[prvc]

Have to disagree about the 'effective' part. Gates seems to have had a knack for massive inefficiencies and negative externalities in every way that he has impacted the world. Think of how many man-hours (measured in human lifetimes) have been wasted due to the shortcomings of various MicroSoft programs. Weigh that against his health initiatives in the third world. Or the impact of dimming the sun by depositing massive quantities of particles in the atmosphere: the resources consumed and carbon emissions that placing them would entail, and of course the intended effect, which is to impede human progress as measured by the Kardashev scale. Everything starts to look much more efficient if this is taken as the goal, though.

[mgraczyk]

Helping to cure polio doesn't outweigh imagined future harms by George engineering that didn't happen yet?

[ok123456]

He's not curing polio, though. His polio program is spreading it because they use a live virus, and a low percentage of the population is getting it. People are now getting paralytic polio from others who got the vaccine.

This is just one example of the Kreuger-Dunning that permeates all aspects of the Gates Foundation. His interventions have been mainly disasters, distorted public policy, and gobbled up biotech IP in the process. He controls the money spicket and is very petty and cocksure about what is "right." Researchers and public policy experts who disagree with his ideas get cut off.

Governments should set public health policy and manage the needs of their people, not billionaires, biotech companies, or NGOs.

[adwf]

Forgive me if I find it somewhat difficult to take seriously an argument by a person judging progress on the Kardashev scale...

You could pick some slightly less sci-fi measures like "number of trivially preventable deaths from diseases for which we have vaccines", for example.