These breakthroughs will make 2021 better than 2020
gatesnotes.com
gatesnotes.com
The question I have, though, is how about continuation? I can't find anything on their website about a (hopefully distant) future without Bill and Melinda. Are the covenants such that the organisation can continue and still have the same impact?
And the reason I care is that I always have doubts about the long-term effectiveness of charity contributions. It appears to me that their foundation has a more fundamental long-term impact than other charities. If I had some guarantees about the continuation, I'd be very interested in leaving my worldly possessions to this foundation, when my own time is up.
For reference: I'm in my 50s, have no children, and the thought about donating through my will is getting back to me more and more often.
To care is to facilitate what is wanted by the beneficiary, honestly presented to him, and not threatening for anyone else.
Some over-consume refined sugar (=> obesity...), for example, because they are unhappy and compensate (some may even be committing a slow suicide), some just prefer an immediate pleasure (even knowing that they will suffer), and some are just dumb. "Such information has little effect" on them, indeed, however imposing anything on them "in order to save them" seems the worse approach to me, and IMHO some will eventually react to it dangerously for all parties.
Solving the underlying unhappyness of those who compensate, finding some substitute or a way to enlighten the dumb ones, seems more efficient to me. It is, however, more difficult than not interacting with them while claiming to "care" by selecting an approach then throwing money at projects aiming at imposing it.
A fair part of human misery is caused by people imposing stuff to others, I fail to see how it can be a way to "care".
I think it would be very hard to make this argument in the specific cases that you chose for making your point with here (diabetes and obesity.)
This illustrates effects of one of the strongest imposed ways, but is IMHO true for any imposed action.
Trying to honestly cooperate with the 'helped', instead of adopting a 'solution' defined by specialists in order to solve patent 'bad effects' then imposing it, leads to find and tackle at least some roots of the problem.
Making an argument for such an holistic approach seems possible to me because reductionist approaches aren't really efficient in the long term when applied to human beings.
Using abstraction in order to solve locally (<=> focusing on one problem at hand and neglecting the rest, even other parts of the life of its 'victims') leads to, later, discovering that the applied local solution isn't adequate, patching it, then having to patch the imperfect patch... (rinse and repeat).
This approach is popular because it makes wonders in a 'near-model' context (for example in order to develop software or even to build a bridge), but it seems less convincing to me when applied to human beings (especially when some make a living because the problem exists => they may not really want to solve it).
This discussion has drifted a long way from your original claim, "IMHO caring is giving what people want, not trying to do what you declare good for them." In the case of diabetes and obesity, patterns of consumption are formed in childhood. My wife knows a mother who took the position you are advocating here literally, and now that her children are in their late teens, it is resulting in all sorts of problems for both them and her.
For you, me, and everyone else, no matter what ideological position one holds, there are a lot of problems having no easy solutions.
The present thread was about the Gates Foundation (and similar institutions primarily targeting whole populations, that is to say adults and, through them, their children), and I answered 'give them what they want', meaning in this context 'when caring for adult people, give them what they explicitly ask for (not what you prefer)' and also (as such a Foundation has to aim for the greater good): 'if and only if you objectively think this will be good for them and not bad for others'.
Youngsters aren't mature, therefore we cannot merely give them what they want. We have to educate them, which is maintaining them in an adequate context while guiding them towards finding what they want and will be good for them and not bad for others. In my opinion our contemporary society very rarely offers such an adequate context. Hoarding kids in overpopulated classrooms where they sit for hours with adults having few (if any) personal interconnection with them is apparently the most efficient way... and (IMHO) a recipe for disaster (diabetes and obesity getting out of control being part of it).
I didn't wrote that my approach is simple and explicitly stated, above, ((that)) 'It is, however, more difficult' than the usual 'select a cure for the symptom and impose it'.
This is by no means a dig at the Gates whom I admire greatly.
It’s hard to say if a foundation such as theirs can survive their loss. As much as they might clearly define the mission future leaders could still deviate from the founding principles like we’ve seen with many charitable organizations. There are no guarantees.
If it were handed to me with no checks-and-balances, and I were given absolute control, I'm pretty sure I could run Gates Foundation as well as Gates. That's not a statement about me; I know a few people who could run it BETTER than myself or Gates. The problem is finding them and the no checks-and-balances bit.
Beyond a founder/donor, no checks-and-balances is a really bad way to run an organization because although MANY people would do a great job, MOST people wouldn't. A good dictatorship beats a good democracy, but a typical democracy beats a typical dictatorship.
The sorts of arbitrary decisions "Let's dump a billion dollars into making a vaccine for COVID19 economical" become impossible once the founder of a foundation goes away, unless you are willing to accept that whomever comes into control might just as well say "Let's dump a billion dollars into buying paintings of myself at 10x markup." You move into competitive processes.
Competitive processes mean people apply for grants under standard criteria.
If grants have a strongly positive ROI, you have more people applying to the program, and if a negative ROI, fewer people. This means grant-funded organizations will spend a significant portion of their time applying for grants; grants become thin-margin beasts.
And the people who do run late foundations? They're connected people good at climbing corporate ladders.
In my opinion, his philanthropy work is just another playground. Power is addictive and now he has way to exercise power over world outside the tech industry. Quick Google search shows he spent 45B$ on his foundation... and another search shows his net worth is still 119B$. This is still more money that I can imagine, even if he spent 99.9% of it he would still be richer than I can ever hope for. And honestly, his personal brand is so strong that even after zeroing on his account balance he could become multimillionaire in no time.
Maybe I'm overly cynical. Maybe my memory fails me and I'm mistaken about how bad reputation he and his company had back in the day. But it's hard for me to buy this 180 degree turn from ruthless CEO into great philanthropist. Now, I'm not saying his antichrist and he planned the pandemic 20 years ahead; I just would appreciate some healthy skepticism.
The business he was running was so cut throat that the government had to step in.
I've subsequently listened to him in interviews over the last 10 months, and the man cannot stop himself, he sees a large mound of money and his old cutthroat competitive spirit comes surging back.
In some interviews it's like he's out of breath just getting out his own way, to rubbish his rivals and convince us to buy 'his vaccine'.