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Bill Gates's New Version of the Einstein Letter
dcblogs writes "In 1939, Albert Einstein sent 'F.D. Roosevelt, President of the United States,' a letter with a warning about Germany's interest in a new type of energy with potential for use as a powerful bomb. The letter also outlined the competitive threat posed by Germany and steps for improving US research efforts. Last week, Bill Gates, along with GE's CEO and others, met with President Obama to deliver their own message: that of the top 30 companies in the world working on alternative energy, only four are in the US. Similar to Einstein's point and recommendations, Gates and his allies are asking the US to view the alternative energy push as a competitive threat posed by other nations, particularly China, which may be doing a better job in bringing its engineering talent and money to bear on this problem."
Einstein wrote of specific people and experiments. Gates does not.
Einstein warned of a horrible weapon. Gates is warning us that the most environmentally ravaged countries might be developing alternative energy (may god have mercy on our souls, lol).
Einstein acted alone and was not heavily invested in nuclear energy. Gates and his friends are heavily invested in alternative energy sources.
I'm no biographer of either but from what I know Einstein seemed to be motivated by things like the discovery of knowledge and genuine concern for mankind. Gates has (at least historically) seemed to be motivated by profit and money first above everything else with ideals similar to Einstein distantly following that primary motivator. Maybe he's changed but Einstein has always held a more altruistic image in my mind. That tends to happen to people long gone who made staggering advancements. Who knows, maybe revisionist history will see Gates alongside Einstein? But as it stands now, my personal opinion is that the two are not even close.
Bottom line: Einstein was a scientist who made great discoveries. Gates was a businessman who made great sales.
I'm not sold on Gates' motives. He sounds more like a lobbyist than a sage omen of caution like Einstein was.
My work here is dung.
What is this, a planned economy? Why is Bill Gates is begging for communist government help?
Obviously, the free market will just solve this problem on its own, in the process continuing to make America the greatest nation in the world.
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Doesn't the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act include 80 billion over 10 years for alternative energy research rather than the 16 billion the article suggests?
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Wind energy this, Solar energy that. It's all fantasy dreamed up by hippies. It may or may not be able to meet a high percentage of our energy needs at some point in the future.
Nuclear power is here now. We know it works. We know it's safe, if done right. Sure, it's expensive, but if we'd invested a few trillion in nuclear power over the last 30 years ago we'd have ended up saving a shitload on foreign wars, cost to the environment from oil spills and pollution, etc...
At the rate we're going now, nothing will have changed 20 years from now. Instead, we need to start building nuclear plants and investing in research on portable power like fuel cells so we can use that nuclear power outside of the main power grid.
When Bill Gate's company and General Electric start paying US taxes I will take them seriously. Until then they can go fuck themselves.
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
I don't understand this, the people who wrote this 'letter' to the president are rich, look at the names. So they can start a company to create new energy production facilities etc. but they decide to write to the administration as if it is as urgent as a nuclear weapon about to be created and unleashed by a warmonger. Einstein obviously was concerned about a new weapon that Germany could develop and use to completely dominate the globe, Gates and Co. looks like are hoping for the government to get into yet another money laundering scheme.
If these guys think their ideas are worth a try and may work they should invest their money, they'll be rich beyond their wild dreams (hard to do, considering who they are, but still).
BP is getting billions of dollars from government contracts of all kinds, looks like this new initiative is about the same thing.
Build factories and make your energy generating equipment and see if you can compete with it and deliver something people will buy, why are you trying to involve the administration into this? The only thing that comes to mind is yet another money laundering scheme, a Halliburton/BP level scheme.
You can't handle the truth.
Wow, that didn't take long!
Under Breaking News on BBC: "Barack Obama calls for clean energy push"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10313921.stm
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Amazing. Just five years to go from:
China, they just can make cheap copies of western technology
to
China, they are starting to compete with western products
to
China is ahead on R&D
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
Yes. I am absolutely for it. It could replace that coal power plant down the way that's spitting nuclear, gaseous, and particulate pollution into the air. If properly built, nuclear power is very safe.
Sure, it costs a shitload of money to build and properly maintain a nuclear power plant but all we're doing now is just pushing that cost into poor air quality, possibly global warming, foreign wars, a high dependence on the ups and downs of oil/natural gas prices, etc...
You should have your Slashdot privileges revoked for that post.
Chances are we'd still intervene in foreign wars for humanitarian and business reasons, for as long as we have the economic and military prominence allowing us to do so.
Considering the issues with fresh water in the present (water wars in the South East and out West), Global Warming and what that will do to fresh water supplies, and our increasing population, I see us invading Canada over water in the near future.
But Canada is not completely defenseless. They do grow pot and the invading armies would light up, give up, and have a beer with their Canadian toke buddies.
So, as an American, I strongly suggest that you learn the Canadian national anthem (O Cananda) because the Canadians are invincible.
It also helps that their economy is in much better shape than ours - even with their evil government run health care.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
I don't understand this, the people who wrote this 'letter' to the president are rich, look at the names. So they can start a company to create new energy production facilities etc. but they decide to write to the administration as if it is as urgent as a nuclear weapon about to be created and unleashed by a warmonger.
Because they want Government to finance the R&D (socialize the risks and costs of R&D) and then let the private sector reap the rewards - just like what was done with the banks.
America: risks, losses and costs are socialized: profits privatized. It's only for folks who are connected. For you and me, the peons, we get the bill but not the profits. Not even the jobs because you know this shit will be made over-seas.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
First: Einstein's contribution to the letter was mainly signing it - it was really authored by Leó Szilárd with contributions from Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner.
Second: The atomic bomb is a weapon that could only be created by a government and should only be used by a government and is not be provided to others.
Energy technology can be produced by private industry, used by private industry, and will be traded on the free market to everyone. Even if a Chinese company develops the technology, we (and others) will be able to purchase it and benefit from it. On the other hand, the atomic bomb was not going to be sold to China (or Japan, for that matter, who was ruthlessly occupying China).
One could argue that the US government "should play its part" in solving the global externality of greenhouse gas emission by throwing tax dollars at researchers, but that is a different issue.
In 1994, Bill Gates gave an interview to Playboy. He stated then that he was going to give away his money. In it he says:
PLAYBOY: Does your net worth of multi-billions, despite the fact that it's mostly in stock and the value varies daily, boggle your mind?
GATES: It's a ridiculous number. But remember, 95 percent of it I'm just going to give away. [Smiles] Don't tell people to write me letters. I'm saving that for when I'm in my 50s. It's a lot to give away and it's going to take time.
PLAYBOY: Where will you donate it?
GATES: To charitable things, scientific things. I don't believe in burdening any children I might have with that. They'll have enough. They'll be comfortable.
http://beginnersinvest.about.com/od/billgates/l/blbillgatesint5.htm
Nuclear fission waste has to be guarded for millenia, because you can build dirty bombs from it, or unscrupulous companies will smelt it (metals) into other products. In addition, we, everyone we on the planet, get to enjoy all the threats of war that surround access and development of nuclear fission technology. And they already are poisoning vast areas because of the weapons they make from so called and only partially "depleted" uranium. In the headlines all the time, threats of war over who can have nuclear fission tech or who can't. This sucks, it's a new type of cold war that can turn hot overnight and really bork things up *bad*. All nations want it mostly, but they have to be "approved" by the first adopters, and that pisses them off so they go sneaky and develop it anyway, which makes other nations think they should too, etc.. And that is definitely part of nuclear fission technology, you simply cannot ignore that aspect of it, all the parts make the whole, but it apparently is common to do so, people tend to fixate on just cost of producing electricity, and ignore threats of war over access to the tech and long term storage of the waste and guarding it, etc.. It is extremely contentious and dangerous technology because of those reasons. I don't like that, it would be real nice if it could be used safely and safer and developed better, but it is reality so we shouldn't ignore it.
Coal waste and smoke sucks too, for all the normal reasons. That's why I am in favor of using our only practical nuclear *fusion* technology, which is solar, both PV and thermal. All the other laser magnetic plasma bubble containment whatever fusion tech is still decades/generations away (I mean when I was a kid in the 50s they were talking about it and promising it..let us check the calendar...), we shouldn't wait for that to be developed to switch to fusion power. We *have* fusion power right now, let's use it, make it better/faster/cheaper. Sure, more research in those other areas, but solar just needs economies of scale now more than anything else to get loads cheaper.
And if we had 100% tax credits for it now, you couldn't stop the deluge of new companies and jobs getting it out there working. Not ten percent or even thirty, but a full 100% credit, say extended for five or ten years up to a practical amount, like 25 to 50 grand.
I know I would *much* rather see a trillion dollars going out into direct solar deployment, rather than a trillion dollars sucked out of the economy for wall street's dream ticket, the universal carbon tax and cap and trade conjob.
It's going to be the same trillion dollars, so I'd rather it went to tens of millions of new panels and whatnot everywhere than to keep funding goldman sachs and those other billionaire thieves in the wall street thieves guild. They are just drooling over carbon cap and trade, which should say something about how practical that is(n't).