
Bill Gates says the US missed chance to avoid shutdown and should stay closed - Reedx
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/24/bill-gates-us-missed-its-chance-to-avoid-coronavirus-shutdown.html
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_bxg1
I really enjoy retirement-aged-Bill Gates' nonpartisan, pragmatic approach to
humanitarianism. He often feels like the only adult left in the room (or at
least, adult that still has any interest at all in the well-being of the world
at large).

~~~
twox2
Yeah, I'm often surprised at his level of optimism, but then I realize that
he's a big picture kind of guy and thinking quite far ahead from a problem
solving capacity instead of reacting emotionally to current events.

~~~
_bxg1
While at the same time not being a sociopath like most of today's other big-
picture problem-solvers (Jeff Bezos, etc.)

~~~
meowface
Microsoft CEO Bill Gates likely would have appeared as sociopathic as Amazon
CEO Jeff Bezos, if not more so. The only question is what retired
philanthropist Jeff Bezos would be like.

~~~
vaxman
Bezos is _NOT_ a sociopath. He saw a true need (old guard was permanently
retired by dot-com crash, remaining low-wage workers couldn't do much more
than HTML) and stepped up with Andy Jaffe's idea for helping them out. He also
has submarines, rocket ships and a whole lot of other cool things...(at least
Steve Ballmer bought a basketball team and Paul Allen had NFL, basketball and
soccer teams!)

Gates is doing Carnegie ---not making up for ordering his guards to open fire
on striking workers, just making up for countless numbers of entrepreneurial
people (not unlike you might find here on Ycombinator if it had existed back
in the day) that died after their life's work was utterly destroyed by his
wealth building tactics.

I leave you with this...from C|Net's Don Reisinger on Paul Allen: "One evening
in late December 1982, I heard Bill and Steve [Ballmer] speaking heatedly in
Bill's office and paused outside to listen in," he writes in his memoir. "It
was easy to get the gist of the conversation. They were bemoaning my recent
lack of production and discussing how they might dilute my Microsoft equity by
issuing options to themselves and other shareholders. It was clear that they'd
been thinking about this for some time." The lack of productivity wasn't
intentional, Allen claims. A few months earlier, he was informed by doctors
that he had Stage 1-A Hodgkin's lymphoma. He stayed on at Microsoft during his
treatment, but Allen says that he was a victim of Gates and Ballmer at his
weakest moment."

So forgive the rant provoked by the notion one would include Bezos in the same
topic with Bill Gates. We suggest Gates just keep writing large checks,
playing Bridge with Warren Buffet and be thankful he doesn't have a prison
record for what he got away with when the world governments (and their old
mainframes) didn't have a clue what he was doing or why it mattered.

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aaron695
> Bill Gates says the US missed chance to avoid shutdown and should stay
> closed

The title doesn't match his quotes at all.

It's misinformation unless he said something else during the talk.

He's not ruling out stopping the shutdown.

He says it's to late if you want a containment strategy.

And politically people won't like a non shutdown plan.

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tengbretson
Is there any country that has faced and contained covid 19 that has not had to
shutdown in some way? I'm not even sure what that would look like.

~~~
slaw
Taiwan
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_T...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Taiwan)

~~~
WheelsAtLarge
Yes, but they were prepared for it and took it seriously from the start.

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grayed-down
So says the guy with $96.3 Extra Large and a security detail.

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naavis
Does that somehow refute his point?

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grayed-down
No, but it certainly makes it a lot easier to take that position even if it's
wrong.

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perl4ever
Why is it easier? It seems to me easier to take any position when you have no
influence and nobody is going to take your advice. Even if small, there is a
chance that if he is wrong and people think he is right, (or vice versa) there
could be negative consequences for him, without any particular bound.

~~~
grayed-down
I'm not disagreeing with you. However, it's just easier for Bill Gates to say
that we should crater the US/world economy than, say, a waitress or a
bartender or anyone living closer to the financial edge.

BTW, you really should not be using Perl 4 anymore.

~~~
perl4ever
Well, I'm disagreeing with you and I don't use Perl at all any more, I
switched to VBA.

Who is saying we should "crater the economy" depends on your opinion of what
_will_ crater the economy, but all sorts of people _are_ demanding things that
_someone_ thinks will crater the economy. That's what happens in a crisis,
things seem crazy so people start talking about radical actions.

It's not difficult for some random person to say something that is going to
have no personal or collective consequence. Gates may be insulated, but his
comments have the potential to influence people who might in turn affect him.

~~~
grayed-down
I think it's a fairly simple proposition. Anyone who suggests that nations
suspend across the board business operations beyond what is "reasonable",
let's say beyond 4/5, is suggesting that we should "crater the economy"
because that is what will happen. It's already happening.

And I'm still agreeing with you that Gates does indeed have a great deal of
influence and should be very mindful of the human damage this cratering of the
economy is going to have. Perhaps he should not comment publicly? But that's
his right to do so.

Anyway, I disagree with Bill Gates on this. We need to get everything back up
to speed again and still remain vigilant in protecting ourselves from this
contagion.

