
An interview with Bill Gates - rshlo
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/dacd1f84-41bf-11e3-b064-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2jOv8ZdDW
======
zaptheimpaler
He's right. Poverty, disease and basic things like that are things about
_survival_, the internet is not.

But mainly, the title is provocative and misleading. The article clearly
states, he was asked a leading question "asked whether giving the planet an
internet connection is more important than finding a vaccination for malaria",
and he answered. The title makes it seem like he went out of his way to make
the comparison and put himself on a pedestal, but thats not what happened.

~~~
Xylakant
> He's right. Poverty, disease and basic things like that are things about
> _survival_, the internet is not.

I'd say he's at least partially wrong. Diseases are often cause by lack of
knowledge and education, outburst can often be contained with good means of
communication. I know people doing projects that use the internet (or
cellphone text messages) to allow remote villages to better manage the
available health resources. Internet connectivity allows the local healing
person, often a nurse or similar level to send pictures and descriptions of
wounds and health issues to a qualified doctor. This allows the doctors to
actually go to the villages where they're needed most - actually saving lives.
So the internet may very well be a live-saving thing.

The other point that people forget is that it's extremely hard to completely
eradicate a disease. The only disease that I know of that's completely
eradicated is the small pox. Polio, leprosy and even the black death are
merely contained to a varying degree, often only in developed countries even
though vaccines or cheap, effective treatments exist. So investing in
connectivity and helping to spread information may actually be a viable path.

~~~
vidarh
> Diseases are often cause by lack of knowledge and education

Case in point: Polio is endemic in only three countries today: Afghanistan,
Pakistan and Nigeria. While in Afghanistan it'd be possible for it to be down
to the war, in Pakistan and Nigeria it is down to skepticism and
misinformation from religious groups (often based in past experiences) that
are often amongst the most important information bearers in their communities.
When people don't have other sources than a government they don't trust and
other biased groups giving them false information, it's no wonder many
misinformation proliferate.

~~~
legulere
Also there's an outburst in syria lately.

~~~
vidarh
There are small outbreaks in lots of countries now and again. Combination of
international travel and patchy vaccine coverage causes that.

The difference with Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan is that it is _endemic_
at least in parts of the countries, meaning it is regularly found in the
population and that it is self-sustained. Elsewhere the outbreaks are sporadic
and isolated enough that they die back.

------
Tarang
Guys don't go so hard on him. This is a passionate person about getting rid of
this disease.

I've had malaria 7 or so times. The problem is when you don't get access to
medication which is the problem. If you don't it can kill you very slowly.

Malaria is caused by this organism transmitted by mosquitoes. If you get rid
of it, mosquitoes still live, but malaria can disappear.

Also its not zero sum. Dedicating resources to getting rid of malaria isn't
going to stop people getting access to the internet. The problem lies more
with the cost and quality of the internet.

Most people in Africa have access to the internet via some form of wireless
means (mostly 3G/Edge). The problem is this is very costly. All the solutions
that keep coming forth are just variations of wireless (Loon for example).
People to have the phones, its not rare to see people go hungry to save up to
by phones.

It gets access to a lot of people but then you have issues like latency,
connection dropping, susceptibility to bad weather & bad signal. People love
the internet but hate the cost. Android is partly solving it, but
infrastructure is the other hard problem.

Everyone would love to hate him but I find it very hard to do that. His
actions are clearly louder than his words (even when out of context).

~~~
mtgx
So why does he have to trash everyone else's priorities then?

What if I worked on making a fusion reactor technology that could give "free
energy to everyone". Would I get to shit on Bill Gate's "anti-malaria"
campaign, too, because I'd think my priority is more "important"?

Phone and Internet communications are _very_ important to people. Much more
important than it might seem at first glance. I come from a relatively poor
country where people would spend "whole salaries" to buy a smartphone.
_Clearly_ people themselves have different priorities, and it's not just about
the corporation's or government's priorities.

So I guess my point is, I'm sure Bill Gates could go about funding his anti-
malaria campaign without trashing other priorities. If he wants to attack
other people's priorities, how about attacking something like oil subsidies,
that take important amounts of money from the tax payers, and give it to very
profitable companies. That money could be used for fighting malaria instead -
if you will. But again, not for Bill Gates to decide.

~~~
Tarang
The thing is providing internet access is obscenely profitable in Africa.

Looking at Vodafone's margins in countries such as Kenya (via Safaricom)
they're amongst the highest for a telco in the world. This was even true
before MPESA came along. These companies can afford to pay outrageously high
license fees, taxes, interest expenses amongst other things and still invest
in networks all around the country & still turn a heavy profit. Safaricom,
MTN, Vodacom whatever so long as its a wireless communications company are the
largest or in the top 5 in the countries they operate in.

The problem comes about is there are two information platforms. One on an
expensive 3G/Edge based network (the internet) and the other an information
platform based on a cheaper SIM App/SMS. This isn't a problem you can solve by
throwing money at it. Bill Gates can't fix this that easily.

You see services pop up that use SMS to get information over a web experience
because of these costs. It would be better if everyone had access to first
grade information instead of falling back to SMS.

Back to the central point these telecoms firms have more power to solve the
issue than Bill Gates does. Whether he tackles malaria or not you'll still see
them spend heavily in infrastructure. They just charge too much and people are
incentivized fall back to these SMS like alternatives (which MPESA is also
built on btw). But these SMS-like services are not the internet. So its not at
the loss of this if he invests in an anti malaria campaign.

I think its not he's trashing other people's priorities. The world was fine
before the internet came long, it did help. But diseases have caused harm for
as far as the dawn of recorded time.

~~~
gaius
_You see services pop up that use SMS to get information over a web experience
because of these cost_

Google discontinued their one: [http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/12/google-kills-
sms-search/](http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/12/google-kills-sms-search/)

------
algorias
Getting rid of Malaria is obviously a higher priority than internet access
from the perspective of any one person living in the third world today. I have
much respect for Bill Gates for the work he's doing in that area.

However, there is a kind of shortsightedness in his attitude: The thing is,
societies evolve because of technology and opportunities. So while it is
preferable for each individual to have no internet and no malaria, society as
a whole might progress more by taking care of the fundamental causes of
poverty (lack of education and opportunity, government corruption, etc) rather
than fighting the symptoms.

Even if it turns out that Gates is right and I'm wrong, dismissing the
relevance of the internet as flippantly as he has done is intellectually
dishonest to a certain extent.

~~~
epo
He's not dismissing it. He is saying we have got our priorities wrong.

You are being intellectually dishonest by adopting an artificially contrarian
position and trying to pretend he was saying we had to choose one or the other
just, it seems, for the sake of having a contrarian position.

You are wrong, but despite having an idiotic opinion you're not an idiot,
tempting as it is to think that. You are just someone who thinks that just
because they can form a banal opinion that means the opinion has any worth. It
doesn't.

~~~
ivanca
He actually said "priorities" and "to a certain extent" so he is not all that
contrarian nor intellectually dishonest; plus you are the one using offensive
wording in your comment.

------
nnq
_Gates is right_ , but the reasoning is a bit more complicated:

Starting with "connectivity" is basically "putting the cart in front of the
ox". There's this utopical view that once you give them internet access smart
African children will start freelancing and provide for their families, but it
doesn't work this way: once you give him internet access, the African child
with an IQ of top 0.001% will just learn there are better places in the world
to be and live and he will find a way to leave his country and pursue a better
life for himself, _leaving his family and all the other around him behind in
the same state of poverty._ By putting connectivity first you'll basically end
up _building a better brain-drain_ , which might be exactly what some of the
new generation billionaires want, but this is not socially responsive
philanthropy!

Smart people are empowered by connectivity, indeed, but they don't use this
empowerment to pull the others around them up, not at the risk of pulling
themselves down in the process. You need a social and economical
infrastructure, with the basic healthcare and poverty problems solved, so the
smart people empowered by connectivity can "pull up" the rest of the society
_without the risk of pulling themselves back down into misery!_

I agree that "connectivity is a social good in itself", but I think that you
don't need to do anything in particular to get people "connected". Once you
solve the basic health and poverty problems of a community, they will get
themselves connected in no time, without any direct outside effort - lots of
small local companies will spring to provide cheap services and the big
companies are already building cheaper and wider infrastructure as we speak.

~~~
icebraining
_he will find a way to leave his country and pursue a better life for himself,
leaving his family and all the other around him behind in the same state of
poverty._

The World Bank estimates that migrants transfer around $500 billion per year
back to their home countries; that's around 4x times the global amount of
foreign aid.

[http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/10/02/Migrants...](http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/10/02/Migrants-
from-developing-countries-to-send-home-414-billion-in-earnings-in-2013)

------
k-mcgrady
Title should be changed.

The actual title is: "An exclusive interview with Bill Gates".

The submitter has editorialised it ("Bill Gates says putting worldwide
Internet access before malaria is 'a joke'"). The small part of the interview
the current title is referring to is this:

"asked whether giving the planet an internet connection is more important than
finding a vaccination for malaria, the co-founder of Microsoft and world’s
second-richest man does not hide his irritation: “As a priority? It’s a
joke.”"

He doesn't say connectivity isn't important. He just thinks that is isn't as
important as finding a cure for malaria.

------
DanBC
An excellent example of why HN doesn't allow submitters to fuck around with
the article title.

rshlo has editorialized this title, and thus some comments here are pointless
knee-jerk reactions to a bad title, rather than a reaction to what's actually
in the article.

~~~
sanoli
I'm with you. I also hate when submitters mess around with titles, since the
journalist has already (a lot of the time) messed around and hand picked a
quote or chose a sensationalist header. Then comes the HN submitter and
double-fucks around.

------
Swannie
It is a joke. Worldwide internet access is available today, for a high price,
via satellite.

Worldwide disease control is an incredibly hard problem.

Just think that only 20 years ago the internet was not generally used to
conduct business. Sure academia, and some international businesses had
embraced it, but it was in its infancy. People distributed information via
many other means - means which are cheaper than the internet to this day.
Everyone saying that the internet or telecoms enables faster and easier
transfer of that information is correct - but it's not the only method, and
it's certainly not the most efficient way to educate people.

------
jroseattle
I find it's important to have perspective of Gates vs the sili-valley-elites
in this debate of who will save the world. It reminds me of this Dilbert comic
strip from years ago:
[http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1992-12-23/](http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1992-12-23/)

The implication:

    
    
       Dilbert => Gates
    
       Zuck/Page => Wally
    

The real issue isn't quite this simple, but only in the context of how
valuable internet access is in the context of an individual in a
disenfranchised part of the third world.

I'm with Gates. And Dilbert, for that matter.

------
Qom
_Disclaimer: I am not a STEM guy so don 't go calling me an elitist._

This might seem like a callous view but I think it's better to invest money on
helping the scientist caste (wherever they might have been born) than to
simply cure a bunch of random people. In the movie Elysium (2013), they send
magic machines to help the masses, which achieves nothing since they are just
as poor as before but a bit healthier. I left the movie theater feeling
depressed and angry.

What we need is real technological progress. If we could for example
synthesize objects or food easily à la Star Trek, we would solve poverty and
inequality more efficiently than thousands of years of social programs.

Consider the fact that Isaac Newton's scientific output was worth more than
99% of the work of every other intellectual in the world in the past few
centuries leading up to his birth. What's even more amazing is that Newton
spent only a tiny fraction of his time doing actual science; he was obsessed
with mysticism and other pseudo-scientific doctrines. So giving a billion
dollars to the next Newton will be many order of magnitudes smarter than
spending that same billion curing laborers. However, it's not politically
correct, so I doubt it will be feasible.

~~~
Volpe
There is more than enough money and resources to go around. It isn't a supply
problem. We have heaps of everything. So being able to synthesise it wouldn't
change that fact.

The problem is we suck at distributing it. We have a system that allows the
super rich (and thus super poor) to exist.

If we could magically create any object we like, the rich/powerful would make
sure they had a monopoly on that technology so they could maintain their
richness/power. There is a great talk given by G.A Cohen against capitalism
that illustrates this point wonderfully[1]

[1]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA9WPQeow9c](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA9WPQeow9c)
[Video]

EDIT:

Sorry just saw your strange reference to Newton as well. You are saying
technological advancement is more important than people, and we should
prioritise advancement over people... why? Why should we advance technology
for technologies sake?

~~~
Qom
>Sorry just saw your strange reference to Newton as well. >You are saying
technological advancement is more important >than people, and we should
prioritise advancement over people... >why? Why should we advance technology
for technologies sake?

That's not what I said at all. On the contrary, I'm saying that if you want to
help people technological progress will be vastly more efficient than anything
else, and particularly aid programs. I don't care about progress for its own
sake, nobody does. I'm saying that some people are objectively more valuable
than others in the long term and that we should help them instead of helping
huge numbers of less productive people. A single great invention could save
all those people better than any amount of aid money.

~~~
Volpe
Why are they more valuable? You are saying they are more valuable because they
provide more technological advancement.

I guess my question is: Why are you trying to measure the 'value' of one (or
many) human lives? Why are we not all equal?

~~~
Qom
Our goal is to help everyone achieve a better life, right? Then some people
are more valuable to that goal than others. They aren't more valuable in an
absolute sense (no one is) but according to our current problems they are
relatively more useful. Governments are trying to spend their money in the
smartest way possible. I'm saying that we should prioritize a certain type of
spending over another. With enough tech, we will be able to achieve real
equality that is today impossible. Once that is achieved, we can forget about
tech or value of human beings. These will be problems of the past.

~~~
Volpe
> Our goal is to help everyone achieve a better life, right?

No, I don't think it is. I don't think there is a collective goal that
everyone subscribes to.

As my earlier point pointed out... we have everything we need to achieve "real
equality". What are we missing? Which piece of technology are you waiting for,
for "real equality"?

------
jbrooksuk
I'm pretty sure that life > internet access.

~~~
bolder88
It's not that simple though. There's quite a few people who are not at risk of
ever getting malaria, but who don't have any decent internet access. So for
them, curing malaria will make 0 difference to their life.

Also, since when has Microsoft or Bill Gates _ever_ been sold on the idea of
the internet as a good thing?

~~~
jbrooksuk
Sure, they won't get Internet Access, but they'll definitely have a happier
life not being ill. I know I'd rather be healthier than have internet.

~~~
mtgx
So if the government knocks down on your door tomorrow and says:

"Look, you have two choices, we can help you not get cancer, and we'll supply
you with daily pills for the rest of your life, but you will not be allowed to
have Internet access ever again, or you can choose Internet access, and we
won't give you the cancer-fighting pills anymore".

You're 30 years old. Go. Which do you choose?

~~~
jbrooksuk
The pills.

~~~
bolder88
That's an insane choice. Do you really value raw lifespan over quality of
life?

~~~
asadlionpk
so you would risk having cancer for internet access? Does internet define your
quality of life?

~~~
bolder88
Of course it does. I use the internet to generate money.

~~~
jbrooksuk
So do I, but if the pills make me healthy enough to go and do work elsewhere,
then so be it.

~~~
icebraining
But are you not healthy enough? The situation didn't involve actually having
cancer, just a risk of developing it.

------
laichzeit0
So there's a philosophically sound argument that eradicating malaria comes
before worldwide Internet access. Or does it just rely on majority consensus
that the one should come before the other?

I mean if you keep asking "Why?" like a 5 year old, eventually you hit what
underlies the reasoning: some basic assumptions that each person holds and
that the rest of the argument is built on. E.g. Kant's categorical imperative.

The problem is not everyone might agree with your most fundamental
assumptions, and when you arrive at questions like "Internet or malaria
eradication first?" people will disagree. Unless you lay those assumptions
bare, it's unnecessary argumentation.

E.g. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal.." Well I might just not hold that that truth is self-evident, and
disagree with you on any argument you build on that assumption.

------
transfire
What is so frustrating is that the malaria problem has all but been solved. I
have read on multiple occasions about our ability to breed genetically
modified misquotes that can be used to decimate mosquito populations on the
one hand and on the other create malaria immune mosquitoes that stop the
transmission of the disease. So why hasn't it been done? Short answer:
bullshit "unknowns" about long-term ecological effects. Well try explaining
that to the 12 children who just died from malaria while I wrote this comment.

~~~
algorias
You can't pivot your way out of ecological catastrophes, you know...

There are many instances of "innocent" actions of mankind that ravaged huge
areas of the world very rapidly (the beaver plague in south america, just off
the top of my head). Ecosystems often find themselves in very delicate states
of equilibrium, an equilibrium that can be irreversably broken with the
slightest missstep. There are very good reasons to be extremely conservative
in this area.

~~~
s_baby
Considering more than half of all humans ever have died from Malaria it's a
reasonable risk to take.

~~~
vidarh
Source? I find that very hard to believe. For starters, not nearly all humans
do or have lived in places where malaria is particularly widespread.

Secondly, while deaths from malaria are high in developing countries,
according to WHO it still "only" accounted for 4.4% of deaths in low income
countries in 2002.

While the percentage of Malaria deaths has undoubtably dropped substantially
as the fight against Malaria has intensified, the drop in recent decades do
not seem to justify that the worldwide deaths causes by Malaria has at any
point been so far above 50% to compensate for lower rates later _and_ for the
parts of the world where Malaria either is not endemic or not widespread
enough to cause significant deaths.

------
Gonzih
Another misleading title on HN.

------
alan_cx
While I find it kind of obscene that ISPs (and many many other businesses)
make lots of cash in Africa (third world in general) rolling out connectivity,
while seemingly giving little back, which of course could help with malaria
(and many other issues), I do wonder if it will blow back on the west in the
form of the mass of Africans suddenly knowing how the other half live as it
were. As a result, demanding more of what the west have, knowing how the west
profits while they suffer. Im sure they do know to an extent, but this might
prove it, or make it fantastically clear. Heh, kinda like their Snowden. They
suspected, but access to real data will prove it.

Another barely considered idea that has just floated in to my head is the idea
that some how, say via UN treaty, rich countries and or corporations should be
prevented from profiting in third world countries while certain defined
baselines of quality of life are below a certain standard. So, for example,
you cant profit from internet connectivity until health and education
standards are at a certain defined level. Or, perhaps if companies do, then a
percentage of their profit must be spent in that country addressing the
various issues.

OK, I have zero idea how you define that in to law or treaty, especially with
out some gits working out how to circumvent it, but as an ideal to work to?

------
kapad
Google has let me down, but I remember an article I read a few years ago in
the Indian edition of the TIME magazine. It spoke of how millions of dollars
spent on medicines for malaria between the late 90s and early 2000s had done
nothing in terms of numbers for the malaria problem. The problem had just
gotten worse. The antibiotics required to cure a person kept getting stronger
and more expensive, since the malarial parasite was becoming immune to common
antibiotics. The article then did a case study of on single NGO that did not
distribute medicines, but rather distributed mosquitoe nets. There was a sharp
decline in the numbers for people affected with malaria in the region in which
this particular NGO was operating. Some times connectivity, access to
communication and information is much better then spending millions and
billions of dollars on medicines, medical staff and medical research (on
stronger anti-biotics. Throw all the money you want at vaccine discovery and
it is not wasted.) when a much cheaper and easier alternative would have
gotten better results. If lack of information and communication was a cause of
the bad approach being used, then the internet definitely will help in such
situations.

------
quink
[http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-
space.html](http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html)

> Indeed, something very good came out of this work, and also out of similar
> work done by others at other places: the microscope.

\----

Also, remittances have been increasing and these help the situation in poorer
countries enormously:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittance](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittance)
and I'm pretty sure that the Internet is not entirely fault free in causing
this increase.

And then there's this too: [http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-
release/2012/07/17/mo...](http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-
release/2012/07/17/mobile-phone-access-reaches-three-quarters-planets-
population)

Giving people access to some form of communications, even if it is just SMS
surely can't hurt and must be bound to be an investment that can pay back
itself, Malaria or no Malaria. Bill Gates should be congratulated and
commended for his work every day. But to read out of that that the two have no
relation with each other is a bit short-sighted.

------
tete
Oh no, so my power point presentation on the cloud won't save the world? What
a cruel realization for someone like me, living in the startup world,
constantly getting told how great everything I do is. What comes next? The
realization that electronics, like the iPhone end up as waste, destroying the
environment and its acid causes cancer to children instead of bringing them
rainbows and unicorns? It sounds just as bad as the realization that Facebook
and other, invade privacy and are used for bullying leading to depressions and
suicide.

(Sorry for that sarcasm)

About technology and evolution of society...

Did you know that the neolithic revolution actually caused diseases, famines
and made humans more aggressive, less social, less intelligent and lowered the
life expectancy so much that it only recovered in the last centuries.

Considering technology to solve all the really big problems is naive in a
world, where most new technologies come with new diseases physical (posture,
various forms of cancers by new materials, radiation, ..) and mental
(addictions, depressions, reduction of memory retention).

No, I don't want to go and live like the apes. I enjoy the comforts, but given
all this it's just self-deception to think that computers with internet would
solve more problems to people suffering from illnesses than any other tool, a
vaccine or even a change in world politics.

Folks, I am a technology and information enthusiast, but please lets keep our
help cool and not get emotional over the realization that people may actually
need something else and that technologies have dark sides and that there may
be many cases where the pros outweigh the cons, but it's not a general rule
and shouldn't be the religious dogma of a technocracy.

~~~
icebraining
This is not a technology vs something else. Vaccines are technology too. This
is a discussion on a specific technology vs another.

------
nodata
False dichotomy. You can do both at the same time.

~~~
yen223
He's not saying you can't do both, he's saying that we need to get our
priorities straight. Which is true.

------
DanielBMarkham
I don't disagree with Gates. In fact, I find it very difficult to comment on
his moral position at all, and that's what makes this such a fascinating
discussion.

If you had a billion dollars, what would you do to make people's lives better?
For most of us, this is like talking about what to do if you won the lottery:
the stuff of daydreams, not reality. But if you really sit down and think
about this problem, it's not an easy one to get a grasp on.

You could do _immediate_ things, like feed them, vaccinate them, or teach them
English. These are things where you pay ten bucks, you get ten meals. Easy to
measure.

You could do _systemic_ things, where you create a system that's then supposed
to do things. Build a school, create a farm, build an irrigation system.

You could invest in systems, choosing winners over losers. Finance that
business, support that government program.

There are other options, and it'd probably be interesting to go through them
all one day. But at the end of it, you're left with the uncomfortable fact
that _thousands of other entities have invested trillions of dollars in making
people 's lives better and have very little to show for it_. Entities much
smarter than you, operating on a much greater scale than you can. Even if
you're Bill Gates.

I'm not ready to give up and say the problem is intractable, but it makes me
angry that so many snake oil peddlers, many of whom are politicians, sell the
idea that these are solved problems; we just need the money. They are not.

So I wish Gates the best of luck. I'd probably bet on connectivity ahead of
saving lives, because I think long-term it's more important for humanity to
solve its own problems than to keep individuals alive, but heck if I'm happy
with that opinion. And if I were Gates, I might just take us to task for that,
as he's doing. Good for him.

------
mortdeus
He kinda has a point.

~~~
mortdeus
Though it is worth pointing out that worldwide internet coverage would provide
a great resource for those living without suitable education and work
opportunities.

One of the hardest parts in eliminating poverty from the poorest nations on
earth stems from the lack of economic infrastructure in those countries. We
can keep giving them rice and supplies but until they have work opportunities
that provide a way to purchase their own life essential resources; the
fundamental issue causing the poverty in the first place will remain unsolved.

Internet is a good step towards providing that infrastructure.

~~~
saraid216
Protip: There's an edit link, and you're allowed to use it.

~~~
kamakazizuru
super protip - theres a Karma level after which you are allowed edits.

------
acd
We could use the moon as an Internet Relay, so you bounce lasers off the moon
latency will be around 1.2 seconds. IRC :)

[http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/10/nasa-internet-
lase...](http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/10/nasa-internet-laser/)

Solar planes and low orbit satellites could also be used as bounce points from
earth uplinks.

[http://www.o3bnetworks.com/o3b-advantage/service-
coverage](http://www.o3bnetworks.com/o3b-advantage/service-coverage)
[http://titanaerospace.com/platforms/solara-50/](http://titanaerospace.com/platforms/solara-50/)

------
malthaus
It's not a joke, it's applied economics. Better welfare in developing
countries means better ways to cope with / eradicate diseases.

------
sebastianconcpt
The internet is what helps the guy that cares to help those suffering but
without expensive vertical and salvationist interventions.

Help people help themselves instead of making more dependant.

The "more basic stuff" is guaranteed to improve when their own cultural
awareness arises way beyond malaria.

Internet accelerates that process. Vaccines don't.

PD: also, is not about one or the other, it's about attacking the problem in
both flanks

------
tosic
While this is obviously a good statement, it is besides the point. There's no
reason you can't work on both and since he is caring about malaria, others can
work on internet access. The question to ask would be, if working on both
slows progress in either and what the "sweet spot" is for balancing funds and
efforts to achieve the best overall progress.

------
nazgulnarsil
the QALYs generated by enabling tech are harder to quantify because they are
several steps removed from the aid. Example: the CDC has projected that
greater access to the internet could save millions of lives by providing
quicker info about breakouts of infectious diseases and coordinating
responses.

------
spiritplumber
Bill Gates (or realistically someone in his organization) should answer my
emails. I'm going to deliver him a way to curb malaria spreading at cost, and
nobody over there has gotten a hold of me yet. I'm severely tempted to just
drive to his house and drop the prototype off....

~~~
deletes
Show us your solution.

~~~
spiritplumber
I'm not sure how, that's the thing. Do I do a video time lapse? It's a bit
boring to watch someone NOT being bitten by mosquitos.

~~~
mistermann
Can you explain what it is?

~~~
spiritplumber
An antbot attachment that causes mosquitos to stop flying, so they are easy to
kill on the ground. I am working on having the antbot also kill the mosquitos
without being piloted.

~~~
ehsanu1
Googling for "antbot" returns a variety of seemingly unrelated projects. Could
you possibly be more specific? But more curious to know the mechanism behind
it that causes mosquitos to stop flying.

Though I have to say, robotics doesn't seem like the cheapest way to go about
killing malaria - though it would be _awesome_ if it turns out to be.

~~~
spiritplumber
I make the antbot :) www.f3.to if you care. It is a sturdy platform for doing
things like shooting bugs with lasers and the battery life is good.

~~~
sebastianconcpt
sounds fun

------
asadlionpk
I think both internet(read education) and child health are important for any
part of the world. You can't always be fixing their health problems rather
than giving them a means of learning how to fix their problems themselves. You
need to do both at the same time.

"give a man a fish..."

------
MaysonL
It's not like we can only have one, or that doing one will obstruct doing the
other. Quite the reverse, actually. Doing either would facilitate doing the
other.

~~~
claudius
> It's not like we can only have one, or that doing one will obstruct doing
> the other.

Available resources in general, and in particular those available to specific
individuals/foundations, are limited, hence it is not possible to pursue
_both_ worldwide internet access and malaria eradication with the same
strength as you can pursue either of them.

Of course, there may well be factors where by doing A, you also achieve parts
of B, but given that the timeframe before ‘world-wide internet access’ helps
‘researching a malaria vaccine’ is at least ten-or-so years (the absolute
minimum time it takes someone with no education to get anywhere where they can
actively develop vaccines), I doubt that this is feasible.

------
kayoone
Making the world a better place isnt limited to one thing at a time. So
everyone can work on issues that are most important to him and thats great!

------
tomelders
The answer to every single problem in the world is education. The internet is
education... and cats.

------
motherfucker2
The funniest thing about this is that he got confused between Peter Singer,
the ethicist, and Paul Singer, a venture capitalist and philanthropist. It
gets even funnier when you find out that Paul Singer's philanthropic activity
is mostly lobbying at similar activities which the argument he's quoted as
making would dismiss.

------
stesch
Knowledge isn't important? There are more problems than just malaria.

------
selectnull
I generally like what Bill Gates is doing and think there should be more
people like him in the world. But this statement is really below him; it has
kind of 'me hates google' behind it and is wrong.

He should know better than that.

~~~
jsmeaton
Did you read the entire article? The link headline is link-bait. He was asked
a leading question and answered it. Gates didn't go out of his way to make the
statement.

~~~
selectnull
You are right, I didn't read it. Mea culpa. I've read it now and I have mixed
feelings still.

This is what I would like to hear from Mr Gates: "Guys, I'm taking what I
believe is the most important thing in the world and that's curing those
damned diseases. And I think that once we have cured all the people, they
would need better education and internet is so far the best we have (though it
could still be improved). So you Zuck and Larry and others work on that and we
will all make the world a better place."

If he explicitly said something along those lines, my admiration for Mr Gates
would skyrocket thru the roof. If he still thinks the internet is a joke
(because only priority number 1 is important, right?) than I still stand by my
original statement that he should know better.

------
StefanPatelski
Give a man a vaccine, and he lives for a day. Give a man the opportunity to
educate himself, and he will be able to find vaccines to last a lifetime.

~~~
yen223
*Give a man the opportunity to educate himself, and he might die from malaria.

~~~
StefanPatelski
You are right, but I hope you do understand my point. This is about short term
vs. long term. Bill Gates could have made the choice to not found Microsoft,
and instead give the seed money to a charity that solves a disease. But then
he wouldn't have been able to spend billions on malaria research.

Both the short term and the long term are important. So it is strange to make
the comparison. Both these investments can co-exist.

------
jokoon
politics are not as easy as technologies

------
nirnira
Nice to see that even with a few dozen billion under his belt he still's the
same guy: unable to help himself from mocking ideas he thinks suck! Who cares
if you agree with him, his honesty and passion are amazing.

~~~
Qom
You've got it the wrong way: with his billions and fame, he is more likely to
be honest and to mock others. People will listen to him and respect no matter
what he says.

------
pcvarmint
Bill should support Bradley's Kina Tonic, right at home in Seattle, and then
move on to supporting internet access:

[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/161679272/bradleys-
kina-...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/161679272/bradleys-kina-tonic-
making-the-best-tonic-in-the-w)

~~~
pcvarmint
Wow, downvoted for suggesting that Gates support a kickstarter project that
will, if it's successful, become one of the best tonics in the world (I've
tasted it).

Quinine is the best natural cure for malaria.

This project is succeeding with very little kickstarter funding.

I was not attacking Gates -- simply suggesting that a tiny dose of funding for
this Seattle tonic startup could help a lot for malaria, and then the much
more expensive internet infrastructure problems could be addressed.

~~~
quasque
Quinine is not the best antimalarial drug out there nowadays, and is certainly
not a good choice if you have lots of money to invest in malaria treatment in
impoverished regions of the world.

Investing in this tonic water startup for that purpose would be pointless and
counter-productive.

Also it's rather inappropriate to be shilling it in a serious discussion about
responsible philanthropy.

------
batgaijin
Why, so they can't create companies to support their countr's GDP to become
independent of your pity aid?

What a monopolistic cunt. Make microsoft quit taxing android phones for a
windows license before you act like you have a high ground beyond your 22
hidden patents.

What a rich shitmark.

~~~
Alterlife
You don't have to agree with everything that a person says or does in order to
acknowledge a simple truth. If Gates said the sky is blue, would you (as you
have done) call him a 'cunt' for saying so?

Clean water, healthy food, tenable living environment... All these things
obviously matter more than internet connectivity. I don't know how anyone
could argue otherwise.

If you can get yourself vaccinated against a disease, that's one less thing
that can go wrong. You have to be healthy to do things.

~~~
batgaijin
The country these people are living in should have hospitals. They should be
able to affordably produce antibiotics, malaria nets and everything else.

Antibiotics and most other medical products are unnecesarilly burdened by
patents and become prohibitevely expensive unless some rich patron grants them
something they could buy at a much cheaper price.

Patents can be a tax on those who are unlucky. I think certain things deserve
patents. But the company he represents taxes any linux device as a microsoft
device.

I agree people should be healthy. But you know what? Maybe they should be able
to make their own fucking choices in their own fucking hospital on their own
fucking dime.

He is a cunt for being afraid of competition and supporting autonomy. That is
a sign of the weak and those who are unable to deal with truly dynamic
problems that come from actual competition.

In all honesty I understand his position. But for him to vocalize it as though
he doesn't see the poor billions as potential competitors? Too fucking bad. He
can have his own beliefs but fuck spreading a narrative.

~~~
batgaijin
I take back most of my shit. I guess that's what happens when you are a
neckbeard that can't even code.

------
pearjuice
Vaccinations bring up a very controversial debate. The counter argument to
vaccinations is that they increase the rate of autism dramatically because
they contain a preservative of mercury. Research has shown that in 1992 when
they increased the amount of vaccines given to children the rate of autism sky
rocketed. Coincidence? Some say that it's a direct link, others oppose of that
conclusion. The debate rages on.

~~~
schuke
This has been busted for ages.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine#False_claims_about_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine#False_claims_about_autism)

~~~
pearjuice
My issue is that I struggle to trust the pharmaceutical industry as all
corporations when reaching a certain size turn corrupt. When corporations are
in the business of health shady their concern is about making money rather
than human health.

It's like trusting oil companies to help humanity when everyone well knows
they lobby the government to get their way to access more oil in foreign
lands, even if it means to engage in warfare.

My issue with putting trust behind the studies saying vaccinations are
perfectly fine is that corporations once again are known to fund mislead
research to protect their interests. Forgive me to use cannabis as an example,
but it's broad enough to show how much effort they put into making false
claims that it's extremely unhealthy to both physical and mental health. Today
the research has done a 180 because the government is slowly but surely easing
up on the research which was once heavily restricted.

~~~
XorNot
No your problem is you believe your completely unsupported opinion is more
valuable then the breadth and depth of scientific literature on the subject,
and to that end have elected to do no in-depth reading on the matter.

It is an attitude that can only come from someone who's been vaccinated and
lives in a country where such programs have practically eradicated common
fatal diseases, and will be completely unaffected by whether or not they're
dangerously wrong.

