
2018 Annual Letter from Bill and Melinda Gates - shaki-dora
https://www.gatesnotes.com/2018-Annual-Letter
======
dalbasal
_Better immunization is one reason why the number of children who die has gone
down by so much, from almost 10 million in 2000 to 5 million last year._

What a staggering scale to be dealing with. Two of my grandparents lost
siblings, as children. Both mourned the loss for their entire (long) lives.
Enough so that _I_ was affected by the stories. Years of tears, stories,
missing. Those are just two children, who died 80 years ago. 5 million...

~~~
anc84
Loss of young children is considered and handled differently in different
cultures though. Where it is more normal, the impact on the parent's lifes
will not be as heavy.

~~~
dalbasal
They were from different places, but childhood mortality was common everywhere
then.

My grandmother was a teenager, in 1930s Poland. My great grandmother had 3
children. All three died the same winter, from dysentery. My great grandmother
was near catatonic in her depression. Later she had three more children. The
youngest (my grandmother's baby brother) died of infection. These were common
stories, and I was witness to that suffering even though I saw only the shade
of that loss decades later. His older sister (my great aunt) is alive today,
97 years old. She still misses him.

The Grandfather was Irish. He lost a 7 year old sister to a farming accident,
when he was 18. The girl was with him, and he felt that his own carelessness
caused her death. I witnessed his mourning too. I even saw him cry at her
grave, unusual for a man of his time and place.

Every one of those stories is a tremendous tragedy, scars on the souls of
many.

------
uptown
Gates' interview with Axios was somewhat surprising:

[https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-am-
ce4ef8c4-95b3-4c8...](https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-am-
ce4ef8c4-95b3-4c81-ab87-eb7494d74c07.html)

Gates said in a phone interview: "The tech companies have to be ... careful
that they're not trying to think their view is more important than the
government's view, or than the government being able to function in some key
areas."

Asked for an example, Gates pointed to the companies' "enthusiasm about making
financial transactions anonymous and invisible, and their view that even a
clear mass-murdering criminal's communication should never be available to the
government."

When I said he seemed to be referring to being able to unlock an iPhone, Gates
replied: "There's no question of ability; it's the question of willingness."

So he seems to imply that devices should be built with backdoors to enable law
enforcement.

~~~
ikeboy
With regard to the iPhone case, the backdoor was already built, Apple can sign
any software they choose to. It was 100% about their unwillingness to
cooperate.

~~~
jrs95
Sort of. But the moment they sign that software, they’ve created a backdoor
which didn’t previously exist, and that fundamentally weakens the security of
the platform.

~~~
ikeboy
Not really, because the signature is tied to a specific device and a specific
upgrade. It can never be used again unless Apple signs it again.

Apple had some arguments about precedent and the like, and that’s fine, but
from a technical perspective they could have easily done it and it wouldn’t
have weakened anything else, unless they decided to sign the software again
later.

~~~
jrs95
Interesting, I was totally misinformed about how that works. Thanks for the
explanation!

------
piker
Re: "demographic dividend"

> When more children live, you get one generation that’s relatively big.

> Then, when families decide to have fewer children, the next generation is
> much smaller.

> Eventually, a country ends up with relatively more people in the labor force
> producing economically—and relatively fewer dependents (very old or very
> young people).

What happened to the now old people in the bigger first generation?

~~~
oblio
The young ones have to eat something and they need proteins.

On a more serious note, I assume that they compare the situation with the
previous generation.

Generation one dependents: 2 parents, 4 grandparent's, 6 kids, let's say.

Generation two dependents: 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 2 kids.

I'm guessing this is what they mean, maybe I misread it?

------
rmm
Wow. Those questions are way more intense than I thought they would be.

Kudos.

~~~
shaki-dora
It’s addressing the sort of questions and conspiracy theories HN usually
raises when discussing the Gates Foundation, i. e. “Saving children only
creates overpopulation” and “BG is just trying to raise the MS stock price by
getting more users hooked on Windows”.

Of course, judging by this rather depressing comment section, next year they
will answer 10 questions on JavaScript and Wordpress.

~~~
dna_polymerase
Raising the MS stock? No.

The GF is invested in big pharma companies and they are heavily influencing
the WHO. Those are the things you should have an eye on.

Also nobody is hurt when we point out that you could have used way less data
to get this message out.

~~~
lifeformed
> The GF is invested in big pharma companies

That's talked about in the article.

------
Shivetya
The take away for me is that we need constant reminder that there are people
in our own states and towns, the story they mentioned of the apartments in
Atlanta is something I read in our local paper and seen in local news. Yet it
is so easy to dwell on what is wrong in our own lives, so easy to see a wealth
disparity that exists between us and the Gates of the world yet completely be
oblivious to the gap that exists between us and people like those in the
apartments mentioned.

Every generation seems to always have a family that steps up. The question
becomes, who do we think will step into their shoes when gone and make the
next big contribution to bettering the world around them?

------
mattmanser
Another comment prompted me to look at the source.

There's a bunch of inline javascript with commented out code there, console
logs, etc. for the sharing plugin.

Great little comment of:

    
    
        message: '', //not sure what this does
    

It doesn't seem to be a plugin as I've been searching for snippets of the code
and I can't find it online anywhere. Wonder who wrote it, it's functional but
pretty sloppy, e.g.:

    
    
        FB.ui(
        {
            method: 'share',
            name: 'Name',
            href: 'https://www.gatesnotes.com' + document.location.pathname.toLowerCase(),
            caption: 'www.gatesnotes.com',//line 3 // auto adds meta name="author" tag prop to end
            description: '' + htmlEncode(FBDesc),//line 2
            link: 'https://www.gatesnotes.com' + document.location.pathname.toLowerCase(),
            message: '', //not sure what this does
            picture: FBPic,
            title: '' + htmlEncode(FBTitle),//line 1
        },
        function (response) {
            if (response && response.post_id) {
                //alert('Post was published.');
            }
            else {
                //alert('Post was not published.');
            }
            SharingItemInProgress = 0;
        })
    

SharingItemInProgress is an undeclared global variable, no error handling
apart from commented out logs, etc.

Also, just found this just before a closing form tag:

    
    
        <!-- is there a reason this is here? Yes this needs to be here for IE9 for some strange reason-->
    

There are even some commented out p tags like <!-- <p>PHOTO: Bill and Melinda
talking with women during their trip to Atlanta in October 2017</p> \-->.

Just found an empty $(document).ready( too.

Bill Gates has a site that looks like it's been put together by the eponymous
14-year old nephew.

~~~
mrworldwide
HN has got some real geeks. And geeks notice everything.

~~~
jxub
I love the sort of creative destruction that happens here.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Nitpicking someone’s HTML is the furthest thing from “creative destruction”:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction)

~~~
jxub
Isn't it by chance the same as nitpicking someone's comment?

Reasons like your remark is also a part of why I love HN so much.

~~~
suprfnk
> Isn't it by chance the same as nitpicking someone's comment?

But they aren't calling their comment "creative destruction".

------
tcd
Why is this page rendering 19654 lines of code? And what the hell is this
about:

[https://i.imgur.com/5tREuGB.png](https://i.imgur.com/5tREuGB.png)

Just for a blog? Yeah, I'll pass. Anyone who wants to bypass this crap can do
so here:

[https://archive.fo/teorC](https://archive.fo/teorC)

Guess they're liking mopping up all that data as we know MS likes to do :)

~~~
ryu2k2
I doubt the site is maintained by Gates personally. There's a company sitting
behind it doing PR work for his foundation I'd assume.

~~~
sureaboutthis
In fact, I doubt he wrote it and, if anything, might only gave it a cursory
review.

~~~
rfrey
I'm not sure why you think that, this sort of thing seems to be his priority
for the last, what, decade?

We need a new dog-whistle term for this kind of reflexive skepticism. I
propose "cynisignalling".

~~~
sureaboutthis
I KNOW that because multi-billionaires running multiple super large companies
do not sit at their desks and think about PR releases or blogs or, sometimes,
even have a computer on their desk. Yes, there are exceptions but I can
guarantee Gates does not sit and write this up.

------
buvanshak
Bill gates is no saint as he tries to project himself to be. Look what this
foundation tried to do in India, but it seems that it didn't work out, thanks
to a number of brave doctors who questioned and blocked it..

[http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/health/heath-ministry-to-
st...](http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/health/heath-ministry-to-
study-2017-spike-in-vaccine-related-adverse-events/article22537462.ece)

------
losteverything
Those questions seem self asked.

I'd want to know if?they tried or interested in tiny short term gifts to help
a person today, right now. We have gofumdme. But no way to give the coworker
$200 to fix her car; $35 for gas; $100 till next oay; or one year of Uber so
they dont spend 1.5 hrs pay to from work. Some silent gates ambassador who
knows help when it's needed

~~~
peacetreefrog
What do you mean? What's stopping you from giving your coworker $200 to fix
her car? Or do you mean you want Bill Gates to give her $200 for her car?

~~~
losteverything
A new way to give..a new way to receive... Sometimes i see it simply as a
match game of need v supply. Our filter system for need is still pre internet

------
Jedd
While I'm really, _really_ happy that Bill and Melinda are doing Good Things
with their wealth these days, it's easy to overlook the mechanisms by which
they (but mostly Bill) acquired their wealth. I find people under the age of
about 35 really have no clue about Ye Bade Olde Days, and seem to consider the
Microsoft Corporation to have always been a force for good.

Look, it's clear that he's changed a lot, but how much of this is genuine
altruism rather than some guilt mitigation.

For anyone unfamiliar, Bill's deposition (part 1) on youtube:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_2m1qdqieE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_2m1qdqieE)

There's myriad resources on the net that describe the USA's DoJ's case against
Microsoft, and their three days (!) of deposition recordings with the guy.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I think the universal hate of Microsoft has survived as a meme 'till this day.
People may not know the details, but they know they're supposed to dislike MS.

Still, all the bad things Microsoft did back then are a rounding error
compared to all the good Bill and Melinda are doing right now. I understand
the idea of not promoting "end justifies the means" thinking, but we need to
be pragmatic about this - there are only few people on this planet who have,
simultaneously, lots of resources, their heart in the right place, and enough
smarts to use those resources _effectively_ for the common good. Discouraging
those people from helping is a _pretty stupid thing to do_.

~~~
acdha
“rounding error” is being very quick to dismiss extracting billions of other
people’s dollars using underhanded business tactics. That doesn’t mean that we
should ignore what he’s done since but he has plenty of paid PR staff to spin
for him – you shouldn’t contribute your services pro bono.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I'm not dismissing it off-hand, just putting it into perspective. And frankly,
there is orders of magnitude difference between those two things.

> _you shouldn’t contribute your services pro bono_

But I happily will. I want to.

I will readily, and entirely for free, support every single company,
organization, government and individual who puts a honest and smart effort to
make the world a better place. We're in _extremely short supply_ of groups and
people who make a difference; almost everyone - companies, countries, NGOs -
are too distracted playing market games and politics for their personal,
short-term benefit.

You get what you support. So let's support people who actually care.

~~~
Jedd
> .. too distracted playing market games and politics for their personal,
> short-term benefit.

I'm guessing you didn't watch the youtube link in the message to which you're
responding?

~~~
TeMPOraL
I didn't. I'm a short-term procrastinator, much like the companies and
governments I'm referring to, I find it easy to waste 50 minutes in 5-minute
increments on HN, but hard to waste same 50 minutes watching a single video.
;).

But I assume you imply Gates was stuck in the same personal-benefit games. I
agree with that. What makes him part of the pretty small group is that,
eventually, _he got out_ , and now seems to both be focused on helping others,
and has a more global perspective.

~~~
Jedd
Fair enough. It's a long video, and there's several of them.

On the upside, you don't have to watch much of the first one to get an insight
into the attitude the DoJ was up against at the time. I suspect there's some
recommendations on that page for summary / compilation videos of the
deposition videos.

And I wasn't implying anything -- he clearly was. In subsequent testimonies
he'd obviously been trained by PR types in how to not appear obstreperous,
which was certainly to everyone's advantage, though it does invite the
question 'which is the real Bill?'.

I've discussed elsewhere in this thread the dangers of considering current-
Bill without considering how previous-Bill got him where he is.

