Bill Gates: Trust me, the world is really getting better, not worse

[steve2470]

http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-trust-me-the-world-is-really-getting-better-not-worse-2018-1

(disclaimer: only posting for discussion, not that I agree with him)

The world, he says, is actually getting better.

In an editorial in Time, Bill Gates notes many trends — ranging from the rates of child mortality to the number of countries now offering protections for gays and lesbians — are heading in a positive direction. We just don't hear much about them, because of the focus on negative news.

"These events — as awful as they are — have happened in the context of a bigger, positive trend," Gates writes. "On the whole, the world is getting better."

Among the developments he points to are:

[GreenEyedLefty]

1. Says a member of the "ownership class."

George Carlin coined that phrase, I believe.

[Cicada]

13. Kids arent dying, poverty is declining, fewer wars, less violence

Gates is a member of the giving it away to help the world class. Obamacare said this is the best time to be born ever and he’s right. Despite Trump the world is getting better at a rapid pace.

[PETRUS]

24. hahaha!

"giving it away to help the world," eh?

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/11/philanthropy-charity-banga-carnegie-gates-foundation-development

[TheBlackAdder]

36. Find an online copy of THE. BEST. DECADE. EVER. Shits been much worse than what we have it.

[elehhhhna]

64. All the above are getting worse in the U.S. That's not cool.

[Cicada]

68. Child death rates in US are down more than 50% since 1980

Violent crime rate also down dramatically, property crime rates also sharply lower.

Those without health insurance down a lot recently

We need to increase the supply of housing and in some areas nimbyism is being seen as destructive.

For the first time there is light at the end of the cancer tunnel, think Jimmy Carter cured of previously incurable brain cancer. Genetic fixes for inherited diseases are coming. Solar and wind power costs are crashing down. Electric cars will cut car ownership costs in half. Car crashes will soon decline by more than half.

This is the best time to be born ever.

[True Dough]

52. He is near the top of the list of one-per-centers

But at least he and Warren Buffett are incredibly philanthropic. I have difficulty finding too much fault with them when so many other elites are hoarding as much as they can.

[fescuerescue]

58. 1% doesn't even begin to describe Gates

Based on 7.5 billion people in the world, about 75 million people are 1%'ers.

Gates on the other hand is one of the wealthiest of the 7.5B...which makes him a 0.0000001% er.

or about 75 million times as wealthy as a typical 1%'er

[True Dough]

60. Okay

And that takes away from his philanthrophy how, exactly?

https://www.philanthropy.com/article/Buffett-GatesBloomberg/241235

[fescuerescue]

61. I wasn't addressing that of your comment

I was addressing the 1% aspect of your comment.

No insult intended to..well anyone.

[Faux pas]

2. Yeah bill

you've got yours

[Elwood P Dowd]

5. As an old talk show guy from the 1990s used to say

he is a member of the "I've got mine club".

[Faux pas]

15. That's

right Elwood P Dowd, I think we can trace it back to the old raygun days. They are all pretty damned disgusting.

[LanternWaste]

41. One of these days, someone will give us an objective number regarding how poor one needs to be

One of these days, someone will give us an objective number regarding how poor one needs to be to have an opinion.

Until then, I hope sour grapes make a tasty wine.

[Irish_Dem]

3. yah, life is good when you are one of the richest men on earth. nt

[Cha]

19. So grateful he could

explain that to us common folk.

[Irish_Dem]

20. Elitesplaining for the common man and riffraff.

When we are not chasing women and drinking booze.

[Cha]

21. "Elitesplaining"! giving us a little

pep talk. I feel so much better.

[Irish_Dem]

22. Yep. A man who lives in a $125 million mansion tells us our lives are better than we realize.

Turned me right around I'll tell you.

[USALiberal]

25. And one of the most generous with his money. Donates billions. nt

[Irish_Dem]

38. Yes he does. But lecturing the peons doesn't go over well. nt

[USALiberal]

40. Which stat that he provided was incorrect? n.t

[Kirk Lover]

4. I agree with him...in the grand scope of things he's right. n/t

[TexasBushwhacker]

7. Worth noting Gates said the "world" is getting better

Worldwide infant and maternal mortality is down, more children are getting immunized and nutrition is getting better.

[Blue_true]

34. I agree. In the grand scale things are better.

But we have a lot of work still to do and we recently took a step backward when Trump was elected.

[Bettie]

6. Yeah, from that big house on the hill

with your brand spanking new government giveaway and enough money to avoid the worst of it all...I bet it does look great.

For the rest of us? The peons? Not so much.

[snooper2]

42. What year would you like to go back to when things were better?

[Bettie]

45. I'd like to go back to being a little kid

when I didn't know about any of this stuff.

There was no perfect era, but there were times when we were moving forward as a society instead of backward.

And Mr. Gates is certainly not one of the 99%...so, yeah, it all looks peachy to him, since, short of nuclear annihilation, he'll be fine. Or Zombies...money doesn't really help there either, or so I've heard.

[zipplewrath]

8. 3 steps forward 2 back

This is always a bit of the "misery Olympics" issue. How many "good" things out weight how many "bad" things? It also leads to the "what about me" issue that was part of the blue collar backlash we just experienced. Alot of things are getting better, but they may not affect large numbers of people, especially those who have done "better" in past generations. We're having a cold snap here. Yeah, places else where are much colder, but it can still kill you if you're homeless or don't have heat. Should they be "positive" because it's not as cold as it is somewhere else?

Probably I would state this in a different fashion. Don't lose hope. Don't stop fighting. Don't give up. or paraphasing.

The arch of history is long, but it bends toward justice. (I might have stolen that).

[ColoradoBlue]

9. He's helping to make positive change

I'm a little surprised by some of the negative and dismissive responses here. Bill Gates is a self-made man. Unlike Trump, he wasn't born into privilege. And unlike many others, he is giving back millions of his own money to create change and help the world move in a positive direction. He's not just sitting in his "house on the hill" looking down at the "little people." The Gates Foundation supports education, helps fight infectious diseases, supports programs that lift others out of poverty, and they just donated $100million to Alzheimer's research.

He may be a billionaire but at least he puts his money where his mouth is. You may not agree with his overall take on the state of the world, but you have to admire his efforts to make it a better place.

[steve2470]

10. One minor nitpick but otherwise agree

I think his father was a lawyer in Seattle. A fairly well-known one.

[BBG]

11. And fairly well to do...

Dropping out of Harvard doesn’t come cheap.

[steve2470]

12. yes exactly nt

[ColoradoBlue]

14. I stand corrected

Thanks for setting me straight on that.

[USALiberal]

26. Most people here whining have no idea how much he has donated. Clueless! nt

[LisaM]

28. His father was a named partner in a law firm in Seattle, and his mother

was a University of Washington regent. He was definitely born into privilege, and attended the priciest private school in Seattle.

I like some of the things he's done (vaccinations being the prime example), others, not so much. He needs to take a hard look at the very town he's from and figure out how to prevent everyone who makes less than about $80K a year from being shoved out. Sure, we're not living in mud huts in a war zone - and that's good - but the middle class in Seattle is getting squeezed and the tech companies are part of the problem.

I find him to be a mixed bag (I also wish he'd focus education dollars on the liberal arts, not just STEM), but he was definitely born into a well-to-do family.

[Dave Starsky]

46. I used to think that way.

Why isn't he spending money right here? On homelessness, etc. Surely, he must know that we have problems right here that he can help with!

But then I attended a lecture he gave on his Foundation's vaccination projects, and I totally got it. He has a TRULY GLOBAL perspective. He does what he does because it needs to be done, and he is literally the only one on Earth who has all the resources and personal interest to make it happen. As Spider-Man told us, with great power comes great responsibility. Bill Gates uses his wealth like he understands that principle.

The world doesn't revolve around us, our own situation, or our country. There is a much bigger picture than we can imagine. And a tide that rises for everyone lifts all boats. Even mine. Even yours.

[Doodley]

16. Life is not getting better in America. Life expectancy, healthcare access, education,

social mobility, wealth distribution, environment, equal rights - all going backwards.

[mythology]

17. First, we're 4.4% of the world's population

Also healthcare access went up considerably with the ACA, more Americans are getting college degrees and for equal rights same sex marriage is the law of the land and we have a record number of women senators, just had our first black president, topics like minority men being more likely to be killed by police is a huge cultural issue and we are seeing sexual harassers being outed. All things getting better. Progress isn't linear and sometimes we take steps backward. But that doesn't mean that we aren't making progress.

[Doodley]

31. That's good but things are going downward since Trump became president.

[NickB79]

18. Last year was the hottest on record

The past 10 hottest years have all occurred in the the 21st century.

All the trends Gates mentions mean jack shit in the face of catastrophic climate change that threatens to kill a billion humans this century.

[Doodley]

32. Well said.

[hatrack]

33. The thermodynamic arc of the universe is long but it bends towards reality . . .

It's also occasionally quite short (see Dansgaard-Oeschger Event for an example).

[NickB79]

35. It's like being pumped you just got a great job

Bought a new house, bought a sweet car, married a beautiful woman, oh and you also have a rapidly metastasizing cancer inside of you that you're just going to pretend doesn't exist, even as you start coughing up blood from time to time.

But life's going great! Everything else is looking up so no need to worry, am I right?

[HughBeaumont]

23. Far easier for someone sitting on an 11-digit net worth, no doubt.

As for the 85% of us that DIDN'T choose a layoff-proof path to well being?

The older "Baby Boomers" fall in a few financial categories; Retirement, but not a comfortable one, Near Retirement, but having to take care of their "Greatest" parents due to benefit cutting, or Unable to Retire due to their own ongoing medical expenses/kid's student loans/investments not panning out/general financial difficulties.

Generation X and the younger Boomers are in their earning years, but are now both wide targets for ageism-driven firing or automation (which, unlike the industrial revolution, takes labor OUT of the equation entirely). And good luck trying to get a job after 40. Or starting your own business when your competition is Amazon or WalMart and your potential customer base lacks discretionary income. Their spending is going to be halted at the slightest hint of corporate "rightsizing" or political tumult . . . say, for example, a cadre of labor-hating, tax-cuttin', social safety net-gutting billionaires taking over Washington D.C.

Millennials cannot buy big ticket items like homes, cars, appliances, etc. because they're already financing 1/2 to 3/4 of a mortgage for the crime of wanting to develop a skillset or an education beyond High School. IF they get hired in this shoddy job market, their pay is not even near what it needs to be in order to successfully pay their debts down and purchase products or services, let alone homes and cars.

For all of these groups, any social safety net that can assist them promises to SHRINK, not expand like it desperately needs to.

With each generation, how does retirement happen? How does the next generation get any sort of fiscal start?

Elizabeth Warren said this about health care, but this pretty much applies to life in America:

"Unless you are a multi-millionaire, you are not safe."

[appalachiablue]

39. +1 On target for much of the way it is here in the USA for so many

[Skraxx]

27. He's Right, the Moral Arc of the Universe DOES Bend Toward Justice

There are more good people than bad people, I believe that. In the end, the world and society HAS progressed. Will that continue? I'm not a soothsayer, but among the worst of humanity, we also have the best.

Are we in a bad time right now? Yes. But it CAN get better, and history says it will, because it always has in the past. We've progressed. The Nazi's were defeated once and we can do it again.

[Blue_true]

37. Some people prefer to see only darkness.

But in the real world, there is a lot of evil, BUT, there is also a lot of good. Our challenge is to always fight for the good, even when we have small internal disagreement. Evil wins when good people can't agree that ALL of their energy must be focused on defeating evil.

[Dave Starsky]

49. We are living in a pocket of time where horrible people...

seem to have grasped all the handles of power for all of Americans.

But it is only for us Americans, and only for a short time.

There are more good people than bad trying to work in this world.

We will get through this. And when it's all over, Donald Trump will be a name that no one will ever speak of again.

[CentralMass]

29. Life's been good to "him" so far.

[nolabels]

44. There is a really cool Eagle's documentary on netflix

Joe Walsh really got lucky when he hitched up with them. Checking out how a person's life's work is more important than how much money they make. Being a native Southern Californian and knowing that many of these musicians just spoiled us because of how good they made music. It didn't take a lot of money to be able to listen to all that great music either

[CentralMass]

65. Thank you I will look for it. I'm a big fan I just listened to an old

interview of Don Felder by Howard Stearn. He talks about his book Heaven and Hell and some history of the band and their eventual parting of ways.

It's a great interview.

[bhikkhu]

30. This is likely along the lines of Steven Pinker's book "The Better Angels of Our Nature"

Which was on Bill Gates' recommended reading list last year. I know there is a certain amount of snark or justifiable skepticism in reaction to a billionaire talking about how things are fine, but read the book. Seriously, read the book.

[nolabels]

43. Says the BILLIONAIRE THIEF

Most of this guy wealth is derived from stealing other peoples software ideas and services. He must be having moments and noticing other people don't see the world as he does. Reality can be a problem sometimes

[smirkymonkey]

47. Easy for him to say. He doesn't have to worry about healthcare, job security, racism, sexism

homophobia, having his SS and Medicare being taken from him. The 1% are so fucking clueless. Maybe things are getting better in parts of the world where they couldn't possibly get any worse, but for the rest of us, the future looks pretty bleak. Especially if republicans stay in power.

[hunter]

48. Much as I loathe Microsoft and everything it stands for...

... I can't do much hating on Bill Gates. Even as a Linux guy.

Gates was a shark in a shark's world and he was very good at it. A shark's gotta do what a shark's gotta do.

At some point beyond sharkiness Gates seems to have developed a conscience.

I think some of his initiatives are misguided, but how could they be otherwise? He's never had opportunity to live in the grittier sordid worlds of unmoneyed reality, worlds I've inhabited, and I doubt he's ever done the Prince and the Pooch, um Pauper exchange.

I consider Gates an honest billionaire. Honest billionaires are a rare breed. He was selling something people bought. I participated in that world Windows 3.1 to Windows 98SE.

[steve2470]

69. I agree, and Gates could be a completely selfish asshole...

He could be out there jet-setting around the world, yukking it up with other billionaires, multi-millionaires and their hangers-on. He could be lounging on a tropical beach somewhere. He is donating his sharkily-won cash to good causes. I'd rather he do what he does, than be a complete stereotypical asshole who truly does laugh at "the little people" and their problems.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

50. Oh look it's the Eeyore caucus...

who just can't tolerate the possibility that something somewhat might be improving or even okay.

[NCTraveler]

51. Im not as sure about the world.

If he defined it in terms of the US I would agree when viewed historically. At this point in time our trajectory is off, to put it mildly. The trend socially is good and economically is a mixed bag. Overall positive.

I don’t think I’m educated enough about all countries to make any claim about the world. A good percentage of it seems to be in a perpetually shitty state.

[AllaN01Bear]

53. rriiiiggghtt . along with his shitty operating system

[hunter]

59. Nobody said you have to use it.

I'm a Debian guy. I've grown fond of Chromebooks too.

If someone wants to pay me to deal with Windows crap, it's their money.

[tavernier]

54. Steve Jobs thought he was a lucky idiot.

Not that I know much about either one.

I think it’s difficult to make those calls. Certainly there are upsides and down. I think the daily destruction of our planet will negate any positive trends. Perhaps we will eradicate certain illnesses, but if we are sooner than later toasted or frozen or drowned, what does that matter?

[John Fante]

55. Gates is right.

Steve Pinker's exhaustive and brilliant book "The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined" hammers home the point clearly. Worldwide violence has declined even in comparison to the '90s.

That's not to suggest we should rest on our laurels, far from it. That's what got us Trump. But it's good to have some perspective too. Setbacks aside we've come a long way in our war against the poisonous far-right ideology, and we'll continue to make progress against it, because that's how we roll. We're a progressive nation period.

We can and WILL defeat Trumpism.

[shanny]

56. Sure...aside from the looming threat to life on Earth.

But hey! Most workers around the world have doubled their daily income of late--from $1 to $2--so things are looking up!

Asshat.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

57. Yes and no. If the climate trends continue. All his stats are gonna mean dick. nt

[jrthin]

62. If you're sitting with billion of dollars in your

bank account, your perspective of the world will be different than those whose got nothing in the bank.

[X_Digger]

63. Crime is down, poverty is down. Teen pregnancy is down. Literacy is up. Graduation rates are up.

War is down. Hunger is down.

But that's okay, keep on hating the messenger because he has money.

[USALiberal]

67. +1000, thank you for being logical. Gates is how I want rich people to act!! n.t.

[Devil Child]

66. Life always looks good

When you are a billionaire. For the rest of us, life continues to worsen.