• Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    You’d prefer if he was like the Koch brothers? Or Musk?

    He’s not a saint but he’s done a huge amount of good compared to other billionaires.

    How many other billionaires are talking about malaria in Africa?

    • thesmokingman@programming.dev
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      1 month ago

      Read that fourth link and its links. Basically the Gates Foundation controls world health these days. If you don’t agree with it, you don’t move forward. Agreeing with it means you have to agree with Bill who, and this might surprise you, actually has no fucking medical training or education. His approach to lots of things really fucks shit up. It’s very debatable that the short-term impact (fighting things like malaria fairly well) is worth the long-term shitshow (see Gates attempting to lock down and profit from the ‘Rona vaccine).

      John Doerr has a hilarious anecdote in Measure What Matters that he intends to be seen as the power of rich white dudes making shit up but in reality is very telling. Bono makes some foundation for shit in Africa. Nothing works. Doesn’t do the things it wants to do. Suddenly someone has the brilliant idea to maybe include an actual African dealing with the problems they’re looking at instead of a bunch of rich people disconnected from everything. It’s presented as a revelation! The power of OKRs! In reality it’s fucking money blindness. Would I wish Gates were more like Koch or Musk? Fuck no. Why are you telling me I have to have a serial sexual harasser trying to kill things that make the world better because he can’t profit from them?

      • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Read that fourth link and its links.

        Did you read it?

        “Clearly, the tens of billions of dollars the Gates Foundation has given away have helped people at times and, yes, saved lives”

        The article can be summarized as, " Why hasn’t he done more?"

        From the article:

        "Instead of celebrating the million-dollar gifts his foundation donates, why aren’t we interrogating the $184 billion that Gates isn’t giving away? "

        So, “He’s saved lives, but why hasn’t he done more?” Isn’t the big scandal you think it is.

        And yeah his COVID ip take was bad and he backed off.