Gates: A Billionaire Who Cares

[Starkist]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=534&ncid=534&e=1&u=/ap/20030922/ap_on_he_me/mozambique_gates_malaria

I wonder how many of you would be so generous if you had his fortune. I wonder if I would be so generous.

[Pablo]

When you have that much money, you spend it just to get rid of it. After all, what's the point of just sitting on 186 million dollars?

[Saffith]

If I had Bill Gates's fortune, I'd be more generous than that. The man's worth tens of billions of dollars. A hundred sixty-eight million ain't nothin'.

[Starkist]

Easy words to say, aren't they.

[bigjoe]

Its actually probably a settlement for a version of Windows that runs on genetic computers and actually spreads malaria.

[Daarkseid]

Originally posted by Saffith
If I had Bill Gates's fortune, I'd be more generous than that. The man's worth tens of billions of dollars. A hundred sixty-eight million ain't nothin'.

Sure, 168M isn't much of his wealth, but you're either unaware or ignorant of the some 10billion he's already donated to various charities. Hell, he even donated a million to the organization thats trying to cure my illness.

Nearly everyone of great wealth has donated a great deal to various charities.. even the robber barons, the first Billionaires in America's history, donated lavishly.

[Saffith]

Fair enough. Though considering all that, this particular donation doesn't seem particularly remarkable.

[Pablo]

Hell, he even donated a million to the organization thats trying to cure my illness.

I don't know if this is too off topic, but what is your illness, Daarkseid?

[Starkist]

Originally posted by Saffith
Fair enough. Though considering all that, this particular donation doesn't seem particularly remarkable.

It's more than anyone else has ever given to fight malaria.

[Saffith]

Let me rephrase it, then: this one doesn't seem remarkably generous, compared to all the rest.
And, damn it, I need to say "particular" less often.

[Daarkseid]

Originally posted by Pablo


I don't know if this is too off topic, but what is your illness, Daarkseid?

Hypochondria.

[slothman]

Let's see 148 out of 30,000 (in millions). That's .493% That's similar to me donating maybe about $50 to a charity in terms of net worth percentage. Not that great. Of course All the money he donated might be something but he doesn't need much more than 5 million dollars to live lavishly. I don't know if I'd do it but I can at least say I'd donate dozens of billions if I had it and it was in liquid form.

[carrot red]

Talk is easy and it costs nothing.

What he did (and does) for various charities is commendable. It's not the amount, but the thought behind it that counts.
Sure, some cynical soul would talk about tax deduction and stuff...

[Starkist]

I have a friend who got malaria last year in Uganda. It's not a very nice disease. According to the article it kills nearly as many people as AIDS, but gets a fraction of the attention. Malaria is far more insidious too, spread by such a tiny thing as a mosquito.

[slothman]

I thought Malaria was the worst killer in the world. Worse even than AIDS and Cancer and wars, though not combined. Fortunately they already have a cure, sort of. Just kill all the mosquitos. DDT works wonders for that.

[Starkist]

There are cures for malaria, however the main problem is to get enough drugs to the places where they are needed. Africa is a huge place, with much of it pre-industrial. Besides that, there are many many different strains of malaria, so finding the right drug to cure it is tough. There are pills you can take to vaccinate yourself, but in some cases they are worse than the disease.

As for DDT, environmentalists have blocked that from being used.

[Daarkseid]

Originally posted by Starkist
[B]There are cures for malaria, however the main problem is to get enough drugs to the places where they are needed. Africa is a huge place, with much of it pre-industrial. Besides that, there are many many different strains of malaria, so finding the right drug to cure it is tough. There are pills you can take to vaccinate yourself, but in some cases they are worse than the disease.


Malaria can be cured if its identified quick enough in patients and
a drug administered before the malaria causing organisms incubate. Once that happens though, recurrances of the disease and happen periodically, since the organisms can survive in the human liver. My uncle has malaria, which he caught while serving in Vietnam. They actually gave him the medication to prevent the incubation, but he neglected to continue taking it right after he left, causing the disease to mature in his system. I believe he regularly takes medication now to prevent recurrances.

[slothman]

I was just stating that DDT would work to kill bugs. Not that it would be good or not.