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Sylink posted:All billionaires are bad, some are just less bad. Bill literally comes across as one of the most amazing people on the planet.
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Dec 12, 2016 15:36
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I think it's good that someone is spending a billion dollars to help mitigate climate change. This is a controversial opinion but I feel strongly about it.
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Dec 12, 2016 15:39
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BattleMoose posted:Bill literally comes across as one of the most amazing people on the planet. Maybe if you're incapable of understanding the marginal utility of money. Also ignore all the shady poo poo he did to make his billions.
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Dec 12, 2016 15:42
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NewForumSoftware posted:Maybe if you're incapable of understanding the marginal utility of money. Also ignore all the shady poo poo he did to make his billions. lol
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Dec 12, 2016 15:45
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BattleMoose posted:Bill literally comes across as one of the most amazing people on the planet. No he bloody doesn't. It's 2016, we've known about global warming for several decades now. And have you never heard the parable of the widow's mite? Being able to spend money on the things you care about without any personal suffering is a pleasure of being rich, it's not a credit to you. It's very modestly good that he now cares more about the environment than about an extra yacht or two, but I bet a large proportion of the human race would feel the same.
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Dec 12, 2016 15:55
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ghostwritingduck posted:With enough time, evolution will bring more intelligent life. With enough time, the heat death of the universe is the solution to global warming.
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Dec 12, 2016 16:02
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Nail Rat posted:Good news! Well, "news". Trump says whatever he thinks the audience wants to hear. Actions, not words, signify a terrible time for the american global warming struggle with Trump as the president. My worry about that rear end in a top hat is that he's either the biggest most insincere liar the US has ever produced (which is staggering considering some of your politicians), or he's the most mercurial (and thus easily manipulated and mislead) president you've had in modern times. Neither of which give me any sort of comfort.
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Dec 12, 2016 16:03
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Oh dear me posted:No he bloody doesn't. It's 2016, we've known about global warming for several decades now. And have you never heard the parable of the widow's mite? Ok come on. Can't you step back see what you're saying? "He didn't do it soon enough" or "It could have been more money" or "We could have just not lived under opressive capitalism in the first place". It's a textbook example of letting perfect be the enemy of good.
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Dec 12, 2016 16:04
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Grolar bears about to replace polar bears as a species 
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Dec 12, 2016 16:08
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If I were a multi-billionaire I would be rather concerned by the fact that a vast majority of my wealth only has meaning within the current economic context, which will not be relevant in a world that has suffered from dramatic and worsening climate change. I can either use my money now, or lose it forever. With that in mind, I would right now be trying to find other like-minded individuals with the goal of raising some many hundreds of billions of dollars in order to at the very least continue funding of climate research programs so we can see how screwed we are, and to build infrastructure and collect resources in order to ensure that as many people as possible can survive events like the flooding of our coasts, famine, drought, and relocation. Developing clean energy solutions would have been a good idea but there is no time left to transition. What is needed is an immediate and massive cut in CO2 production, which I do not see happening other than because of war/the black death 2.0, so people with resources should now focus those on near-term preparation for disaster. If Hillary had been elected this is what I would say the government should be doing, but as that didn't happen it falls to other individuals with wealth.
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Dec 12, 2016 16:20
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The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has an uneven reputation and track record in terms of their intervention work abroad- so we'll have to see how effective this proposal actually is.
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Dec 12, 2016 16:39
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Discendo Vox posted:The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has an uneven reputation and track record in terms of their intervention work abroad- so we'll have to see how effective this proposal actually is. This is the correct response. The Gates' are some of noblest intentioned billionaires around to be sure, but their philanthropy relies on the same sort of disproportionate government influence and shady financial dealings that someone like Trump benefits from. Not to mention that their chosen causes, whether at home (charter schools) or abroad (health programs) are a mixed bag at best. It's great to see money being thrown at the problem, but don't get your hopes up. As has been mentioned in the thread before, expecting some technological solution to magically appear is not a winning strategy.
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Dec 12, 2016 16:51
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Salt Fish posted:Ok come on. Can't you step back see what you're saying? "He didn't do it soon enough" or "It could have been more money" or "We could have just not lived under opressive capitalism in the first place". The fact that the super-rich have a vast overabundance of money--and that a few dozen rich people have more than enough money to pretty much solve climate change--is a key part of the systemic problems causing climate change. Whenever anyone says "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good!!" it's usually in response to some mild criticism. However, critiquing an action, position, or policy, is not actually preventing it. The subtext of the "don't let perfect be the enemy of good" seems to be "please don't criticize people with power/wealth, what if they throw a temper tantrum and stop doing the tiny good thing??" The fact is that the few dozen richest people in this world could completely end world hunger, child poverty, and homelessness, and still have plenty left over. The fact that a few of them toss a small fraction of their wealth towards charity mitigates their immorality, nothing more. The fact that the wealth has all been hoarded in the first place is a great evil that has directly lead to the unnecessary suffering of billions of people.
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Dec 12, 2016 16:52
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Uranium Phoenix posted:The fact that the super-rich have a vast overabundance of money--and that a few dozen rich people have more than enough money to pretty much solve climate change--is a key part of the systemic problems causing climate change. There are two things I object to here. First, money is not an omnipotent force that can accomplish anything. Capitalism ingrains a lesson in us that you can purchase anything given sufficient money , but the organizational elements of something like solving world hunger are not simply for sale. Second, this thread has a long history of people rejecting any solution that is not all-encompassing. If someone says that they biked to work instead of driving there will be some rear end in a top hat posting right after explaining that they didn't accomplish poo poo. If the alternative is that Bill Gates gives zero dollars towards this issue than maybe we can suck it up and say that it's a step in the right direction.
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Dec 12, 2016 16:58
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Salt Fish posted:It's a textbook example of letting perfect be the enemy of good. No. I'm not suggesting he should not do this because it isn't a perfect solution. I'm saying it doesn't make him "one of the most amazing people on the planet", that's just plutolatry.
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Dec 12, 2016 16:58
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Uranium Phoenix posted:The fact that the super-rich have a vast overabundance of money--and that a few dozen rich people have more than enough money to pretty much solve climate change--is a key part of the systemic problems causing climate change. Bill has given 23 BILLION dollars to the Bill and Melinda Foundation. And has committed to give his ENTIRE fortune to philanthropy when he dies, his kids are only getting about $5 mil a piece. More than simply giving the money, he is managing the giving making sure that the money is directed towards the most deserving issues. His fortune was accrued by generally allowing everyone else to be more productive. I use a windows machine and am grateful to have had the opportunity to buy one, thanks Bill. There literally isn't any other person dead or alive who has been more philanthropic, perhaps Warren Buffet but they are so of the same ilk. And you actually want to deride him. We absolutely live in different realities. Uranium Phoenix posted:The fact is that the few dozen richest people in this world could completely end world hunger, child poverty, and homelessness, and still have plenty left over. This is absolutely not true and has already been explained, these issues aren't for sale. They cannot be solved by naively throwing money at them. Charity is actually very difficult to do well. Its great that Bill is an exceptionally competent individual. BattleMoose fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Dec 12, 2016 |
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Dec 12, 2016 17:11
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Soooooo methane release into the atmosphere is starting to spike exponentially and we don't really know why. the article posted:Methane concentrations in the atmosphere, they report, were rising only at about .5 parts per billion per year in the early 2000s. But in the past two years, they’ve spiked by 12.5 parts per billion in 2014 and 9.9 parts per billion in 2015. I'm not ready to go full Arctic News yet, but this seems not great re: the future.
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Dec 12, 2016 17:14
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Wakko posted:Soooooo methane release into the atmosphere is starting to spike exponentially and we don't really know why. Clathrate_gun_hypothesis
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Dec 12, 2016 17:18
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BattleMoose posted:
Friedrich Engels
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Dec 12, 2016 17:26
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The paper says the emissions spike is coming from the tropics.
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Dec 12, 2016 17:32
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BattleMoose posted:There literally isn't any other person dead or alive who has been more philanthropic, perhaps Warren Buffet but they are so of the same ilk. And you actually want to deride him. We absolutely live in different realities No you just live in a world where being a billionaire doesn't make you unethical. The rest of us hang out in reality. Bill Gates benefits greatly from continuing the status quo and trust me, he won't do anything to upset it. Investing a billion dollars in climate science is meaningless because it's a political problem, not a technological one. Wonder why he doesn't use $1b to influence policy? Philanthropy does good things, but that doesn't mean philanthropists are good people. Taken as a whole, Bill Gates is a pretty lovely person. Donating 1/60th of your money that you'll never need ever to live again the rest of your life doesn't really seem that laudable. If I had $60billion I certainly wouldn't be backing charter schools in 2016.
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Dec 12, 2016 17:44
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Nice job derailing this thread into the utterly meaningless question of "is bill gates on the great karmic balance of history good or evil or neutral". This money won't save the world but it's a start. More people should follow his example.
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Dec 12, 2016 17:59
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Fangz posted:Nice job derailing this thread into the utterly meaningless question of "is bill gates on the great karmic balance of history good or evil or neutral". You may have missed it but he just recently announced a pretty sizable climate initiative so it's going to be talked about. There's something to be said for discussing the best ways for the ultra-wealthy to impact policy and for being skeptical of when unabashed capitalists who have funded the system destroying the planet start donating paltry percentages of their personal wealth to an "investment" fund (which right there it's trying to make money, not stop climate change) and are lauded for doing so.
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Dec 12, 2016 18:00
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double post
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Dec 12, 2016 18:02
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Nail Rat posted:Good news! This is just setting up for 'I've put a lot of thought into it and read all of these websites, and I have concluded that climate change is a hoax'. NewForumSoftware posted:You may have missed it but he just recently announced a pretty sizable climate initiative so it's going to be talked about. There's something to be said for discussing the best ways for the ultra-wealthy to impact policy and for being skeptical of when unabashed capitalists who have funded the system destroying the planet start donating paltry percentages of their personal wealth to an "investment" fund (which right there it's trying to make money, not stop climate change) and are lauded for doing so. When the waters rise, the capitalists drown too. I don't give a slightest poo poo about them making a profit out of whatever new energy tech they produce that will *save the loving world*.
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Dec 12, 2016 18:05
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Fangz posted:When the waters rise, the capitalists drown too. No they fly to their New Zealand compound and wait out the apocalypse.
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Dec 12, 2016 18:06
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Fangz posted:This is just setting up for 'I've put a lot of thought into it and read all of these websites, and I have concluded that climate change is a hoax'. Yeah my sarcasm may not have come across properly, but I was sharing that link/quote in a pessimistic way. To even consider backing out of the Paris agreement - inadequate as it was - is horrible.
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Dec 12, 2016 18:11
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NewForumSoftware posted:Donating 1/60th of your money that you'll never need ever to live again the rest of your life doesn't really seem that laudable. Your maths and/or facts are super bad. As well as your reading. As I posted in my last post he has already donated 23 Billion just to Bill and Melinda Foundation. That's about 1/5 of his wealth. And then there is the part where he has committed to donate 95% of his wealth. So yeah, that's extremely laudable. Especially by comparison to every other human who has ever lived. Anyways, that's the last post on bill I'll make.
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Dec 12, 2016 18:11
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I like Parenti's analogy: the human race is on a bus flying off a cliff and the capitalists are running up and down the aisles trying to sell us overpriced seat belts.
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Dec 12, 2016 18:13
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BattleMoose posted:Your maths and/or facts are super bad. As well as your reading. As I posted in my last post he has already donated 23 Billion just to Bill and Melinda Foundation. That's about 1/5 of his wealth. Again, it's not really a "Donation" if it's an investment fund. How about this, I commit to donating 100% of my wealth to charity upon death. Does that make me a national hero? The Bill and Melinda gates foundation is a lovely organization that has ignored domestic issues for years (or exacerbated them- charter schools) and while the work they do internationally has definitely had some positive effects, you simply cannot ignore the numbers being thrown around here. This is a billionaire, he could donate all of his wealth except for $50 million and he'd still be obscenely wealthy. The fact that he refuses to actually attack the politics of these problems with his endless coffers is a real issue. If you can give away 95% of your wealth and still have $500 million dollars you should be giving away more.
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Dec 12, 2016 18:14
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BattleMoose posted:This is absolutely not true and has already been explained, these issues aren't for sale. They cannot be solved by naively throwing money at them. Charity is actually very difficult to do well. Its great that Bill is an exceptionally competent individual. Except that it's not. World hunger? Pay to ship and distribute food to people who can't afford it (we already grow enough for everyone on the planet, let alone the US) Child poverty? Give a stipend to every parent who makes less than the median income. Homelessness? Buy up the uninhabited housing stock, give them to homeless people, and fund the infrastructure to have them operated as locally run housing cooperatives. Throwing money at social problems actually works very well. The issue is that people expect a return on their investment, which means solutions get watered down or structured in a way that prioritizes profit over people and further reinforces harm. Bill Gates is not the exception to that rule, I promise you. Wakko posted:Soooooo methane release into the atmosphere is starting to spike exponentially and we don't really know why. The curse of living on interesting times strikes again.
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Dec 12, 2016 18:21
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Here is another cheery bit of news, from WaPo:This stunning Antarctic lake is buried in ice. And that could be bad news posted:The researchers had traveled to investigate what had been described as a nearly 2 mile wide “crater” in the shelf, glimpsed by satellite, which some sources believed had been caused by a meteorite. To the contrary, they found that it was a large, 10 foot deep, icy lake bed. In its center, meanwhile, were multiple rivers and three moulins that carried water deep down into the floating ice shelf. With this handy dandy little animation:  Needless to say that this is not a process taken into account by the models. (Neither is Greenland melting, for that matter, which it turns out it does, fairly regularly.) Something associated that we should take note of is that there is historical evidence for very abrupt change in the past, with massive changes taking place in under five years. I can't find the piece I wanted to quote but this gets the gist across: http://www.tallbergfoundation.org/2016/08/03/abrupt-climate-change/ posted:JE: One of the concepts that we’ve heard about during the last few day is what you scientists call “abrupt climate change”. I am used to thinking about climate change in terms of centuries or millennia, but this appears to be a dramatically different concept. When I put this all together for myself, it seems to me that we have a good chance for multi-meter sea level rise by 2050 and the possibility for something catastrophic - Greenland or the WAIS collapsing, for example - much, much sooner than we think. As a reminder, Antarctica is currently melting far, far more quickly than in recent history:  We are at 7.2 standard deviations below 1981-2010 normal. I am quite worried about what will happen in the Arctic when it starts to melt next year - sea ice volume will be by far a record low going into the melt and we could have near ice-free summer, which the models predict would happen around 2050. This would compound the warming faced by Greenland due to more heat absorption by the Arctic ocean, which would then feed back to create more warming and more melt. Mozi fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Dec 12, 2016 |
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Dec 12, 2016 18:34
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If you were a billionaire with tens of billions of dollars, how would you try and 'solve' climate change?
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Dec 12, 2016 20:25
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sitchensis posted:If you were a billionaire with tens of billions of dollars, how would you try and 'solve' climate change? Solve? Try to build a time machine I guess. Buffer ourselves from the impacts? Start moving people away from the coasts Hell, start a charity where you just pay people to plant trees. Lord knows we could use the jobs. But I mean, through politics as well. Political parties are small potatoes compared to billions of dollars. Astroturfing a gigantic social movement wouldn't be a bad idea either.
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Dec 12, 2016 20:33
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TildeATH posted:No way. Tech is absolutely riddled with late learning coders making more money than makes any sense in the world. What if I'm 27, have a business degree I'm not doing that much with, and sometimes figure coding is the only way to a non-poo poo future? Any tips?
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Dec 12, 2016 21:08
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Polio Vax Scene posted:I've done nothing but software development for my professional career. My major is Accounting. "Too late" is not an excuse and neither is "no education". Can anyone help steer me toward how I should get started on this?
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Dec 12, 2016 21:10
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GreyjoyBastard posted:One of my pseudo-mentors started learning modern coding at 51 because he was [retired early and loving bored], and is now back to working a fairly reasonable number of hours a week at a considerably higher wage than I have. Please, climate change thread. I had been pretty hopeless before these nice posts.
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Dec 12, 2016 21:13
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There are a billion resources you can google for, but my suggestion would be to think of something you want to make (a game, a website, etc) and just do it. The trick is to just be persistent. COBOL has a decent newbie thread and they don't bite. https://www.codecademy.com/ not the worst place to start but honestly I don't know much about the learning space at this point
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Dec 12, 2016 21:17
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If you're willing to spend a few bucks there are actually a lot of very good courses for beginners on Udemy. Most of the good ones are more structured and in-depth than codecademy too. Just find something that you're interested in that has solid reviews and it'll probably serve you pretty well as a jumping off point.
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Dec 12, 2016 21:42
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It would have more of a impact on climate change if instead the Gates foundation instead started funneling money into politics. 1 billion dollars won't change the climate but could shift governmental policy.
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Dec 12, 2016 21:46
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