One of my biggest disappointments with Bill Gates has, frankly, been how he's chosen to spend his money. The lame, conservative, respectably trendy causes toward which he's thrown his money have not, that I've ever seen, reflected the vision of an inspired genius looking to move mankind forward. Anything I've read about his personal ventures have been astonishingly mundane. On the other hand, I may have missed something.
On the gripping hand, no product Microsoft has ever put out could ever be called an inspired work of genius. They've been conservative, imitative, and derivative from day 1. So I guess it shouldn't surprise me.
But by comparison, look what
Not that it's any of my business how other people spend their own money. But I've always dreamed of what I'd do if I had huge wads of cash, and it's usually involved scientific and engineering ventures. Stuff to inspire future generations, make the world a better place. I wondered why the biggest, richest geek in human history was so boring, and wondering if I wasn't missing something.
Nope, I guess I wasn't. He's just the same old lame, unimaginative, derivative
(Hat tip: Rand Simberg.)
Disclaimer: I have no idea what Bill gates spends his money on.
However, assuming a little bit about the phrase "traditional" -- that it means that he gives money to groups like the salvation army, homeless shelters, battered women's shelters, and so on -- is it so terrible a thing to give clothing to the naked, to give shelder to the cold, and protection to the helpless here and now?
It's not very glamorous, and it may not greatly benefit the vast spacefaring multitudes of the future; but it may yet spare the inventor of the warp drive from a death that prevents him from inventing it.
There are many technical charities which need donations, for the suffering of the future is in no small part alleviated by the technological advances of today, but is it so bad for him to take pity on his fellow man?
Bad? No, although I'm skeptical of some of them.
Wiping out poverty is an utterly impossible task in a world where the definition of "poverty" is constantly revised upward. Your average American single welfare mom is wealthier, better educated, has better health care, and has more opportunity than 99% of the world population had 200 years ago. Yet still we hear about the so-called "poverty rate" being scandalous, year in and year out.
In third world countries, meanwhile, most charitable groups, including ones Gates donates to, concentrate on population control programs that often fail to alleviate suffering and, in some cases, actually aggravates it. But it sounds good and safe and not something you could criticize just from the sound of it.
Not that it's all worthless or useless. But inspiring, visionary, setting the human race forward another notch? Not much that I've seen. Unless I've missed something.
I know his foundation does research on disease control in third world countries, and has a multi-billion dollar funding. While I too wish he would swing some of that money towards future developments, I think he shys away from it for the obvious criticisms that he would only be funding it to make a profit from it.
Disappointing, Dean. What's the big deal about a huge investment to permit people with more money than brains to take a few laps around the earth while exclaiming "Wow! It's really round. Wow! Look at how blue and green it is. Wow! I can see Florida. Wow! This weightlessness is coool!" NASA is bad enough, with that multi-billion dollar ultrawide orbiting trailer where they pretend to do cutting-edge research on stuff like whether or not tadpoles metamorphose normally in space. OK, the Hubble telescope gathers priceless data, but that's about it as
far as any real payoff from space exploration. The rest is pure hype so we can pretend to be pals with the Russians while showing them up.
I've long had a similar thought: That regular space travel would never happen until private interests got involved - and that it would be of great help if Gates and the like were to get involved. You've nailed my own reaction to Mr. Simberg's piece almost to the letter.
You really want Bill Gates to get involved in the space program? It certainly would give new weight to the term 'systems crash', I'll warrant you.
Read the whole article-- Bezos isn't funding Rutan, he's working on some other space project. And rumor has it that Rutan's benefactor is Microsoft's Paul Allen, though this may not be true.
John Van Laer: That's the whole point. NASA's manned space projects, especially these days, are mostly politically motivated wastage; they're often justified on scientific grounds, but the real science out of NASA comes in much greater quantity from unmanned missions (not just Hubble, but many lower-profile, usually cheaper ones as well).
So why should anyone go into space at all? The best reason I know is that many people want to do it. Someday it might be possible to actually make a sustainable buck off of that desire, but it won't be possible the way that governments do it. Thus, these private projects.
Personally, I think it would be a good idea to have some off-planet colonies someday. A suborbital tourist hop is a long, long way from that, but you have to start somewhere.
(Still, I think that wiping out tropical diseases is nothing to sneeze at.)
People who don't understand the drive for space live in a frame of reference so alien from mine that I don't even know how to relate to them.
Wiping out tropical diseases is a fine thing, and praiseworthy. And if I had a few billion dollars to throw around, I'd probably put a good chunk of cash into such ventures, as long as I were fairly sure they would be effective.
"...as long as I were fairly sure they would be effective."
That's an utterly amazing statement considering you followed up this post with one regarding cancerproof mice. A lot of money had to be spent on things that did not work to get to a cancerproof mouse.
Are there no scientific frauds or quacks or dolts in your part of the universe, Chad? ;-)
If I'm going to drop a billion or two of my hard-earned dollars, I hope you'll allow me the arrogance of looking closely at how my money will be spent.
"Are there no scientific frauds or quacks or dolts in your part of the universe, Chad? ;-)
If I'm going to drop a billion or two of my hard-earned dollars, I hope you'll allow me the arrogance of looking closely at how my money will be spent."
That's all well and good and understandable, Dean, but that's not how your initial post comes across.
For your edification, my neck of the woods is a short drive from Redmond. I have watched the Gates Foundation pull the funding of projects they have funded that have proven to be fraudulent on a number of occasions as well as demand the repayment of monies spent in the fraudulent enterprise. If that was the point of your post, you did not make it.
It's worth noting that Bill Gates did squat until Ted Turner shamed him into it. It's also worth noting that he "gives" a lot of hardware to schools and libraries, and the teachers and librarians at these institutions aren't always happy about footing the additional costs.
If you work for Bill, you can benefit from writing checks for Bill-approved causes, but not from making your own choices. Spent some time trying to figure out if the structure of this deal was illegal, but couldn't untangle it.
In the neighborhood, Bill has a rep for being one who doesn't tip. Not clear if it is a local urban legend or something waiters and valet parkers are accurately reporting.
Said Jesus about persons who accumulate great wealth: Whatever else may concern the wealthy at the judgment bar,three questions must be answered: How much wealth did you accumulate? How did you get this wealth? How did you use your wealth? [The Urantia Book 165:4:10-14] Jesus also said that the belief that prosperity is the token of divine approval is mere superstition. [The Urantia Book 166:4:3]