Slashdot Mirror
Bill Gates Promotes Vaccine Projects, Swipes At Google
Nerval's Lobster writes "In a new interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Bill Gates discussed his Foundation's work to eradicate polio and malaria, while suggesting that vaccine programs and similar initiatives to fight disease and poverty will ultimately do much more for the world than technology projects devoted to connecting everybody to the Internet. While Gates professes his belief in the so-called digital revolution, he doesn't think projects such as Google's Internet blimps (designed to transmit WiFi signals over hundreds of miles, bringing Internet to underserved areas in the process) will do the third world nearly as much as good as basic healthcare. "When you're dying of malaria, I suppose you'll look up and see that [Internet] balloon, and I'm not sure how it'll help you," he said. "When a kid gets diarrhea, no, there's no website that relieves that." Gates then sharpened his attack on the search-engine giant: "Google started out saying they were going to do a broad set of things. They hired Larry Brilliant, and they got fantastic publicity. And then they shut it all down." Google focusing on its core mission is fine, he added, "but the actors who just do their core thing are not going to uplift the poor." The Microsoft co-founder also has no intention of following Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and other tech entrepreneurs into the realm of space exploration. "I guess it's fun, because you shoot rockets up in the air," he said. "But it's not an area that I'll be putting money into.""
I personally have a hard time keeping track of all of the humanitarian efforts Microsoft engaged in while they abused their monopoly position to crush competitors without even the slightest regard for morality and decency. You know, because there were so many. I very much admire Mr. Gates and the work of his foundation - there is no question they have done and are doing wonderful things. But quite a lot of revisionism going on in his head, it seems. I wonder where he thinks his wealth came from?
If you're shelling out money, it's not free, is it?
Being forced to buy something you may not need or want just so the other guy doesn't have to take personal responsibility is not free.
The Soviets tried that process. Look how well it worked for them.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Very funny....and very wrong.
The day BG comes up with any kind of vision (Road Ahead tanked)... Let's see anything he does that fails to involve and benefit from Google in some way. He's just a mouthpiece for Bing.
Third World person - starving, sick, uneducated - goes to Google:
"How the fuck do I get out of this shit hole"
Then they go to Reddit and ask the same thing and get posts like this:
"Become white"
"Stop being a muslim"
"Get a job'
They then Ask Slashdot:
"Well, if you studied engineering or CS instead of humanities, you wouldn't be where you are!"
"Start a business! Worked for me! My las employer is my client and I couldn't be happier!'
Yep, the Internet and Google has all the solutions!
Even worse: he spends loads of money promoting male genital mutilation, explaining this with a long debunked myth that it somehow helps against AIDS. There was just a single major study that showed such a result (Farm Orange), and all it proven was that educating men about safe sex is more beneficial than male circumcision is harmful (at least with respect to short-term HIV infection rates). To add to scientific misconduct, the control group was immediately destroyed (ie, circumcised) after the study's end to ensure no extra data can be gathered about that group. Their results stand in contrast to those of actually peer-reviewed studies.
That's a single purported benefit. Downsides include a sizable risk of complications, reduction in feeling in a sexual organ, body modification without the child's consent, etc.
Gates is no better than a random Somali witch doctor/mullah who does the same to girls.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.