[georgemcbay]

No Microsoft means no (or at least a very drastically different/less funded) Gates Foundation. No Gates Foundation means a world much worse off, particularly for those in the 3rd world.

Granted, Google is more directly involved in positive projects as a corporation than Microsoft has been, but "The world is a worse place because of Microsoft" is a very shallow view, and IMO very wrong.

[loup-vaillant]

If you really want to do the expected utility calculation, you'd need to ask if the absence of Microsoft and the Gate foundation would have permitted wealth to be created and moved elsewhere, perhaps to another foundation.

Anyway, if the goal is to slay Poverty, a private foundation probably won't cut it. We need to do away with the current fractional reserve banking system, nullify most national debts, localize production and distribution of common goods (especially food), build things to last (no programmed obsolescence), and stop thinking that GDP growth is a good measure of wealth (it was a good predictor, but now we tend to cheat).

But the amount of collaboration needed to do that looks so huge that it may be easier to build a Friendly AI.

[tomelders]

The Bill & Belinda Gates Foundation != Microsoft. It's true that it wouldn't exist without Microsoft, but the two are entirely different enterprises, with entirely different characteristics.

[ajross]

The Gates Foundation does great work. They are certainly one of if not the most effective anti-poverty charities out there. But positing a world "much worse off" is stretching things. Even huge charities are dwarfed by the sizes of governments. Almost all aid is delivered by governments. How much money has the Gates Foundation spent in total over its decade or so of work? What is the USA humanitarian aid budget for a single year?

Again, my point isn't to diss Bill's charity work. But arguing that we should tolerate abusive monopolies in our tech industry because the owners might one day get rich and give the money to poor people is ... borderline insane, honestly.

[dagw]

How much money has the Gates Foundation spent in total over its decade or so of work? What is the USA humanitarian aid budget for a single year?

US federal Humanitarian aid budget for 2009: $4.3bn

Gates Foundation total charitable distribution 2009: $3.65bn

Gates Foundation total grant commitments since inception: $24.81bn

So it seems you're either seriously over estimating The US Government spending or seriously underestimating the Gates foundation.

[Yrlec]

That sounds like a straw man. He wasn't arguing for monopolies. He was just saying that The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation should be added to the postitive effects which Microsoft has contributed to the world.

[lucasjung]

>Almost all aid is delivered by governments.

I'm pretty sure that the opposite is actually true. I don't have any stats on hand, but I've read before that private donors in the U.S. give more foreign aid than any government on Earth, including the U.S. government.