There is an article in the New York Times, which was about
how Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and Chairman of the Bill & Malinda
Gates Foundation, had become a target of right-wing conspirators for the mere
sin of disagreeing with the Occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue’s response to Covid
19. Mr. Gates, who built one of the largest fortunes in history and is now
making an effort to put that fortune to some use, has since been attacked as an
evil conspirator who created the virus so that he could profit from it. More
can be read at:
While some of Mr. Gates’s business practices were predatory,
Mr. Gates has been a hero in many aspects of the word. Mr. Gates had an idea, exploited
it and made many fortunes in the process. While Microsoft has not produced the “sexy”
and “revolutionary” products of its rival, Apple, it made what was once a complex
tool into something the everyman could use. I’m old enough to remember the age
when computer studies really required studies. These days, I write documents
with Microsoft Word, track financial transactions with Microsoft Excel and
create basic presentations with PowerPoint. I am far from IT savvy but I can
function in a variety of roles thanks to Mr. Gates and Microsoft.
Mr. Gates built a tremendous fortune by making life easier
for the rest of us and in addition to making a tremendous fortune for himself
and his partners (Paul Allen and Steve Balmer), Mr. Gates made becoming rich an
attainable goal. Seattle is filled with “Microsoft Millionaires,” ordinary folk
who went to work for Microsoft, got paid a salary and received stock options
that gave them wealth beyond their wildest dreams. Mr. Gates has since left his
mission of creating wealth to trying to solve the world’s worst problems.
Mr. Gates does have his detractors. These used to be in the
tech industry, where people complained that he abused his monopoly power. One
of the most prominent examples was how he used Microsoft’s monopoly power the
personal computing space to force users to chose Internet Explorer over Netscape.
Mr. Gates had a talent of hoisting inferior products onto the rest of us (all
tech guys will tell you that Microsoft’s products are no where near the class
of Apple’s).
Having said all of that, Mr. Gates is by most definitions a
great man, who has on the balance of things been good for the human race.
So, after having made America Great by doing so much for the
human race, you’d expect that people would give Mr. Gates some credit for doing
a lot of good. You would expect this particularly in a time of crisis, when people
look for leadership and the main proponent of that leadership is an obvious incompetent,
who has obviously made the situation worse.
Mr. Gates had stated as far back as 2015 that America was
not prepared for a pandemic. Business Insider even records Melinda Gates
talking about how they were stocking up on food in their basement in
anticipation of a pandemic. Story can be found at:
As a private citizen (even if his wealth does give him a
certain influence that private citizens don’t enjoy), Mr. Gates, through his
foundation donated some $250 million to make medical supplies available and to
help scientist.
By comparison, the other billionaire, who currently controls
the resources of the most powerful government machinery on the planet has prepared
for the pandemic by denying it existed, then claimed it would go away like a
miracle and then claimed it was a hoax. In his latest tirade against facts, the
Occupant has been leading the charge to “Liberate” states from social
distancing and isolation methods. While social isolation methods have not been
good for the economy, they have helped control of the virus. However, according
to the Donald, they are too tough and its perfectly acceptable to go to war
against the one organization that has the global capacity to fight a global
pandemic.
More on the Trump’s efforts to keep Covid-19 under control can be
found at:
By calling out the Trump, Mr. Gates has placed himself in
the cross hairs of his supporters. This is tragic. How did a nation which has
produced so much of our advances produce people who take the side of incompetence
over intelligence?
Isaac Asimov, the science fiction writer described America as
having a strain of “Anti-Intellectualism,” which equated ignorance as having
the same value as expertise. I’m from Singapore, which has the opposite problem
– an official love affair with scholars, so I can sympathise with people who
argue that professors don’t always make the best decision makers. I celebrate
when the half-educated man on the street outsmarts the PhD.
However, there is a difference between celebrating the
triumph of the ordinary man over the supremely well-schooled and celebrating irresponsible
behavior that endangers life and hinders attempts to solve serious problems.
There is a difference between celebrating the lay man’s common sense over the experts’
pie charts and celebrating the right of the ignorant to prescribe unproven lifesaving
treatments to the vulnerable.
At the time of writing, the US has more cases of Covid 19
than the next five countries combined. This is not the time to dismiss facts as
left wing or right wing. This is not the time to stop measures that have been
shown to save lives. This is not the time to demonise people who have the means
to help.
America was a byword for human progress. Under this
administration’s incompetence, it is becoming like what their president called
a “Shithole.”
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