[liberationtech] Bill Gates on Project Loon vs malaria

[Tom O]

In fairness to Gates, his main focus is tackling malaria and finding a
vaccine for it. This is something where money is, in general, the main
requirement for the most part.

Famine, clean water, political instability are not easily solved by money.

On Sunday, August 11, 2013, h0ost wrote:

>
> There are two big problems with Gates' position (at least).
>
> 1. The solution of massive social issues such as, famine and clean
> water, are definitely beyond the reach of single individuals.  As
> wealthy as Gates is, his resources are nothing when compared to the
> resources of states.  Thus far in history, famine and clean water have
> been provided exclusively through broad, deliberate, and conscious
> application of state power.  This is not the domain of bratty and
> wealthy individuals, who think they can take on the mission of states.
>
> 2. Famine is not caused by a lack of knowledge. It is caused by larger,
> overarching political issues such as, civil war, imperialism and
> colonialism, massive natural disasters and ineffective response to such
> disasters.
>
> The solution has to be political, not a function of knowledge, or the
> cash of wealthy individuals.
>
> Bono doesn't understand this, and neither does Gates.  Thus, their
> efforts are essentially meaningless on a global scale. Or, some might
> argue, actually harmful.
>
> On 08/10/2013 05:38 PM, Richard Brooks wrote:
> > Nadim,
> >
> > I think it is good that Bill Gates is working to
> > solve health issues that have been ignored because
> > the people involved are mainly poor and dark
> > complected.
> >
> > I think freedom of information, though, may be
> > more important than you think. Take, for example,
> > The Gambia, one of the poorest countries on Earth
> > with all of the problems you mentioned.
> >
> > Oddly enough, the dictator running the country seems to be
> > making a lot of money off the country's mineral riches
> > while letting the majority of the people rot in poverty.
> > It is not a coincidence that many of the poorest countries
> > are the least well governed. Those governments also
> > tend to have very restrictive information controls.
> >
> > In many ways, creating freer access to information may
> > do more to to help some of these problems than anything
> > else. Once people can know what is going on and control
> > their destiny, they may be able to find a way out of
> > poverty. Once dark complected people have money, the
> > medical industry may be willing to invest in solving
> > their problems and invest less in botox and erectile
> > dysfunction medicines.
> >
> > -Richard
> >
> > On 8/10/2013 7:48 AM, Nadim Kobeissi wrote:
> >> I actually agree with Bill Gates here. If I had his money, I would make
> sure people have clean water, toilets, condoms, before even starting to
> consider working on Internet access.
> >>
> >> Sure, his comments are "below the belt" as Andrés says below, but this
> is only because he is unfairly attacking a noble, unrelated project. But
> the question he raises is: if you have unlimited money and want to tackle
> what you perceive as a human rights necessity, what do you go for?
> >>
> >> From my perspective of the world, the Internet should be on the bottom
> of this list. Sure, it should *be* on the list, but people who think that
> it's a priority really need to examine the kind of awful problems that the
> world has right now. No water, no food, no shelter, no hygiene, no toilets,
> no education, no condoms, no medication… all of those things need to be
> solved before we start worrying about the lack of Internet.
> >>
> >> Michael Glassman notes (also earlier in this thread):
> >> "Famine is not caused by lack of food but by lack of knowledge about
> access and location to food - something I believe is much more easily
> overcome through Internet access perhaps."
> >>
> >> It doesn't just work like that, I don't think. You don't just open
> Internet access and fund Internet centres and expect knowledge problems to
> work themselves out. Basic necessities need to be fulfilled first, and in
> that scenario, that deeply includes education. And in order to focus on
> education, you're going to need less malaria and more shelter, toilets and
> hygiene… I hope I'm making my point clearly here.
> >>
> >> This is a super interesting issue! I guess I'm going to stick to the
> conservative side here, though. The Internet is the current human rights
> issue for developed regions of the Middle East and North Africa (and
> deservedly so!!), but in some other parts of the world, we're just not
> there yet. There are more basic problems to solve, and this is only a
> testament to how harsh the world can be.
> >>
> >> NK
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On 2013-08-09, at 7:25 PM, Kyle Maxwell <kylem at xwell.org> wrote:
> >>
> >>>
> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/09/bill-gates-google-project-loon
> >>>
> >>> ===
> >>>
> >>> Bill Gates criticises Google's Project Loon initiative
> >>>
> >>> Former Microsoft chief says low-income countries need more than just
> >>> internet access
> >>>
> >>> ===
> >>>
> >>> Google's Project Loon initiative wants to provide internet access for
> >>> the developing world from a network of balloons floating in the
> >>> stratosphere. Former Microsoft boss Bill Gates isn't keen on the idea.
> >>>
> >>> "When you're dying of malaria , I suppose you'll look up and see that
> >>> balloon, and I'm not sure how it'll help you. When a kid gets
> >>> diarrhoea, no, there's no website that relieves that," Gates told
> >>> Business Week, in an interview about the work of the Bill & Melin
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