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Nathan Myhrvold, Do-Gooder
theodp writes "Perturbed by a GigaOm item which likened him to 'Darth Vader doing some charity work as he completes the Death Star,' Intellectual Ventures CEO Nathan Myhrvold talks about the goals of his 'Global Good' program and fires back at critics in an interview with GeekWire's Todd Bishop. The technology industry is a little too obsessed with 'sending little messages to each other and having fun on a social network' for Myhrvold, who hopes to tackle bigger problems like malaria, polio, and HIV with the help of funding from buddy Bill Gates. 'I don't mean to call Zynga out in a negative way,' says Myhrvold, 'but is Zynga doing God's work? Is Facebook doing God's work? Even setting aside what God's work means, I think it's pretty easy to say, those companies are doing wonderful things, but they are for-profit ventures. It's either tools or toys for the rich.' BTW, if you're ready to do God's work, IV's looking for a Vice President, Global Good."
Collect the patents... ALL the patents... then hold the world tech industry ransom for...
(stares hard with index finger pointing at mouth)
One Hundred Billion Dollars!
I'd rather they do good, than God's work.
'Darth Vader doing some charity work as he completes the Death Star',
Slashdot editors need to stop posting what is clearly rebel rhetoric. The first Death Star was used on Alderaan to save lives. The planet was partly hollow and heavily fortified; A great many imperial lives would have been sacrificed to end the war in a conventional ground-based attack. By destroying Alderann with the Death Star instead, billions of lives were saved. After that, the galaxy enjoyed its longest period of peace and prosperity in centuries.
The second Death Star was blown up before it was even completed, and it's construction was solely as a deterrent against future war -- it would have reduced the cost of maintaining a fleet of thousands of flag ships as fewer would have been needed for routine patrols. There were not many military personnel on the base at the time, most of those people were contractors working during the recession, caused by supply shortages because funds were diverted to combat the constant terrorist attacks by the rebels. When the Death Star fell, millions of contractors and private citizens lost their lives in an unparalleled terrorist attack. The Empire had no choice then but to respond to these right-wing religious nutjobs with overwhelming force.
Never Forget the Liberty Star disasters!
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Sorry, but that's insane and highly political.
I'm ready to do God's work.... just, erm, how much does it pay?
Not directly related, but whenever an evil asshole starts prattling on about "God's work" or anything similar, it brings to mind this C.S. Lewis quote
âoeOf all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.â
Oh, wonderful, "doing God's work." Methinks someone has not had a long, hard look at what the God I'm presuming he calls his actually did in history (or so sayeth the Bible, anyway).
Nathan Myhrvold is just a sock puppet for Wallace Breen.
"Well, we’ve had that name for a long time. I think we do a whole lot more good for the world than GigaOm does. How big is their malaria research project? How much effort do they put into polio? I’m quite curious! What on Earth have they done that is —"
vs
"Tell me, Dr. Freeman, if you can. You have destroyed so much. What is it, exactly, that you have created? Can you name even one thing? I thought not."
>> is Zynga doing God's work? Is Facebook doing God's work?
Yes, Nathan, you're doing a lot of wonderful work. But that doesn't excuse *how* you're getting your money these days. Your business practices are hurting the entire industry, and putting a big crimp on innovation. The end does not justify the means.
Anyone who has not yet listened to This American Life's episode on Mr. Myhrvold really ought to:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack/
More intellect than he knows what to do with, and he chooses to leave MS and start a patent troll company... ugh.
"Myhrvold was born in Seattle, Washington. He attended Mirman School,[4] and began college at age 14.[5] He studied mathematics, geophysics, and space physics at UCLA (BSc, Masters). He was awarded a Hertz Foundation Fellowship for graduate study and he chose to study at Princeton University, where he earned a master's degree in mathematical economics and completed a PhD in theoretical and mathematical physics by age 23."
Here's to the crazy ones
Whenever someone invokes god(s) as a motivation, one need only look at history to see how badly things turn out.
Don't be evil is pretty much synonymous with don't be religious.
From the article:
So what somebody says, why don’t you tell me which patents you have, Nathan, so I can avoid them, you’re supposed to be avoiding all of them! You’re saying, Nathan, I’d like to be honest with you but cheat everybody else. What’s up with that?
That's an interesting twist.
Of course it's my responsibility as a developer to avoid all of them. Specifically, all 8 million+ of them. What I can do, then, is start researching my idea now... and many lifetimes from now when my descendents have evaluated every patent that may be relevant, they can bring my product to market. Oh, wait - the number of patents will have grown by then...
Considering how smart he is, I find it difficult to believe that he made such an absurd statement -- and even more preposterous that he thinks it's a reasonable, realistic expectation.
Putting aside the question of what is or isn't God's work, I think it would be more effective to establish and fund a nonprofit foundation to develop technology for solving the problems of the world's poor (and problems that potentially affect everybody like climate change and antibiotic resistance).
Running a little bit of charity work out of a for-profit corporation creates a conflict of interest between the need to generate profit for the owners/shareholders and the needs of those who are served. And if you can work full-time on the pro-bono technology, you'll get it done faster and better than if you are diverting time from your "real job."
Anyone who reads the Bible would understand that good works aren't the path to salvation. It's nothing if you don't have "charity" sometimes translated as "love". They then go on to describe what charity is. Sorrry I can't quote it chapter and verse but if you've attended enough Christian weddings you've heard it.
IMHO, you can't go out and oppress people then turn around, "do good", and come before God with a clean balance sheet. That said, if tormenting a bunch of geeks who can afford to be tormented and then transferring the resulting booty to aid programs helps people then fine. Call it a private wealth redistribution scheme, a corporate tax, etc. Call it whatever you like, it might even do some good; but it doesn't comport with what I was taught about Christian charity.
This is the guy who dreamed of charging for all Internet based transactions with his own money scheme.
When he starts saying the word God several times in a row I start getting violently nauseated.
I also question his statement, "We’re going to have to find who’s the best company in China to manufacture our malaria diagnostic device" while "using first world invention, product development, and business development techniques."
I state this having helped projects to reduce malaria and treat the sick in Cambodia. When $5 would buy mosquito nets. Does he really need to develop advanced technology, or could the money not be spent on existing projects using low technology? The key really is not Chinese manufacturing. The key which he hinted at is having motivated, experienced problem solvers on the ground who can see what things will work and why, and get immediate feedback and support from home base.
The idea of structuring it as a for profit venture, no matter what reasoning he gives, is just the way a shark smiles. It distracts you. Just like how he is pushing the God button. You have to wonder why. Is he a wacko? Maybe, but it is most likely because that is where he plans on getting money. Religious figures do sometimes put money into these things.
Darth Vader doing some charity work as he completes the Death Star
Which is not unthinkable. Humans are complex creatures, very few of us are entirely black or white. The main damage that religion has done to us is not the omnipotent father nonsense, but the strict seperation of the world into "good" and "bad". Which you don't find in the real world if you open your mind and really see. Even your worst enemy has some interest or some trait that you'd consider positive if it weren't for your dislike of the man. And even your best friend and ally has a skeleton in the closet.
So, aside from the nonsensical choice of words (there can be no such thing as "god's work", because an omnipotent being could get its own work done with no effort), why not simply take the guy at face value?
Because, you know, he's kind of right about Zynga and Facebook, too. Yeah, maybe he's an evil business bastard, but if he genuinely wants to do good - shouldn't we encourage and welcome that?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The technology industry is a little too obsessed with 'sending little messages to each other and having fun on a social network'
Regardless of who said it, that's a good point. Computing has become a branch of the advertising industry. As computing has become cheaper, the applications have become more banal.
This is a real problem for society. Advertising mostly moves demand around. With most people in the US spending all their disposable income, it doesn't create new demand. What it does do is drive up product prices. There are many products, from movies to prescription drugs, where the marketing cost exceeds the manufacturing cost.
Can we still afford this?
Which god is he talking about ...?
Mammon.
paying for services is what poor people do, not rich patent attorneys. To paraphrase Gore Vidal: Socialism for the rich, dog eat dog capitalism for the poor....
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
So go ahead a join the Open Invention Network.
Put your money where your mouth is.
Here's an executive summary:
1. Obama signed a law last year that "reformed" patents so that means the US government fixed any problems.
2. Patents actually weren't broken anyway. (kind of conflicts with #1)
3. Patents are superb for the biotech industry. (Comparing apples to oranges here)
4. We're just helping the little guy mostly.
5. Lots of people make money in the IT industry so it's not broken.
6. We're the only thing stopping pure outright thievery of IT patents.
Maybe he has decided to do some charity work, because he feels such shame at the slimy and foul way that he has been extorting a profit from real innovators.
Or perhaps he believes that some god might inflict some delusional firey religious punishment, for his mafia like business practices.
Personally, I consider the whole 'charity' thing to be dubious, given his remarks about it being arranged as a 'for profit' venture.
Any way, a few good deeds are not going to change the opinion of anyone, given the far reaching implications for all of society, of his mafia business practices.
The world with be better a much better place without shady mafioso characters like this man. I find it extremely worrying that that there is any mention of a 'god'. Any of the gods of recent religion, would certainly crack down hard on a Patent Huckster like Myhrvold. In fact most of the gods of relgious delusion, are thoroughly unpleasant characters, that so far seem to have done nothing about parasites like 'intellectual ventures'. If there were any good presiding over Myhrvold, he would definetly be near the front of the queue for a bolt of lightning to the head, to fry some sense into him, and to instill some grasp of the basic principals of human decency.
Who is this "God" to whom he refers? Baal? Zeus? Jehovah? Sorry. Just too many to track.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-- Pablo Picasso
The European theocracies ended some 300 years ago. Islamist theocracies still endure, but Christianity is fundamentally different from Islam.
It is quite rancorous to be unable to move on after 300 years.
LOL
The path to Hell is paved by Good Intentions like those of Adolf Hitler.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
Yeah, I think we have more than enough people doing God's work. Dan Cathy and Pat Robertson are doing a fine job there.
"It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" (Matthew 19:24).
And for good measure; For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
Rich, philanthropic assholes tend not to make the world any better.
US foundaton gives Africa countries donations to buy drugs from US pharma companies. They also encouraged South Africa and India to not develop their own generic AIDS drugs, rather buy them at full price from western drug companies. Loans for the payment of such are available at an affordable rate of interest.
Malaria vaccine results face scrutiny.
"New research shows that Intellectual Ventures is tied to at least 1,300 shell companies whose sole purpose is to coerce real companies into buying patent license that they don't want or need. Those who resist the "patent trolls" are dragged into nightmarish lawsuits."
Buddhists don't exactly have a "God". Buddha himself made a point to insist he was just "an enlightened man". Very sloppily put, when you do good work, you improve the world around you. Someone remembers and does good for you someday. But sidestepping the literalism interpretations of reincarnation, there's no other external entity doing the whole Santa/God "Naughty-Nice" calculation on you all day long. In some of the "soft and long" (my words) interpretations of Buddhism, if you make a sin that *truly* hurts no one but yourself, it has very little effect. The Universe calmly waits for you to become bored with it, and then you will just stop doing it (sometimes with friends/classes help).
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Of course gates is going to have one of his number 1 henchmen out pedaling his "good(s)"