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 :)
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
Well, he freed us from spam three years ago, so he's probably our best hope against malaria.
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").
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.
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.
If we want people to listen to us when we say "Don't drain swamps and don't use DDT", which are the only cheap and effective ways to control malaria, we need to help find and fund other solutions that they can't afford.
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who tagged this astroturfing?!?!
Obviously someone whose dictionary was bricked!
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.
> 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.
Brilliant. So as long as we all destroy the ecological balance of the planet equally, it's fine. Who cares if we sicken and kill off all the animals at the top of the food chain, leading to a massive overpopulation of grazers and further destruction of nature, as long as it reduced the incidence of half a dozen diseases. While we're at it, let's solve the food/energy crisis by burning all the forests for fuel and planting wheat and corn everywhere. I'm sure there will be no long term consequences to the homogenization of life on the planet.
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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.
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
DDT is banned for agricultural use.
DDT use, for purpose of disease control is allowed by the treaty.
Brilliant. So as long as we all destroy the ecological balance of the planet equally, it's fine. Who cares if we sicken and kill off all the animals at the top of the food chain, leading to a massive overpopulation of grazers and further destruction of nature, as long as it reduced the incidence of half a dozen diseases.
Yeah, what's half a dozen diseases causing millions of human deaths every year when we need to worry about destroying some mythical "ecological balance"? Let's ban DDT worldwide.
People in the West can afford this kind of arrogance because they aren't the ones threatened by those half a dozen diseases. If your mother, wife or daughter were to die of malaria, I'm sure you and your smugness would both be fine knowing that your ecological concerns were being catered to. Meanwhile, enjoy the return of the American bedbug.
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.
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!
Wasn't America once a poor country, too? Yet we overcame and solved our mosquito problem.
Yes, before you were born, America was a poor country. You've inherited a rich one. Now go spend your our forefather's money like you made it yourself while other people work 80 hour weeks for less the minimum wage and contract malaria, because by golly, you've earned it! It's their fault for being born into poverty!
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Conservatives think that everything bad that happens to someone, everything, is their own fault and they should be able to fix it themselves.
You can't convince them otherwise, trust me.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs