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.
Releasing bugs into the wild while complaining about viruses.
Although this time around, I'm on his side.
My work here is dung.
Bill does this all the time at the office for target practice for Ballmer.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
Jeez, even his philanthropy has bugs!
If he ever gives a speech about rabies, I'm not going...
"...politicians, and Hollywood stars" Those types will suck the juices out of those poor helpless mosquitoes.
Dear god, won't somebody think of the mosquitoes?!
Sheldon
Some people are allergic to mosquito bites even if the mosquitoes are disease-free. Harm is not necessary in most states to convice for assault (that's battery). Just the threat of harm.
For his next trick, to highlight the need for stricter gun control laws, Bill Gates will fire a gun into a crowd while shouting "there is no reason why only poor people should suffer from gun crimes!"
I think Al Gore plans on having a volcano erupt in downtown Manhattan to emphasize that ecological disasters are not just some fringe pacific "ring of fire" problem, but I hear he's having trouble getting a permit from the city.
You should have been at the function where he released 100 screaming Rhesus monkeys into the audience to highlight the problems of Ebola virus. It was great fun watching the attendees trying to avoid being bitten.
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.
Sure, it might be showmanship... But who's going to get the last laugh when the various "technology kings, politicians, and Hollywood stars" are infected by mosquito-transmitting borg nanites installed by Bill Gates himself?!
wear one of those head covering mosquito nets, or like what Beekeepers wear. that would be pretty funny :)
to suffer some disease?
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
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.
this idea was invented by shampoo
Yes, there is — the richer people can afford both the knowledge of the danger, and the means of defense.
Other things being equal, poor people will always have it worse, than the rich. Bill Gates' trick — and the accompanying rhetoric — certainly made news already and will continue to do so &mdash as he intended. But it is just a buzz-generating trick — not unlike the naked PETA protesters.
His main message — that having vast numbers of people suffer and die from preventable and treatable diseases (like malaria) sucks — is quite correct and on-target. But if he wants my money (or other, non-monetary, assistance) to help with it, he better dispense with the near-Socialist proclamations...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
You don't say that Bill has seen someone else's idea, thought "hey, that's neat" and copied it without referencing it, do you?
How dare you suggest something like this?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
One hopes he comes down with malaria some time - it's so often the gift that keeps on giving.
I thought that was Herpes?
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
What about this indicates a faux grassroots movement? Words like 'astroturfing' quickly lose their meaning when abused like this...
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
Everybody is slightly allergic to the bite. Just let the mosquito finish and it will pull back the anti-coagulant. As to this being assult, more likely than not, the man has a EULA at the front door that says that by entering these doors, you agree not to sue. It would be that smudge that everybody saw on the bottom of the board going in.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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.
Not another 'anti-Bill' troll - kudos for what he's trying to do for world health, but:
Reminds me of the infamous 'anthrax' incident with Colin Powell. I'm all for livening up presentations, but the risk with this kind of stunt is that it will be the only thing attendees will remember.
Also, scaring/threatening people you are (presumably) hoping will help you is perhaps not the best...
Extremely intelligent people often display signs of being
hard working, over exaggerated, and psychopathic. He is no
exception.
It not be much of a stretch to portray the role of a great
philanthropist; flaunting someone else's money of course.
Maybe he wants to ensure that CABO SAN LUCAS is always
malaria-free so that he won't contract it in his new palace,
next the sea of cortez.
.
OK, he's an idiot.
Thank you. I thought this was a stupid stunt, and I wish someone would have told him where to get off the train. I wonder how he would enjoy someone pulling a Penn and Teller, and releasing a thousand or so roaches in his house.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
what bill gates releasing bugs onto his captive audience??? nothing new here although this could make for a nice trademark for all his future appearances. like gallagher's watermellons.
... it bites!
And it is pretty much just one big bug.
Was he giving a speech to the CDC? No. Know to target the right audience. I'm still searching for the "point" he was trying to make targeting THAT group of people in an act that could be considered terrorism under our "new and improved" laws.
uhh... because they're rich and might lend money to the cause? Do you think the CDC needs convincing that malaria is a problem?
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
They may or may not eat mosquitoes, (but since they were imaginary mosquitoes it is largely irrelevant) but you can bet people will like them more than mosquitoes.
They always come up with the funniest stories.
What? Fox News? But they got the story from The Onion, right?
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
Man, I would hate to be the sucker who has to put all those mosquito in the jar.
Bill: Steve, Can you come in here. ......
Steve: Hey bill, hope you are happy with optimization I put in Windows 7 Kernel.
Bill: Yah that is pretty good, I have another project for you.
Steve: Sure Bill, anything for you.
Bill: I want you to
Steve: You want me to what?
That could also be considered assault. Especially if he insinuated that they were carrying malaria.
Bill Gates sometimes strikes me as the nerdy James-Bond-villan type that would invent some type of super-virus and release it on the world via mosquitoes.
PERL:
All of the power of Voodoo with most of the understandibility!
What? you think the CDC isn't already aware of Malaria? Wouldn't that be preaching to the choir?
If they don't, I hope Bill's next speech is about how inadequate, and incompetent the CDC is...
The idea behind giving a speech to people who are celebrities and/or have money is, they in-turn can help bring attention to, or fund groups and organizations who (perhaps) need more funding such as the CDC.
Secondly, I'm sure that the mosquito's were grown/breed/harvested from tested mosquito's in a sanitary environment, do you think he just hired some guy with a net to go scoop some up?
Lyme Disease is spread by deer ticks. If those were North American mosquitoes they almost certainly weren't Malaria carriers. The chances of any particular mosquito being a carrier of any human illness is vanishingly small. Especially considering the time of year the bugs probably weren't wild ones but research mosquitoes raised in captivity and therefor clean.
All in all a pretty cool stunt in my opinion.
As someone who researches Malaria for a living I must wholeheartedly support the funding that the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is bringing to the field of Malaria research. Malaria might only be a "poor" person disease but it affects tens of millions of people a year. Even on a selfish note, with global warming creeping up on us in the next few decades, perhaps this pre-emptive strike by the West will save us all getting sick in the long run.
It's not just the poor Windows users that should be infected with viruses. Viruses should infect Mac OS and Linux and other operating systems so that their users get to have infected operating systems too.
Regards,
Ryan Pritchard
Fun Extends All Basic Life Expectancies
There are much bigger, real, crimes to go after Billg for, anyway.
you had me at #!
Microsoft embodies his brand of heedless, amoral greed. The damage he's done to civilisation is incalculable.
you had me at #!
I wouldnt be surprised if these were non-biting or male just to avoid any liability. Bill Gates isnt stuipd and even if he was his lawyers wouldnt let him do anything dangerous.
Bwahhhha! The monopoly was built on privilege, luck, raw opportunism, and a total lack of ethics.
Technology isn't even a factor.
you had me at #!
We're surprised about Gates releasing thousands of bugs?!
This signature can save you $400 on your car insurance!
Bill Gates is no more philantophist than any other greedy bastard out there. Its just about PR and trying to be known as more than the one that made computers suck.
No amount of PR can take away the fact that every single penny that man gives to charity is ill-gotten and smells of ruined companies, lives and technologichal breakthroughs killed in their infancy.
At best its an attempt to upweigh all the bad things he has done with some good things, just like your local drugdealer helps the poor but still is a drug dealer.
HTTP/1.1 400
What part of that was offtopic? Rarely is a slashdot comment so on-topic, in fact. (THIS comment is offtopic. The above, however, isn't even flamebait (unless your sphincter is so tight that when you fart it can only be heard by dogs and little girls.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
His company has repeatedly been convicted of criminality, and this trait is Gates'. The leopard does not change its spots.
We're globally paying the price for the fact that someone so corrupt was allowed to seize so much power and money (the misuse of that power continues via the Foundation).
you had me at #!
Well, he freed us from spam three years ago, so he's probably our best hope against malaria.
Anyone else become a bit itchy while reading the article?
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
"There is no reason only rich people should be infected."
Since the linked article (yes, I read it) has a picture of Gates with the jar open, you should not be modded "informative."
Put identity in the browser.
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").
just wondering if there is a case for suing Bill Gates for terrorizing people and causing psychological trauma.
How is this different from mailing white dust to people?
Isn't that terrorism?
If the mosquitoes were indeed infected, it was a plain terrorist act.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Except that TFA has a PICTURE of Mr. Gates opening the jar and shaking the mosquitoes out.
Picture > anecdote.
'If you're flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit.'
"he threatened and deliberately generated fear."
Actually wouldn't that be terrorism?
----- The internet has given everyone the ability to have their voice heard equally as loud.. even if they shouldn't be
calm down silly. It's not that bad yet. Maybe in the future but not yet.
After all the conditions at Glastonbury (music festival) each year are seen as an integral part of the fun rather than a health hazard and even the authorities realise they just have to deal with the incidences of trench foot and food poisioning rather than closing it down. You haven't been to a rock festival til you've been to a truly muddy Glastonbury and grooved to your favourite band while in a foot of toffee consistency proper waterlogged farmland :-)
The Gates Foundation is trying to distribute antimalarial drugs to all the poor people in Africa. Too bad there is already a cure for malaria orders of magnitude cheaper: DDT. In epidemiology, you eradicate a disease by preventing its spread, not treating every infected individual. Malaria was already eliminated in places like Sicily by using DDT.
DDT does not thin eggshells of birds. It is not carcinogenic either. I can't tell whether Bill Gates is trying to accomplish anything or just spend lots of money on others out of penance. If the Gates Foundation wants to improve the world, they would have more money for useful charity if they just applied DDT in Africa.
OK, he's an idiot. Was he giving a speech to the CDC? No. Know to target the right audience. I'm still searching for the "point" he was trying to make targeting THAT group of people in an act that could be considered terrorism under our "new and improved" laws.
Oh, and Bill, let me know how that Lyme disease works out for you, K? Not every damn thing spread by mosquitos is combated by keeping current on your shots. Moron.
Ok, I'll bite... No need to speak to the CDC about malaria, I assure you they are already thoroughly keeping track of it (along with most other diseases, that is their job you know) The prevention of malaria in third world countries is as simple as putting nets over the beds at night, no special knowledge or expertise required, so the proper target is those with the money to help buy the nets. And just to correct your medical ignorance, Lyme disease is spread by ticks, (though you are correct in that it is not treatable by vaccine), not mosquitoes. Malaria is spread by mosquitoes, but there is currently no injectable vaccine for the prevention of malaria. It would appear that you should do a bit of thought and fact checking before calling Bill Gates the moron in the room.
-- Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. -- Albert Einstein
lol. My Bad...Bill Gates doing what he always does...
What he did is akin to yelling fire in a theater. What if there had been a mass panicked mob trying to escape the theater?
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
the use of ddt is severely stigmatized by wonky science and enviro-religious beliefs. It helped to eradicate malaria in the west, but now it is not good enough for the developing world? One would almost think that it was some kind of conspiracy. Fortunately it can be explained by stupidity too. spraying ddt in sleeping quarters of people requires minimal amounts, and works much better then bednets, which might not be used even if given away. spray one house and it is protected for half a year or more. You cannot sell it on, so misuse would be minimal. keep it out of the farmers hands though, you don't want it used on crops, so ideally it would contain some additive that makes is impractical for such a use.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
The Borg could easily assimilate people if they would follow a simple method:
1 Open a chain of brothels with hot Borg women like Seven of Nine.
2 Only charge for a visit is you get 1 small implant.
After say 10 implants, you have a nice drone... and it was all voluntary.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
>The point that he demonstrated, rather well it seems, is that we in
>the west find the idea of us being subjected to the risk of malaria extremely offensive.
And we found it so offensive that we did what it took to basically eliminate malaria from our society.
Why don't other societies do that, too? Why is it our job to do it for them?
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Jealous people like the harp on the failures. Some of us like to celebrate the successes.
Many of the technological moguls are one-hit wonders and fade into the background with their millions. Its the people who are wildly successful more than once that are intriguing, even if they have several major failures along the way.
It's hard to say for sure, but it looks like an open jar in the picture.
Methinks you are trolling, either indirectly via your boss or by making up the boss story too.
Infuriate left and right
Meh, it's TED. We'll be able to see for ourselves what really happened, when they put the talk online at http://www.ted.com/
B.
TED's cool.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
and sometimes you've to be ostensive to the point that even investment bankers and billionaires wakes up to reality. Anyway unless none of the audiences carry a parasite causing malaria there's no risk that the mosquitoes will spread the decease.
>If we want people to listen to us when we say "Don't drain swamps and don't use DDT"...
You won't find me telling other civilizations how to deal with their disease problems. If it was good enough for us, it's good enough for them.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
who tagged this astroturfing?!?!
Obviously someone whose dictionary was bricked!
Now setting up DEET concessions for the Bill Gates 2009 speaking tour. Act fast, opportunities are limited and on a first-come-first-served basis.
Only one species of mosquitoes actually transmit malaria to humans; the Anopheles. Interesting stunt to scare the uninformed, but most likely more harmless than, say, releasing Windows 7 to the unsuspecting masses.
Well played. Keep up the good work. :)
All about me
Such privileged people have their failings, but they're certainly socially aware. They would easily figure out that:
a) Bill Gates is the quintessential computer nerd
b) male computer nerds have 0 contact with members of the opposite sex
c) only female mosquitoes bite
d) if Bill Gates had a whole jarful, the mosquitoes must certainly be males
They would quickly conclude that there's nothing to worry about, and they would have another glass of shipwrecked 1907 Heidsieck champagne, another cracker full of endangered sturgeon roe topped with the last shred of viable Passenger Pigeon DNA, and chuckle at Bill's attempt to be clever.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
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.
Here's a man giving away his money and trying to fight problems in the third world, and all you can ramble on about is whether or not this constitutes assault in an overly litigious society.
So, here's a suggestion...How about you and everyone else who thinks like you grows up, stops being such a goddamned wuss, and realizes that there was absolutely no harm done here in any form or fashion? Then we can move on to actually getting things accomplished.
Amazing how you can criticise someone for trying to help cure a disease affecting millions, Yet consider yourself morally superior by promoting a blanket judgement against all pregnant women, regardless of their individual situations or circumstances.
For example what about someone who was raped? or someone who is in a medically life-threatening situation made potentially fatal by being pregnant? They're just examples off the top of my head. I'm sure there are many many even better justifications for abortion in real life, something your hopelessly narrow-minded philosophy always fails to deal with.
As much as I hate to be a flaming troll, I have three words for this:
What
A
Douche
What's that, boss? My salary is being paid out of a Gates Foundation malaria research grant? Oops.
Being a computer scientist means you tell people how computers should work, not that you know how they actually work.
FWIW, I think it was abusive for anyone to mark your post as "Troll".
Mm, and in that picture you can see the giant swarm of mosquitoes he was letting out? You have better eyes than me. See also this. At most it was one. Just opening an empty jar while you have another jar with bugs in it can be an effective stunt.
I'm just saying! (ducks)
I may not be a smart man, but I know what an inode is.
Do a little reading on where the "ddt killed the raptors" came from. Basically it was based off of fictional accounts that spawned assumptions which were later hyped by the media with no real scientific or factual backing... Hmmmm...media hysteria being mistaken as reality....wow, what a novel concept.
My boss was at his talk. He did not release the mosquitos. He did have a vial of them there and threatened to, as a joke
So you think we should believe a second-hand report from a random slashdotter over an official news source which claims that the incident was confirmed by the Gates Foundation's own media office?
Um, sorry.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
OK, he's an idiot.
hmmm
Bill, let me know how that Lyme disease works out for you, K? Not every damn thing spread by mosquitos is combated by keeping current on your shots.
Lyme disease is spread by Tick's.
Moron.
hmmm
"His name was James Damore."
I agree ... in principle. The picture is of Gates with AN OPEN JAR - which is not proof of him opening a jar full of mosquitoes.
Indeed, the picture could be of him at any time, on a stage, with an open jar in his hand! :)
"At least one side of one sheep..."
I hope someone gets sick and sues his ass. How did that help anything? The guy is rich from greed and persistence, not brains.
I'll have a Gin and Tonic, extra Tonic Please
"It's because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything." -Homer Simpson
Whatever I think of what he did, the fact stands that if I was in the audience at the time of this demonstration, I would never go to a conference at which he was presenting again.
To prevent this day from getting worse, I'll just read ERROR as GOOD TH
And jail him for biological terrorism.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
DDT is banned for agricultural use.
DDT use, for purpose of disease control is allowed by the treaty.
So you're saying the Fox article is outright LYING about having verified the incident with the Foundation's media office?
Fox may be slanted, but they don't make facts up out of whole cloth.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
You don't seem to understand the very foundations of his charity.
Not in the way it worked for the US.
There are too many mosquitoes who are either resistant or have latent genes which confer resistance. Any widespread eradication program will create a resistant population in no time flat.
The opportunity has past.
Jebus, the pro-MS trolls are out in force again. A concise and detailed answer to GP's question is not a troll. Somebody please fix this.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
OK, that's what you want to say.
I hope you are aware that it doesn't make you look particularly intelligent.
Personally I despise Mr. Gates, and am inherently suspicious of all his actions and decisions, but to me this looks like an image-building stunt. And also as if it might have some redeeming consciousness-raising value. That's much higher that I value almost anything I've ever previously heard of him as doing. (Sorry, faint praise is all I can muster.)
Yeah. It looks like a stupid stunt, and arguably illegal. It's still not as bad as most things I heard of him doing.
P.S.: Lyme disease is spread by a kind of tick. (A very small black one.) And most ticks, even of the right species, don't carry it. If you have deer in your area, though, you probably need to worry about it. Antibiotics are a cure if you catch it in time, and the symptoms are blatant. So if you get a tick bite, watch for them. Better yet, have a doctor or medical tech remove the tick. They'll send it in to a lab to be tested.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I'm not certain that I'm willing to accept that his motives were what he proclaims them as being. It's still possible that his actions might have the effect he claims to be trying to achieve.
Maybe.
To me it seems equally likely to scare people away. But they'll remember that Bill Gates claims to oppose malaria. Actually they'll remember that he does, whether it's true or not.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
>So, how exactly is a 3rd-world country supposed to do what we did, when
>the costs (both political and monetary) of doing what we did have gone up so much?
We did it, there is nothing stopping others from doing the same. America was not always the rich kid on the block.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Bloodsucking parasite releases blood sucking parasites.
>Uh...poverty?
Wasn't America once a poor country, too? Yet we overcame and solved our mosquito problem. I don't see why other nations can't develop themselves and solve their mosquito problems. It's not like they even have to invent the solution.
>Uh...kindness?
When we have money to spare we can indulge your sense of kindness.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
American hippies are about as close as anyone has come so far. "Communist" countries are dictatorships. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and friends did not care much about isms, more about taking complete power. Lots of executions, lots of control, not much communism.
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
Pharmaceutical corporations have no interest in cures, e.g. no one wants to make antibiotics for anything other than livestock (though humans are running short of effective ones) because, financially, it is better to make things people take long term than to make cures that they take for a short period (and livestock only take them to kill intestinal bacteria leading to slightly increased growth and to try to get by on ridiculous food choices). Treating HIV symptoms is hugely profitable, I doubt any pharmaceutical company wants a cure.
The $10 billion big pharma spends on HIV research is spent on cocktails of drugs that people are going to take every day for life for many thousands of dollars per year. And the cocktails have to be changed every few years due to HIV developing resistance. No ???, just profit.
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
What if
No, I do not think, it is as "black and white" as you describe. Some regimes can be less and others — more socialist without factories being outright owned by the government.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The most likely person to get bitten was Gates himself in any case. Unless you hold some radical theories about his state of health.
Squirrel!
They did use to use - and in some cases still do use - mercury as a preservative for immunizations. There is no direct evidence that it does anything, but it's not a myth.
But yeah, anyone who doesn't know anything about the ban on DDT shouldn't be using it as an excuse to claim that some liberal conspiracy is destroying the world through inanity. Any claim that disease affects the rich and poor equally is ridiculous.
[Ego]out
The gp was modded flamebait no doubt because he's attacking the idea because it's been strongly associated with the stereotypical 'liberal' mindset, not because it's a bad idea.
Your argument against said modding is a bit incoherent. Gates was not using an appeal to pity, nor was he threatening the audience. Rather, he invoked the audience's imagination, which would better describe what it's like to live under such a threat. Simultaneously, he drew attention to the fact that this a problem poor people have, because they're forced to live in disease-ridden areas. To say the rich and the poor are equally affected by disease is like saying that a man behind a bullet proof piece of glass and one who is not is equally affected by a bullet fired at them. You have to take away the context in which they exist for that to hold.
The ultimate point is that the efforts to reduce Malaria are not misguided - and to score cheap points off their similarity to environmentalism in this country is flamebaiting. It assumes the precondition that the 'liberal' mindset is not only wrong but the cause for any issue we've seen in the past - which is a ridiculous assertion.
And as long as we're racking up ridiculous assertions, let's try this one; that because something provides a short term gain one should use it if nothing better is available, regardless of the side effects. To make an exaggerated point - one could dose the malaria affected regions with radiation; spread around uranium or something else radioactive enough to kill the mosquitos - and everything else - dead. Even if you remove the humans beforehand, that land becomes unusable.
One should be mighty cautious when intoxicating an environment, even if it saves some from a present threat. The lives saved in the meantime aren't going to mean much if they're also cancer-ridden, or have other diseases. There is a real cost there. This is not an issue of 'needing to be ecologically correct'. It's an issue of understanding that humans are impacted by their environment, and that environment is hard to control. Willy-nilly short-term attempts to do so can and regularly do end in disaster.
In any event, the solution is pretty simple; we have a non-toxic medicine that will inoculate people. The issue is simply cost. So, to propose DDT as a cheap solution is basically saying that it's acceptable to kill people slowly rather than saving them. Yes, it may be better than killing them outright - but then you get no points for humanity, ethical behavior or moral righteousness.
[Ego]out
Releasing bugs from a lab into a room full of rich people. He must have been trying to create some kind of Spiderman/Batman hybrid. Genius!
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
First thing that came to me when I read the headline was the family of wasps bit on family guy:
Peter: Look Chris, it's a whole family of wasps!
Man: My Margaret what a sub-par ham.
Margaret: Perhaps I can't bake a ham, but what I can cook up is a little grace and civility at the table.
Man: Did you know your mother is a whore?
It was a seriously assholish thing to do. Somebody should have thrown a chair at him.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Where is Brock Samson when you need him?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Wait, are we talking about Bill or Ted now? Or both?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Even if the mosquitoes were all "clean," it was an irresponsible thing to do - what if some of them had (have?) spread blood-borne diseases between attendees? You wouldn't get away with bringing clean syringes and then poking three people at random with each one.
It's a cute story but it's fundamentally untrue. I live near Washington DC and I can assure you that there is absolutely no shortage of mosquitos around here in the summer.
The U.S. does not have a malaria problem because it is an easily treatable or preventable disease, and we are rich enough to afford the drugs. It is a major problem in 3rd world countries because they cannot afford enough drugs to get below the epidemic tipping point. So they use pesticides (including DDT) to try to suppress the carriers instead, because that is a much cheaper approach. Unfortunately it is also less effective.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
That Vista was not the least popular thing he has released.
Nullius in verba
That definition of socialism is correct. True socialism is when the state runs every facet of business, if you are permitted any latitudes, or even permitted to chose your own business regardless of restrictions then that is not socialism. Under socialism, one does not own a business, one is appointed to manage a government department.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Wanna make a difference? Press for elimination of the DDT ban and start manufacturing it by the kilo ton and selling it dirt cheap to these countries that suffer from malaria. Eco idiots have murdered over 20 million people because of this ridiculous ban of a chemical so safe you can eat it by the pound with no ill effect. Rumors of damage to birds and other animals have been shown to be completely wrong.
Don't believe it? Al Gore is coming for you baby! Just wait and see.....
SAVE THE BABY HUMANS!! BAN the DDT BAN!!
Why?
but what a waste of American resources. Please enlighten me....he is a world Jesus? HE thinks Americans aren't worthy of his efforts to make the world a better place? Or does he only know about the world of zillionaire USA? Why don't you start by cleaning up your own backyard before you solve the riddle of the universe Mighty Mouse?
Which Fox News are YOU talking about? Or do you think they use some other kind of cloth than "whole" cloth?
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
I would think Gates' actions would qualify as criminal assault: intentionally putting people in fear of physical harm. As you describe his action, you think he should "knock people on their asses" to make them "know fear." It's as though he'd been talking about AIDS and then hurled a bunch of (clean) needles into the audience. Do people here think he didn't break the law, or that he's above it?
Revive the Constitution.
Preferably Bill. Or that the victim's family sues his ass for his entire fortune.
Fuck him.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Lol! wonder what bit HIM. :D
Someone modded me Informative.
Only on slashdot can you find people who don't know how you get herpes... :p
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsgvhP07BC8
Mosquitoes at 5:06
-- Boycott Shell
I take it you're not familiar with the idiom "out of whole cloth"?
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I'm beginning to like Bill Gates???
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
"First reported on social networking site Twitter, Facebook's Senior Platform Manager Dave Morin blogged"
In all this story, that's what surprised me most. A Facebook executive using a competing social network. I would have thought he'd facebooked about it..
>Yes, before you were born, America was a poor country. You've inherited a rich one.
The point here is that America was a poor country, and it solved its mosquito problem. There is no reason why other people in other countries can't do the same thing.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
>Conservatives think that everything bad that happens to someone,
>everything, is their own fault and they should be able to fix it themselves.
This is not about _fault_. It's nobody's fault that they live in a place full of mosquitoes.
The point is that we figured out how to deal with the problem, and we set out to do it and we did it. There is no reason why other people can't do the same thing.
Our nation crawled out of its poverty over the course of some 200 years to the point where it was able to beat Malaria. Other people can, too, if they want to.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
I think bill gates is a pretty cool guy. eh releases mosquitos and doesn't afraid of anything.
they're features
I can't believe anybody is even engaging in a serious conversation about whether Bill Gates -- one of the wealthiest and shrewdest business men in the history of capitalism -- is a "socialist." Jesus, get a grip, people.
I thought the lecture was very interesting. I would have liked to see a lot of people running around in terror, or at least a gasp when he announced he would let the mosquito's out
Pretty much. It works as a propaganda cover for nasty dictators but just does not work as a system of government. You have to keep in mind that pretty much all philosophy, especially political philosophy, in the early 20th century was quotable but crappy. Lenin, Hitler, Freud, Marx, Mussolini, Nietzsche, Shayer... All quotable, and pretty good writers of fiction (OK, Hitler's prose was crap as well), but not great thinkers. Good at convincing people of stuff that is wrong, not at producing useful philosophies.
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
>(1) The portion of the US which has a mosquito problem is relatively small
>vs the whole of the US due to climate. Meaning, that in the 1800's/early
>1900's when the problem was solved, the states without significant swamps contributed money/labor to fixing the problem.
So the whole country pulled together to solve the problem. OK, why can't other countries do this, too?
>(2) During this point in history (again, industrial revolution era) the US
>was awash in cash from industrialization. Quite simply, it wasn't a poor
>country when we solved the problem.
So after the US established itself well enough to solve its mosquito problem, it did so. Why can't other countries do this, too?
>(3) Science. The US had the scientific background it needed to solve the
>problem. Again, mostly in places in the north (think Yale/Cornell/Harvard
>et al) which weren't affected by the problem.
This just makes is that much easier for others to follow the trail we have already blazed for them.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Right now I'm not saying anything substantive because you write so poorly that I can't decide whether or not you're some sort of idiot, or merely giving /. as little effort as it's worth.
If you are sincerely an idiot, please designate me as your foe.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Right now I'm not saying anything substantive because you write so poorly that I can't decide whether or not you're some sort of idiot, or merely giving /. as little effort as it's worth.
I write poorly? LOL. Either that or you read poorly. Based on the messages to which you're responding, I vote for the latter.
If you don't know what "out of whole cloth" means, there are a wealth of web sites that will explain the idiom. Google is your friend.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
>How are you supposed to lift yourself up by the bootstraps without boots?
Step 1: Make boots.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
I have no interest in doing deep research into whether or not you are an idiot. The evidence you've presented in your comments here strongly support the theory that you are an idiot. To determine the scale of your stupidity, the fastest test is probably to ask at what point you stopped supporting Dubya?
If I had any respect for your opinion, I could refute your exprssed opinion of me with trivial effort. You are not worth it, and I don't give a flying fuck what you think about anything, including me. At this point you have convinced me that your only legitimate purpose in life is to designate me as your foe.
Please fulfill your purpose. Thank you for your foe designation, and you can shove your stupid opinions back in the asshole you pulled them out of.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Ah, I see. Yes, I am a little dense today. I thought you were just having a bad day, but now I see you're trolling for freaks and flames.
Thanks for the laugh. :-)
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i'm a bigtime fan of TED and i saw his speech about the time it went on. I think it's great, bill gates unplugged, maybe you can take the hood out of the nigga
beware he who denies you access to information for in his mind, he already deems himself to be your master (SMAC-ish)
Sorry, haven't been bored enough to visit /. lately. Which sniveling little coward are you, and have you designated me as your foe yet? (The first part of that question was rhetorical, and I couldn't care less.) However, designating me as your foe really is the only purpose you have in your miserable life. You would already have figured that out, if you weren't so stupid.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
LOL
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