The Bill and Melinda Gates Annual Letter for 2017
For much of my life, I've thought about philanthropy. When I took the Strength Finder's test, significance showed up in my top five strengths. Essentially, I want to matter. I want the fact I existed to positively impact reality. As I've worked to build my business, I've always thought in the back of my mind what it would be like to build enough wealth in order to give a bunch of it away and see the world improve because of my actions.
I just finished reading the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation's annual letter. You can see it here:
Dear Warren. Our 2017 Annual Letter. Bill and Melinda Gates, February 14, 2017.
Some highlights:
- 122 Million children saved who would have otherwise died since 1990.
- Warren Buffet and Bill Gates use coupons, even at places like McDonald's (i.e. they care about savings and efficiency).
- "For every dollar spent on childhood immunizations, you get $44 in economic benefits."
- "From 2008 through 2015…Rwanda cut its newborn mortality rate by 30 percent."
- Breast feeding, skin to skin contact, and healthy cord cutting all decrease child mortality rates.
- Contraceptions and family planning are not only helping bring nations out of poverty, but ending sexism which impacts women much more in impoverished areas.
- Global poverty has been halved since 1990.
Some quotes that stood out to me:
"Your success didn’t create your optimism; your optimism led to your success."
This. So much this.
“All lives have equal value” is not just a principle; it’s a strategy.
That's an incredible stance to take. In our daily actions, we don't value lives equally. We think in terms of tribalism, not humanity. This alone is a powerful concept, one we have to think on more.
The optimism in this letter was really encouraging to me.
...we’re confident of one thing: The future will surprise the pessimists.
I also liked this nod to one of my own favorite books as well:
One of my favorite books is Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature.
The world is getting better! If you don't believe it, spend four minutes and watch this video:
Many only see fragmentation and division in our society. They see what the media feeds them and think it's an accurate representation of reality. As mentioned in the letter, this is not true:
But if you look along a timeline, the periods of fragmentation often come when society is digesting its new diversity. The larger historical trends are toward greater inclusion and caring.
As someone who has been labeled a Voluntaryist / Anarchist, this also gives me hope. I envision a world where human interactions are voluntary. Where authority is a foreign concept because each individual owns themselves and the results of their actions. I've been called idealistic and optimistic, but maybe I'm in good company.
To the Gates haters out there:
I know, I've seen the same memes about how Bill Gates is literally the devil and wants to sterilize the world via evil, evil vaccinations. This, I've come to believe, is ridiculous. He's someone who provided a product via Microsoft that the world wanted via voluntary exchange. He benefitted all of humanity and got incredibly wealthy doing so. He's now using that money to improve the world and further increase his significance. I understand that and respect it. We need more people reading books and watching less of crackpots like Alex Jones. Facts matter, now more than ever. Let's not get divided against false enemies and stay focused on increase wellbeing. I know, I'm vulnerable to the same critique as I don't see authoritarian thinking embodied in nation state governments as a good pattern for the future. Maybe I'm missing the good things they are doing also and need to question my own perspectives. Maybe some day I'll be able to connect with people like Bill and Melinda who really are making a difference in the world and see what they see regarding the benefits of government support as outlined in their letter.
I hope you get a chance to read the letter and respond with your comments.
The world is getting better. There are so many out there who profit from your fear and work to convince you things are getting worse. They want you afraid because that's when your reasoning facilities don't function. That's when you are controlled by the inputs fed to you. The future requires more critical thinking.
The future demands optimism.
The Letter was more interesting than I expected, I learned quite a bit, thanks: – Malaria is harder to eliminate than Polio, Nutrition harder than Reproductive health, and Saving Newborns is harder to undertake than Saving children under 5.
The Gates post 122 million children were saved since 1990, that works out to approximately 12,855 per day by my calculations.
Given that the following facts are correct: each day the world currently adds about 228,500 additional people. Using the figure of 21% of those, on a world average, below the poverty line - yesterday we added 47,992 new 'poor' to the world. Each will need Clothing, Shelter, Food, Water, and Energy - just the Basics to survive.
I would guess each family would have more than 2 children, but even if not, what happens when the Foundation funds begin to dry up?
Perhaps the 62 world citizens (the top of the 1% Club) that now own or control wealth equivalent to the poorer half of the world's population (3,720,260,858) [1] might contribute?
[1] http://www.oxfam.org.uk/media-centre/press-releases/2016/01/62-people-own-same-as-half-world-says-oxfam-inequality-report-davos-world-economic-forum
Great comment, thank you!
I put some thoughts down here for how to improve the world which relates to this discussion. I think as more people move up Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs the number of births will decline as people have better access to birth control and infant mortality rates decline.
I think the Giving Pledge will also play an important role in the future.
I am really taken back by the number of, and so many well recognized members in the Giving Pledge. That gives me a little more hope, and optimism is reappearing :-)
Must sleep now, but I definitely will read and comment on your How to Improve the World tomorrow.
Thanks! Following you for more.
All this video embedded here says is people started living longer and had more money (which is relative to cost of living). It says nothing about how meaningful life was for these people. Just because you live longer and have more money doesn't mean you did a damn thing in your life that really mattered. In other words, it's possible to have long-lived and rich murderers. See the point? Healthy and Wealthy do not equal "nice" or "kind". I'd rather be around unhealthy poor people that are kind and gracious than healthy rich people that are greedy murderous bastards.
...okay? Are you making an argument that the world is more full of "greedy, murderous bastards"? If so, read Steven Pinker's book referenced in this post.
Money doesn't help people.
Especially in this day when money is really debt currency.
The more you give someone, the more they owe.
The more their life is destroyed.
All lottery winners (except maybe a few that I haven't heard of) have wound up broker than when they won the lottery. A bunch of money, does not solve people's problems.
If money helped the poor, then Harlem, NY would be a shining beacon of prosperity and city beauty. But it is not. It is a hell hole. Where apartments are burnt down so that people can get to the front of the welfare line.
Money does not help the poor. Not in any way.
The poor have to be educated out of being poor. And that is a very difficult thing to do, even with a poor person that really wants to stop being poor.
(Poor people are poor in vocabulary, poor in thought, poor in health...)
The best way you can help the world is to follow your highest joy. By building what you love the most, you will affect all of those around you. You will bring more beauty and wealth to the world.
Did you read the letter before commenting? It seems to me you're having a separate conversation based on the video which was just my additional compliment to the letter. I'm familiar with the problems of fiat currency and discuss it often. What's being discussed here are the actions taken and their effect as described in the letter.
I like the sentiment you're describing, but if you die as infant, it's quite difficult to do those things.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has left a trail of destruction behind it, whether by bad luck or design. Thus, I found myself only wanting to write scathing review. So, I nixt that.
Instead, I wrote a piece about actual philanthropy, and how hard it is to really help someone.
My goal is to create a world where there is a true safety net. Free minimum housing, clothing and food for anyone that shows up. After that, free market, for as high as you can go.
I intend to bring manufacturing to the personal level. But, the intermediate stages require a lot of people and a lot of training. The money to do this is actually almost minuscule. Getting that many people to work together and give of their time, monumentous.
Can you give me some examples?
http://beforeitsnews.com/opinion-conservative/2014/11/anti-tetanus-vaccine-in-kenya-contains-miscarriage-inducing-hormone-2931942.html
http://www.truthwiki.org/bill-gates-bill-and-melinda-gates-foundation/
https://www.corbettreport.com/why-common-core-must-be-opposed/
http://www.snopes.com/medical/disease/tetanus.asp Many link to the same source (LifeSiteNews) but few link to their follow up here: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/kenyan-gvmt-launches-probe-into-claim-un-is-using-vaccines-for-mass-sterili which says:
As the Snopes article explains, women who got the vaccine had children. So... yeah. Great thing about falsifiable claims is, once they are falsified, we can move on. Also, no mention of Bill Gates' work unless he is behind the WHO?
That is directly answer by this year's letter.
By saving 122 million people? Again, read the letter. Birth rates do go down when women can control whether or not they want to have the child which directly leads to getting whole areas out of poverty, decreasing infant mortality, and a whole host of other tragic results in society. The letter explains this well if you read it with an open mind instead of a pre-confirmed conspiracy theory.
I'm still not seeing a "a trail of destruction" here.
We probably agree that most formal education systems are failures. My favorite book on that is Free to Learn by Peter Gray. I'm not yet convinced attempts to support education systems is a "trail of destruction" but in this case, maybe we agree. I wouldn't single out the Gates foundation, however, as most governments on the planet do this, yes? I was homeschooled, I homeschool my children, and I'm learning more about unschooling all the time. I'll watch this whole thing later, but skimming the show notes didn't seem like a very good justification for vilifying them, IMO.
yeah, I could not find the articles I want to link you to. Maybe I will look again.
Did you know that The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been banned from India?
I no longer trust Snopes. I found too many things that I know from personal experience to be falsely falsified there.
If there was a smoking gun evidence that the foundation was actually doing evil things... it would be swept under the rug just like Hitlery's foundation. There are a lot of women who appear to be infertile now, after the run in with The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The problem is, they are in a 3rd world country. They do not have a medical doctors they can go to in order to find out why they are not getting pregnant.
I will never trust The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation because of all the things that I know, first hand, that Microsoft has done.
Can you give me some examples? I hear this claim often, but have yet to see a single, concrete example of something Snopes said which is factually inaccurate based on real evidence. I don't blindly trust a source as much as I look at the actual argument. To do otherwise is either a genetic fallacy or an ad hominem.
Can you give me an example of Microsoft business practice which informs your opinion of a non-profit organization?
"The future demands optimism."
This is awesome. Thanks for your endless optimism.
Thanks Eeks. If there was a better approach to the future, I'd certainly consider it, but optimism seems to work really well. :)
http://prn.fm/death-by-vaccination-the-gates-foundation-and-the-new-eugenics/
So by saving lives via vaccines, they want to lower the population? That's not logically consistent. I understand some believe vaccines don't actually save lives and it's more about sanitation, etc. I'm not interested in having that debate here.
The "lower the population" aspect of what they do relates to reproductive services. Many women in poor countries have no ability to limit the number of children they have. They have no control because they have no access to birth control. Giving them that access and increasing the likelihood their children will survive enables them to have fewer children which enables them to get out of poverty. I'm not convinced his is some evil conspiracy, especially when I look at the actual data as outlined in this letter. You can disagree with me, but please understand I've looked into many of these claims in the past and have not been convinced by them.
You're free to create your post with your views and link me to them. Please stop linking to individual things as individual comments. Just link to your own post or I'll flag these comments so they don't clutter up the other comments here. Thanks.
I hope you listen to his TED Talk.. I also hope that you are a VERY successful person. But, please do not emulate the Gates.
As I said before, I've looked into this in detail.
Do poor families in poor countries have more children and if so, why?
(from what I've read: high infant mortality rate and lack of birth control to even control their lives as they'd like to)
Does the lack of vaccines contribute to the infant mortality rate?
(Yes, it's higher where they don't have vaccines)
Would they have less children if the infant mortality rate wasn't so high and they had access to reproductive care such as birth control and on top of all that would their wellbeing and economic prosperity increase?
(Yes, they'd have less children by choice and they would be happier. Richer nations have less children. It's not a conspiracy, it's a byproduct of prosperity and freedom.)
Please try to disprove your assumptions using real data before believing in these conspiracies. I used to believe them. Then I started reading books about these topics to get a more accurate picture of the world. If they wanted to kill people off, they're are much easier ways to do it than saving lives and increasing wellbeing.
I always welcome and appreciate open discussion. I practiced healthcare for over 20 years and there was a time where I believed as you do. If you read my Steemit introduction you will get to know me better. Now with further research and the knowledge that the Pharmaceutical Industry publishes studies without oversight I know better.
This is a rather neutral link disclosing the ingredients of vaccines.
http://vaccines.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=005206
The Silent Epidemic documentary. Here you can listen to physicians, neurologists and researchers who have researched vaccinations. They feel as I do.
There was also another informative Steemit post this week on this most important topic.
https://steemit.com/health/@canadian-coconut/dr-phan-speaks-out-a-medical-doctor-who-actually-follows-the-hippocratic-oath-bravo-vaxxed-stories
I believe birth control is very important in assisting struggling families. Good health should be achieved in underdeveloped countries in providing nutritious food and clean water. Maybe when you are in a position to be a philanthropist you will do that for the poor and under served.
It appears you have a good heart.
Regards,
Mary
Not wishing to enter into the fray concerning the efficacy of the Gates Foundation, Charities and Non-Profits in general, I, however, would like to add a third reason - a fact concerning why poorer countries have more children. This would not likely be evident to the Gates'es, to Mr. Buffett nor to any of the other 1810 Dollar Billionaires, the 14-30 million Dollar Millionaires, in fact perhaps only a few in the 1% Club would understand that the poor, because they are poor and have few prospects for long term care (despite the numerous government programs) have a large number of children to help them survive day-to-day and especially to look after them in their old age. For example, the OFW's (Overseas Foreign Workers in the Philippines) living and working outside of the country send funds back to their families to help them survive – some 10% of the GDP, I believe.
A. Einstein I think summed it up nicely:
'In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep'
The idea of children seen as workers to support the family in poor countries is quite common. Why would you think this is not evident? It also relates to why they have more children if the infant mortality rate is high: they need enough workers to survive, so they have to make more.
I agree that this idea of 'children seen as workers' supports your argument that by reducing the infant Mortality rate, there will be a need for less children, however I would suggest that this is not commonly understood, especially by those donating to Charities.
I have not investigated, but know from first hand experience of the desire to have a large family here in Asia. Similarly how the Family takes care of the elderly within the Family unit rather than promoting "Old Folks Homes" as is common in North America.
Not sure How I might get at this question, any ideas? Or evidence of this commonality you speak of?
You made this claim:
I was just wondering what basis you had for it. I think many in positions of wealth and power of that size no quite a bit more than we may give them credit for, partly because they can afford very smart advisors. That's just my opinion though.