Slashdot Mirror
Bill Gates Unleashes Swarm of Mosquitoes
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft founder turned philanthropist Bill Gates released a glass full of mosquitoes at an elite Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference to make a point about the deadly sting of malaria.
'Malaria is spread by mosquitoes,' Gates said while opening a jar on stage at a gathering known to attract technology kings, politicians, and Hollywood stars.
'I brought some. Here I'll let them roam around. There is no reason only poor people should be infected.'" Say what you will about the guy, that is showmanship. Well done.
What has Gates done PERSONALLY to make slashdotters so hateful of him? Honestly, the real reason Microsoft is able to get away with what it does is that monopolies are an inherent flaw in our current economic system. Microsoft is no different, or annoying and heartless, than the cell phone companies or how AT&T was.
Bill Gates smoothly made sure his company won the monopoly, but even without the man, a different software company would have won it.
I bet they were mosquitoes that don't bite at all, eg ones that just eat nectar. In any case only the females suck blood. (Pause for jokes...) If anyone had been bitten I'm sure we would have heard of it pretty quickly -- who wouldn't like to sue Bill Gates?
If you're a tech king or politician, would you want to be known as "the guy that sued the richest-man-turned-philantropist over a bug sting"?
Nobody in that could would ever talk to you again. Let alone invite you to dinner, because they could just happen to offer you something you might be allergic to and sue again.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Why is every MS story being tagged astroturfing? Do people even know what that word means, or are there really people who harbor such paranoia and belief in grand conspiracies (some kind of tech version of 9/11 Truthers)?
I bet someone's going to accuse me of astroturfing with this post and being a shill for Gates..
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Gates has always been largely hated here and in the IT community because of course he's the one who lumped us all with the worst of Microsoft's products as well as the best ones. It was his company that was hit by the major anti-trust suit and so on. Whilst the company he was responsible for is indeed guilty of being not particularly nice and whilst it's a fair comment to make that if he was in charge, then he is responsible too I think it's a little more complex than that.
Microsoft as a company aside, I'm not convinced Bill Gates is actually that bad a person.
I think maybe he got blinded sometimes by the position he was in and made bad decisions, other times there's been videos of him snapping at staff and so on but these strike me as particularly human traits, in the case of geeks who aren't the greatest at dealing with people, the latter doesn't strike me as being particularly unusual. After all, even Steve Jobs who is much more of a people person that Gates has ever been is equally guilty of such treatment of his staff. What's more, Jobs has also never been one for philanthropy either- in fact, on the contrary, he actually cut Apple's philanthropy programs when he returned to the company and never brought them back.
Some may argue the only reason he gives to charity is as a tax dodge, but if that's really true why does he do things like this? If it were a mere tax dodge, then there's no reason he'd need to waste his time.
This view I have of him nowadays was somewhat reinforced in a recent documentary on him that I watched the other day - "Bill Gates - How a Geek Changed the World" which was certainly interesting. Of course, we never know whether documentaries like these are made with an air of bias to them or not, similarly we don't know if everything Bill does really is just a show. But honestly, now he's no longer at Microsoft and still is willing to do things like this I think I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for now unless he does something to prove otherwise.
I think it's true when some commentators suggest that a few decades down the line, when Gates is old and dying that he indeed wont be remembered as that guy that ran that evil company and is hence evil himself, but will be seen more as a pretty decent bloke. I think as a person, Microsoft as a company has actually done more harm to his image than he perhaps deserves. I'm just not convinced anymore that Gates is one of those people who does necessarily deserve to go down in history as a bad guy. I may be proven wrong as time goes on, but only time will tell I suppose.
Drug dealers and minorities do, WASP billionaires don't.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
As someone who grew up around poor white people, I find your statement offensive. "The system" treats all poor people badly, regardless of ancestry (see sig).
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
This is a beautiful illustration if the Liberal mindset. Rather than trying to raise the poor by eliminating mosquitoes he's trying to equalize everyone by lowering the wealthy.
Or, an alternate way to look at it is that he's trying to remind the wealthy that just sitting still and letting poor rot instead of trying to help raise them up isn't a good thing. Encouraging empathy by upsetting their comfortable little world and letting them know a little bit of what the plebians feel of fear. Sometimes you've got be knocked on your ass once to appreciate the view. Dunno why this is a "Liberal" thing in your mind (and thus bad?), but there you go.
Maybe it's just his way of saying, "Memento mori, bitches."
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
You are an idiot. RTFA first and then comment.
Attendees are pissed? So wtf? Just a (fake) taste of reality is enough to get the attendees pissed eh?
I am from 3rd world, have been here in the US for a decade now. I'm appalled at the ignorance in this country about the way of life in the tropics (which doesn't necessarily equal 3rd world). Those diseases are real, regardless of your sense of hygiene and health. And can affect you anytime. People die of Dengue, Malaria and Meningitis because of mosquitoes. At the very least, mosquitoes are annoying as hell. When I was back there I used to dream of spreading a mosquito-killing virus and eradicating them.
What he did was perfectly fine, even if a bit sensationalist. He made a point.
> Why don't other societies do that, too?
Uh...poverty?
> Why is it our job to do it for them?
Uh...kindness?
The posers out there that want tax payer money to go to their cause are the absolute stingiest when it comes to their own money. Their motto is "Someone should give money, but it's not going to be me." That's cowardice, phoniness, and should be shamed. The idea of the government giving out charity money is awful for the personal growth and personal connection that donors get when giving their own money, under their own will, not under the threat of government force.
For Bill and Melinda to commit to giving all of their wealth away to charity before dying is beyond noble.
Bill's mosquito release brings a very real situation to a mostly sheltered culture. Those I know that have gone on mission trips to poverty stricken countries all profess that the were forever changed by the experience. Gates unleashed a small jar of change on that crowd, and I do hope it takes root and holds.
So, by using a stage trick (because you know all those mosquitoes really were carrying the malaria virus) to try and shock a group of people out of apathy Gates somehow becomes a "Liberal" who wants to equalize society at the lowest common denominator? What are you smoking and why aren't you sharing? First of you equate a "Liberal mindset" with some sort of Huxley like uber-socialism. Then you say he's trying to lower the wealthy (no one said the audience was wealthy, they're just not 3rd world poor) instead of helping the poor (he's spent billions doing just that). I think your analysis of his symbolism says more about the way you think than it says anything about Gates' action.
Definitely eliminating the mosquitoes is what he should be working for. I am sure they server no ecological role at all.
I can't tell if you're being serious with that comment or not.
At any rate, just to play Devil's Advocate here and name at least one situation where they could play a significant ecological role, off the top of my head I'm sure it'd effect the bat population. Which in turn could effect the populations of other bugs, causing them to grow. Sure, initially the bat population would just shrink to fit their reduced food sources, and the other bug populations would remain unchanged, but a shrunken population means less diversion between the bats which makes them more susceptible to, say, an illness wiping them all out, which then the other bugs populations would grow.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
I don't think even getting infected reveals the horror of malaria. The true horror of malaria is getting the disease and not having access to the health care necessary to save your life.
I had a friend who spent 2 years traveling through Africa. He got Malaria twice but had health coverage and was able to get the care he needed to survive. According to him, the experience "sucked" (both actually having the disease and it cutting time and money that he was planning on spending on his trip), but he survived with very few lasting consequences.
Getting the disease gives you some notion of what it's like, but only in the same way that not eating for a day or two would give you an insight into living in poverty and famine.