The nice part about markets is they can adapt very quickly. If we were to convince enough people malaria was worth curing, we could do it! There's no rule to a marketplace that says you can't.

I see two roads you can go down in solving this problem. We can convince the public that a cause is worth investing in, or we can force the public to support a cause (by means of a State actor or other monopoly on violence). Personally, I think historical evidence proves forcing people to do anything is unsustainable and counterproductive. Just one guys opinion.

I know you're getting hammered on this point already, but I feel like the other responses are coming from the angle that there are a ton of people in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and South America that don't have much money but would likely disagree with your count.

But I'll come at it from a different angle: My step-father has spent a decent chunk of change on hair-growth products. But I guarantee you if he was given the choice between curing malaria and curing baldness, he would cure malaria, and I expect this would be true of most people.

(This model is wrong, of course, but I doubt many people are aware of the expected disability-adjusted-years-gained-per-dollars-spent-on-mosquito nets statistics)

I think it's an unfair distinction. Would I spend money on a solution that directly affects me or would I invest in a possible treatment that doesn't affect me? That belief that the first choice is available and implemented heavily skews the balance.

Bu they aren't.

Social and cultural norms, advertising, pride, self esteem, distance and on and on influence people to choose the hair products over people's lives.

I'm not saying its wrong to want to keep your hair over saving people from malaria. But I am saying its wrong to think that "the market" is this perfect thing and "rational actors" actually exist.

The market is great, but it isn't right about everything, and people don't have enough information and are too easily influenced by everything else to be considered rational about anything.

At least if I was selling Rogaine, that's how I might spin it.

But it seems like we all do this sort of thing, at least part of the time. Baldness is an issue apparently directly affecting furyofantares' stepfather, on a daily basis. Malaria isn't. Should we expect him to keep malaria constantly on his mind whenever making economic decisions?

You are so very, very wrong. More rich people want to cure baldness than malaria, because pretty much all rich countries are in climates where malaria can't thrive.

How many people do you think care more about their thinning hair than an illness that can kill their children?

People who would be affected by Malaria wouldn't have the purchasing power to affect the market. Baldness is universal and so people who have money and care about cosmetic effects, can affect the market to a greater degree.

I'm curious, of all the things killing poor people, who decided malaria was at the top? Some people see clean water and food as a higher priority. Why should anyone tell me how to donate? Do people really have such level of faith in the benevolence of central planners?

This is a big problem of free market fundamentalism, in my opinion. It's far too optimistic about how rational people are.

I do still think that capitalism might be one of those "it's crap but all options are worse" kind of thing. At least for now.

I think it's a problem with your understanding, in my opinion. If you accept that people are inherently irrational, wouldn't a representative government be equally irrational? Unless of course one accepts the notion of the benevelent actor who burdens himself with the task of propellingn society foward against its will. A parental figure in a sense, who safeguards his sheep for the greater good. You essentially believe in batman, and I'm the optimistic one. I say this lightheartedly, simply trying to illustrate my view.

Likewise, I wonder if it's reasonable to claim that people are "inherently rational", because we all know from experience that it doesn't require extraordinary circumstances for a person to make an irrational choice. People make both rational and irrational decisions all the time!

I know you're trying to make a lighthearted jest, but your benevolent actor = batman illustration seems a little too mean-spirited in its chiding. You start by misconstruing dscrd's meaning, and end by claiming that dscrd's "essentially believe[s] in batman".

I don't think it's unreasonable (irrational?) to presume that people are capable of increasing the amount of rationality they wish to apply to a problem based on its stakes (although we have plenty of anecdotes to support the counterpoint to this, as well), while still constantly making irrational choices on things which are (or appear to be) lower-stakes.

For example: I probably wouldn't build a house next to a coal power plant. I would consider that to be a rational decision. On the other hand, I may be a smoker, or really, really love doughnuts. There may be rational components to each of those (they give pleasure), but when viewed in the light of my decision to not live next to a coal power plant (I don't want to eventually get sick), they seem like pretty irrational decisions (because they'll eventually make me sick).

> There may be rational components to each of those (they give pleasure), but when viewed in the light of my decision to not live next to a coal power plant (I don't want to eventually get sick), they seem like pretty irrational decisions (because they'll eventually make me sick).

Sounds like value theory to me. It's a simple cost/benefit analysis. Donuts make me reeeaaally happy, so I'll indulge. To make up for it, I'll run a mile. I like eating a donut and running a mile over not having a donut at all. It's not a matter of rationality, but preference -- which is what value should reflect. The creation of value can't be institutionalized by a central planner because preference is so diverse and changes at a rate quicker than any beurocracy can address. Again, just one persons observations.

Yes, that was pretty much my critique: people are often irrational. I think you mispresented that critique by taking it to absurdity. Continuum or slippery slope fallacy?

Saying free markets aren't effective due to mans selfish nature is a reasonable observation. I agree that markets would be more effective with more altruistic agents. But then again, what wouldn't be? I believe whatever shortcomings in human nature that voluntarily interacting people face (ex, selfish agents in a market) will only be magnified in a Statist society. A "bad guy" trying to game the market with anticompetative practices sucks. What sucks more is this bad-guy gaming the government, and everything government regulates (hint, everything).

But for argument's sake... Even if people (as in, most people) are irrational, that wouldn't necessarily lead to their rulers being irrational, would it? After all, we supposedly* select people who are good at ruling to be rulers, just like we supposedly select people who are good at healing people to be doctors. They are expected to be better at it because they are interested in it, have studied it and are focused to do it, not because they're supermen.

* yes, this could be tad optimistic, especially under democracy because of the very irrationality of most people

The consumer is irrational, but the voter is rational? This is a contradiction.

The operative difference between a purchase and a vote is that purchases are (1) voluntary, and (2) continually adjusting to changing conditions.

Advocates of free markets tell you that the outcome is such and such if and when market participants can serve their interest as they see fit. They don't tell you that the outcome will be what you call "rational".

  We can convince the public that a cause is worth investing in,
  or we can force the public 

Fixed that for you. Healthcare and medicine break down when they become for-profit instead of for-health ventures.

Saying for-profit and "for-health" (whatever that means) are mutually exclusive is simply not true. I just picked up some allergy medication yesterday for $10 that is performing excellent. My exercise equipment is manufactured at a very fair rate. I think a profit motive was critical in providing me this invaluable preventative care.. so I can't see it your way. I think a more true statement would be, ventures that are heavily regulated break down, and I would agree.

As for counterproductive, the US has a number of good examples of "forcing" people to do things being productive. WWII and the moon landing are the classic examples. Of course, since I'm not a free-market capitalist but a staunch advocate of democracy, I don't really view government-directed activities as forced but rather democratically directed.

Do you want to tell us, that it is the rich people that crowd the Walmarts and other temples of mass consumption? If that are your rich people over there in America, then GOD may have pity with you!

But RMS, I want you to know that I recognize your contribution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_aid#Recip...

Are there other instances of Foreign Aid that also align with self-interest? Sure; but calling the funding of a proxy military in the most resource-rich area of the world Foreign Aid is really stretching the semantics. Why not go ahead and classify the entire military budget as foreign aid, since we only ever do things with noble intentions?

The other large portion of "foreign aid" used to go to the dictatorship in Egypt...

We don't know the details of Israel's nukes, but you are right that the Washington consensus is they developed them themselves.

The only thing preventing a nuclear-free Middle East is our veto in the UN.

PS: Want to pay people to pray for world piece? That's a tax break after-all we don't actually need to repair roads and bridges or pay down debt.

Not for capital gains if you sell the underlying asset. If I buy a stock for 1 cent and donate it then I avoid all capital gains even if it's now worth 30 billion. Considering the original baseline Gates working with it's ~30 billion * .15 ~= 4.5 billion tax savings. You also get to deduct the original 1 cent from your income, but as I said your avoiding the 50% income cap on donations.

I agree that his paper worth and taxes are separate issues, I am simply stating that having a charity sell stock is much better than having a person sell stock for the amounts involved. And it would be reasonable to charge capital gains at the time of donation for the same reason it's reasonable to remove the donation tax break. To further prove the point if your dealing with a deprecated stock it's better to sell and then donate.

PS: Wikipedia has a good example (Ordinary Income Producing Property and Short Term Capital Gain Property) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charitable_contribution_deducti...

Again, I don't care what he does with his own money but as soon as the Government subsidies charities efficiency is something to consider. Panama had a huge problem with the disease and it was delt with they now have 36 cases per 100,000 people vs 75,386 in Guinea. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_mal_cas_per_100-malari... And the simple truth is net's don't get you to 36 from 75,386.

I suspect that this will not last and that a new ideology will arrive (demand is high, supply is low, very few competitors). Any bets on what this ideology will look like?

The world is far too complex for a simple set of rules (Ideology) to be capable of providing all the answers to all the problems.

The simplest cell in the human body is unimaginably complex - why would the rules governing the interaction of billions of humans comprised of billions of those cells be simple?

I believe one of the reasons that large scale innovation was greater in the mid 20th Century than in the late 20th Century was the death of ideology but also one of the reasons that the late 20th Century and early 21th Century has been so peaceful.

I think some of this talk about ideologies is throwing the baby out with the bath water. Abstracting your worldview so that you can better explain yourself to others should not be looked down upon. That is how you will ultimately come to better compromise when it possible. You can't solve problems without ideas.

Ideologies are harmful when you take some text some Russian wrote years ago and try to bend the world to match that text. When you define your own worldview and don't rely only on the words of a dead guy that isn't there to clarify things, then you get into trouble.

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/war-1900.htm

>think some of this talk about ideologies is throwing the baby out with the bath water. Abstracting your worldview so that you can better explain yourself to others should not be looked down upon.

Agreed, and for the record I'm not against ideology or story telling in general. It is what humans do to make sense of their role in the world. It is interesting to me that we live in a time of old dying ideologies and it skews our perspective about the future since long term these treads have never lasted. For example the The_End_of_History(tm) claim that was getting some traction in the 1990s. What will come next?

Ideology played just as large of a driving force during the second half of the 20th Century yet the bloodshed was less. It is hard to say that withdraw from Ideology equals greater peace.

[0] http://charleseisenstein.net/

[1] http://opensourceecology.org/

This is a fundamental fact of how humans make models. They're never perfect the first time, and rarely (if ever?) are models every truly perfect. The most important hurdle for us as a species to overcome is the advancement of new models that refine our old ones; specifically, we need to become less averse to change.

You obviously don't live in the south, do you? ;)

It's sad to hear what Gates has to say. Unfortunately market and monetary pressures are the pitfalls of a pure capitalistic society where humanity takes a back seat.

In almost every failed/criticized ideology there are parts which still make sense and should not be thrown away.

Let's not make the mistake again of blindly replace "all of communism" with "all of capitalism" f.e.

This would maybe get a higher chance for the next idea to "succeed better"

Capitalism isn't just about the rich people. Small business owners are capitalists, too, and most of the ones I know don't fit your description.

I wish

> god is dead

god likely never existed, but the idea of god will continue to cause humans to kill and oppress each other. Ideas don't die so I'm not sure what you mean when you say they are dead.