Bill Gates: Internet Will Not Save the World 247
quantr points out an interview with Bill Gates in which he talks about setting priorities for making a difference in the world. Quoting:
"The internet is not going to save the world, says the Microsoft co-founder, whatever Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley's tech billionaires believe. But eradicating disease just might. Bill Gates describes himself as a technocrat. But he does not believe that technology will save the world. Or, to be more precise, he does not believe it can solve a tangle of entrenched and interrelated problems that afflict humanity's most vulnerable: the spread of diseases in the developing world and the poverty, lack of opportunity and despair they engender. 'I certainly love the IT thing,' he says. 'But when we want to improve lives, you've got to deal with more basic things like child survival, child nutrition.' These days, it seems that every West Coast billionaire has a vision for how technology can make the world a better place. A central part of this new consensus is that the internet is an inevitable force for social and economic improvement; that connectivity is a social good in itself. It was a view that recently led Mark Zuckerberg to outline a plan for getting the world's unconnected 5 billion people online, an effort the Facebook boss called 'one of the greatest challenges of our generation.' But asked whether giving the planet an internet connection is more important than finding a vaccination for malaria, the co-founder of Microsoft and world's second-richest man does not hide his irritation: 'As a priority? It's a joke.'"
Bill is doing the right things (Score:5, Insightful)
Years ago, when I was a zoology major in university, I spent some time working on a study of elephant migration paths in Africa.
It was an eye opening experience. I was staggered by the sheer poverty, the lack of access to safe drinking water and food, the high rates of preventable illness, and the high rate of child deaths. I remember a woman living in Uganda who made "biscuits" for children made with washed dirt simply so they could get something into their stomachs that would reduce the hunger pains and not kill them. I don't give to USA charities since then. I give all my charity dollars to people who are doing outstanding work in areas of disease and poverty.
I have no idea what people struggling to find food would do with the internet. Would it enrich their lives? I don't see how. Would it save them from disease? Would it allow their children greater likelyhood to see their fifth birthday?
Bill Gates has the right idea. I just wish other very rich people had as much sense and willingness to spend their money to help people.
Re:True (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, it's more complicated than that. But his perspective seems to be one applying a humanistic vision in conjunction with empiricism. The fact that it's an unusual approach to charity is what's really baffling.
overpopulated (Score:1, Insightful)
too many people on the planet ... Gates is way off on this one. ... Who completely overlooked the internet when he ran Microsoft.
Unsurprising, coming from Gates
Re:Bill is doing the right things (Score:4, Insightful)
Imagine having a library in your village that could show you how to build water condensers, new farming techniques, basic chemistry that could improve your quality of life, really ANY piece of information you could conceive of as well as the ability to communicate remotely with other vilalges trying to overcome similar problems at the touch of your hands.
But no, better to hand out fish then give access to fishing instructions.
Knowledge is power.
The White Man's Burden... (Score:1, Insightful)
The old give it to me first so I can redistribute it to whom I see fit..... and most of us blame governments for doing this. Capitalists do the same thing.
Eliminate unbridled global capitalism and you have a chance at saving the world. MCDonalds is crap nutrition but their food distribution system is fantastic. Eliminate the need for McDs profits and use the food distribution for humanity... you might get somewhere.
I would venture to say that the creation of Linux (and other open source software) has done more to benefit humanity that Windows (or OSX).
Re:True (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, it's more complicated than that. But his perspective seems to be one applying a humanistic vision in conjunction with empiricism. The fact that it's an unusual approach to charity is what's really baffling.
Baffling indeed.
Yes, having the people educated is one thing that needs to happen. But it is one of many components.
In order to give them Internet access they must also have power and communications systems. They must be literate or all the words are meaningless.
If the people are dying of malnutrition then yes, additional education about farming techniques and food safety can help. If people are dying from sanitation problems then yes, additional education can help. But it is just a single thing on the long list of things that need to happen to transform a society.
Sure they can give the rural slash-and-burn farmers an Internet-enabled computer with satellite modems and solar power chargers. It is nice to teach a farming community that for generations has practice slash-and-burn techniques that they should read about alternatives, but that by itself will not solve anything. Give them computers and Internet access and all you will have is a community who still practices the same techniques, with the change that they now can watch cat videos and play Angry Birds. The technology by itself won't transform them.
It takes a lot of pieces working together. It is true that giving computers to children can help benefit the community as shown through "Hole in the Wall" and other experiments [google.com] but that little bit of education is only one facet, there are hundreds of other facets that need to be addressed. Providing a little bit of education is useful, but does not help much against problems of rampant disease, abuse, family planning, nor does it provide the tools and technology needed to implement what is taught. Teaching the community "this is what refrigeration can do for you" doesn't help if they cannot get electricity. Teaching the community "these are health issues that chlorinated water can treat" doesn't help when the village is struggling just to get enough muddy water so everyone can subsist.
There is much work to do. If one group wants to help by adding educational tools, that is certainly one useful thing. But Gates is right that there is a very broad spectrum of changes needed to bring regions out of poverty, and Internet access alone is not enough.
Don't give a... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bill is doing the right things (Score:4, Insightful)
This is asinine. Do you realize the literacy rate in these countries?
This is why a "library" is useless for these people. They have very little time to even go to school in the poorest parts of the world because they are spending their time trying to make a subsistence living. That is how our ancestors lived, and people were only able to go to school and concentrate and learn once they had food in their bellies.
Someone parachuting in, not with a library, but with the KNOWLEDGE the library contains, and the willingness and money to build the infrastructure for them is better.
They need to talk to a tribal elder ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Build them out of what? Using what tools?
The other anonymous coward most likely refers to survival tricks that start out simplistic using sticks, stones and cloth.
And where do these survival tricks using primitive materials come from? They often come from the indigenous people of the region. For example the technique of filtering water through sand, plant materials, charcoal, etc is thousands of years old. These people don't necessarily need the internet to explain such things, a tribal elder of the region explaining how his grandfather used to purify water, what different plants were used for, etc may do a far better job. Well, at least for the people living in rural areas. For those in urban areas the techniques using primitive materials may not scale up.
Re:Bill is doing the right things (Score:5, Insightful)
Chicken, meet egg. I work with in Northern Mozambique. Low literacy is a problem, not because kids (and adults) don't want to read but because there's no books. You learn a bit at school on a chalkboard but go home and there's nothing.
The internet is where my kids do most of their reading. After having been here five years, witnessing culture, rumor and tradition, I think the number one way to prevent disease is education. The cheapest, fastest way to teach this stuff? The internet.
Re: True (Score:4, Insightful)
Teach them how to fish (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not disputing your comments. However, what gives me second thoughts about the efforts of the Gates foundation is that they don't try to promote self-sufficiency in the target areas they're supposedly trying to help. For example, instead of simply trying to donate medicine why don't they try to set up labs that will manufacture the medicine within the country that needs it. It seems that even in his charity work Bill Gates has adopted the mindset of a proprietary software vendor, where even if a product is given away free, you're not given too much of a control over how it is to be used.