Bill Gates Unleashes Swarm of Mosquitoes 841
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft founder turned philanthropist Bill Gates released a glass full of mosquitoes at an elite Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference to make a point about the deadly sting of malaria.
'Malaria is spread by mosquitoes,' Gates said while opening a jar on stage at a gathering known to attract technology kings, politicians, and Hollywood stars.
'I brought some. Here I'll let them roam around. There is no reason only poor people should be infected.'" Say what you will about the guy, that is showmanship. Well done.
Just Like When He Led Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
Although this time around, I'm on his side.
Re:Just Like When He Led Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Just Like When He Led Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Just Like When He Led Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm, not a bad idea, trading HIV for the experience of sex. Not everyday a geek will get such a tempting opportunity.
And it's not even guaranteed you'll get HIV!
Re:Just Like When He Led Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
Theoretically, it's not guaranteed that he'll actually get sex, either.
Is it in yet?
Re:Just Like When He Led Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Just Like When He Led Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
Really? You have to be infected in order to appreciate the horror of malaria?! Wait'll the HIV folks get a hold of this idea.
I'm eagerly waiting for that conference...
"Sorry Mr president, can I take your pants off ?, so as I was saying, HIV propagation, oh, and your underwear too... Yes, um, right, HIV propagation can take many forms from blood sharing... Would you please bend over a bit Mr president ? Yes, um, from blood sharing to sexual... ah, wait, I need to stimulate myself a bit, just a second... Let me show you some slides in the meantime..."
I probably won't see in in the theatre but count me in for the DVD release, It sounds like a great investment.
(wait, did I say that out loud ?)
Re:Just Like When He Led Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think even getting infected reveals the horror of malaria. The true horror of malaria is getting the disease and not having access to the health care necessary to save your life.
I had a friend who spent 2 years traveling through Africa. He got Malaria twice but had health coverage and was able to get the care he needed to survive. According to him, the experience "sucked" (both actually having the disease and it cutting time and money that he was planning on spending on his trip), but he survived with very few lasting consequences.
Getting the disease gives you some notion of what it's like, but only in the same way that not eating for a day or two would give you an insight into living in poverty and famine.
Re:Just Like When He Led Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
You are an idiot. RTFA first and then comment.
Attendees are pissed? So wtf? Just a (fake) taste of reality is enough to get the attendees pissed eh?
I am from 3rd world, have been here in the US for a decade now. I'm appalled at the ignorance in this country about the way of life in the tropics (which doesn't necessarily equal 3rd world). Those diseases are real, regardless of your sense of hygiene and health. And can affect you anytime. People die of Dengue, Malaria and Meningitis because of mosquitoes. At the very least, mosquitoes are annoying as hell. When I was back there I used to dream of spreading a mosquito-killing virus and eradicating them.
What he did was perfectly fine, even if a bit sensationalist. He made a point.
Re:Just Like When He Led Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
Erm...you missed the point entirely. He was just going for the shock value to get his point across: He would like rich people to donate money to help fight malaria (and other) outbreaks in third world countries.
And they were probably just harmless, non-disease carrying mosquitos that I get bit by a hundred times througout the summer. I mean seariously, do you think he would actually risk someone getting a life-threatening illness?
Re:Just Like When He Led Microsoft (Score:5, Informative)
Good lord guys.
There are labs, where they provide these kinds of animals. In lieu of convincing evidence to the contrary the reasonable assumption is the Bill Gates had a flunky call a lab, say "I'd like two dozen biting but non-infectious mosquitoes - they will be released into the open air as part of a PR stunt so it's important they be non-infectious."; and delivered said mosquitoes.
This is *less* dangerous than if he were talking about Bubonic Plague and released lab mice - the mice would chew on wiring.
Get a grip.
Pug
Memento Mori (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a beautiful illustration if the Liberal mindset. Rather than trying to raise the poor by eliminating mosquitoes he's trying to equalize everyone by lowering the wealthy.
Or, an alternate way to look at it is that he's trying to remind the wealthy that just sitting still and letting poor rot instead of trying to help raise them up isn't a good thing. Encouraging empathy by upsetting their comfortable little world and letting them know a little bit of what the plebians feel of fear. Sometimes you've got be knocked on your ass once to appreciate the view. Dunno why this is a "Liberal" thing in your mind (and thus bad?), but there you go.
Maybe it's just his way of saying, "Memento mori, bitches."
Re:Memento Mori (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah yes, that would be the Green-Liberal plan that we executed in the 1960s-1970s...
Our society has a bad habit of declaring a thing to be evil after we don't need it any more.
Re:Memento Mori (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Memento Mori (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure that the nearly 900,000 people who die a year from malaria are happy our birds are safe. I love birds of prey, too - they are some of the coolest creatures on the planet. But fuck you if you think they're more important than close to a million people a year. If you even reduce that number by half through reasonable DDT usage (I'm not saying farmers should be able to spray it wherever they want to stop whatever pests they want), in the years since DDT was banned you'd have stopped the equivalent of several holocausts.
We should look at the environmental effects of DDT and use it carefully - but you have to balance human and environmental factors here, and in the case of hundreds of thousands of yearly deaths, I'd say the balance shifts a little bit toward the human end.
Re:Memento Mori (Score:5, Insightful)
Depends on your point of view. Most bird habitats are threatened. Humans are overpopulated.
Re:Memento Mori (Score:5, Funny)
If you were a bird, I'd think you were being reasonable.
Re:Memento Mori (Score:5, Funny)
Wtf are you doing here? I thought your ass was banned http://www.edf.org/article.cfm?ContentID=4407 [edf.org]
DDT can't work anymore (Score:4, Interesting)
Not in the way it worked for the US.
There are too many mosquitoes who are either resistant or have latent genes which confer resistance. Any widespread eradication program will create a resistant population in no time flat.
The opportunity has past.
Re:Memento Mori (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll allow that the situation is more complex than I indicated in a two paragraph forum post :)
DDT does continue to be used worldwide as a local vector control agent. Its unrestricted use as an agricultural pesticide did most likely damage its ability to be used against malaria through the encouragement of resistant strains of the disease.
But many third world countries have had to cut back on DDT use because of pressure from the US aid groups supplying their anti-malaria money. And hundreds of environmentalist groups lobbied hard against allowing it into the 2004 Stockholm Convention. I consider this preference for animal over human life to be strongly misguided, even as someone who is strongly for the protection of animal life when it is reasonable.
Re:Memento Mori (Score:5, Informative)
I used to believe that. Turns out there wasn't any hard evidence; the DDT ban came about almost wholly due to Rachel Carson's bestselling book SILENT SPRING, which has since been discredited as having no scientific basis. (And yes, I've read the book.)
Re:Memento Mori (Score:5, Informative)
Yay, Urban Myths live on.
There is no Global DDT Ban. Due to overuse in America we ended up poising ourselves (basically when we were to spread it, the scientists/instructions said use 1 bag, the spreader used 10 bags, to be sure.)
DDT is still legal to use in Africa, and in fact, is being used. Its one of the most cost efficient methods at controlling Malaria. Its just more highly monitored than it was before (due to people using way too much.)
Go hit your wiki's, and find out more about the great DDT Myth, FUD brought to you by the anti-environmental movement, and embraced by the USA.
Re:Memento Mori (Score:5, Interesting)
Yup. Same thing with freon. After the patent expired, it became an evil environmental hazard here. Good thing Dow had a convenient replacement refrigerant!
Talk about a misinformed opinion. Let's deal with the actual facts, shall we? Please.
The insinuation that DuPont was somehow behind the ban is just plain trolling.
Re:Memento Mori (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Definitely eliminating the mosquitoes is what he should be working for.
I am sure they server no ecological role at all.
Heck, why not use DDT? I think it's pretty good at controlling mosquitoes...
Either that, or maybe not everything has a simple solution.
Re:Just Like When He Led Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
Definitely eliminating the mosquitoes is what he should be working for. I am sure they server no ecological role at all.
I can't tell if you're being serious with that comment or not.
At any rate, just to play Devil's Advocate here and name at least one situation where they could play a significant ecological role, off the top of my head I'm sure it'd effect the bat population. Which in turn could effect the populations of other bugs, causing them to grow. Sure, initially the bat population would just shrink to fit their reduced food sources, and the other bug populations would remain unchanged, but a shrunken population means less diversion between the bats which makes them more susceptible to, say, an illness wiping them all out, which then the other bugs populations would grow.
Re:Just Like When He Led Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
No he's not.
First, he didn't release the mosquitoes [slashdot.org] (although you wouldn't realise that from the summary). Second, they were mosquitoes bred in a laboratory, so were not carriers of malaria.
But that is all completely beside the point.
The point that he demonstrated, rather well it seems, is that we in the west find the idea of us being subjected to the risk of malaria extremely offensive. On the other hand, how many of us are raising a protest about people in developing nations being subject to exactly the same disease?
Hypocrites, all of us. Shame on us.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Nonsense.
We shape policy in those areas where we are "free to meddle".
Africa is not Bill's "white mans burden".
Re:Just Like When He Led Microsoft (Score:4, Informative)
Well, according to this Live Blog [posterous.com] from someone who was at the event, and blogging during it, Gates did release some of the mosquitos...
-- Dave
Re:And we found it SO offensive that... (Score:4, Insightful)
If we want people to listen to us when we say "Don't drain swamps and don't use DDT", which are the only cheap and effective ways to control malaria, we need to help find and fund other solutions that they can't afford.
Re:And we found it SO offensive that... (Score:5, Insightful)
> Why don't other societies do that, too?
Uh...poverty?
> Why is it our job to do it for them?
Uh...kindness?
Re:On poverty. (Score:5, Insightful)
Wasn't America once a poor country, too? Yet we overcame and solved our mosquito problem.
Yes, before you were born, America was a poor country. You've inherited a rich one. Now go spend your our forefather's money like you made it yourself while other people work 80 hour weeks for less the minimum wage and contract malaria, because by golly, you've earned it! It's their fault for being born into poverty!
Re:On poverty. (Score:5, Insightful)
Conservatives think that everything bad that happens to someone, everything, is their own fault and they should be able to fix it themselves.
You can't convince them otherwise, trust me.
Re:Just Like When He Led Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just Like When He Led Microsoft (Score:4, Funny)
What are you smoking and why aren't you sharing?
Aren't you paying attention? He's not sharing because he's a republican.
Re:Just Like When He Led Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
No. If anyone had a drug that slowed down the progression of HIV and had to be taken every day for years and years and years, they could make a billions of dollars.
A cure is just one dose. Hardly worth researching.
That is probably why we have the former, and not the latter.
Re:Just Like When He Led Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just Like When He Led Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
My job basically amounts to finding and killing people (military).
Big tobacco sat on their findings for quite a while.
The 'real people' who made zyklon B during world war 2 probably knew what it was being used for, but...
Conservatives probably are comfortable hiding statistics about sex, disease, and pregnancy that undermines their positions- data that could otherwise save lives...
Yes, I do believe a company would sit on a cure.
-b
Re:Just Like When He Led Microsoft (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Just Like When He Led Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
So when your computer is part of a botnet you can say "my computer got bit by a Microsquito and now it has a protozoa"?
This new good guy image of Gates is puzzling to me. I read his dad, a lawyer, had to shame him into starting his philanthropic organization. Did the three hhosts of Christmas visit Ebeneezer Gates last year?
Been done (Score:5, Funny)
Bill does this all the time at the office for target practice for Ballmer.
Re:Been done (Score:5, Funny)
Consistent (Score:5, Funny)
Jeez, even his philanthropy has bugs!
Collecting Mosquitos (Score:5, Funny)
Man, I would hate to be the sucker who has to put all those mosquito in the jar.
Bill: Steve, Can you come in here. ......
Steve: Hey bill, hope you are happy with optimization I put in Windows 7 Kernel.
Bill: Yah that is pretty good, I have another project for you.
Steve: Sure Bill, anything for you.
Bill: I want you to
Steve: You want me to what?
Re:Collecting Mosquitos (Score:5, Funny)
And next up... (Score:5, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
More than a few. He drove them all [wikipedia.org] into Lake Washington years ago.
Re:And next up... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And next up... (Score:5, Funny)
But how awesome would it be if he gave a speech about unicorns? That would be sweet!
Go into the Candy Mountain Cave, Bill !
Re:And next up... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And next up... (Score:5, Funny)
Meh, I'm still hurting from his speech on herpes...
I figure such a talk must suck...
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Richard Stallman making a point against software patents [stopsoftwarepatents.org]: Everybody has cancer - why not you?
Not a good Crown for Mosquitos (Score:5, Funny)
"...politicians, and Hollywood stars" Those types will suck the juices out of those poor helpless mosquitoes.
Dear god, won't somebody think of the mosquitoes?!
Sheldon
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Anywhoo wish I were there to provide a note of irony as the UNIX guy who calmly orders a Gin and Tonic [wikipedia.org] and goes back to ignoring Bill Gates' bugs and viruses...
Assault ! (Score:3, Insightful)
Some people are allergic to mosquito bites even if the mosquitoes are disease-free. Harm is not necessary in most states to convice for assault (that's battery). Just the threat of harm.
Re:Assault ! (Score:5, Insightful)
I bet they were mosquitoes that don't bite at all, eg ones that just eat nectar. In any case only the females suck blood. (Pause for jokes...) If anyone had been bitten I'm sure we would have heard of it pretty quickly -- who wouldn't like to sue Bill Gates?
Re:Assault ! (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Assault ! (Score:5, Insightful)
Drug dealers and minorities do, WASP billionaires don't.
Re:Assault ! (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone who grew up around poor white people, I find your statement offensive. "The system" treats all poor people badly, regardless of ancestry (see sig).
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Though I surely sympathize with poor white people, and am saddened by the state of all those struggling to get by, statistics show they suffer less than their counterparts in terms of law prosecution. Racism still exists (I need only listen to my father-in-law rant...), though I hope one day everyone sees race like Peter does.
Characteristics of State Prison inmates
* Women were 6.6% of the State prison inmates in 2001, up from 6% in 1995.
* Sixty-four
Re:Assault ! (Score:5, Informative)
The statistics you quote simply do not support the argument you are making because they do not control for income.
I do not know if it is the case that you honestly do not understand statistics, or that you are using sophistry to push an agenda. Either way, your error should be obvious to an educated person.
Re:Assault ! (Score:4, Insightful)
So? Poor people get convicted using toy guns. Gates could have doubled his cool creds in this demo by telling the audience that poor people also can't get away with loosing a swarm of mosquitos on a bunch of important people, but he sure can.
It is ufortunate that it takes someone who is very well off to do this kind of thing. There is a 0.01% chance that anyone from the crowd could convince the local prosecutor's office to pursue criminal charges agaisnt Gates. 0% more like. He could bring in a legal team that would tie up an underfunded overworked team of state lawyers for 1000 years and waste more tax money than the war on drugs and he himself would never see the inside of a courtroom.
And if you went after him in civil court the interest he'd earn in the time it took to make the case would cover any monetary award that would be judged against him. He is well insulated against legal stupidities.
Rich people could redeem themselves if they did cool stuff like this on a regular basis, but now all they do is devise ways to burn us all for fuel. Back in the day Howard Hughes would crash a rocket plane into your house, wash his hands in your sink without asking, and apologize for it to nobody.
I think he's safe (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're a tech king or politician, would you want to be known as "the guy that sued the richest-man-turned-philantropist over a bug sting"?
Nobody in that could would ever talk to you again. Let alone invite you to dinner, because they could just happen to offer you something you might be allergic to and sue again.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, in the UK he would have been arrested and held under anti-terrorism laws too.
Re:Assault ! (Score:4, Interesting)
Only in the US of A.
And all other countries with an English-derived system of common law.
I'd bet that it might count in a lot of civil law countries too.
The fun case would be whether you could sustain a battery claim via mosquito if they bit.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Most people are allergic. Why do you think they itch when you get bit?
Because that's a normal immune reaction to an antigen entering the body? Now, if you start itching all over your body from a single mosquito bite and/or have trouble breathing because your airways are swelling shut ... then you have an actual allergic reaction.
Next week's trick (Score:5, Funny)
For his next trick, to highlight the need for stricter gun control laws, Bill Gates will fire a gun into a crowd while shouting "there is no reason why only poor people should suffer from gun crimes!"
I think Al Gore plans on having a volcano erupt in downtown Manhattan to emphasize that ecological disasters are not just some fringe pacific "ring of fire" problem, but I hear he's having trouble getting a permit from the city.
Re:Next week's trick (Score:5, Funny)
Bill Gates will fire a gun into a crowd while shouting "there is no reason why only poor people should suffer from gun crimes!"
Cheney has him covered [wikipedia.org] on that. Beat him to it, actually.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A volcano isn't an ecological disaster, except in Soviet Russia [wikipedia.org]. It's a geological disaster.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:That's nothing (Score:5, Funny)
There's more than one way to eat a rhesus
Why do we have a problem with Gates? (Score:5, Insightful)
What has Gates done PERSONALLY to make slashdotters so hateful of him? Honestly, the real reason Microsoft is able to get away with what it does is that monopolies are an inherent flaw in our current economic system. Microsoft is no different, or annoying and heartless, than the cell phone companies or how AT&T was.
Bill Gates smoothly made sure his company won the monopoly, but even without the man, a different software company would have won it.
Re:Why do we have a problem with Gates? (Score:4, Insightful)
His intentions may be good. I think I remember his vision was to create the computer that everyone can use and everyone can understand, and make it the only OS you'll ever have, so nobody would have to worry about not knowing the UI should he ever face a different computer because every computer would use the same (i.e. his) OS.
Unfortunately, the whole thing has become the poster child for the old saying "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".
Re:Why do we have a problem with Gates? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that's the thing. Gates actually had a really good vision, he wants to see our lives go digital and all our digital devices interconnected and everything integrated to work as a single beautiful system.
The problem is, his view of how this occurs is via Microsoft producing everything in that overall system, rather than use of open standards. This is not even necessarily because he thinks open standards are a bad thing, but simply because he was in charge of a company that has to answer to share holders who want nothing but profit and in that scenario, he perhaps had no choice but to go down the route of having Microsoft do it all.
Re:Why do we have a problem with Gates? (Score:5, Funny)
What has Gates done PERSONALLY to make slashdotters so hateful of him?
OK, True story: Back in the early 1980s I was working for a small startup company in eastern Idaho... we did lots of vertical market stuff for home construction companies and lumber mills. All written in C, with Assembly language libraries and a smattering (*gasp*) of BASIC. So one day, I was working on debugging our B-Tree retrieval libraries using the new state-of-the art 80386 machine (all the other machines in our shop were '286) when suddenly Bill Gates bursts into the office. He does a couple of flips over the office partition walls and killed two of my co-workers with a karate chop to the neck....one was the HR person who, of course, has all our home addresses, so Bill grabs the sheet of paper with all of them and yells "I'll be back". Well, after the police interviews and crisis counselling and cleanup... I go home only to find my wife and four triplets all stabbed to death and my dog pregnant. On the kitchen table was a note from Bill Gates saying "I did this"
Re:Why do we have a problem with Gates? (Score:5, Funny)
I go home only to find my wife and four triplets ...
You are a computer programmer!
Always remembering to zero reference your kids.
Re:Why do we have a problem with Gates? (Score:4, Informative)
What has Gates done PERSONALLY to make slashdotters so hateful of him?
What has Gates done PERSONALLY to make slashdotters like him?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
What part of
REM The IBM Personal Computer Donkey
REM Version 1.10 (C)Copyright IBM Corp 1981, 1982
REM Licensed Material - Program Property of IBM
don't you understand?
If anyone gets the chance to go to see Gates (Score:3, Funny)
Only poor people? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, there is — the richer people can afford both the knowledge of the danger, and the means of defense.
Other things being equal, poor people will always have it worse, than the rich. Bill Gates' trick — and the accompanying rhetoric — certainly made news already and will continue to do so &mdash as he intended. But it is just a buzz-generating trick — not unlike the naked PETA protesters.
His main message — that having vast numbers of people suffer and die from preventable and treatable diseases (like malaria) sucks — is quite correct and on-target. But if he wants my money (or other, non-monetary, assistance) to help with it, he better dispense with the near-Socialist proclamations...
Re:Only poor people? (Score:5, Informative)
He said "there's no reason only poor people should be infected", not "there's no reason only poor people are elected". Poor people did nothing to deserve being infected.
Secondly, Bill Gate's little show had a lot more of a point than PETA getting naked. Whereas the latter is merely a publicity stunt, Gate's maneuver also serves to make potentially rich donors uncomfortable with the idea of the suffering of others by experiencing a small part of it. Nothing about PETA getting naked serves this sort of purpose.
Lastly, I also dearly hope that Bill Gate's political leanings aren't whats preventing you from otherwise helping to stop the spread of malaria...
Re:Only poor people? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, that is NOT socialism. [wikipedia.org] Socialism refers to the collective or state ownership of the means of production & distribution of goods, and generally condemns private ownership of property & privately-owned industry. What you are referring to is known as Charity, or Philanthropy, as you rightly identified at the start of your post.
That being said - Gates' comment had absolutely no element of "socialism" to it - if he had said "The government should take your companies & your money and use those resources to give everybody malaria medication," *that* would be endorsing socialism.
An honest discussion of class inequities is not tantamount to socialism. In the same way, noting that black women are more likely to get a deadlier form of breast cancer [msn.com] is not a racist statement. Branding something one of your least-liked -isms because it makes you uncomfortable does not make the label stick.
The whole point Bill was trying to make -- and which is being clouded by the usual Slashdot air of cynicism and hatred towards anything Bill Gates does or says -- is this: Malaria is, statistically speaking, a disease of the poor. A disease which is treatable and preventable at a fairly low cost, and a disease which the "rich and powerful" could do a lot to reduce or eliminate - and should do a lot to reduce or eliminate, because it's "the right thing" to do.
Private organizations asking individual citizens for charitable donations has nothing to do with socialism.
astroturfing tag (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is every MS story being tagged astroturfing? Do people even know what that word means, or are there really people who harbor such paranoia and belief in grand conspiracies (some kind of tech version of 9/11 Truthers)?
I bet someone's going to accuse me of astroturfing with this post and being a shill for Gates..
who tagged this astroturfing?!?! (Score:5, Insightful)
What about this indicates a faux grassroots movement? Words like 'astroturfing' quickly lose their meaning when abused like this...
I know why... (Score:3, Insightful)
who tagged this astroturfing?!?!
Obviously someone whose dictionary was bricked!
The new Gates (Score:5, Insightful)
Gates has always been largely hated here and in the IT community because of course he's the one who lumped us all with the worst of Microsoft's products as well as the best ones. It was his company that was hit by the major anti-trust suit and so on. Whilst the company he was responsible for is indeed guilty of being not particularly nice and whilst it's a fair comment to make that if he was in charge, then he is responsible too I think it's a little more complex than that.
Microsoft as a company aside, I'm not convinced Bill Gates is actually that bad a person.
I think maybe he got blinded sometimes by the position he was in and made bad decisions, other times there's been videos of him snapping at staff and so on but these strike me as particularly human traits, in the case of geeks who aren't the greatest at dealing with people, the latter doesn't strike me as being particularly unusual. After all, even Steve Jobs who is much more of a people person that Gates has ever been is equally guilty of such treatment of his staff. What's more, Jobs has also never been one for philanthropy either- in fact, on the contrary, he actually cut Apple's philanthropy programs when he returned to the company and never brought them back.
Some may argue the only reason he gives to charity is as a tax dodge, but if that's really true why does he do things like this? If it were a mere tax dodge, then there's no reason he'd need to waste his time.
This view I have of him nowadays was somewhat reinforced in a recent documentary on him that I watched the other day - "Bill Gates - How a Geek Changed the World" which was certainly interesting. Of course, we never know whether documentaries like these are made with an air of bias to them or not, similarly we don't know if everything Bill does really is just a show. But honestly, now he's no longer at Microsoft and still is willing to do things like this I think I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for now unless he does something to prove otherwise.
I think it's true when some commentators suggest that a few decades down the line, when Gates is old and dying that he indeed wont be remembered as that guy that ran that evil company and is hence evil himself, but will be seen more as a pretty decent bloke. I think as a person, Microsoft as a company has actually done more harm to his image than he perhaps deserves. I'm just not convinced anymore that Gates is one of those people who does necessarily deserve to go down in history as a bad guy. I may be proven wrong as time goes on, but only time will tell I suppose.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A great many of us have a real sense of right and wrong. And even though we may not always do the right thing, we usually feel pretty bad when we do the wrong thing.
This company led by Bill Gates has done so many intentionally wrong things without any sign or hint of conscience or apology, I cannot subscribe to your rather apologetic perspective. I have yet to see a company whose actions were not a reflection of its top leadership. With that, I would say it's a pretty safe bet that Bill Gates is not a ni
Re:The new Gates (Score:5, Insightful)
Some may argue the only reason he gives to charity is as a tax dodge, but if that's really true why does he do things like this? If it were a mere tax dodge, then there's no reason he'd need to waste his time.
It's the robber baron principle. As they get older, they need to assuage the guilt they feel for having skirted / broken the law in order to become one of the ultra-wealthy.
See Rockefeller and Carnegie for context.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The Gates Foundation only gives away 5% of its value every year. The rest is re-invested to maximise profit.
By transferring his wealth to a foundation, Gates has managed to:
a) minimise his tax liabilities
b) maintain control of his wealth (and use it in support of his fight against free software and generic drugs)
c) invest in restoring his reputation (which, for those with short memories, was damaged by his involvement in criminal behaviour )
Furthermore, investigations have found that the Foundation's attitu
Re:The new Gates (Score:4, Interesting)
If you want to say that he "maintains control of his wealth", understand that means that he can control which cause gets the money, not go buy a Ferrari.
Yes, the Foundation probably even gives money to lame causes, and has conflict of interest with the evil investments of the investment division. But ethically handling that amount of money is really difficult, even in philanthropy. Just look at the job elected governments are doing.
And I seriously doubt Gates is worried about his tax liability. You only have to pay taxes on a single sum of earned money once.
I'm not saying Bill is a good man, or that it's even excusable, just that I don't think his motivations were entirely selfish.
Well done Bill (Score:4, Informative)
I seem to remember another promise. (Score:4, Funny)
Well, he freed us from spam three years ago, so he's probably our best hope against malaria.
Gates Foundation's approach to malaria is wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
The Gates Foundation is trying to distribute antimalarial drugs to all the poor people in Africa. Too bad there is already a cure for malaria orders of magnitude cheaper: DDT. In epidemiology, you eradicate a disease by preventing its spread, not treating every infected individual. Malaria was already eliminated in places like Sicily by using DDT.
DDT does not thin eggshells of birds. It is not carcinogenic either. [unl.edu] I can't tell whether Bill Gates is trying to accomplish anything or just spend lots of money on others out of penance. If the Gates Foundation wants to improve the world, they would have more money for useful charity if they just applied DDT in Africa.
Gates is a "real deal" philanthropist (Score:5, Insightful)
The posers out there that want tax payer money to go to their cause are the absolute stingiest when it comes to their own money. Their motto is "Someone should give money, but it's not going to be me." That's cowardice, phoniness, and should be shamed. The idea of the government giving out charity money is awful for the personal growth and personal connection that donors get when giving their own money, under their own will, not under the threat of government force.
For Bill and Melinda to commit to giving all of their wealth away to charity before dying is beyond noble.
Bill's mosquito release brings a very real situation to a mostly sheltered culture. Those I know that have gone on mission trips to poverty stricken countries all profess that the were forever changed by the experience. Gates unleashed a small jar of change on that crowd, and I do hope it takes root and holds.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You don't say that Bill has seen someone else's idea, thought "hey, that's neat" and copied it without referencing it, do you?
How dare you suggest something like this?
Re:Bill Gates did NOT release mosquitos. (Score:5, Informative)
Since the linked article (yes, I read it) has a picture of Gates with the jar open, you should not be modded "informative."
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Meh, it's TED. We'll be able to see for ourselves what really happened, when they put the talk online at http://www.ted.com/ [ted.com]
B.
TED's cool.