
Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media - dgellow
https://www.wired.com/story/bill-gates-on-covid-most-us-tests-are-completely-garbage/#intcid=recommendations_wired-right-rail_dba541f5-54c4-45bf-b217-cbdce1ef7e25_popular4-1
======
ani-ani
He is easily one of the least bullshit-y sources when it comes to handling of
COVID. But then there's this right in the middle of the interview: " _And when
you have [posts] encrypted, there is no way to know what it is. I personally
believe government should not allow those types of lies or fraud or child
pornography [to be hidden with encryption like WhatsApp or Facebook
Messenger]_ ". Quite literally, encrypted communication should be illegal and
the government should read everyone's private messages. What motivates a
statement like this?

~~~
tptacek
What's frustrating about this question is that it (inevitably!) commands the
top of the HN thread with a discussion of the least interesting thing in the
article. It's an article about COVID and Facebook, and here we're
recapitulating the end-to-end encryption debate for the 8-zillionth time.

~~~
solarhoma
I would argue that this statement from Bill is the most interesting. This
statement shows Bill Gates, someone who has influence on legislatures, making
a statement against encryption.

~~~
flocial
COVID will eventually pass even with unnecessary fatalities in its wake. E2e
encryption and loss of rights will stay around much longer.

~~~
artellectual
That in and of itself is a testament to how problematic our man-made legal
system is.

Compare a nature made system to a man made system.

Nature changes over time. Our laws and regulations however do not get updated
to reflect the times. That is the reason why human progress is slow. It's
because humans don't change. That is the root cause of all evil. Humans like
the comfort of not having to change.

~~~
akiselev
_> Nature changes over time. Our laws and regulations however do not get
updated to reflect the times. That is the reason why human progress is slow.
It's because humans don't change. That is the root cause of all evil. Humans
like the comfort of not having to change._

That is the most ridiculous thing I've heard today. It took a billion plus
years for nature to come up with humans and about ten thousand years for us to
go from written language to causing a mass extinction. To call such a
comparison "hyperbolic" would be an understatement.

------
refurb
Maybe it’s just me, but I find it odd that Gates is the go to source for
public health issues.

His biggest contribution is money, which pays for really smart people to
tackle these issues.

So why not talk to the really smart people he hired?

~~~
mdoms
Bill Gates is a public health expert. He has been working on these problems
with some of the smartest minds in the field for decades now. How long does
someone need to be working on a problem before they're worthy of being a "go
to source", in your opinion?

~~~
codebolt
Like it or not, he's become a highly controversial figure for a large fraction
of the population, particularly within the societies that his foundation
works. In my opinion, they'd do good to pick a figure whose name is less
tarnished if they want the message to be more broadly accepted.

~~~
asalahli
That's an interesting claim. Pretty much every piece of negative opinion of
Gates I've seen have either been

1\. About his work at Microsoft

2\. Or some conspiracy theory about world domination, population control etc

I'd be interested to read more on how societies he's directly worked with
think of him, if you have any links

~~~
throwaway12992
It has to do with Gates' vaccine program in India. Here is a paper you can
read.
[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30111741/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30111741/)

~~~
throwaway12992
Not a paper, but perhaps worth reading, is this article, which discusses other
conflict of interest accusations.
[https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/healthcare/bio...](https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/healthcare/biotech/healthcare/controversial-
vaccine-studies-why-is-bill-melinda-gates-foundation-under-fire-from-critics-
in-india/articleshow/41280050.cms)

~~~
darawk
The point of this article appears to be that the Gates foundation
simultaneously promotes vaccination and helps pharmaceutical companies with
their vaccine research. While that is technically a conflict of
interest...it's not much of one. They do both of those things vaccines because
vaccines save millions of lives per year.

It'd be like saying it's a conflict of interest to promote access to clean
water, while also investing in companies that supply clean water. Sure. It's a
conflict. It's also exactly what you would do if you just wanted people to
have clean water.

------
dr_
He points out that a standard nasal swab test is as accurate as a
nasopharyngeal (deep) swab. This is readily available from labcorp, can be
done at home, and the results are reasonably quick, within 48 hrs. It’s
covered by insurance and includes overnight fedex shipping.

~~~
yeswecatan
In this article? I didn't see that mentioned. Do _all_ insurances cover this?

~~~
riquito
It's in page 2 of the article

> There’s this thing where the health worker jams the deep turbinate, in the
> back of your nose, which actually hurts and makes you sneeze on the healthy
> worker. We showed that the quality of the results can be equivalent if you
> just put a self-test in the tip of your nose with a cotton swab.

------
dharma1
I would love to see someone let Bill talk about covid, the implications of
economic damage and increased debt over the next 1-2 years, the inequality
which covid magnifies, and future methods of prevention - for an hour or two,
with a good host.

This interview is good but barely scratches the surface.

edit: I've just found a recent interview - while still high level, it's a bit
more detailed. However, the comments section reads like 4chan, all of the top
comments are trolls. What's going on? When/how did it become a thing to hate
on Gates for his efforts to eradicate diseases?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF752acTijY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF752acTijY)

~~~
Spooky23
It isn’t a thing. What is a thing is destabilizing entities using social
platforms to advance their agenda.

Once you light that spark, the useful idiots will help advance that agenda.

------
lordofgibbons
>And when you have [posts] encrypted, there is no way to know what it is. I
personally believe government should not allow those types of lies or fraud or
child pornography [to be hidden with encryption like WhatsApp or Facebook
Messenger].

WOW. Why would someone in the tech industry like Gates be anti-encryption for
the public? The only argument I can think of against it is "You have nothing
to worry about if you have nothing to hide"

~~~
BinaryIdiot
Considering encrypted messages have to both be encrypted and decrypted, I
don't think his statement is necessarily against encrypted. I assumed he meant
preventing the sending of known materials like that and / or the opening of it
(which wouldn't interfere with end-to-end encryption at all).

~~~
breck
How would such a thing work though?

Would it be a map of unacceptable things, or an on device model like GPT3?
Would you allow someone to type the offending thing and just disable the send
button, or would you block it at the keyup event?

I don't see any way this could be implemented without kissing freedom goodbye.

I like the other commenter's take that this idea was just a bit out of
exasperation.

~~~
xenonite
Well, Apple just stated that they are one of the best in privacy oriented AI
because their AI could run on-device. And I suppose the detection of such
things would be a good example.

But I see your point: you would need to inform the user without restricting
his or her freedom.

------
johnchristopher
> And that makes me feel like, for the rich world, we should largely be able
> to end this thing by the end of 2021, and for the world at large by the end
> of 2022. That is only because of the scale of the innovation that’s taking
> place. Now whenever we get this done, we will have lost many years in
> malaria and polio and HIV and the indebtedness of countries of all sizes and
> instability.

What does he mean by that ? That research regarding HIV, malaria and polio is
slowing down ? Or that there'll be a rise in HIV/malaria/polio cases ?

~~~
ArgyleSound
Both research and interventions for other public health issues are falling by
the wayside, which is particularly devastating for the developing world.

------
Solstinox
A quick, cheap, non-invasive test that is less accurate (in the direction of
more false positives) would be far more effective than a more accurate but
slow, expensive, and intrusive test.

~~~
paxys
But somehow every other developed country in the world has tests that are
quick, cheap _and_ accurate.

~~~
raziel2p
Source? Governments are quick to brag but the reality in many places is that
capacity is overwhelmed and it still takes several days to get results. That
might be better than weeks in the US, but it's not black and white.

------
pengaru
I strongly recommend watching the impromptu interview Bill Gates gave back in
the 90s while visiting the Wired office, for gaining some valuable perspective
on his thinking, and how comically wrong he's been before.

My internet is too flaky here at the moment to verify, but I believe this is
the URL:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFFlO7yBIBM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFFlO7yBIBM)

~~~
dorkwood
It's interesting to hear what Bill's opinion of the web browser business was
in 1996.

"That's a good business. It's zero times a number."

~~~
bigbluedots
He was right: nobody is paying for a web browser.

------
rgrieselhuber
He has a very weird habit of looking happy when people mention bad things
happening, such as the collapse of the economy, second waves of COVID, etc.

~~~
ralph84
The charitable take is he's still a socially awkward nerd. The uncharitable
take is he's still as ruthless as he was during the embrace, extend,
extinguish days and since the pandemic has been great business for him why
shouldn't he be happy.

~~~
bluedevil2k
What are you taking about? The man devotes his time and considerable resources
to public health and solving the tough to solve issues instead of spending his
time owning sports teams and racing yachts. Yet...you still look for the
negatives in his motives? “Great Business?” The man is literally giving away
his money, all this pandemic is doing is taking more of his precious time up
than normal.

~~~
djsumdog
You really thing he's all altruism now? Remember how he got there. It wasn't
on the backs of good things. He crushed all of his competition. I don't
understand how people see him as some kind of hero now.

He wants more power. The Gates funded oral polio vaccine in India was a
fucking disaster!

~~~
bluedevil2k
People can’t change? That’s silly, people are always changing. People mellow
out as they get older. They’re less combative, more willing to help and be
part of a community.

~~~
dbtc
I used to think people changed, but as I've gotten older I'm no longer sure
that is true.

------
jb775
> _I personally believe government should not allow those types of lies_

Imagine if governments had the ability to silence certain "lies" throughout
history, such as the planets revolving around the sun...or the Earth being
round.

It sounds like Gates has a severe case of tunnel vision.

------
raphlinus
To me, the most striking thing about the interview is his idea for just fixing
the Covid testing delays. I think he puts his finger right on the problem:
we're incentivizing essentially worthless tests by paying full price. Change
the reimbursement structure and capitalism will do its job.

I'd like to understand more deeply why this is not happening.

~~~
Upvoter33
You don't have to understand very much to know that the Trump administration
has made so many wrong turns on this issue. This is just a small part of their
stupidity, and it has cost the US thousands of lives, and a much longer road
to recovery. November can't come soon enough.

~~~
raphlinus
The dysfunction of the US healthcare system predates the Trump administration
by a lot. I consider blaming Trump a shallow explanation of what's going
wrong. Why are other leaders doing such a poor job articulating the way
forward? Why aren't governors getting together and doing all they can to work
around the obvious failures of the federal response?

------
detaro
previously:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24082906](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24082906)

~~~
dang
Thanks. That thread wasn't very good - perhaps because of the hacky title
(which the thread duly complains about). Let's see if this run is better.
Early results are...mixed.

~~~
vikramkr
The article unfortunately shares that same title, and wired doesn't seem to
want to change it. Sometimes these sites change an article title after it has
been up for a while, but no luck it seems. Theres definitely some really good
stuff in the interview, hopefully having a different title here on HN makes it
easier to have a conversation about that.

------
popnroll
I think Gates is right. What is the problem with the government controlling
communication? There are clear advantages, like handling illegal things. What
are the disadvantages, the nude photo of your ex-girlfriend being analyzed by
a machine?

~~~
DethNinja
Are you serious? Here are some disadvantages:

If you got connections to government, you can steal trade secrets from
companies and enrich yourself and destroy the competition.

Destroy the lives of your political opponents by blackmailing.

Analyse and control the public sentiment to crush minorities.

I recommend you read a bit of stasi:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi)

Also Bill Gates wants full government control because he is practically within
the circles of government, obviously he would benefit from such agreements,
but same cannot be said for plebs.

Anyhow, even if people like Bill Gates might benefit from such undemocratic
agreements, tide can always turn against them and this level of censorship and
surveillance can be used against them even more effectively than that is
currently used againsts plebeians.

~~~
popnroll
All these points already exist today and for a long time.

------
lordgeek
if only we had BillG apointed as COVID czar at the beginning...

------
zarkov99
Pretty damning statements for the Trump administration. This should do a lot
of damage.

~~~
zarkov99
I am baffled by the down votes, what is objectionable about this comment?

------
natrik
From another article linked in the one above:

"In late February, CDC director Robert Redfield testified before the House
Foreign Affairs subcommittee and was asked if healthy people should wear
masks. “No,” Redfield responded. The day after that, US surgeon general Jerome
Adams tweeted “Seriously people—STOP BUYING MASKS.” Fauci himself, in early
March, told a Senate committee that the general public didn’t need to wear
them because Covid-19 wasn’t widespread enough."[1]

Regardless of opinions on how to respond to Covid, mismanagement by various
institutions and media has been agonizing to see. I'm strongly against
government paternalism and believe the vast amount of misinformation peddled
by institutions many hold faith in led to conspiracy on the rise.

[1] - [https://www.wired.com/story/how-masks-went-from-dont-wear-
to...](https://www.wired.com/story/how-masks-went-from-dont-wear-to-must-
have/)

~~~
ethbro
What would the result have been if, in late February, the US government had
said "Everyone should use a mask"?

~~~
davidw
What if they'd invoked the defense production act to actually crank out enough
of the things?

Or told everyone to make them, like the Czech republic did?

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/04/04/czech-
gove...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/04/04/czech-government-
implemented-face-mask-requirement-help-combat-coronavirus-column/2940393001/)

~~~
glofish
the number of cases in Czech republic are going up, currently are higher then
they have ever been ... so there

turns out it makes no difference how many you crank out, what you lock down
and when

the examples that we should do this or that are pointless,

everyone will run the same fate as Sweden, lots of cases, the epidemic runs it
course, then it is over

~~~
TomMarius
That's because the country loosened the restrictions. It worked, and should've
been kept. Sadly the leadership here is populist too, which worked at first
(the popular thing in Europe was to restrict) but then didn't (the popular
thing became to open up). If they listened to our experts instead of being
populists, we wouldn't have opened up and the cases would go to zero, as it
nearly did a few months ago.

Source: am Czech.

------
kossTKR
>I personally believe government should not allow those types of lies or fraud
or child pornography [to be hidden with encryption like WhatsApp or Facebook
Messenger].

So Gates is against encryption because of CP but flew on epsteins Lolita
Express in 2013, years after Epstein was a convicted child molester. He also
has numerous other connections to both Maxwell and Epstein.

I mean knowing what i know about him before his "billionare philantropist PR
project" of rockerfellian dimensions i was already sceptical but this is
getting out of hand.

~~~
glofish
Gates really jumped the gun on this interview. Overly opinionated, judgmental,
and paternalistic.

Listening to Gates talking about since makes the irony of it biting. Excel,
the software designed under his watch keeps destroying scientific results, to
the point gene names had to be renamed.

[https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/6/21355674/human-genes-
renam...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/6/21355674/human-genes-rename-
microsoft-excel-misreading-dates)

Not to mention how Windows did all possible to hamstring Linux for decades,
setting back science for god knows how long.

thanks Bill.

~~~
the-dude
How many decades are you exactly talking about?

------
glofish
He says "lies" should not be allowed to be encrypted.

... yes ...

\sarcasm on

let's have some people decide what lies are, and once we define that, make it
illegal to encrypt these lies,

teach a lesson to these lie-encrypting bastards

------
neskiredk
He's pretty much the single most scary philanthropist and possibly influence
on our future, judging from these past 6 months.

Based on his talks of: Worldwide chip tracking of disease. Destroying
encryption worldwide.

~~~
raziel2p
What exactly do you mean by chip tracking?

~~~
neskiredk
During Bill Gates reddit AMA, he was proposing the idea, even concluding that
it would be a necessity to have travel go back to normal. That we have
microchips embeded, that store our "public information", such as viral
infection and vaccination status.

I say that it quotations, because i do not believe it is the governments place
nor right, to make public, crucial medical data about individuals. In a
perfect system, without breaches of security, sure, but that is not the real
world.

~~~
raziel2p
Okay? Do you have a link? Because his foundation has denied it and several
organizations have done a fact check on it, finding no evidence.
[https://www.bbc.com/news/52847648](https://www.bbc.com/news/52847648)

------
hn2017
The part that saddens me is that when Gates and Trump meet, Trump recommends
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. the horriblly misinformed anti-vaxer. This is terrible
when a COVID-19 vaccine arrives. Shaking at my head at this anti-science
president.

~~~
mhh__
Why is criticism of Trump downvoted but any praise not?

~~~
dmode
Brigading ?

------
the-dude
The irony of Gates battling a virus is un.... un-something. Help me out.

~~~
dredmorbius
I give Gates considerable credit for being out in front of this issue for
years, and for talking about it now _without_ a heavy dose of "I told you so".
I'd likely not be able to resist.

I still strongly resent his company's business practices from the 1980s
through the 2000s, and arguably to the present.

And yes, the irony of the world's leading enabler of electronic viruses being
a leading authority and defender against biological viruses ... is not lost on
me.

------
brandontreb
I can't understand the 'microchip in vaccines' issue. You mean to tell me that
my iPhone can't last a full day on a battery charge, however we have
microscopic tech capable of tracking location data and relaying it somewhere
and doesn't need charging once injected into the body?

I'll take my microchip in space grey please.

~~~
gandutraveler
Microchips have existed for a while now. Even dogs are microchipped for
tracking owners.

~~~
brandontreb
That's a 'dumb` RFID chip. I don't think folks are too concerned with offline
chips that require close proximity scanning (for power). RFID also doesn't
'track' dogs. They contain information about the dog to get them back to their
owner. The info is static and contains NO location data.

~~~
throwaway373438
You may want to re-evaluate your opinion. The "tracking microchip"
conspiracies mostly stem from tracking chips (dumb RFID) used to tag wildlife.

These people don't know how the technology works, but they do know that we tag
and track animals. They're not wrong that we use microchips in this fashion.

~~~
brandontreb
I'm assuming you are talking about ARGOS tags (more sophisticated tag that
actually transmits GPS (last comment was talking about pet tags (which are
RFID)), but it's FAR from microscope / injectable via needle. I get it,
people's lack of understanding about technology is what fuels the conspiracy
theories. They don't realize that no company NEEDS to track them as they have
already traded all of that information away years ago.

I have some close friends that subscribe to such theories and no amount of
tech discussion will convince them otherwise.

People will believe what they want :/

------
ffggvv
My key takeaways

Against how our govt handled covid:

>> The irony is that this is a president who is a vaccine skeptic. Every
meeting I have with him he is like, “Hey, I don’t know about vaccines, and you
have to meet with this guy Robert Kennedy Jr. who hates vaccines and spreads
crazy stuff about them.”

>> Well, that’s just stupidity. The majority of all US tests are completely
garbage, wasted. If you don’t care how late the date is and you reimburse at
the same level, of course they’re going to take every customer. Because they
are making ridiculous money, and it’s mostly rich people that are getting
access to that. You have to have the reimbursement system pay a little bit
extra for 24 hours, pay the normal fee for 48 hours, and pay nothing [if it
isn’t done by then]. And they will fix it overnight.

Against encryption/free speech:

>> The irony is that it’s digital social media that allows this kind of
titillating, oversimplistic explanation of, “OK, there’s just an evil person,
and that explains all of this.” And when you have [posts] encrypted, there is
no way to know what it is. I personally believe government should not allow
those types of lies or fraud or child pornography [to be hidden with
encryption like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger].

re: tiktok acquisition

>> But yes, it’s a poison chalice. Being big in the social media business is
no simple game, like the encryption issue.

~~~
lostlogin
> My key takeaways Against govt handling of covid:

To be fair, there aren’t many governments ‘handling’ Covid in anything like a
manner that has been good.

~~~
felixgallo
why would you even bring up the topic of being fair about something like this?

~~~
lostlogin
I was suggesting that ffggvv could be more fair in their assessment. I do not
believe that the average ‘handling’ has been anything even approaching
considered or realistic. ‘Handling’ is perhaps the wrong term.

------
djsumdog
Why the hell does everyone now see Gates as some kind of superhero?! He was,
and still is, a notorious, power hungry, anti-competitive slime ball. He has
all the money in the world, so the only thing left is power.

His foundation seeks to create "viable markets" for vaccines and the original
name for his foundation was "The Bill and Melinda Gates Institute for
Population Control."

I don't trust anything that piece of garbage says. I swear he's gotten worse
the older he gets and no one remembers all the anti-competitive shit he pulled
to get where he is.

Poisoned chalice my ass. He should know. His entire fucking life and legacy is
a poisoned chalice.

~~~
breck
Very interesting to see the subtle spread of misinformation here. You actually
got me to look it up. So kudos to you.

For everyone else, it is not and never was called "The Bill and Melinda Gates
Institute for Population Control."

There does exist the "Bill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and
Reproductive Health", which has a fantastic mission.

Sources: \-
[https://www.semanticscholar.org/search?q=%22The%20Bill%20and...](https://www.semanticscholar.org/search?q=%22The%20Bill%20and%20Melinda%20Gates%20Institute%20for%20Population%20Control%22&sort=relevance)
\-
[https://www.semanticscholar.org/search?q=%22The%20Bill%20and...](https://www.semanticscholar.org/search?q=%22The%20Bill%20and%20Melinda%20Gates%20Institute%20for%20Population%20and%20Reproductive%20Health%22&sort=relevance)

------
fierarul
This is a terrible interview and Gates comes across like duplicitous.

Like, where to start? Somebody save this one before the edits.

~~~
arrrg
Could you name your specific criticisms? Gates was punchy, sure, but his
answers seem reasonable.

~~~
fierarul
Well, for starters he seems quite in favour of a Western Great Firewall except
this one will be used for Good(TM).

And although the current US government is pretty bad, Microsoft should buy
their own social media platform which is being otherwise kneecapped for
political reasons.

The remark about the Congress was cringey. Haha, let's laugh with the
convicted monopolist about the good ol days.

~~~
Vinnl
> And although the current US government is pretty bad, Microsoft should buy
> their own social media platform which is being otherwise kneecapped for
> political reasons.

As I read it, he explicitly said that he _didn 't_ think that MS should buy
TikTok.

------
dennis_jeeves
Does anyone else think this guy is loosing his mind? Perhaps getting dementia
or something?

------
WarOnPrivacy
I came here to feel sorry for Gates because he is so relentlessly (& unfairly)
trashed by antivaxers & similarly grounded individuals.

But then he starts demonizing encryption, which requires logic that's nearly
as unsound as antivaxism.

Harmful positions are even more dangerous, when they're espoused by people who
doing otherwise good work (and being attacked for that good work).

------
solinent
Bill Gates is not an expert. I think I would listen to an infectious diseases
professor sooner.

edit: I'm an idiot, I should have read the post, I thought this was about
something else Bill Gates had said. Still, my point stands, though the tests
are definitely mostly garbage.

