They laughed at Bill Gates

BuckyBit wrote:

After seeing The Constant Gardener (too) I say, if you really want to do something, don't throw money around, but actually do something with your own hands. This would mean: quit your job. Live in Africa. Share the poverty instead of filling pockets of others with the kind of money that generated the poverty in the first place.

You won't beat poverty with money but with living an example...
... If you really care about it.

How does this work exactly?

It sounds like saying, "If you really want to beat illness, don't become a doctor -- make yourself SICK and become a PATIENT."  Or "If you want to stop crime, drop out of the police academy and become a CRIMINAL." 

I'm sure there's a nugget of wisdom in there somewhere...

BuckyBit wrote:

Donating 900$ or even 1Bill for a TBC-fund is creating an object (welcome progs) that won't change the environment the poor live in, the struggle they have to fight to survive, the education they need to empower themselves etc... - so tbc would not be an issue, the way, it is no issue in the rich countries.

How is eradicating tuberculosis not changing the environment?  How does defeating TB not change the struggle to survive, if you're one of the 36 million people worldwide who die of it each year?

BuckyBit wrote:

Building a company that fuels the kind of economy that actually creates poverty and then donating the money that comes out of (metaphorically) stealing it from the poor countries (by not allowing them to play with 'big business') makes no real-life attempt to change the system. Sure, a billionaire can move more things and people than, let's say, Albert Schweizer, Mother Teresa or a medic who spents his vacation working 60 hours in a refugee camp. They also don't change the system per se, but they show other ordinary people what every ordinary man can do, if only they would like to. So, yes, it is the rather obscure, metaphysical way of "sharing the disease" rather than being the illness.

It's obscure to the point I don't understand it at all.   Fueling the economy creates poverty?  Lots of IT companies are setting up shop in India, and this constitutes stealing from "poor countries?"  Bill Gates going to Africa and digging a well with his bare hands is somehow better than Bill Gates sending millions of dollars of well-digging and irrigation equipment to Africa?

Is the goal supposed to be equality -- that everyone should be equally poor, equally sick -- rather than helping the poor to create wealth and helping the sick to become well? 

BuckyBit wrote:

How many billions have been spent for the 3rd world countries? What has happend in the last 50 years? Why is there no real progress? True, there is corruption, dictatorship, etc... but the economic troubles have their roots in the policies of powerful and rich countries and corporations as much as in local failures.

Define "real progress."  There are millions of people who are walking around today, who WON'T DIE because someone decided to spend billions on vaccines, for example.  One example: GAVI.  They estimate they've averted 1.7 million future deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases.  If you're one of those 1.7 MILLION people who won't die, or even just one of the millions more who won't get sick, I think you might call that progress.  And that's just one organization.

BuckyBit wrote:

Now, you can beat me because I stay vague and don't attempt to add a list of links about business and economic theory. But let's say, I was trying to suggest, that throwing money around is not a real ethical value, while doing something - as I said - with your own hands is. I am no christian, but I like this very deeply old-fashion christian thinking.

Here's some old-fashioned Christian thinking:

While [Jesus] was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.

Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, "Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year's wages and the money given to the poor." And they rebuked her harshly.

"Leave her alone," said Jesus. "Why are you bothering her?  She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. I tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her."

-- Mark 14:3-9

What I would say: Why are you bothering Bill Gates?  He has done a beautiful thing.  We're always going to have poor people, and you can go be Mother Teresa or work in a refugee camp any time you feel like it.  But we will not always have Bill Gates.

BuckyBit wrote:

Karim, I knew exactly that you would respond this way. Thx.

What way?  Asking a lot of questions because I didn't understand your point?  Quoting Scripture as an example of Christian thinking?  I'm glad you so keenly anticipated my response, but I'm wondering why it doesn't merit a reply...

You seem to think that rolling up your sleeves and doing stuff is somehow righteous, whereas donating money is evil.  Is this your basic point?  Am I mischaracterizing your opinion?

You wrote, "throwing around money is not a real ethical value, while doing something with your own hands is."  I don't understand this point.  To me, "throwing around money" is merely a PROXY for "doing something with your own hands."  For example, I can mow my lawn "with my own hands," or I can "throw around money" to the kid down the street, who will mow my lawn for a price.  The bottom line is the same in both cases -- the lawn gets mowed.

Money is fungible.  You can trade it for things.  The reason why it was invented was so that people wouldn't have to barter their own goods and services for everything.  Instead of rolling up your own sleeves, you can give someone pieces of paper, and they'll roll up their sleeves in exchange.

When you have the kind of money Bill Gates has, you can get a hell of a lot of sleeves rolled up.  You can accomplish amazing things.

Actually, if Bill Gates quit Microsoft tomorrow, decided to roll up his own sleeves and become Mother Teresa, you know what would happen?  Investors would panic.  Microsoft stock would tank.  And because the stock price would drop, Bill Gates would actually have LESS net worth, meaning he'd have LESS money to put towards the effort of eradicating diseases.

The world is better off with Bill Gates running Microsoft.

Different people have different jobs, different callings.  We're not all supposed to pick up and go live with the poor people and become Mother Teresas.  Because if we did, who would grow the food that ends up as food aid that gets sent to the needy?  Who would work at the pharmaceutical companies that MAKE the vaccines that save lives?  Who would pilot the boats and airplanes that deliver the aid to people who are in need?  Who would manufacturer those boats and airplanes? etc. etc. etc.

And frankly while there aren't enough people giving away BILLIONS to charity, the world doesn't need one MORE super-rich, globe-trotting celebrity doing touching photo ops with the poor.  It just doesn't.  It doesn't INSPIRE people to emulate, because most people can't EMPATHIZE with the super-rich.   I doubt Bill Gates and Bono worry about the mortgage, but most normal people would wonder how the bills would get paid if they quit their jobs and lives and flew off to work in a refugee camp somewhere. 

Besides Bill Gates probably SUCKS at injecting malaria vaccine.