Comment by keiferski | Hacker News Reader

Comment by keiferski | Hacker News Reader

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Let me try to phrase this in a way that is as neutral as possible, because I'm simply trying to describe a phenomenon and not make a value judgement.

Bill Gates is an American businessman. His values, identity, source of income, and entire way of life is derived from a particular culture - American, Western, market-based culture. A culture which, depending on your viewpoint, has certain good qualities and certain bad qualities.

The point I am attempting to make is: Bill Gates is in a position of power - defining power as the ability to harness forces. When the Gates Foundation, or any other powerful entity, gets involved with a particular less-powerful culture, it unquestionably affects the social structure and culture of that society. In the case of the Gates Foundation, it inevitably it becomes more of an American, westernized one. It is easy to see this from the shared link; it is written from an American worldview and frames everything in American terms.

I am simply asking if replicating American (broadly, Western) cultural values is necessarily the correct solution to solve poverty and other problems around the world.

Personally, I would rather see the diverse cultures of the world manage to develop technologically and socially in their own unique ways, rather than simply adopt Western social structures.

> I am simply asking if replicating American (broadly, Western) cultural values is necessarily the correct solution to solve poverty and other problems around the world.

> Personally, I would rather see the diverse cultures of the world manage to develop technologically and socially in their own unique ways, rather than simply adopt Western social structures.

100% agree... in an ideal world. Income equality between where a lot of issues are centralised and where the money to solve them comes from isn't balanced.

Trying to solve issues on a global level will always mean one culture will have some form of dominance, otherwise you might compromise back to an ineffective solution.

It isn't ideal, but across the spectrum of Good, Better, Best - solving the problem in the medium-term in a ham-fisted American way is probably still "Better" than waiting on solutions. There are, of course, cons to that strategy - but there's an opportunity cost (a very real, human opportunity cost) in searching for the perfect solution.

"Affects the social structure and culture": That may be true, at least to some degree. There are a lot of degrees that are well short of "replicating American cultural values", though. It's not true that Bill Gates shows up, and suddenly Africans become culturally American.

Gates is not forcing an American way of life or cultural takeover by pushing for lower infant mortality among other things. The values that Gates is a proponent of are pretty secular and universal- things such as equality, fairness, freedom, access to healthcare, etc. If you feel like your culture is irreparably destroyed by giving women more rights then your culture is objectively inhumane and should adapt.

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