
The First Modern Pandemic - duck
https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/Pandemic-Innovation
======
djsumdog
I do not trust Bill Gates at all in this. There is something sinister about
him constantly interjecting his cause. He may have tried to change his image
with his foundation, but keep in mine he's a business man first. He's not a
doctor, and he got rich by squashing out any and all competition but greatly
unethical practices.

His call to lock down the entire nation was completely out of touch with the
fact that 25 million Americans have been without work for nearly two months
now.

~~~
senectus1
I work with another Billionaire businessman who is throwing himself head first
into philanthropy.

They do it because they're A type personalities who have cut their teeth on
gnawing through red tape and shitty market issues.

They dont want to get into politics because they (rightfully) perceive that
they have more power and control as private individuals.

I'm no fan of Bill Gates, but I can see what he's doing and why. He's trying
to make the world a better place, using power and business acumen. That means
he's going to bulldoze people to reach the goal because thats. all. he. knows.

~~~
aivisol
The danger here, as usually is concentration of too much power in one hands.
That is why we have replaced monarchies with democracies mostly.

Ultra wealthy individuals are basically able to circumvent democratic
political process to reach disproportionate influence unilaterally. While
political establishment has some kind of check and balances (in theory) in
place, super wealthy can act in a way they see fit unchecked.

There is no doubt he acts in good faith, and with best intentions. But if you
ask any autocratic leader in the world, they would also say that their actions
are in best interests of their nations/people.

~~~
fapjacks
Yes, but the inverse is a polymorphic decision loop operated by committee,
which is just another way of describing a bureaucracy. And as bureaucratic
complexity increases (via self-modifying policies and processes), the
structure naturally tends toward greater inefficiency, which eventually
results in stasis and decision failure, even though the engine of the
bureaucracy just keeps chugging along. And of course with large bureaucracies,
it's extremely difficult or impossible to gather enough insight and
accountability to identify when a bureaucracy's inefficiencies have made some
or all of the bureaucracy untenable, because that requires some unilateral
force(s) powerful enough to pierce the many various veils of the bureaucracy's
components to understand the sum total of its parts and adjudicate on a
calculus of its inefficiencies... Which the bureaucracy was built to
circumvent to begin with. In the end, bureaucracies can be _at least_ as
insane and deadly as any psychopath warlord kings with little fiefdoms raiding
their neighbors.

Such is the nature of our existence that we will grapple with this delicate
balancing act as long as there are humans, and along the way there will be
tragedies that seemed avoidable in hindsight, but which were extremely
difficult to stop and essentially impossible to predict. And in the aftermath
of each, of course, various interested parties will spin the tragedy into
attacks on political opponents and outsiders, with the victors taking home the
prize of being able to choose the next form of grift to impose on the lucky
survivors: "This time, it will be different..."

~~~
pintxo
I‘d like to have an example for this: „In the end, bureaucracies can be at
least as insane and deadly as any psychopath warlord kings with little
fiefdoms raiding their neighbors.“ as I have a hard time to find one myself.

~~~
fapjacks
You could start with the bureaucracy of the Holocaust, perhaps?

~~~
pintxo
Well no. Because this was a bureaucracy under the textbook definition of a
"psychopath warlord king with little fiefdoms raiding their neighbors".

So, yes a "psychopath warlord king" will need a supporting bureaucracy. But
that is not bureaucracy __on its own__ as bad as the "psychopath warlord
king", but rather under it.

Basically my assumption is that under a "psychopath warlord king" bureaucracy
will be crazy, but it won't be as bad under Democracy (which is kind of the
opposite to "psychopath warlord king").

~~~
fapjacks
Okay, it's an issue of semantics for you, then. So picture any number of
bureaucratic messes which indirectly cause death and destruction, for example
the giant cache of emergency food and water sitting in a hangar at the airport
in Haiti while people were suffering and dying just a couple miles away. Or
organizations like USAID where e.g. money meant for medical supplies or travel
costs for medical personnel or similar in some poor nation that ends up mired
in red tape while drought refugees die of dehydration or starvation. You know
as well as I do that this kind of thing happens, but because there's no easy
scapegoat, people pretend like it doesn't.

