Re:Elite do-gooders 'fixing' the world are part of the probl...
by joe_the_user on Tuesday August 11, 2020 @04:12PM
(#24125411)
This is the same argument that has been around for decades - the debate over whether Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation were an agent for good or an agent for helping Bill Gates sleep at night was a huge thing when I was in graduate school.
I think it's unfortunate that this part of the debate gets the focus.
What I think is problematic in the Gates approach and those like it, is that they view the world through so many institutional and market filters that they don't notice various problems bubbling up that can't be measured in these terms.
The most obvious thing is Gates' line "the world is getting better" which hinges on the fact the more people are moving from outside the money economy to inside the money economy (less people "living on pennies a day"). The problem is Gates can't see that people insider the money economy are in desperate circumstances.
The recent interview with Gates was distinctly sad. In one area where he sort-of has things right, he doesn't understand that the flood of irrational here is very pushed by other monied interests which have become used to fending off all spending on longer-term social interests since these serve as threats to their short term profits. See this article describing the similarity of climate denialist and covid denialists: https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/04/coronavirus-d...
I think it's unfortunate that this part of the debate gets the focus.
What I think is problematic in the Gates approach and those like it, is that they view the world through so many institutional and market filters that they don't notice various problems bubbling up that can't be measured in these terms.
The most obvious thing is Gates' line "the world is getting better" which hinges on the fact the more people are moving from outside the money economy to inside the money economy (less people "living on pennies a day"). The problem is Gates can't see that people insider the money economy are in desperate circumstances.
The recent interview with Gates was distinctly sad. In one area where he sort-of has things right, he doesn't understand that the flood of irrational here is very pushed by other monied interests which have become used to fending off all spending on longer-term social interests since these serve as threats to their short term profits. See this article describing the similarity of climate denialist and covid denialists: https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/04/coronavirus-d...