WEBVTT - Part Two: The Ballad of Bill Gates 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:10.399 M what's hungover my the host of this podcast Behind 0:00:10.400 --> 0:00:15.680 the Bastards, the podcast that's being recorded at the unreasonably 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:18.160 early hour of Sophie, what is it? What time is 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:24.240 it right now? Tom Jesus Christ? So like the crack 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:27.160 of dawn, we're up doing this. I just hope you all, 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:30.200 I hope you all respected. This is why we have 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:34.280 too heavily. We have to. We have to sue anybody 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:36.800 who distributes this podcast for free because if all of 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:40.839 the backbreaking labor getting up at the crack of two 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:44.920 pm to record this podcast after I was drinking last night, 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:50.680 unbelievable dedication. I think we started around one, and yesterday 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:53.199 you text me being like, what time are we starting? 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:57.680 And I said one, you go, Jesus Sophie, that's so early. 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:01.680 I know, I know. This is this is the dedication 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:05.440 that I bring to my craft, which is why Well 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:11.080 Andrew would consider me. I'm on the other side of things. 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:18.080 I started waking up super early, so well Andrew, oh, 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:24.000 Drew Drew in Yeah, yeah, T Drizzle. Do people call 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:27.600 you T drizzle because it should I think they actually 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:34.680 have on um fellow, I heart podcast The Daily Side 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:37.000 Guys that feels like exactly the kind of ship they 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:41.360 would say. I think it's t Drizzle is a good name. 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.760 So we're just gonna roll forward with that. Yeah, Andrew, 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:48.720 how are you? How are you feeling about Bill Gates 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:53.080 so far? Have you learned anything new? We I feel 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:57.040 like we have gotten. We haven't gotten as far as 0:01:57.080 --> 0:02:01.040 the bombshells so far. I'm feeling about the same as 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:05.040 I did when I walked in, which is like yeah, 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:10.040 but but not like seriously yea, yeah, that guy casual, 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:14.760 just like causual, stoic. Yeah, I don't. I don't think 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:17.680 he's gotten past. And again, it sounded like that was 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:21.200 going to be a point of potential debate, but I 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:25.239 would argue, he, I don't think he has eclipsed any 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:31.200 given billionaire, any given tech billionaire in back at this point. Yeah. Yeah, 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:35.600 So let's talk about what happens next. When we last 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:38.280 left Bill Gates, he just succeeded in burning tens of 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:40.640 millions of dollars and tens of thousands of man hours 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:43.560 fighting against a federal anti trust case. He won in 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:46.160 the end, as billionaires nearly always do, but the whole 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:50.079 process exhausted him emotionally. Microsoft's NASDAC value had been cut 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:52.800 in half, which destroyed about two hundred billion dollars in 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:56.000 fake money held by rich assholes like Gates. They made 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:58.160 it all back, of course, because they didn't actually lose anything, 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:01.840 but on paper they had less of an impossible fortune 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:04.840 for a while. Now. One long term impact of the 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:07.880 antitrust suit is that for all time Bill Gates will 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:11.000 remain a convicted monopolist. The stink this put on him 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:14.520 in Microsoft lasted longer than the actual charges. By September 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:17.880 of nineteen six, a huge number of top executives had 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:20.440 fled the company. This was the dot com boom, and 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:23.440 sexy new e businesses were starting every day. A lot 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:26.280 of opportunists figured as the antitrust case started spinning up 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:28.080 that Microsoft's day in the sun was over and it 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:30.800 was time to find the next big tech grift. Corey 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:33.840 Doctor will argue that we owe Google's existence and part 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:36.960 to the trauma Bill felt over the antitrust suit. Gates 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:38.880 had noted in the past that lingering fear of the 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:41.240 federal government is what stopped him from doing the same 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:43.840 thing to Google that he'd done to Netscape in two 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:46.840 thousand nineteen, but was asked by Kara Swisher why Microsoft 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:50.000 hadn't bought Android before Google. This was just seven years 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:52.440 after the anti trust action, and he claims that it 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:54.040 was he was just too scared of the d O 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:57.200 jay to risk it so again. Even though the government 0:03:57.200 --> 0:03:59.600 doesn't win this case, it is good to do this 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:02.880 thing because it stops people like Bill Gates from sucking 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:06.440 up as much things as and it sounds like enough 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:08.920 of this was simply like on a personal level, he 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:11.520 was scared of the humiliation. He didn't want to do 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:16.320 another deposition. Now. The antitrust case had more of an 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:19.280 immediate impact on Gates. It convinced him to step down 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:22.440 from his position as at the head of Microsoft sort of. 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:26.960 Steve Balmer had become President of Microsoft, taking over more 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:29.320 of the day to day management of the company as 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:32.039 Bill Gates began to pull back. In two thousand, Gates 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:35.000 stepped down the CEO of Microsoft and Balmer took his place. 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:37.520 Bill was forty four at the time, and he remained 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:40.360 the chairman of the board in chief software architect at 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:42.279 the time. This was built as a way for Gates, 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:44.960 whose public image was of a genius programmer, to spend 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:48.960 his time exploring new technology. Two thousand would also mark 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:52.960 the point at which Gates increasingly got involved with philanthropy. Now, 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:55.440 before we get into the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:57.560 we should probably step back and cover some of the 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:00.520 developments in Bill's personal life during the late ninet nineties 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:02.200 that we sort of missed while we were talking about 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:06.120 business stuff. Last episode was obviously a big year for 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:08.440 Microsoft the company and for the tech industry as a whole, 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:11.479 but nine was an even more momentous year for Bill's 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:14.040 personal life. On the positive side of things, it's the 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:16.680 year he married Melinda French is now about to be 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:19.880 former wife. At the time they started dating, Melinda was 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:23.520 a Microsoft employee, a product manager. She started working there 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:27.200 in nineteen eight seven, the year after she graduated from college. Today, 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:29.839 this kind of relationship sets off immediate alarm belts for 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:32.280 a lot of people, but for decades it was kind 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:33.960 of framed in the media as like a Pam and 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:37.880 Jim style office romance. Bill and Melinda both gave interviews 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:40.159 over the years playing up how cute their beginnings were. 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:42.800 He flirted at her when they sat together at a conference, 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:45.200 which what is the chance Bill did not arranged to 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:48.080 sit next to her. We know this man, but he 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:53.799 absolutely made that happen. His actual EMO. Yeah that Later 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:56.200 they act just happened to run into each other in 0:05:56.240 --> 0:05:59.680 a company parking lot. Again, he absolutely engineered that, and 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:01.880 Bill asked her out on a on a date, and 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:03.839 for a long time the story was they fell in 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:06.720 love and became a billionaire power couple. The end reality was, 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:09.160 of course, much grosser, but we'll talk about that later. 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:12.120 Nineteen ninety four was also a year of tragedy for 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:14.640 the Gates family. Bill had remained close with his parents. 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:17.080 He moved Microsoft back to Seattle in parts so he 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:19.479 could be near them. He had his dad's legal firm 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:21.800 represent the company, and he and his parents maintained their 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:24.240 tradition of Sunday dinner. He bought a house near them 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:27.360 to facilitate this. Ever since the late nineteen eighties, when 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:29.520 he got Fuck You Money, Bill's mom had advised him 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:32.320 to get into philanthropy, and since Bill had some control 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:34.520 issues with his mother, this became a source of tension 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:36.680 between them. She would press him to give away his 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:39.360 fortune and he'd snap, I'm just trying to run my company, 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:42.920 Mommy Gates eventually harangued her boy into raising money for 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:45.800 the United Way. This of course led other nonprofits to 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:48.039 beg him for money, and soon he was overwhelmed by 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:50.680 all the requests. He kept being too busy to deal 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:52.760 with it, and his mom kept pressuring him until she 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:55.480 was diagnosed with some horrible fucking cancer even rich people 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:58.680 can't escape, and she died in nineteen ninety four. Bill 0:06:58.720 --> 0:07:01.159 Senior was as devastated by this as you'd expect, and 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:03.200 for a time he struggled to find ways to fill 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:05.880 his days. Eventually, he asked his son and daughter in 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:07.719 law if he could start going through their stack of 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:11.200 requests for philanthropy and give some of their money away. This, 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:13.440 as has claimed in later interviews, was kind of the 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:16.440 start of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and before 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:18.600 the foundation itself existed, Like they just kind of gave 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:21.120 him like a hundred million dollars to hand out. Basically, 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:24.880 Um was like sure, like eighty bucks for them, you know, 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:29.880 Um and uh so yeah. For for most of like 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:32.840 the late nineties, it's just kind of his dad handling 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:36.880 the Gates philanthropy. But then Bill quits being the secret 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:39.480 of Microsoft, and like two thousand and Melinda and he 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:42.560 start taking a more active role in philanthropy. The way 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:44.840 this was generally framed in the media was Bill Gates 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:47.240 leaves Microsoft behind to save the world, And there are 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:49.200 a lot of articles even up to the present day 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:52.280 with similar titles. Back in February of this year, there 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:54.400 was an article titled Bill Gates has a plan to 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:57.200 save the world in the Economists, which is like puffing 0:07:57.240 --> 0:07:59.240 up one of his books about climate change or some ship. 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:02.840 But there's been bunch of pieces like that, right, yeah. Now. 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:05.920 The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation started officially in the 0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:08.880 year two thousand. It began with I think a hundred 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:11.160 million dollars, which was like the Bill Gates equivalent again, 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:14.320 like eighty bucks. The foundation expanded massively in two thousand six, 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:16.760 when Bill Gates convinced Warren Buffett to give most of 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:19.760 his fortune away to the organization. He claimed that he 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:21.960 felt Bill and Melinda could be trusted to use it 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:24.000 for good. And if you just sort of watched by 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:27.040 the sidelines, that probably looked like a defensive point, a 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:31.280 defensible point for most of the public crusade uh from 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:33.960 for years, the most public crusade of the Gates Foundation 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:37.480 was their war against malaria. UM. By two thousand eighteen, 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:40.559 they put almost four billion dollars towards fighting the deadly 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:42.800 disease around the world, in a mix of aid programs 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:47.360 to struggling nations, grants to researchers and scientists, all that stuff. Now, 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:52.120 malaria has probably killed more human beings than any other 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:54.679 single cause in history. It's like the number one killer 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:58.679 of human beings across all time. So good, good thing 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:00.959 to fight. I would I would have three like, yes, 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:03.760 sounds good. Yeah. And Bill certainly can't be faulted for 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:05.880 lack of ambition here. He has stated his goal is 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:08.880 the total elimination of malaria, and scientists seem to suggest 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:11.760 this is possible. Now, this is an ongoing struggle. I 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:14.520 haven't found anything that suggests the Gates Foundation has been 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:17.680 like ineffective and their struggle against malaria. Obviously they haven't 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:20.000 bet in it. But that's you know, pretty big, pretty 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:23.120 big task. Um. And it's probably fair to say that 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:25.840 their advocacy and money has contributed to a lot of 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:28.480 life saving programs and aided in the battle against one 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:31.120 of mankind's death least foes. The Gates As have also 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:33.960 pledged ten billion dollars over the next decade to provide 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:37.400 free vaccines to the world's poor. Through its Global Alliance 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:41.199 for Vaccines and Immunization or GAVY, the foundation has vaccinated 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:44.120 millions of kids in impoverished countries against polio and other 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:46.880 horrible ship. Bill and Melinda takes some credit for the 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:50.319 fact that between nineteen nine and twelve, total deaths of 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:53.160 children under five dropped from twelve point six million to 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:56.280 six point six million. Now, there's no way to evaluate 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:59.280 how much of an impact they had on that, but 0:09:59.360 --> 0:10:02.800 vaccinating it's absolutely saves lives. Here's the thing, though, The 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:06.640 whole story is not just the cool. Question should not 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:10.360 just be does this fat foundation's work save lives? Because 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:12.880 that's not all we're talking about here um, and it's 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:15.720 not as something you can answer that simply because the 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:18.960 tens of billions of dollars in that foundation we're able 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:21.080 to come from Gates and other plutocrats because they didn't 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:24.280 pay that ship in taxes. It's wonderful to vaccinate kids, 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:27.960 but the foundation brings more than free medicine. It spreads 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:31.360 a specific ideology about who should have wealth and about 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:34.240 how problems ought to be solved. In our society. I 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:36.080 want to quote now from a book called The New 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:38.520 Profits of Capital, which goes into some detail about what 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:43.000 I find so unsettling in Gates's ideology. As Bill Gates 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:45.160 has Riley noted, they are more interested in cures for 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:48.559 baldness than in cures from malaria. Why. Melinda Gates argues 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:51.160 that there is simply no rich world market for products 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:54.679 like diarrhea or pneumonia vaccines. Their solution is to use 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:57.640 the Gates Foundation to create such a market in poor countries. 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:00.840 If we could stimulate the pharmaceutical companies through public private 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:03.719 partnerships to create vaccines, if we could guarantee them the 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:06.000 market of millions of children getting this vaccine and then 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:07.920 being paid for it in the developing world, if we 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:09.800 could commit to a market and knew that those that 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:11.960 demand would be there, we could insent them with the 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:15.959 right research dollars to actually create those vaccines. That's Bill now. 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:18.760 Bill is, above all else a believer in the power 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:21.840 of profit driven capitalism. He thinks the best way to 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:25.000 do good is by providing profit incentives for corporations to 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:28.040 carry out behavior that also helps suffering people. But this 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:30.760 still means that those profits are valued more in his 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:34.880 world than those lives. When Jonah Saul convented the polio vaccine, 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:36.760 he was asked why he did not patent it, and 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:39.560 he said, you might as well try to patent the sun. 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:42.720 To Salk, a man whose contribution to our species is 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:46.800 literally incalculable, the vaccine was not a commodity. It was health. 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:50.160 It was millions of human lives not cut short, hundreds 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:53.200 of thousands of cumulative years not lived in pain. The 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:56.480 Gates Foundation has done things that save lives, but this 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:59.760 is not a zero sum game. The question isn't free vaccine. 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:02.800 It's vaccines or not. It's do we let individual men 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:05.960 accumulate the wealth necessary to operate foundations like this, or 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:08.120 do we build a world with less in equality, where 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:12.800 human beings don't need a profit motive to vaccinate starving children. Yeah? 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:17.360 Well yea. And also like where you know, philanthropy isn't 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:21.560 at the whim of you know, a handful of white dudes, exactly, 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:23.719 And and and that's that's kind of what we're building to. 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:27.280 I assure you this becomes more than just an ideological argument. 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:29.800 There's there's there's there's solid stuff to dig in. Here, 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:31.480 but I want to quote again from that book, the 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:35.560 new profits of capital. Turning something into a commodity means 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:38.640 it is no longer a right or even potentially a right. 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:42.200 It means that the commodity's value is now judged primarily 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:44.720 on whether or not it will turn a profit, and 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:47.680 people's access to the commodity hinges upon their ability to 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:50.600 pay for it. In the United States, where health care 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:53.160 is a commodity, the difference in lifespan between a poor 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:56.240 black man and a wealthy white woman is fourteen years. 0:12:56.840 --> 0:12:59.679 We are forty six in the world for infant mortality, 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:02.800 this being the wealthiest country on Earth. Babies in poor 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:06.000 states like Alabama are twice as likely to die as 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:09.000 infants and wealthy areas. This is part of why virtually 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:11.959 all public health experts agree that universal health care is 0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:16.200 a good idea. But as Nicole ash Off rights quote, 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:18.840 when we frame the problem of poor people in the 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:22.640 Global South dying from preventable diseases as a market failure problem, 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:25.240 we close off the possibility of building a health care 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:27.280 system in which healthcare is a right and does not 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:31.200 depend on one's ability to pay. And that's what's so 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:34.640 toxic about the Gates Foundation. Yeah, it's his idea, his 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:36.959 whole idea, like, yeah, it's wonderful to get vaccines to 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:38.640 poor people. But the way he wants to do that 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:41.600 is by creating a financial incentive to do that, rather 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:44.160 than by saying, well, we all have a responsibility, even 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:46.679 to people outside of our country, and maybe looking at 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:48.800 the COVID nine team pandemic, we can say, oh, yeah, 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:52.439 actually we all benefit in a purely selfish way from 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:56.240 making sure that healthcare is available worldwide. Turns out we 0:13:56.320 --> 0:14:01.680 are all in this together and as opposed to let's 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:06.760 make it profitable to save children um. In two thousand fifteen, 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:09.520 the Gates Foundation funded to study in The Lancet and 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:12.760 that study it was about like public health options worldwide, 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:16.520 and that study called for universal healthcare. Despite this, in 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:20.000 that year's Development Report, the Gates Foundation claimed that universal 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:23.360 healthcare has quote limitations as a global development goal and 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:25.320 that evidence as to whether or not it helps health 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:28.800 outcomes is mixed. Bill Gates is on the side of 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:32.320 intellectual property, the right of corporations to profit maxively from 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:36.720 vaccines developed by scientists, often using public money. Millions and 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:41.080 foundation funds go to pharmaceutical companies. In fact, shockingly large 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:44.360 amounts of Gates Foundation money goes to big businesses, and 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:48.160 a lot of times as gifts to those businesses. For example, 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:51.960 in two thousand fourteen, the Gates Foundation announced an eleven 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:56.400 million dollar grant to MasterCard so that they could build 0:14:56.800 --> 0:15:00.880 a financial inclusion lab in Kenya. The basic idea is 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:04.360 Kenya needs foreign investments, but investing in Africa is risky, 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:06.960 so you have to bribe MasterCard to take a chance 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:11.000 on Kenya. Um and that that aid is not a 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:12.880 loan or investment. It was a gift that we're giving 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:18.040 fucking MasterCard eleven million dollars. And the Gates Foundation does 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:21.160 this a lot. They give multimillion dollar gifts to mega 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:24.320 corporations like Vodafone, who themselves pay no corporate tax in 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:26.880 the UK. The Gates Foundation also gives gifts to the 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:30.280 Monsanto corporation, who Bill argues should be bribed to take 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:33.760 over more and more responsibility for agriculture in Africa. He 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:35.800 there's all these articles we're Bill talking about, like how 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:38.600 scary it is the population of Africa is set to explode. 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:43.600 Um and number one, there's some uncomfortable racial undertones. His 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:47.520 obsessive concern with the population of Africa. He always firms, 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:48.760 is like, I'm just worried that there's not going to 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:50.480 be enough food. They don't grow enough food to like 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:54.320 support themselves there um. But his his solution is, let's 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:58.200 pay him on Santo to like subsidize, or let's pay 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:00.720 him on Santo to subsidize see that they have to 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:05.080 buy that are genetically modified so that they can't share them. Right, 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:07.880 it's this, it's this fucking thing capitalists have been doing 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:11.720 since the seventeen hundreds. Right the seventeen seventies, a giant 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:15.520 British corporation takes over most of North and eastern India 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:19.200 and immediately are like, oh, all these farming villages have 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:22.400 like arrangements with each other and like social welfare programs 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:23.800 to take care of each other in the event of 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:26.400 a drought or if like one one village is harvest 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:28.800 is bad. Let's get rid of all that because we 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:31.080 want to centralize all of our farming to make it 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:34.080 more profitable. And then thirty million people starved to death. 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:36.440 And it's the same basic you We're not gonna go 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:39.200 into this nearly enough. But Gates is a lot of 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:43.040 like he keeps talking about how his ideas to reform 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:45.440 farming in Africa so that it can feed more people, 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:48.200 none of which involved talking to people who have been 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:51.320 farming in Africa for generation. Like it's just like, well, 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:54.000 let's bring this mega corporate, let's make it profitable from Monsanto. 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:59.120 Like fucking still, that's the only way to right, And 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:02.280 it is just like that. That is how people like 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:06.720 that view of the world and view solutions. Oh god, 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:12.639 yeah yeah. Darryl Ray is an agricultural expert from the 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:15.920 University of Tennessee, and he fears the consequences of these 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:19.600 investments for small farmers. Quote, we need to take farmers 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:21.439 exactly where they are at the moment and help them 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:24.120 be more productive using their knowledge and technology that would 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:26.480 be appropriate to add to it, and then gradually move 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:29.000 them into a higher rate of production, rather than talking 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:31.280 about them buying on Santo products or other kinds of 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:33.640 products they can't afford to have to buy every year, 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:39.280 as is the case with hybrid seed. So again, not 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:41.360 just me saying this is bad. Other people are saying 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:43.760 there's a lot of scary and it's again, you're not 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:47.919 a farmer, Bill, you don't know anything about farming. And 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:50.720 you don't know enough to know if the experts you're 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:53.080 paying because in a lot of cases you're paying them 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:56.880 to justify things you already believe. Like you're not. You're 0:17:56.880 --> 0:17:59.000 not just saying here's billions of dollars for the best idea. 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:01.760 You're saying, I'm pretty sure we need to use modern 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:06.439 Western agricultural corporations, that this is the best way to 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:10.080 do it. Who can I hire it? Exactly backwards, It's 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:14.320 exactly backwards, exactly how you don't do this? Um and again, 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:16.440 this is one of those things like people talk about 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:22.040 state communism versus state capitalism. Fucking the like Russia and 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:24.520 China did versions of this that led to the great 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:27.240 famines of the twentieth century in parts of the world. 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:31.520 This is like, this is the sparrows. Yeah, exactly the 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:34.920 same thing. Because of my this new idea, in this 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:37.960 new technology, I know better than people who have been 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:42.359 making food to feed this place for forever, So let's 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:47.639 just change everything. It's just it's the incredible hubris of man. Go. 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:52.200 Anybody who wants to reform global agriculture like this should 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:55.119 have to work on a farm somewhere for ten fucking years, 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:59.280 um like just just fucking work on a like gross, 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:04.679 some goddamn potatoes, Bill Gates, like Jesus Christ, Um, I 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:07.399 say that, but then Mark Zuckerberg did that, went up 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:12.920 murdering goats with lasers or some ships. Maybe not, Yeah 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:14.920 he killed a goat with a laser. It's a whole thing. 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:18.879 Um well. But I mean that's the I think the 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:20.879 addition to what you're saying is they should have to 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:25.880 do it and do it successfully, to do it and 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:28.520 see what they do and then yeah, sure, I'm not 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:30.560 going to say like a guy who's capable of running 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:33.879 a giant corporation wouldn't have any insights that are useful, 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:38.919 but probably not certainly not at his current level of 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:43.760 knowledge about fucking farming. Um well. And also like at 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:47.479 the like it shows who he values and who you know, 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:51.520 every every farmer is expendable, clearly, but like you know, 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:56.080 no corporation is expendable. It's this It's a version of 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:59.400 the same problem that like social media has, like where 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:03.360 if you're if you're famous and rich and prominent, um, 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:07.560 you have to have a stance to take on everything right. 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:10.600 One way this goes is like every Hollywood celebrity, you know, 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:14.800 has to have a take on everything happening in the world, right, Um. 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:17.119 And the other way this goes is, you know, the 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:20.240 most toxic version of this is a billionaire deciding to 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:24.560 change how agriculture works in Africa because he got rich 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:29.760 in the nineties. Like, um, it's it's just but you 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:32.000 know who else got rich in the nineties. Andrew t 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:36.520 hit me the product of services that support this podcast. 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:46.879 Oh yeah, all nineties babies gotta be a good. Ah, 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:52.040 We're back, Andrew, Andrew. You see the new you see 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:54.840 the new they did. They made a new rug Rats, 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:57.200 but they made it all c g I and it's 0:20:57.320 --> 0:21:01.000 so weird. I don't like it. It looked so good. 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:04.960 Just just rerun rug Rats. It's perfect. It doesn't need 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:08.000 anything else. Kids will still like it. They made Tommy 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:13.280 Pickles head scary. Yeah, I just like the old art 0:21:13.440 --> 0:21:17.800 was just so classic and charming. The lady who did 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:22.119 the lady who did Tommy Pickles voice lived behind my 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:27.040 childhood home. Oh really, Yeah, that's that's rad um, because 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:29.239 that was a great show. I just don't get it. 0:21:29.320 --> 0:21:33.320 I don't get this at all. Um. Yeah, it's it's 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:36.919 it's horrible. People should stop making things. I don't know 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:40.760 why we need to ruin a good thing. I'm saying 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:47.720 speaking of good things ruined, speaking of ruining good things. 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:52.719