for example, reduced malaria cases and deaths by nearly 75 percent in Zambia over a two-year period and by 80 percent in South Africa in just one year. DDT works like nothing else - there's simply no doubt about it.
You wrote:
# I'm not going to dignify the link to a FOX article, filed in their "VIEWS" section with a response.
I reply:
Oh, I see. Now *that's* a brilliant strategy.
Now let me give *you* a tip. People who dismiss Fox News are ignorant. Yes, I'll agree it has a lot of OJ-style crap, but I watch Brit Hume's news program most nights and it is excellent. It blows away anything on the other major networks. Try watching it a few times. Maybe you'll agree.
As for personal insults, if you read your original reply to me I think it will be clear who started it.
I watch Brit Hume on Fox News
What bill should really do is lobby for the US to stop pressuring africa not to buy or make generic medication. Human life is more important than the possibility of making money.
My new blog
Last time I checked Bill had not deprived me or anyone else of anything, either physically or financially. Whenever I have bought something from Microsoft, I have handed over my money of my own free will and received something back.
The reason people are fawning over his gesture is that he could have quite easily spent all that money on frivillious crap for himself. There are plenty of other multi-millionares who do.
Irrespective of the tax perks that he gets, I (and plenty of others) would prefer that he spent his money in this way rather than on a space trip, a number of islands and a couple of yachts.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Im just curious as to where he decides 358 million, I mean, doesnt that kinda sound like a number you just make up in your head? "Oh im gonna go donate 432 Million to ddt research today". Does the 8 mean anything? Like, I know in an rpg, if I have 358,000 coins, I normally give away 3,000, so it makes my bank look nice and organized by saying 355K. Is that the same reason he gave away 358? Or am I just weird :p
A lot of groups are having dramatic success with fighting mosquitoes by the use of their natural predators, dragonflies. Basically mosquitoes breed in any body of open water, so by inroducing dragonflies to the mix, there are no more mosquitoes. You need to keep adding them every year, but at least its envirnomentally safe (or so it seems so far). As an added bonus, they sure are pretty. :D
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
Hmm. You've said:
(1) Multinational corporation Mobil knows better than ordinary mortals such as you, me, its customers and investors, the people of Indonesia, the potential victims of the violence, etc., what will be consequences of hiring Indonesian thugs. That means Mobil bears primary responsibility for stopping the violence, since none of the rest of us can foresee it. The fact that they did not means they bear primary guilt, or at least share it with the triggermen. They're certainly guiltier than the rest of us. Guilty enough for the OP to call them murderers, a pretty strong charge.
(2) But...you know perfectly well that the money would lead to murder and mayhem, and I don't think you're suggesting you are at Mobil's level of guilt. I also suspect you don't think your insight is especially tricky to come by, requiring much thinking and lots of data, 'cause you made your point in a very few number of words, and in a style that strongly suggests the point should be obvious to any dimwit (like me).
So how do you reconcile these two things? Are you and Mobil and your fellow-thinkers all equally knowledgeable and equally culpable, while the rest of us ignoramuses are innocent? Are you a murderer because you so clearly see that Mobil spent and (presumably) will continue to spend its revenues commiting murder -- and you do nothing more to stop it than post comments on a bulletin board? I mean, have you written to the Indonesian ambassador to warn him or anything? Do you still buy Mobil gas?
Or, does the rule about knowledge conferring responsibility apply only to the employees of Mobil and not to you? Because, say, when you join a multinational your IQ automatically goes up by 20 points. Or are all of us guilty, because we all could have figured it out? Or, um...do you just not like Mobil for some personal reason?
It's the Roman Empire or Genghis Khan argument. It doesn't matter how much power you have, just how you concentrate it. A million individuals doing their own thing will have a less potent effect than a thousand people working on the same thing towards the same goal. Same thing with concentrated sums of money like this.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
Unfortunately money and power are inseparable, because I'd like it much better if people could just get rich, but forget about the power.
They are not inseparable, they are identical. Money is power, the power to command the labor of others. A dollar bill is an IOU for one dollar's worth of labor, and when you hand someone a dollar bill you are promising them a dollar of your labor whenever they want it. (It's worse than that, actually: you also promise that they can give the IOU to anyone they please, and you'll honor your obligation to that other person, whoever he is.)
So, yes, if Bill Gates accumulates 50 billion dollars, he can command 50 billion dollars of labor. That is clearly power.
The nice thing about Bill's power, however, is that those IOUs were freely given, and there is no disenfranchised minority that has to work for him unwillingly. Furthermore, as soon as Bill starts using his power, calling in the IOUs, otherwise known as spending his money, his power decreases. So his power is self-limiting: the more he uses it, the faster he loses it.
On the other hand, political power is far less clean. The President has power over the 46% of the people who did not vote for him, who might loathe him. You've got to work for him (also known as paying your taxes) whether or not you want to, whether or not you want the "products" he's offering you (seeds of democracy and victory in the war on terror, or massive destabilization, the seeds of future terrorism and comprehensive ecocatastrophe, depending on your own favorite flavor of Kool-Aid).
Furthermore, in politics you don't get the choice of saving and not handing out your IOUs. If you don't like anyone's software, you can just not buy anything and save your IOUs for a more deserving product. But every four years, whether you want to or not, you are forced to choose from the candidates running. You can't say, screw this, I will reserve my IOUs (taxes) until I see a better "product" from anothe political leader. Many folks have complained about the famous lack of a "none of the above" option in elections.
After all, he's familiar with the horror of the symptoms. He sees Balmer all jerky with the sweats every day. And every time he sees an iPod he starts rocking and gets the shivers himself.
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
Did you actually... um... read the letter? He goes on for paragraphs talking about how such comments are simple-minded bunk, that the DDT ban did not constitute an instantaneous ban in developing countries (who are still not averse to targetted use today), how widespread outdoor use was actually making the spread of malaria WORSE, how other chemicals are better-used for the purposes of malaria-control and other things they wanted to use DDT for...
I have to congratulate Bill for this. I made a decision recently that I was going to stop hating Bill Gates; let's face it, he does nothing more than make software we don't like. Sure, you could say he's monopolistic, but somewhere along the line, people have forgot that he's just a business trying to maximize profits. A donation like this to fight malaria will no doubt have huge positive effects for Africa, and if it buys him some good will, I see no problem with it. I still hate Windows, and Microsoft in general, but I could hardly think of a better thing to be done with the profits.
Recycled from an above thread, already talking on the matter:
m iles_archive.html#107570569615970184
...and to post the end of the article directly:
http://kenethmiles.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_keneth
The main points:
- People saying "OMG EPA BANZ DDT AT FAULT!" are being simplistic and unscientific
- DDT is not banned from public health use is most places where malaria is endemic
- DDT is kept from most outdoor use because widespread and indescriminate use actually makes the spread of malaria worse... by increasing the mosquito population's resistance to DDT
- other insecticides are much better alternatives to DDT outdoors
Most nations where malaria is a problem, and most health professionals working in the field of malaria control, support the targeted use of DDT, as part of the tool kit for malaria control. Most also agree that more cost-effective, less environmentally persistent alternatives are needed. There are some effective alternative chemicals for the control of adult mosquitoes, but preventing their further development is lack of invest ment by industry, because malaria is largely a disease of the poor.
Malaria is responsible for enormous suffering and death. The facts are readily available in the scientific literature. To blame a reduction in DDT usage for the death of 10-30 million people from malaria is not just simple-minded, it is demonstrably wrong. To blame a mythical, monolithic entity called the environmental lobby for the total reduction in DDT usage is not just paranoid, it is also demonstrably wrong.
Nothing. All my 3 computers are running Linux.
I don't know what kind of philanthropy gives out less than it takes in and never more than ~5% of its net worth, but it's not a typical one and certainly not one to hold up as the embodiment of charitable acts.
Its quite simple really. Historical trends of the stock market show returns of about 10%. Current inflation rate is about 3%, but that jumps up to 10% or more. By donating 5% of his net worth he is pretty much assured that by next year his profits in the stock market, minus inflation will allow him to do the same again. In perpetuity. This is economics 101.
-everphilski-
Learn some tax laws. I would expect such ignorance only if you never donated any money to charity.
You can't gain any money by giving money to charity. All tax breaks do is lessen the amount you pay to the government!!
If you earned $1 billion and then give $100 million to charity, the government sees it as though you earned $900 million. So you pay tax as though you earned $900 million. That's all!
You gain the satisfaction that the government isn't wasting your money and that it is going to something you believe in.
And no there is no way to gain more money by traversing tax brackets (go plug the numbers in a tax program if you dont understand tax laws). And even if there was (which is impossible but many fools believe it), Bill Gates is firmly in the top tax bracket (over $150 thousand dollars income) no matter how many billions he gives away.
If those children were in rich countries, we would have headlines, wed take action. We wouldnt rest until every child was protected.
He's forgotten two things. The US DID have mosquito born illness and the cure was mosquito irradiation by draining swamps near people. Elimination of the vector is really the only means of eliminating the disseases associated with it.
It will be interesting to see if this $250,000,000 gift will produce a miracle cure. Who knows, it might be cheaper to make a drug than it is to drain swamps. Given the global drug distribution record, I'm inclined to think the money would have been better spent the way the US spent it 100 years ago.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
You'd think that there'd be enough room in the marketplace for at more than one blood-sucking parasite*, but noooo - Microsoft has squash the competition. Thank heavens for Open Sores!
oh well, he's a bastard no doubt. But if satan himself offered me a cure for cancer, i'd be onboard ;)
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
Um, yes, many people are. People are coerced into believing that they will not be able to submit a resume without Microsoft Word, students are forced to learn Windows in school believing that they will be jobless forever without it, anybody wishing to view files in a proprietary format such as Windows Media Player is forced to use it, Windows comes pre-installed on 98% of the computers sold today...I could go on and on. Yes, some of us resist...and to hear the rest of you tell it, at great inconvenience to ourselves (not true) and we're fools to do so anyway (huh!). Nice try, but the name of the game, after all, is monopoly!
Things do not occur absent a cause, and in this case, the cause is empathy. Empathy is an illusion. Humans can choose whether or not to disregard empathic feelings (for a variety of judicious reasons), chipanzees cannot.
Thank you for opening that point up for debate. I, in fact, postulate that somebody who's *never* *even* *used* a computer has been victimized by Bill Gates. How? This person buys food at the store. The store depends on a network to co-ordinate shipping and stocking, and business accounting software. This stores computers are hit with viruses and worms at least once a month. The viruses and worms are possible because of software that the company (a) won't fix, and (b) is illegal for anybody else to fix! The inconvenience shows up in the bottom line as computer maintenence.
But let's look at the big picture. Has it ever occured to you how much farther technology would have advanced if those of us who are non-Windows would not have had to expend *so* *much* energy fighting a monopoly off of our backs that is determined to crush us? Even though I don't use Windows, it makes a problem for me. I run shell cripts to convert MS's bungled text to a format that will display on my screen without breaking. I view email from MS accounts with extra suspicion. My internet service provider was bullied into saying "We don't support Linux", even though all it took was a 20-line configuration script to fool their servers into believing they were talking to a Windows computer, so I could use the internet. My local school has tons of computer problems, and I've offered to provide some Linux CDs free to both alleviate some of their expenditure (their budgets are getting cut again, quite a few schools have closed down), but unfortunately their printers and other hardware is, of course, wired to talk to Windows only.
Bah, this is just the chaff at the top of the barrel. Everything I cite here has been cited before, by more gifted writers than I. Wave your pom-poms for Billy if you like, but don't expect me not to point out that you look silly doing so.
You source nothing to back up your assertion that DDT is environmentally safe, and then claim that the hundreds of millions of dollars would be better spent buying and spraying DDT instead of conducting research
Although you are putting words in his mouth by trying to make him say that DDT is environmentally safe, what you fail to note is that when used to combat malaria the side-effects of DDT plus the harm of any remaining malaria is significantly less than any other current solution.
Over 400 doctors agree: http://www.malaria.org/DDTpage.html
As for referencing a newly discovered gene and holding it up as some sort of solution, you are ignoring the many more years of R&D that will be required to make use of that information. In the mean time DDT spraying saves lives today and could come close to erradication if used properly.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Does he think that's going to get him out of our contract?!?! HAH! -- Satan
Linux with kernel panic...
MadPenguin.org
I would just like to add that malaria causes mosquitoes to be more attracted to you than usual. Also, that malaria will kill the mosquito, so this malaria-resistance gene should be a survival advantage to them. I think that I would agree with the GP, though. Spraying DDT may be a reccurring cost, but so is treating (or not treating!) malaria.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Preventing children from dying is great. On the other hand, it could be very short-sighted. If the death rate suddenly drops without an equivalent decrease in the birth rate, the result could be an even greater disaster.
No one, robber baron or not, has given so much wealth to solving major problems of the human condition. He is as a great example to other billionaires out there. I predict he'll get the peace prize some years down the line.
Malcolm Gladwell ("The Tipping Point") wrote an excellent article about this: http://www.gladwell.com/2001/2001_07_02_a_ddt.htm
Last time I checked a good act was a good act.
"I have $1 000 000 for the orphans. Here, take it."
**"No! You bastard you have billions."
"But it's for the kids to help them."
**"But relatively, it's worth cents to you."
"So you'd rather fifty cents from an impoverished man, with which you could buy nothing?"
**"Yes."
"Rather than my millions which will feed, house and educate them?"
**"Yes!"
"There is a reason you're poor you know. It's because you're stupid, and don't understand something that's good for you when it is thrown at you in small notes in leather briefcases."
your internet tax dollars at work!
Seriously, in the balance, does this make up for the damage he's done? The economic drain of a poor quality product and price gouging by a monopoly? Would that money have gone to as good or better causes if it had remained in the coffers of other corporations or individuals? Can you buy your way from evil to good?
Just some random thoughts.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
OK, now that the obvious joke is out of the way, you do have to hand it to the guy for doing this. As an orphan disease, malaria research doesn't get nearly enough funding. Doing something like this puts him on the side of the angels (for this particular skirmish).
That is all.
Ok, I get it.
You made a point that was patently wrong (nice job on that) and when your point is disproved, you start a rant about
"no evidence in that annual report that actual cash money was given away to anyone."
Stop being such a pathetic hater. Just admit you hate MS, and by extension Bill Gates, and be done with it.
It's already obvious to everyone else.
There was a big article in the New Yorker about Gates' foundation's attack on malaria.
I kept wondering, though, what happens when the population spikes in many desperately poor and often politically dysfunctional (of not openly anarchic) nations when a leading cause of death is eliminated?
Are we trading one problem -- malaria -- for another problem, like overpopulation, that will only make the civil strife and poverty problems plaguing these countries worse, not better?
It just strikes me that this has the potential to do as much damage long term as it does good in the short term. Which isn't to say we shouldn't solve the problem of malaria, but it struck me when reading the NY article that the entire problem of overpopulation, poverty, civil strife, etc in poor countires would just magically disappear when malaria was cured by western technology, much as Africa was "saved" by the green revolution in agriculture.
I agree that genetically mutating away mosquitos would have unforeseen consequences with other parts of the ecosystem... (not sure about total collapse).
But how is the DDT solution any different? Killing off mozzies with genetics will just mean no DDT in the ecosystem. And what you are saying about why vaccinate because malaria will just mutate... why vaccinate against anything?
Smallpox vaccine was a waste of time?
Ok, you posted two links which have nothing to do with the question.
If you knew SQUAT about investing, you'd realize virtually anyone with a mututal fund has their money in some kind of pharmaceutical stock. Since when is that in any way wrong?
No, what you did was try to associate the investments of the foundation with some scheme, for which you provided ZERO evidence.
PLEASE, PLEASE shut up now. No one beleives you (who isn't already an unabaashed MS hater) and you're not convincing. Actually, you're really quite sad with your trumped up anti-BG crusade.
Don't be an asshat.
Los Angeles Unified School District gathered $500,000 to donate to the Hurricane Katrina Victims.
Also in the news. People were seen performing random acts of Kindness, and senseless caring for others; All without the aid of a Public Relations Corporation. Film of this amazing set of events at 11:00pm tonight.
Shares in Schweppes skyrocketed today after half a billion bottles of tonic water flew off the shelves.
In fact, using the wikipedia numbers regarding his net worth ($51.5 billion), he donated just over .5% of his net worth.
I made about $5,000 last year (I'm a full-time student). His donation is equivalent, in "wow, how generous" terms, to me donating $25. The average American makes about $45,000. The equivalent would be about $225.*
Will the donation save countless lives? Definitely.
Was the donation generous? Hardly.
Lay down some real money, Bill. Maybe then you'll have my respect.
*Obviously, yearly income != net worth, but its the best analogy I could make.
Hand given. Now how in the world is this "news for nerds"? If it didn't have BG in the headlines would it have made it as a post? Noooo...
The number of negative posts aimed at Gates and Microsoft is disheartening. So MS built it's empire by trying to put every competator out of business, and in turn put out products that most see as sub-standard.
I sometimes wonder if people understand much about the business world. I'm sure there's a good number of you who drive Ford or GM vehicles even though the quality is sub-standard and the companies are horribly run. I'm sure 95% of the people here eat fast food occasionally, even though we know the companies are not putting our health at the top of their priority list.
The anti-Bill act gets old. I, for one, have been very impressed with the time and money he has given in his lifetime. It's time to set personal feelings aside and praise him for his humanitarian efforts! If you refuse to give him praise, then kindly skip over threads about him donating to a worthwhile cause.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
while you're at it, have a good barf at the moderating in this thread. Every post that is critical of Saint bill is moderated troll! LOL! Poor lil mod, you just can't stand to hear your hero criticized!
we will end no whine before its time
... have you considered where that money would be if he didn't control it, how it would have benefited the tech economy and boosted salaries and morale in the industry, and that more than $258 million probably would have gone to this charity if it weren't for him? I argue that Bill Gates has taken much more from the world than he could ever give back.
This comment sponsored by the belief that you can't steal and bully for years and then turn around and donate a small percentage of your ill-gotten gains and somehow expect that you've made a positive difference in the world.
I know people that give everything and take nothing. Truly amazing people. Those people are the real heroes, and I wish I could give them Billy's income, because they are much more deserving, and would do much more good with it.
Troll? Truth hurts doesn't it. Or in the only Spanish I know: La verdad es amarga.
Or something like that.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
Although you are putting words in his mouth by trying to make him say that DDT is environmentally safe, what you fail to note is that when used to combat malaria the side-effects of DDT plus the harm of any remaining malaria is significantly less than any other current solution.
The OP asserted that DDT is safe and effective by using an ad hominem attack against environmentalists - not a rational argument. That was my point. As for your link, it's interesting and worth reading. I'd be curious to see a the results of an interdisciplinary cost-benefit analysis with physicians and biologists. The physicians you site may be right that it is the cheapest and most effective way to reduce malaria deaths in the developing world - but they aren't considering long term consequences of DDT use (either to the ecosystem, or to human health). OTOH: it may turn out that DDT (or something similar that's less toxic) is worth the environmental damage. I'm not qualified to judge, but IMO I doubt widespread use of DDT is worth the risk. --M
"Smallpox vaccine was a waste of time?"
I think you're confusing my sarcasm with my actual point.
I was applying the principle of reductio ad absurdum to the other guy's position that we should not use DDT because it causes DDT-resistant mosquitos to develop.
I watch Brit Hume on Fox News
Is this a preview of the new antivirus features in windows?
--WooooHoooo--
Refer to my BBC article... the BBC is far more respectable than rantings of some random personal blog you have posted as your "definitive proof". And according to the BBC:
1. FACT: Experts such as Len Ritter from the Canadian Network of Toxicology Centres say that "I would say on the totality of the weight of the evidence, I could not conclude that DDT poses a significant risk of cancer".
2. FACT: Attempts at using alternatives have caused the 10 fold increase in Malaria cases... From the article:
"Eight years ago South Africa switched from DDT to a different type of insecticide called pyrethroids, regarded as more environmentally benign. But within four years, mosquitoes became resistant, and the annual number of malaria cases rose tenfold. This paralleled the experience of Madagascar, which suffered an epidemic of malaria in the late 1980s, brought on by the curtailment of DDT spraying programmes - only curbed again by its re-introduction."
3. FACT: Western governments and political groups are openly admiting they are discouraging the use of DDT. From the article:
"DDT is one of 12 substances deemed to be environmentally damaging that will be banned shortly under a new treaty. The global treaty is called Pops, short for Persistent Organic Pollutants, and comes into force in 12 months' time... Environmental groups like Greenpeace lobby for the Pops exemption to end in just a few years' time."
"However, the British government's Department for International Development funds 13 malaria-only projects in eight African countries; none of them uses DDT."
"The Swedish aid agency Sida has a procurement policy expressly prohibiting the use of its funds for buying DDT."
"The US aid agency USAid was unable to supply such data, but told the BBC: "For most countries with USAid support for malaria control in sub-Saharan Africa, indoor residual spraying has not been judged to be the most effective use of US government funds."
"Perhaps the most damaging allegation is that United Nations organisations are ignoring the opportunities offered by spraying. A few months ago the UN agency Roll Back Malaria produced a draft document called Scaling Up For Sustainable Impact which set out a suggested strategy for the next four years. One group of leading experts sent back a lengthy critique. 'We consider that the dismissive paragraph about indoor residual spraying is seriously flawed.'"
Let's face it, everyone of us able to read slashdot have our basic needs taken care of (except maybe sex, u geeks!), and Bills "evil empire" then takes some amount of our money, or steals it, as few of you guys would put it (as a charge for crappy software and yadayadayada). And then he transfers loads of money to the really poor, who don't have their basic needs taken care of and who's average lifespan is 30 years or so.
Um, a lot of the rhetoric back and forth on this point is speculation and unverifiable. But there's one fact that stands out:
Mosquitos are now resistant to DDT.
So, uh, obviously we used plenty of it, environmentalists or not, to kill off all the non-immune mosquitos. So we did as much with DDT as we could. Whether Rachel Carson's book had any effect on our usage pattern is still debatable, but the fact regarding DDT is that it wouldn't have mattered anyways. It had a very short useful lifespan, which we used up.
So all the environmentalist haters can keep on hating -- if DDT was useful maybe ol' Rachel would have screwed it up. But it wasn't that useful as we now know, so I don't think we can actually pin any lives on her.
Cheers.
Fighting Malaria with DDT in South Africa
You're not following the scam. It's not the Foundation pharma stock holdings that are making BIllG the profits, it's his PERSONAL holdings in big pharma. BillG already got a huge tax writeoff when he endowed the Foundation with a few billion bucks worth of MSFT stock (note: he hasn't sunk another dime into its endowment since). Any increase in the Foundation's portfolio goes back into the Foundation's endowment, not BillG's pocket. BillG can't touch the Foundation's money, but he can use their money to seed projects that he will profit from with HIS personal portfolio.
DDT to fight Malaria in South Africa
But in 2000, [South Africa] saw malaria cases skyrocket to 65,000 and 458 people were killed.
Provincial health minister Seaparo Sekwati defends the use of DDT, saying it saves lives.
"We have decided that as South Africa, as a developing country, we are going to use the most accessible DDT which is also cost effective because we cannot go for expensive things which we cannot afford as a country.
"We are going to continue using DDT as it has worked and has worked for those developed countries in the past."
Last year only 89 deaths were recorded.
This whole talk of DDT immunity is silly because DDT has a combination of repellent, irritant, and slow-acting toxic actions to mosquitos. It is becoming evident that its repellent activity is actually most useful in reducing actual malaria deaths (moving the vector away from people through wide area spraying, as well as impregnated bed netting).
Read more here for a balanced view.
Has it ever occured to you how much farther technology would have advanced if those of us who are non-Windows would not have had to expend *so* *much* energy fighting a monopoly off of our backs that is determined to crush us?
;)
I remember back when there was not an OS monopoly for microcomputers...has it ever occured to you how annoying it is to have to write a program in 10 different operating systems?
Windows is a monopoly because there is a convenient network-effect from having an OS standard, and Linux just doesn't stand up on the desktop for most people at all, viruses or no viruses. Yes, I run a Linux web server.
At the same time, it is clear to me that competition from Linux has made Windows 2000 much more stable than Windows NT, and Windows XP and 2003 are beginnng to address real security problems.
Ahhh... I see... sorry, missed the other comment about the DDT-resistant mozzies.
Rigtfully shot down and I learnt a new latin term out of the whole thing!
Mosquitos are now resistant to DDT.
The link points out that one reason DDT no longer kills as many mosquitoes may be that they've learned to detect and avoid it. In that case, its use in populated areas would still be beneficial, if it has the effect of chasing the mosquito-breeding colonies out of the village.
So the development of resistance may not necessarily be a showstopper for a given agent. I'm not qualified to say if that's the case here, but the reality is, only the pro-DDT junkscience.com guy is actually bringing citations to the table. The environmentalists are backing and filling as if they were driving the bulldozer.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
OK, that's the 1000th time I've heard that one, and I promised myself back when the count was in the mid-900's that I'd start saying this...so, congratulations, you're the first one to hear it: With all due respect(becasue you do have a wit about you), you're full of shit. You need to update yourself from Ygdrassil or Debian 1.0 or whatever you're running on a server. Try Knoppix or Mandriva (no, I don't mean for your server); Linux on the desktop has met, and SURPASSED every other system. Go look at the screenshots of KDE http://xwinman.org/screenshots/kde-anakin.jpg and Gnome http://xwinman.org/screenshots/gnome.jpg and Window Maker http://xwinman.org/screenshots/wmaker-matt.jpg and Fluxbox http://xwinman.org/screenshots/fluxbox-dbl.jpg, to name four out of 50 http://xwinman.org/ : if there's anything Linux isn't doing in this day and age (2005) on the desktop, it cannot be done. And I daresay that if there's a Window's desktop that comes close to the beauty and function of some of the *mediocre* Linux desktops, I'd like to see the screenshot.
It isn't a beauty or function issue, it is a usability issue. OSX seems to have conquered this issue.
(I like Knoppix on my laptop, but my non-geek friends don't.)
In an absolute sense, yes. But are you more charitable per dollar of income? It would be strange if that were true. Here is a PDF prepared by the Treasury Department on charitable giving in the United States. Some interesting numbers in the tables come from income tax records and allow us to calculate roughly the average amount of money given to charity by Americans in 1995 or so, both absolutely and as a fraction of their adjusted gross income (AGI):What we find is that the absolute dollar amounts of charitable giving rise with income, as you say. But the amount of giving per dollar of income falls, at least until you get to the few very rich people there are.
Hence, for example, four people with incomes of 20,000 give more to charity than two people with incomes of 40,000, who in turn give more to charity than one person with an income of 80,000. Odd fact of human behaviour.
Wow! That is quite an illuminating article. I hope some of the DDT naysayers here see it.
That's an interesting website you have too.
I watch Brit Hume on Fox News
I urge you to read this petition:
http://www.fightingmalaria.org/petition.php
And I apologize for the arrogant tone of my reply to your post. Even though I thought yours was arrogant too, two wrongs don't make a right.
I watch Brit Hume on Fox News
OK, blow me away. What is unusable?
Poor nations are more likely to use Open Source software.
There was news about India becoming a big tech nation, and Open Source was also mentioned quite a lot. Microsoft saw this, and even admitted that India was of "strategic importance". The Foundation donated millions to fighting AIDS in India, right at the time Microsoft was attempting to get the Government away from Open Source and into Microsoft solutions.
Microsoft - Not Bill or the Foundation - is giving away software and training to Africa. This is occurring at the same time as Bill and the Foundation's donation to fight Malaria.
Microsoft has been focusing on the poor countries, such as India and Africa, and has been pushing its software there far more than anywhere else.
If the poor countries establish themselves on non-Microsoft solutions, that basically cuts out Microsoft for the future, which could be bad news if those nations get on their feet and start making good money - which is what is predicted.
Microsoft has only focused on the nations where Open Source is starting to take hold. First it was India, and now Africa.
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
There are areas of special importance for Microsoft, and for the Foundation. These areas are usually the ones that make the news.
There are always links between them:
Take India for example. Microsoft said that India was of "strategic importance". At the same time, Bill and the Foundation donated millions towards fighting AIDS in India. This was also at a time where Open Source was the talk of the town in India.
Microsoft was making a SPECIFIC push in India, and that's where its 'donation' went.
Now Microsoft is making a push in Africa, and amazingly enough, that's where its latest donation is going to benefit.
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News