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Bill Gates's Plan To Improve Our World
An anonymous reader writes "Bill Gates has written an article in Wired outlining his strategy to improve people's lives through philanthropy and investment in technology and the sciences. He says, 'We want to give our wealth back to society in a way that has the most impact, and so we look for opportunities to invest for the largest returns. That means tackling the world's biggest problems and funding the most likely solutions. That's an even greater challenge than it sounds. I don't have a magic formula for prioritizing the world's problems. You could make a good case for poverty, disease, hunger, war, poor education, bad governance, political instability, weak trade, or mistreatment of women. ...I am a devout fan of capitalism. It is the best system ever devised for making self-interest serve the wider interest. This system is responsible for many of the great advances that have improved the lives of billions—from airplanes to air-conditioning to computers. But capitalism alone can't address the needs of the very poor. This means market-driven innovation can actually widen the gap between rich and poor. ... We take a double-pronged approach: (1) Narrow the gap so that advances for the rich world reach the poor world faster, and (2) turn more of the world's IQ toward devising solutions to problems that only people in the poor world face.'"
Religion is just one form of control. Get rid of it, and something else will be used, be it patriotism, racism, drugs, financial ruin or sports.
'We want to give our wealth back to society in a
... BURN THE WITCH!
No, seriously. As a percentage of net earnings, the rich contribute far less as an aggregate group than the poor. There's an inverse relationship between income and charity. The more you make, the less you give, proportionally speaking. You can outline all the reasons why it would be better if this wasn't the case... I doubt you'll find much disagreement here. But making the case for it doesn't mean anyone's going to adopt it; A concept Mr. Gates and the company he used to captain both seem ill-equipped to grasp. Simply understanding the problem better doesn't result in a solution; It is one of the oldest delusions humanity has to offer... that knowledge will lead to action.
Instead, we need to figure out why people give proportionally less, and address the issue within that cognitive framework. And the Just world phenomenon is a great place to start: The belief that you deserve whatever is happening, or has happened, to you. Fundamentally, I think you'll find the reason the rich give less is because on a subconscious level, having adopted the belief that they earned their wealth rather than simply having won a cosmic lottery, they then build on that with confirmation bias. That is, every action that comes after that in some fashion just confirms that they're more deserving than the next guy... and eventually, that makes them not very charitable. Afterall, if I did it, you can do it, right? It's such a basic failure of reasoning that entire books have been written on the subject, and yet... here we are... still not getting it.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Most of the hate for Microsoft was due to their monopoly status; not so much anymore. That monopoly let them sit on their laurels and collect money without needing to produce the best product quality. Today, MS the _underdog_ in a lot of hugely important markets. Furthermore, Gates is only a Chairman at MS anymore and has little or nothing to do with day to day operations. He's spent a an enormous amount of time, effort, and money sincerely trying (and in many cases succeeding) to make things a little better for humans everywhere. People need to let go of the hate, it's no longer useful in this context.
This is worth a read:
http://newint.org/features/2012/04/01/bill-gates-charitable-giving-ethics/
TL;DR
Gates's and others' philanthropy prolongs poverty by sowing as it does the seed of more inequality (in Gates's case, through the formation of health policies in the third world that make it easier for Western drug companies to open up markets for treatments there). They give away the fruit, but never the trees.
As Oscar Wilde observed of the philanthropists of his era: ‘They seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see in poverty, but their remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it.’ Then and now, as Wilde said, ‘the proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible.’
This is really the question that needs to be addressed: why is poverty still possible - and why can it even get worse - after 200 years of Gates's capitalism? Surely by now if capitalism was the answer, we'd not be where we are today.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
'We want to give our wealth back to society in a way that has the most impact, and so we look for opportunities to invest for the largest returns.
Well, Mr. Gates, here's how:
Don't take away their wealth in the first place.
It's well-established fact that the poor make the best use of money. There is less waste and more immediate progress than with any organisation or institute. Micro-credits are a blasting success wherever they are granted in the interest of helping people. (they fail when the same banks that caused the housing bubble/burst get in on the game hoping to make a quick buck, because they don't screen the applicants).
Monopoly rent is known to damage the economy disproportionately. For every $ you give to charity now, Mr. Gates, you've already taken two away.
"Don't be a greedy bastard." is a much, much better formula for helping other people than giving away even most of your money. Because it's not a zero-sum game, it's not just redistribution of wealth, the 1% gain most of their wealth not just by taking it from the rest, but by causing damage in excess of their profit.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I'm not actually claiming capitalism does such a thing.
Good, because there is no evidence for it.
I'm just don't see why "the gap" is a problem in and of itself. A smaller piece of a larger pie can be better than a bigger price of a small pie...
Two reasons. First, nobody believes your hypothetical any more than you do. Second, when income disparity goes beyond a certain point, many people start to think it's unfair. There are even theories that a dislike of unfairness is innate to a large degree (toddlers display it, including acting fair towards their peers), and a sense of fairness serves a social purpose. If you think that's childish, consider this. Your rich Uncle Ned dies, and his only heirs are his three nephews. You're one of them. You and Bob each get $1k. Dave, who always treated Uncle Ned like crap, gets $1B. Do you have any cause for complaint? If so, why? You are $1k better off than you were before.
1. statistically, poor people likely to have a lot kids, whether religous or not. well off people do not, whether religous or not. most well off people in first world countries have a religion, but they don't even have enough kids to maintain population
2. people do what they want and justify it whether they have religion or not, it's human nature
3. Many religions have hard work and self-improvement as commandment
4. Atheists also engage in crazy talk and actions, and have even outdone Hitler in body count on at least two occasions
5. Science, engineering, medicine, psychology and philosphy have been used as basic for being self-righteous just as much as religion
Humans are troublesome creatures, the problems will persist with and without religion
The problem I have with Bill Gates is essentially the broken window fallacy. Microsoft had a stranglehold on the computer industry. They held back the computer industry by years. A decade even! In the web development industry alone, we're still shaped by the impact Internet Explorer 6 left - which was released in 2001, twelve years ago. What economic value would Be Inc. have brought? What charitable donations would have resulted from that company? Or Netscape? Or any of the tens of thousands of companies Microsoft had a deleterious impact upon?
He has since spent some of the money he earned holding back some of the most important industries in the world trying to help people. That's good. He didn't have to do that. But people judge that work as if it stands alone. It doesn't. The work he does with the money he has comes at the expense of the tens of thousands of companies that were held back or destroyed by the illegal and monopolistic actions he took.
I think it's unlikely that, economically speaking, the actions he took were a net win for society. Yes, once he had the money, he did good things with it. But the cost to society for him to obtain that money is far too high in my eyes. Higher than the value he brought.
Essentially, he took it upon himself to be Robin Hood. He stole from the rich - Western society - to give to the poor. However I don't see any reason to believe that the theft he perpetrated - the value he stole from society - was less than the value he brought to society. And I don't think it was his right to commit those crimes to do those things.
By all means, judge him for what he has brought to society. But you should not do that without judging him for all that he has took from society as well.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
All of us know that whosoever dares criticise the "free market" in any form or way whatsoever in front of a US audience will automatically be branded a 'Bleeding Heart Liberal', a 'Socialist', if not 'Communist' by that same audience (depending on their mood and how threatened they feel) without further investigation of what he actually has to say.
Practically the only way a US audience will pause long enough to actually listen is to bring impeccable credentials as a 'Capitalist' and to start off by clear endorsements of Capitalism in general. Only then is it considered acceptable to point out one or two weaknesses or deficiencies of the system and suggest improvements.
This is what Bill Gates has done, and he's one of the few people alive who can not only say something like that and still be listened to, but who *wants* to point anything like that out to the world. I guess that Warren Buffet is another, but I wouldn't know many others. That's why he said that.
And please note that the quality of MS software or its competitive practices have no bearing on the issue.
[Gates] didn't rob from anybody, He exchanged value for value.
He robbed me by making me pay for pre-loaded copy of Windows when I bought a PC, a copy I did not use. No "value-for-value" there.
The only transactions that are not a net win are when one is at the point of a gun. Bill Gates never pointed a gun at anyone.
You don't need a gun to force people to do things. Like "buy Windows or you can't have a PC"
If there was no value in Microsoft products then people wouldn't buy them.
People can buy things because they are forced to (see above), or because they are ignorant. You should read this The Grantham Grocer Fallacy