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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.
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.
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.
It's possible that if we had managed to dig up those sums back then we'd have it, we don't really know that for sure but it would've been nice to find out.
Chances are we'll have a mix of wind/solar and nuclear energy - these things arn't fantasies - they work and are cost-effective in some circumstances. Unless these hippes you mention are the kind of hippies that get engineering, physics, and materials science degrees and actually put these technologies into practice, I suspect you're selling those technologies short. The issue isn't that they're not worthwhile, the issue is that since the 50s Americans have been skeptical of long-term thinking and terrified of central planning, leaving us with really lousy infrastructure, a discinclination to improve it, and a community of people who deny reality and work to discredit any studies that show that we fell off the right track when we stopped investing in infrastructure and the sciences and that other countries have surpassed us in many of these areas even when we have the resources of almost an entire continent and a massive population to bear on these problems.
Still, I fundamentally agree with you that we should be investing a lot more in nuclear power - an emphasis on fusion research combined with our standard fission plants in areas not well-covered by something better (not every community has a Hoover Dam) would pollute less and were we to actually have nice ways to transform and store that energy and were our automotive industry to migrate to electic cars, the strategic and economic benefits could be profound.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
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