SubscribeCathedral: Also, Gates as gone on record many times as saying that he will give away most of his money before he dies. Some of the things that he and Buffet are pushing in the charitable realm are quite amazing. And his charity is already having positive effects on infant mortality?Well, what do you expect from this crowd? The closest any of these people have come to impacting infant mortality was withholding from jerking off every waking hour.
And you want to snark... Really? I mean, really?
East Manitoba I'm not typing the rest out: Bill Gates has done more good, as an individual, than any pope, prophet, king or saint in the history of mankind. And even if he was a ruthless, miserly, thieving businessman until the day he died, and then he gave away the money in his will, he would still be unimpeachable as a philanthropist.This is true... maybe not any person, but certainly more than far most, including con artists like Mother Teresa et al. Gates would still be the richest person in the world if he didn't give his money away, but unlike the other insanely rich little boys atop the Forbes lists, he's actually done something meaningful and measurable other than compete, Ellison-style, for "Number 1!". Lives are being saved, and the NY Time article does reinforce this, suggesting that the impact from Gates and others aren't even included, and that the benefits will be even more dramatic in the next survey.
Scoo: I'm glad he's doing something good with his ill-gotten gains, even if he's doing it to be remembered for how he spent his money rather than how he made it, but give me a fucking break.That's some mind-reading prowess you got there, Scoo. But you're probably right- for example, I myself am sure that Martin Luther King, Jr. was only doing the whole "betterment of the rights of the downtrodden" schtick to get some first-class pussy. And Gandhi? He was just cashing in on the whole "heroin chic" thing, in order to further his modeling career- like he actually cared about the plight of other human beings? Ha, don't make me laugh. Yeah, you and me Scoo- we both know that since we have never felt an ounce of empathy ourselves for another living thing, surely it's impossible for anyone else to be sincere!
Interestingly, Unicef officials said, the new estimate comes from household surveys done in 2005 or earlier, so they barely reflect the huge influx of money that has poured into third world health in the last few years from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; the Gates Foundation; and the Bush administration’s twin programs to fight AIDS and malaria. For that reason, the next five-year survey should show even greater improvement, they said.So essentially Unicef is saying they expect the contributions from several organizations including the Gates Foundation to contribute to further decline in the already all-time-low child mortality rate. So blahblahblah's statement that the Gates foundation is helping to lower child-mortality is not false.
regicide is good for you: Africa used to have a lot of forests. It's been rich in resources throughout history, though those riches are rapidly depleting. There didn't used to be famine, or widespread civil war. The situation there now is largely attributable to Western/Northern dominance in the current economic system which directly allowed Bill Gates to become who he is. I dare say a lot of the metals going in to his computers are mined there, amidst resource wars.Geez, it wasn't a tropical paradise, either- things like disease, high infant mortality rates, poor government, and lack of education also existed long before Bill Gates was born. Human lives have been for most of our existence nasty, brutish, and short.
I appreciate all positive efforts, but he could donate 99% of his fortune and still be fantastically wealthy, far better off than any of us could ever aspire to be. It just feels like he's trying to put a nice face on what's essentially a pretty hollow and half-hearted effort.
posted by SaintCynr at 10:14 AM on January 7