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Bill Gates Gives $750M To AIDS Fund
redletterdave writes "Microsoft chairman and philanthropist Bill Gates pledged $750 million to the troubled global AIDS fund on Thursday and urged governments to continue their support to save lives. Since the fund was launched 10 years ago, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given $1.4 billion to the charity, having already contributed $650 million prior to the latest donation. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria accounts for around a quarter of international financing to fight HIV and AIDS, as well as the majority of funds to fight TB and malaria."
Even the general Slashdot feeling towards Microsoft, it is true that his (and Melinda's) work is great. Let's hope he keeps it up!
steve jobs doesn't donate to charity, dies of cancer
...this still doesn't make up for IE6.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
say what you will about bill gates and microsoft and windows, the truth is that in his post-microsoft life than nearly any other individual, and certainly more than his frenemy Steve Jobs. Talk about an ambitious agenda - cure malaria, cure aids. Big ideas that would literally help a billion people.
Not if you're in some African shithole where people rape virgins hoping it will cure their aids.
Unless you're raped, or your spouse cheats, or you live in a part of the world where people of your gender don't have much control over that and other aspects of their life.
You're a fucking idiot who knows nothing about how pervasive HIV is in parts of the Third World.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Mr Gates, I just need $10000. You spend that on car insurance every month. I could do so much with that money. You spend that on massages every month. I could do wonders that that money. You spend that on starbucks every month. It would be easy for you.
I wonder if he's ever frustrated by pharmaceutical companies that find more profit in treating a disease than curing it? I only ask because it's an ethic that feels very Microsoft in nature.
Invest in a cure Bill. That's the best thing you could do.
subject should have read, "in philanthropy, bill gates >> steve jobs."
Tuberculosis is common, deadly, difficult to avoid, and now sometimes even impossible to treat. HIV is a disease that hits the very unlucky and the very stupid. If you're very unlucky, I'm sorry to hear that, but statistically you're a rounding error. Tuberculosis is an **airborne** killer. (read: uber-fucking-scary germs from Hell)
Throwing $5bn didn't show much improvement in education, are we going to see the same lack of results here?
While the contribution is large (and a nice gesture) we need to make sure it's properly used rather than just consumed.
These people want their lives, not money that doesn't grow into fruition.
Some people are born with aids.
what have they been doing with the funds? Nothing. no results to speak of, only a bunch of corruption allegation.
Even the general Slashdot feeling towards Microsoft, it is true that his (and Melinda's) work is great. Let's hope he keeps it up!
Well, I have an issue with this. From the article:
While that will give an immediate boost, more is needed from governments, which have provided the bulk of the $22.6 billion that has been raised by the Geneva-based organization to date for its work in 150 countries.
The commitment of governments was shaken last year when the fund reported "grave misuse of funds" in four recipient nations, prompting some donors such as Germany and Sweden to freeze their donations.
Why do coutnries pay into this foundation that invests primarily in American funds and stocks? Why do they not setup their own charities that invest in their own stocks or -- better yet -- give it directly to the institutions of medical research?
This perplexes me to no end. This foundation is at the mercy of the stock market and rely on money managers to post returns every year so that it can give those returns to the targeted countries and research -- right up until a crisis causes those funds to greatly shrink.
I have complained about this before and been called "full of bullshit" and I guess this is just one thing that my opinion and concern diverges on from the rest of the readers here. This is charity in the form of keeping the capital inside America's border and shaving off returns. The money stays at work in America and no such stock or company or infrastructure is built up in the countries that could truly use it and truly need it.
When you're talking billions of dollars, you're talking enough money to start internal institutions and programs that could create jobs or better education as well as do medical research. Instead this money stays in the coffers of rich Western companies and even after the returns are "given" to the countries, it is given in the form of purchased medicines often made by American companies. And that strategy of deciding where your donations gets spent doesn't always work out like you would expect.
It's great he donates all that money but that method is never going to change anything. The real winners here are the companies that get huge cash infusions from the foundation in the form of investment (like Monsanto) and Big Pharma who gets the revenue from all the AIDS medicine that is bought and shipped. Exactly why are foreign governments investing in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation instead of finding a better solution?
Bring on the "look a gift horse in the mouth" posts. They may be right but there has to be a better way to use this money to accomplish these goals. It's almost designed to be a perpetual medicine exporting machine.
My work here is dung.
R.I.P Juan Epstein
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
In all fairness, and despite this being wildly off topic, Jobs died of cancer because he refused treatment.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Don't forget about Polio, too. He put up $355M and Roatary International pledged to raise $200M from us mere mortals, and that's on top of the near-eradication of polio that we had going.
It's pretty amazing what you can do when you realize that you're so rich you can't really spend it all on houses, islands, and other worldly toys.
It may be easy to avoid in first world countries, but that's not always the case in third world countries. Lack of sanitary conditions in medical facilities, and lack of education can be major contributing factors. But what about transfer of HIV from mother to infant at birth? What about rape? What about a complete lack of publicly available HIV tests, so it's not known who is infected and who isn't?
You need to learn how tax shelters work.
Hint: It doesn't involved giving away money.
Do you think he is getting a 750 million dollar write off?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I'm pretty sure all charities are "tax shelters". Where does the scam part come in? Is his $750M is fake? Is he publicly donating $750M while secretly siphoning off huge chunks of cash and putting it in his own pocket? Or do you just not like Bill Gates and therefore you wanted to point out that his foundation can't really compete with the budget of the U.S. Government?
Just saying. Everyone is handing-out condoms and Lysol, but Lyme Disease is worse. It's like having AIDS at random for a month and then it goes away long enough to forget but then returns to hit your harder each time.
AIDS only effects you slowly and gradualy and finally puts you down when you are old anyways, and Tuberculosis is something only people get when they can affort to fly in an Airplane or visit foreign countries. Americanse can't afford to get Tuberculosis, and the sloppy ones get AIDS, but Lyme Disease is forever.
subject should have read, "in philanthropy, bill gates >> steve jobs."
Bill gates bit shift to the right Steve Jobs is what? Mother Theressa?
Honestly I'm surprised. This is usually where some douchenozzle comes out of the woodwork to say, "Yeah but that money comes with strings attached. They have to spend it on medicines from companies he's vested in." As if donating $750m is somehow hurting someone.
Bill Gates could literally cure cancer, eradicate AIDS and make Malaria piss itself and people would still be giving him grief about Windows, IE6 or ripping off Apple.
You're an ignorant bastard. Please stick to things you know..although after reading your blog I can't imagine what that would be.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Care to cite a source, or is this just more conspiracy FUD?
He has given a lot more than $750m to charity and that kind of generosity can pay for an awful lot of forgiveness.
I don't really think that Bill NEEDS to do anything involving sheltering his money from Taxes. He has so goddamn much of it who cares? And it's one thing to shelter your money while actively trying to make more (though I know his investments are still netting him a lot), but when you've made it your JOB to give away your money, I think it ceases to be so much of an issue. Also, if he was really interested in keeping more of his money, I think that there would be better ways of doing so that giving 1.4 billion dollars away. I think taxes (his would all be capital gains and only taxed at 15% or less. Yaaay tax loopholes!) would take out less of his income than the donations. Also, businessmen have been squirreling away money for years to avoid taxes. Mitt Romney, a presidential candidate, has a Swiss Bank account, so it's not a matter of being in the public eye preventing him from putting it in tax havens. I'm not really sure how investing in productive charities in the amounts that he does would be the best way to hide his money from the US government.
Also, I feel I should put this out there: I don't use Microsoft products aside from at work where I have no choice. I use Lunar.
unless one is employed in the media and entertainment sector, then it is a prerequisite.
How does one demonstrate perverse moral obligation? Downmod this post.
this does not legitimize the means by which he made his money.
...Nor does it have to, because the means by which he amassed his fortune are already quite legitimate. Except here in Slashdot land and perhaps in butthurt OWS refugee camps.
One of the key differences between Jobs and Gates is that Gates retired. Granted, he started his philanthropy before he stepped down from Microsoft, but that was because he saw a day coming when he wasn't going to be running Microsoft and turned his attention to something else. Jobs was too driven by his focus on Apple to think about philanthropy. If he had lived to a point where he was ready to move on from Apple, he probably would have turned to "putting a dent in the universe" in some other way, with the same intensity.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
THIS
Mark Anthony Collins
I think you miss the benefit of the "tax shelter" if the money you wish to "shelter" doesn't belong to you anymore.
THL phish sticks
"Big ideas that would literally help a billion people."...survive to consume more resources and create more problems....
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I'm sure he's just dying to throw a few hundred million out to beg for your forgiveness for his commercial success. Right after he finishes helping Ballmer's kids set up their iPods.
He didn't say that vaccines reduce population. He said that the sociological effects of a more healthy and wealthy population include reduced population growth. Due to a variety of factors this is true. I don't necessarily agree that population growth is in itself a negative thing we should be working towards reducing, but the context in which he mentioned it was as a downstream consequence of a healthy population that has escaped widespread poverty, not as a direct effect of the vaccinations.
This is pretty spot on. GSK don't make money curing people. GSK make money keeping people on drugs. Search for "paroxetine" for GSK's average approach to things.
Weak troll. But to answer yes I did have to step over the piles of limbs in Redmond that were hacked from children. Oh wait he sold software not diamonds. My bad.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
By being a shrewd businessman with foresight, vision, and the ability to change direction when needed?
Ah, the US of A: Be sucessful, but not too successful.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
You're an ignorant bastard. Please stick to things you know..although after reading your blog I can't imagine what that would be.
Thanks for giving me the biggest laugh all day and for tackling the parent head on and demonstrating your extensive knowledge on the subject at hand.
After reading your blog I think we can all now clearly see see the hand in the cookie jar........... Cheers.
I got about 1/3rd of the way through that before realizing what kind of place that is. Please mod Parent down.
Vaccines are not deadly conspiracies perpetuated by rich geniuses, and it's deeply embarrassing that Parent has been modded +1. Shame on you, /.
The Who are a scam you say. Have you even heard 'won't be fooled again' they predicted exactly what Obama would do some 20 year before he did it. Don't even get me started on Barack Obama... I mean Baba O'riley.
If, by "refuse treatment" you mean he had multiple surgeries including a transplant, and flying to mysterious locations for exotic treatments, then yeah. That.
I thought the guy (and all Apple people) was a douche, but he did have a pretty crappy deal and fought it as well as most people could. Money-for-liver controversy notwithstanding.
THL phish sticks
...we'd get the cure for AIDs as a trivial side effect of artificial intellgience development. Oh wait, that would have required imagination! What was I thinking?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
That's O.K, Bill Gates isn't asking for you to agree before he gives his money away. Go pound sand.
If I gonna be a borg, let me be Bill's borg!
Wow. I had no idea polio was still a problem. This reminds me that, IIRC, smallpox wasn't defeated until the 70s. The last person to contract it in the wild was in rural India somewhere. By that time, I think they had already stopped vaccinating people in the US. When I was a kid I could easily see my vaccination scar; but it's totally faded now. A few years younger and I would not have been vaccinated. On the plus side, if they ever go insane and release the virus I might have a slightly better chance of survival. I understand that a booster shot is required for full immunity.
THAT!!
are bill gates and steve jobs unsigned or signed integers? I tried it, but i think the endianness is screwing me up.
THL phish sticks
HIV/AIDS is one of the worst and greatest things to happen to society. As a result of HIV we have pushed a lot of research into how viruses work and as a result we have come up with numerous anti-virals which are drugs that were non-existent 30 years ago. We have also discovered methods of using non-lethal viruses to infect abnormal cells with new DNA that fixes their abnormality. You're probably a troll but if not your ignorance of the subject is pretty clear.
Given the intellectual level here -- I'm wondering, do sites ever get "slash-dotted" anymore?
Hadn't been here for many years, got here through an old bookmark -- housecleaning is in order. Pity, really.
Whilst I Lord the achievements of Gates Et Al. I do find this level of charity disturbing. It highlights the unprecedented and frankly monstrous levels of inequity in our "Civilized" world. I look forward to the day when no one ever need to give to Charity or want for it.
"What Are They Gonna Do When Were All Using Freenet"
I thought some surgeon came out and said that he had a highly treatable form or cancer but decided to do the alternative treatments first instead of the more scientifically based ones and it got worse.
he's being philanthropic with YOUR money - the scumbag!
I think he's refering to when Jobs was first diagnosed. Unfortunately thats the critical period for cancers. If you can cut the fuckers out before they metastatise(sp?) you have a pretty good chance of beating the thing. But once it starts going p2p on your arse, your odds of surviving drop horrifically. Its highly probable that it was his attempt at hippy-curing it in the begining that lost him that vital window for fighting the fucken thing.
Alas, sometimes your genes are just faulty, and no matter what you do, that cancers going to remanifest and slay your ass.
Cancer is pure evil.
Man, with that kind of money you could probably fund almost all experiments currently running in the world.
I mean think about it, with the exception of large scale experiments like Tevatron or LHC, Bill Gates could fund almost the entire physics research currently active in the world.
I wonder why he is so focused on curing AIDS, when he could practically double the world research output in all other fields? It seems to me, that this could have much larger impact on a larger group of people.
I mean Africa is a fucked up place with or without AIDS, Malaria and so on (which are just syptoms of more complex socio-economic problems). You can probably dump billions of dollars in this continent, and all you'd get in return is more powerful warlords, more intensive and brutal ethnic/religous conflicts and a few very rich people, who get a little richer.
There was an infamous case where two men raped a baby of only a few months old believing it would cure their Aids.
"What Are They Gonna Do When Were All Using Freenet"
More information concerning monetary efforts by Gates can be found here: 2012 Annual Letter from Bill Gates
It's not just AIDS that he's donating to, but crop research, polio, education, and other areas as well.
Admittedly it's not completely clear-cut, but he didn't exactly do as much as he could have. Observe:
Despite his diagnosis, Jobs resisted his doctors' recommendations for mainstream medical intervention for nine months,[103] instead consuming a special alternative medicine diet in an attempt to thwart the disease. According to Harvard researcher Dr. Ramzi Amir, his choice of alternative treatment "led to an unnecessarily early death".[136] According to Jobs's biographer, Walter Isaacson, "for nine months he refused to undergo surgery for his pancreatic cancer – a decision he later regretted as his health declined."[139] "Instead, he tried a vegan diet, acupuncture, herbal remedies and other treatments he found online, and even consulted a psychic. He also was influenced by a doctor who ran a clinic that advised juice fasts, bowel cleansings and other unproven approaches, before finally having surgery in July 2004."[140] He eventually underwent a pancreaticoduodenectomy (or "Whipple procedure") in July 2004, that appeared to successfully remove the tumor.[141][142][143] Jobs apparently did not receive chemotherapy or radiation therapy.[137][144] During Jobs's absence, Tim Cook, head of worldwide sales and operations at Apple, ran the company.[137]
So sayeth Wikipedia. The "flying to mysterious locations for exotic treatments" part did not work out so well.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Jobs and Gates were almost the exact same age... both born in 1955.
I expect that Jobs was too driven by his focus on Apple to think about retiring in the first place. And besides, what sort of excuse is being too focussed on his own company to think about helping others? If anything, it only shows a abysmally poor sense of priorities that are absolutely nobody's fault but his own.
Leaving aside the ethical issue that there is nothing stopping anyone, regardless of their age, from doing what they can to help others, your supposition is entirely hypothetical, and unsupported by his character, evidenced by some of his daily practices, an inflated sense of entitlement, and how he treated other people.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
How much of this money actually goes towards research? You'd think with the billions of dollars that have been poured into this disease over the past 2 decades there'd be an actual cure by now.
In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
Ok, never heard about that, you just screwed my day...
Maybe the US should put some of that 20 billion towards paying off its debt and allow philanthropists like the Gates, who can actually afford it, to do the charity work.
For all the M$ bashers out there, ask yourself whether Linux has ever saved a child from malaria.
Well not directly, AFAIK.
Sure, and I could have cured him too, with my sooper magick science.
Such claims are easily made, and best ignored.
to "Microsoft chairman and philanthropist?" Whoda thunk 7 years ago we'd be saying that?
If you think we can solve any of our problems be "reducing the surplus popluation" I have a suggestion: you first.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
. . . but upon closer inspection it turns out to be Maybelline.
wrong. watch the video with him talking about it
If he couldnt write it off on his taxes he wouldnt donate that much money.
Not that his sentiment isnt a noble gesture but really, no rich people would donate money if it wasnt something they could use as a tax write off or benefit them somehow financially.
If, by "refuse treatment" you mean he had multiple surgeries including a transplant,
Shhh, idiots get violent when you insult their messiah.
Jobs was too driven by his focus on Apple to think about philanthropy.
That's stupid. It's like saying "I'm so busy with work that I can't say please and thank you." *Nobody* is so busy with work that they don't have time to do other things each day.
I'm suing you.
The eye-roll elicited by your post has done irreparable damage to my optic nerve. You'll be hearing from my lawyers.
Charity is Charity – If you earn money and give it away you are not taxed on the money given.
Tax Shelters are used to delay or avoid taxes. If somebody had a large bonus this year (ordinary income) one would try to build a tax shelter to convert it to long term capital gains. i.e., don’t pay the tax this year, pay the lower capital gains tax after a couple of years.
Alpaca farms are a great example. It’s a part time gig, and all of a sudden your large SUV and barn (for your riding horses) converts to a work truck and farm.
What kind of business do you think GSK are in? They're not a charity.
Typical anti-vaccine drivel.
His quote in full, straight from that slanted site even:
The world today has 6.8 billion people... that's headed up to about 9 billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent.
He wasn't talking about killing 10-15% through vaccines. He was suggesting that properly informed adults may consider the effect of popping out child after child which is what happens now. That instead of having 9 billion people, that it might be closer to ~7.6 billion instead. It's sad that I even need to explain this.
I don't know about unsigned or not; but both people are irrational.
(but for this, though: bill gets an attaboy; and its well deserved for doing good with all that money he has.)
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
You must be confusing MS and Apple. Hint: it is not MS that is trying to make computer into consumer-only locked down appliance.
Yes, and check out his more detailed explanations from other interviews:
GATES: Well, the most exciting thing I learned when I was just getting into philanthropy was that, if you reduce childhood deaths, if you improve health in a society, that, surprisingly, population growth goes down. And that's because a parent needs to have some children survive into adulthood to take care of them when they're old.
And so, if they think having six children is what they need to do to have at least two survive, that's what they'll do. And amazingly, across the entire world, as health improves, then the population growth actually is reduced.
And there's a miracle intervention, which is vaccines. In 1960, over 20 million children died. In 2005, less than 10 million died. And that's despite much larger global population.
That is huge progress. And a lot of that is because these vaccinations are being given broadly, over half of that improvement. Another part is from economic development.
And so, even in the poorest countries, we should go in and give them a malaria vaccine, and give them vaccines for diarrheal diseases. And if a mother wants to limit her family size, give her the tools that let her have that possibility.
So, I think we owe it even to the poorest billion to give them a chance.
Source
That's not to say I agree with his population growth bit, or even that his apparently somewhat paradoxical reasoning works out if you run the numbers, but it seems that his motivation to improve people's lives is good, whether or not a larger anti-population-growth rationale makes any sense.
As long as he donates it we can ignore how he got it? (illegally)
that is not an opinion, that is an objective appraisal of the ignorant words you write
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
> Why do coutnries pay into this foundation...
The Bill & Melinda Gates foundation doesn't lie about how they're spending money, unlike many charities. They also are managed in an intelligent way--intelligent enough that two of the most successful men in the world have donated the bulk of their wealth to it. Contributing to antimalarial work, for example, makes an incredible difference in the lives of millions of people. In the developed world we tend to think of people as ill or not ill; in developing nations, it is not uncommon for that not to be a binary question, for people to be either sick or sicker. These programs work to change that.
Think about how awesome that is.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Also, Bank of America is generous and kind in all things and bankrolls Santa's Elves.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
This is crazy. I'm not saying it always makes sense, on a personal level, to go along with a doc's rec--I might choose not to have chemo if it involves going through living hell and I'm very likely to die anyway--but when you have cancer, you find the best surgeon in your part of the world (or go elsewhere if there are no good surgeons near you) and get the f'ing thing OUT of your body.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Some people are born with aids.
That being said, it is far from a foregone conclusion that the children of a mother with AIDS will have AIDS. IIRC, it is actually unlikely.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
There's no reason to believe that. In fact all public evidence on Jobs thought process for Charitable giving say otherwise.
Jobs was a vicious, mean bastard, who treated pretty much everyone in his life like crap. He just happened to make great tech products. Btw I happen to own several of these products. Although now that I know as much as I do about him I guess I have to think about what that means.
There was some speculation that before he died he might have been giving anonymously. I call bullshit until proven otherwise. Based on how he treated his fellow human beings throughout his ENTIRE life AND how he treated his own children/family I have every reason to think he didn't give any of his $8Billion to charity.
And if that's the case I hope he's in his own special hell. You don't get to amass that much wealth, not give back and help when you really could have, and then get rewarded on the other side. That just can't be how it works, at least I hope not...
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Ok, but Steve Jobs donated to feed thousands of nearly starving lawyers.
In South Africa (Where a lot of these funds will be used) 30% of pregnant women attending antenatal clinics in 2010 were HIV+. A lot of those children will be HIV positive. Even more of them would have been if not for the treatments and funding from organizations like the AIDS fund.
In 2008, almost six hundred thousand people died from AIDS in South Africa (That's 1% of the population, by the way, _in a single year_). The year before that? The same. And the year before that? Also the same.
(I was in the first responder community in south africa many years ago, and the only statistic more scary than the HIV+ rate among people admitted to one very large hospital was it's corresponding Hepatitus B rate)
With that in mind, do you see why I find your flippant comment just a little annoying and condescending?
From: http://www.avert.org/south-africa-hiv-aids-statistics.htm
(Didn't mean to dump on you, specifically, but you don't need to be raped or cheated on to get the disease either)
Jobs probably believed he and Apple were already giving enough to the world through their product line...
And what about the other $30 billion or so he's donated over the years? Certainly that counts for a little bit more, right?
Bill Gates did not do that, his foundation did. That is not his money, it's money donated by many people.
>
Cancer is pure evil.
Or cancer just really likes Steve Wozniak.
Good god, do you ever get tired of being such a fucking idiot? Please do everyone here a favor and fucking kill yourself.
The first time Bill Gates actually did anything useful about a virus infection!
Ba dump bump! Thank you, I'll be here all week. Be sure to tip your waitress. Try the veal.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The point is to setup a trust that can't be taxed out of existence. When you die, and you try to leave a bunch of money to someone, the government, in America, takes a very large portion of it in taxes (your legacy dies off quickly with you). To curtail this you have to use a trust. Billionaires are control freaks and they want to direct their money from the grave--trusts allow them to do that. The trust is a "non-profit" that can live on under a charter that must be adhered to by the web (check and balance of sorts) of trustees. The preservation of great wealth is way over your little head.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
It's about glory and legacy. The 750milllion is but a small small fraction of the controlled wealth.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
really? Microsoft hate on the charity front? Hey read a little, your god didn't do shit. Fuck you apple clone children...
Let's not forget that the reason developing countries can't cheaply manufacture their own AIDS medication is that the TRIPS agreement, which Gates was a major back of, requires them to respect the patents of the richest countries.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
You (and the dork who modded by comment "troll") seem to be suffering the misconception that I was praising or justifying Jobs. I was just pointing out a difference in Jobs' and Gates' personalities and life choices, and how that led to one becoming a life-saving philanthropist and the other... not. Jobs clearly believed that what he was doing and planning to do with Apple was the best thing he could do to make the world a better place. I wasn't trying to evaluate whether he was right.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I didn't say it justified it. I swear, the superficial level of reading comprehension here....
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
In this case, it sounds like he's actually doing some good. Quite a few of his other donations have come with massive strings attached: i.e. we'll buy large quantities of drugs for your country if you sign an IP protection treaty with the USA. The justification is that the drug companies won't sell the drugs for export to a country that doesn't respect US patents. The fact that the treaties also happen to include things that directly benefit some of BG's other investments is just a happy side effect...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
and 99% of the idiots on Slashdot can't even begin to understand the science behind any of this, so just go along with the party line. Truly embarrassing.
Try reading 'The Trouble with Nevirapine' for a start. No wait, don't bother, just carry on repeating whatever the T.V. tells you, then you won't have to THINK...
This headline reminds me of past headlines about Microsoft's charitable contributions to schools: "Microsoft gives umpteen billions dollars worth of software away!" Except that, to Microsoft, the cost of printing some CDs and distributing them was a mere pittance.
So it is when you compare the value of generic drugs with drugs who's prices are artificially inflated by patent protections. Pharmaceutical companies would very much like the same protections in Africa and the rest of the world that they enjoy here. Not everyone believes that progress requires that we concentrate enormous wealth and power in the hands of a very very few people.
So here are a few questions: Does the Gate's foundation purchase and promote the use of generic life saving drugs? Do Bill and Melinda, through the Gates Foundation or any of their other ventures, work to limit the efforts of generic pharmaceutical manufacturers in countries where they now operate completely legally? Do Bill and Melinda, through their investments in pharmaceutical manufacturers, profit by directly or indirectly suppressing the activities of generic drug manufacturers in countries where they currently operate unencumbered by American notions of proprietary intellectual capital? Do they promote the widespread dissemination and use of knowledge about life saving treatments?
The answers to these questions very much impact how we should interpret the value ascribed to their so-called 'charitable' contributions.
thanks for the clarification, up til now I SWORE it was because of his anti-philanthropical attitude!
Bill made software that got me stuck with his crappy product.
Windows (2003) and active directory do not offer nearly enough management knobs/tools/etc to straighten out even the simplest issues with active directory. It doesn't show that sync stopped. (but it does beep on crashes of services, unstarted services, full disks, swap file, etc etc etc and do not forghet the windows updates that cream at ya to reboot again)
This overlooked corner makes windows unfit for the enterprise.
Now that Bill tries to do good, how much must he do to compensate?
(yes, windows, but only for work, not at home)
That is the most angry, neckbeardy dweeb drivel I've ready today. Are you serious, or are you just playing a caricature of "Out of touch Angry dweeb who thinks Operating systems are OMGSuperImportant" things and his pathetic little hobby has made him embarrassingly even to other neckbeard dweebs?
You obviously don't remember the Ugandan genocide Microsoft perpetrated back in ought'6, do you? Where they murdered 50000 Ugandans to milk their blood to use as ink in Microsoft Windows OEM cases?
Same was said about people who pointed out the same about Inquisition (except with more killing and violence, of course).
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
See what you can do when you pay almost no taxes!
http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/2011/04/07/microsoft-boeing-among-nations-top-corporate-tax-dodgers-daily-beast/
http://tntaxguy.blogspot.com/2011/04/double-irish-and-dutch-sandwich-how.html
With crumbling roads and schools, broke Countries, States, and Municipalities, we should show gratitude for the pittance that overlord Gates bestows upon us. All hail corporations!
Uhh, touche. Totally dude.
Possibly not, but your previous post does seem to suggest that it excuses it somehow.
Let's just go over it point by point....
What difference should this make if this were not some sort of attempt at excusing his uncharitable nature?
I bolded the key words in these statements, above. In the context of what you wrote, this heavily reads like you are trying to justify Jobs' less-than-charitable nature... or, as I mentioned above, at the very least excuse it.
And your concluding paragraph pretty much clinches your thesis. This hypothesis has absolutely no basis in reality, and based on how he treated other people anyways, there's plenty of reason to suggest that it is false. To conclude that he was simply just "too busy" to show other people any real kindness is nothing but a load of bullocks, because anyone who is too busy to show charity is already ethically misguided. What basis is there to presume that he would have changed?
Is it *possible* that he could have had a change of heart as he got older, if he should have lived longer? Of course it is... people have changes of heart all the time. But to suggest that this could have been a somehow *likely* turn of events is an entirely different kettle of fish, and it is what everybody who has responded to your post has taken exception to.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Steve didn't die, he has ascended...
MOD PARENT UP
To all who modded this down, I hope *you* die of AIDS.