Mike Klonsky of Chicago recently posted this item. Bill Gates said it was easier to solve the problems of public health than to fix American education.
“Reader Rufus responds to Bill Gates with a comment on my Schooling in the Ownership Society Blog. This one is too good to leave in the comments section.
“Rufus August 6, 2014
“Gates claims it’s easier to find cures for malaria and other diseases than to “fix” American education.
Neither of those things are as difficult as Gates makes them sound. Just look in Bill and Melinda’s neighborhood. No malaria and great schools. Problem solved.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Succinct. Witty. Correct.
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I am sure that the estimated 627,000, mostly children, that will die of malaria this coming year will find this useful advice.
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TE,
I do not question your numbers of world wide malaria cases, only your limited thinking. Continuing on the case of Bill’ and ‘ Melinda’, our favorite billionaires, they should have thrown the millions upon millions of dollars into attacking the world wide malaria problem, rather than financing the Common Core and myriad attacks on the manufactured pseudo problems of American public schools. That is an investment worth making: it actually would have helped to attack a real problem. But, hey, capitalists have their own internal rationales for investments.
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john a,
In what way is my thinking limited? It struck me that saying the solution to malaria is to move to a climate where malaria is not a problem is a bit disrespectful to those that suffer from the disease.
Apparently the Gates foundation has committed to spending $258.3 million on anti malaria efforts.
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TE,
I don’t know what you refer to in my post re “…saying the solution to malaria is to move to a climate where malaria is not a problem…” .
The limited thinking involves your support of spending countless millions of dollars supporting to fix a pseudo problem snd to support diverting public funds to support for private schools, when such money could have been spent on direct support of public schools, rather than attacking public schools and teachers, supporting ”junk’ science VAM and subjecting students to unnecessary standardized testing.
The real problem rather than the Gatsian pseudo problem is that American public schools do not receive sufficient public funding; funding that would either obviate the need for private Gates type of funding or relegate it to supplemental projects unfunded by public dollars.
The effect of the Gates and allied approaches is to spend money to substantially weaken and/or destroy public schools. In the end that is the limitation of your thinking.
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John a,
The original post suggested that
” “Gates claims it’s easier to find cures for malaria and other diseases than to “fix” American education.
Neither of those things are as difficult as Gates makes them sound. Just look in Bill and Melinda’s neighborhood.”
That is what motivated my response.
You are correct that my concern is education, not just traditional public education. I think a variety of institutions can do a good job delivering education.
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TE,
I remain confused with your riposte to my posting. We have gone far enough in our little case of dueling emails. When push comes to shove, I abhor your ideological positions They run counter to my the core beliefs regarding the necessary role of government in providing sufficient funds to public institutions. There is nothing further to discuss. I admit that the The ideological chasm is unbridgeable. I leave it to other posters to waste their time jousting with you.
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John a,
I am surprised that you even know my “ideological” perspective, much less abhor it. Basically I would call myself a classical liberal with a strong streak of pragmatism.
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How much are they spending on Ebola?
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Hi Teaching Economist! I just realized who you remind me of: Richard Milhous Nixon! (As you’re doing here, Nixon would also periodically launch into.”Serious Righteous Lecture Mode” and attempt to.”shame” his opposition into silence and passive acceptance.
But people knew he was full of it, both in terms of his “holier than thou” ersatz morality AND his ludicrous, asinine and manipulative pile of dung he was trying to pass off as a delicacy. Pleaae. The stench alone would demonstrate what a liar he was.
So, any moron could see that it is quite a stretch to imply that the critics of the actions of Bill Gates are somehow indifferent or even downright cruel and sadistic regarding the victims of malaria.
Shame on you for such demagoguery and mendacity. You should be above that.
I think the writer has it exactly right, in both substance and tone: We all know what works, both in K-12 education AND preventing and effectively treating malaria.
Just look at the way Bill and Melinda live and the choices they make for their family. Just look at the schools they’ve chosen for THEIR OWN CHILDREN; they are 180 degrees removed from almost all of the vile, odious,.”reforms” that Gates and every other reformer, lackey and shill he is funding advocate for OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN.
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PSP,
Let’s think about the school that Bill and Melinda Gates chose for thier children and see if you want this for all children.
1) They choose a school, they did not have a school board determine which school thier child could attend.
2) the school is not run by a democratically elected school board. It has a board of trustees which may include individuals who work in the finance industry.
3) the school is not required to hire certified teachers.
4) the teachers at the school have no tenure or due process rights
5) the teachers at the school get no automatic salary increases with additional education
Are you advocating that all schools should be like the one Bill and Malinda Gates send their children to?
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I always wondered why Bill Gates ever thought American education was his to fix.
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Jamieliz,
Excellent point.
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Education experts told him for 20 years that public education was a national crisis. He believed it.
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Yes, education “experts,” most of whom have never taught a day in their lives in a K-12 public school, providing a false narrative that dovetailed perfectly with his own interests and will to power.
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Michael,
Are you describing Dr. Ravitch during her conservative period, as she presently views K-12 education, or both?
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Those might have been her opinions, but they were not wedded to insatiable financial interests, (or “infinite greed,” to riff on a Gates biography) a la Gates.
Additionally, Diane publicly stated that she was mistaken, and has made strenuous efforts to ameliorate the damage caused by her alliance with the so-called reformers, evidence of great courage and character.
Can Gates say the same?
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It’s never been clear to me that Gates’s role in education reform has been motivated by his own desire to make money. There are plenty of other motivations — some less innocent than others — that seem more obvious to me.
“Can Gates say the same?”
Patience! Others had a big head start on him. One day he may recant, and then all will be forgiven.
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That word “fix” reflects an understanding of the problem that strikes me as simplistic.
What is the problem with American education that Bill Gates is trying to fix? Where exactly is it located? Is it in a teacher, or a classroom? In a school, a district, or in a policy? Is it in decades of inequitable funding, or can it be found in economically depressed communities where descent paying, respectable opportunities are hard to come by? How does the breakdown of families, communities, and the support systems inherent in these vital social institutions effect Bill’s problem? Could the challenges with education possibly have something to do with the distribution of wealth and opportunity in America?
People who “fix” things understand how the things they are fixing work.
You fix things like a bicycle chain, or a broken computer. You bring a car to an auto mechanic to fix it’s problems.
Bill Gates feels entitled to string along an entire generation of students and teachers while he kind of figures things out- as if there wasn’t a whole field of experts on the front lines, in the trenches, as well as decades of reliable research indicating real solutions, not facile “fixes” Applying this small word and concept to issues that are both complex and deep diminishes the serious and difficult challenges that manifest themselves in an array of social institutions, one of which happens to be education.
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Bill Gates knows exactly what he is doing. He doesn’t “fix” the malaria problem by making sure that people in these areas have access to clean water, waste management systems and bountiful fresh food to eat.
He won’t “fix” education by cleaning up rat infested neighborhoods, providing seed money for small businesses to move in, stopping the drug trade on every corner, or making sure their are groceries of bountiful fresh food to eat where grades are low.
He has no intention of really solving any problem except what he considers to be the number one problem of the world — over population.
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Hi Teaching Economist! I just realized who you remind me of: Richard Milhous Nixon! (As you’re doing here, Nixon would also periodically launch into.”Serious Righteous Lecture Mode” and attempt to.”shame” his opposition into silence and passive acceptance.
But people knew he was full of it, both in terms of his “holier than thou” ersatz morality AND his ludicrous, asinine and manipulative pile of dung he was trying to pass off as a delicacy. Pleaae. The stench alone would demonstrate what a liar he was.
So, any moron could see that it is quite a stretch to imply that the critics of the actions of Bill Gates are somehow indifferent or even downright cruel and sadistic regarding the victims of malaria.
Shame on you for such demagoguery and mendacity. You should be above that.
I think the writer has it exactly right, in both substance and tone: We all know what works, both in K-12 education AND preventing and effectively treating malaria.
Just look at the way Bill and Melinda live and the choices they make for their family. Just look at the schools they’ve chosen for THEIR OWN CHILDREN; they are 180 degrees removed from almost all of the vile, odious,.”reforms” that Gates and every other reformer, lackey and shill he is funding advocate for OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN.
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PSP,
Please see my response to the first copy of this post: https://dianeravitch.net/2014/08/21/mike-klonsky-to-bill-gates-how-to-solve-the-problems-of-malaria-and-good-schools/comment-page-1/#comment-2226619
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maybe if he took the money that he spent on education, and put it into malaria, he would be doing better.
He also needs to stop interfering with the malaria researchers, with his grants that actually hinder their efforts…will post link later, about to go into PD:)
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Have fun getting professionally developed tott!!
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Oh yes it was thrilling!
As promised
http://newint.org/features/2012/04/01/bill-gates-charitable-giving-ethics/
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He finds it easier to experiment on children in underdeveloped countries with his malaria reduction and vaccine programs because these countries do not have any kind of judicial infrastructure to sue him or free press, literacy, communication systems to fight back and expose that his intentions are not what he professes them to be. But sometimes word of mouth does the job and we read a rare account of a group of medical aid volunteers who have been murdered by the local villagers they came to help. They found out that people in other villages had been sterilized without their permission when they thought they were receiving a simple tetanus shot. As much as I dislike Bill Gates and everything he does, I am not condoning such actions that ended up harming most likely innocent clinical workers who were unaware of what was actually in the vaccines.
I am pointing out that there is a strong resistance to his “gifts” when the real fruits of his labor are found out. He wants to depopulate the earth and inventory and control everything including food and medicine which is why he owns billions worth of Monsanto and pharmaceutical stocks. He is a psychopath who should be given no platform to speak or act on his ideas anywhere. Why do we laud and honor him?
Here in the U.S., even with an extremely compromised media that Gates has vast control over, he cannot control the narrative completely. He finds this annoying of course so he complains that he cannot just “give” everything he wants to give without interference from parents, teachers, and even children opting out of tests. So inefficient. So frustrating for him. Poor Bill.
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Bill Gates’s goal is to cut the cost of education, that is all. Given the reduction in wages over a generation the he realizes we need to cut the resources we spend or increase taxes at the higher end.
Like all bright tech people he thinks he can solve any problem he puts his mind to. If one looks at what his company has produced, one realizes that it takes a lot of time and money, and that is with people trained in the software field and people who have a clearly defined objective. For a good long time Windows sucked, really sucked, even if the features it provided were useful.
The idea that Gates knows anything about education, especially education for the masses is absurd.
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Why do you think Gates is bright? Have you tested him?
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To readers who believe in exhilirating potion, magic shortcut to glory:
It is wise to acknowledge that we have a lot to learn from educators who can be writer, music composer… Physical world is limit, but our mind is limitless. When we die, we cannot bring our wealth with us, but knowledge and karma.
The result of deeds in the past forms “who we are today”, and the result of all of our deeds in this current life will form who we will be in the next life. The universal law of impermanence, gravity and causation applies to all creatures on this earth without any exception.
Any fabricated speech can fool the speaker’s narrow mind and ignorant audience, but NOT to speaker’s soul and NOT to the wise audience like experienced educators.
Here are some thoughts to digest (These words are extracted from:
Arendt, Hannah. The Life of the Mind (2 vols. Volume I: Thinking, Volume II: Willing). Brace Harcourt. January 1, 1978. Hardcover, 535 pages, Language English, ASIN: B001RG9SBI.
Man’s finitude, irrevocably given by virtue of his own short time span set in an infinity of time stretching into both past and future.
However, all mental activities: it manifests itself as the only reality of which thinking qua thinking is aware, when the thinking ego has withdrawn from the world of appearances and lost the sense of realness inherent in the sensus communis (sense of community?) by which we orient ourselves in this world.
Augustine … diagnoses the ultimate unifying will that eventually decides a man’s conduct as Love. Love is the “weight of the soul,” its law of gravitation, that which brings the soul’s movement to its rest.
Somewhat influenced by Aristotelian physics, he [Augustine] holds that the end of all movement is rest, and now he understands the emotions – the motions of the soul – in analogy to the movements of the physical world.
For “nothing else do bodies desire by their weight than what souls desire by their love.” Hence, in the Confessions: “My weight is my love; by it I am borne whithersoever I am born.”
The soul’s gravity, the essence of who somebody is, and which as such is inscrutable to human eyes, becomes manifest in this love.
Back2basic
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“When we die, we cannot bring our wealth with us, but knowledge and karma.”
Good luck with that for when one dies any knowledge and built up karma go the way of the body.
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This is a real sticking point.
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What is this supposed “law” of “The universal law of impermanence, gravity and causation”??
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Bill Gates knows what a great school is like—he went to one. And he sends HIS OWN CHILDREN to it.
Let’s see, just four short years ago Lakeside School had the following: student/teacher ration: 9 to 1; average class size: 16; 24 varsity sports; “New sports facility offers cryotherapy & hydrotherapy spas”; “Full arts program with drama, various choruses, various bands including jazz band and a chamber orchestra.”; “79% of faculty have advanced degrees”; and other ‘stuff.’
Class size doesn’t matter?
“Bill says Lakeside was great because of relationships:
Finally, I had great relationships with my teachers here at Lakeside. Classes were small. You got to know the teachers. They got to know you. And the relationships that come from that really make a difference…”
And thinking globally?
“Relationships include the ones developed in Lakeside’s Global Learning Program. Bill thinks it’s important that rich kids see how poor people in other countries live…poor neighbors in *this* country, not so much…
I’m really excited about the Global Service Learning Program, which will send Lakeside students on extended trips to developing countries to learn about the people and the issues they face…I believe if we could get the same kind of visibility for health problems around the world, so that rich people saw millions of impoverished mothers burying babies who died from causes we can prevent—we would insist that something be done, and we would be willing to pay for it…We need to see what’s happening—only then will we stop ignoring our neighbors and start helping them.”
Link: http://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/bill-gates-tells-us-why-his-high-school-was-a-great-learning-environment/
Hey, if he needs a new vanity project, howzabout advocating for/providing for/funding studies/buying numbers&stats people/paying off politicians so the same is ensured/mandated for OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN?
“I reject that mind-set.” [Michelle Rhee, speaking for Bill Gates]
How did I know she/he would say/think that?
😎
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You hit the nail on the head! And in doing so exposed the blatant hypocrisy of Mr. & Mrs. Gates.
It’s actually quite simple: If Bill and Melinda REALLY cared about the quality of American education—for ALL children—they’d be vociferously advocating that EVERY SINGLE CHILD IN THE UNITED STATES HAD THE SAME TYPE OF EDUCATION THAT BILL GATES HAD AT LAKESIDE ACADEMY!
Or Andover, Sidwell Friends, Choate, Dalton, Exeter, and the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools.
It’s actually quite simple. We know what works. And so do they. The choices the Ruling Elites make for THEIR OWN precious progeny is what they REALLY believe constitutes an excellent education—not the load of BS that they’ve been selling for several years now, insisting that they’re “only doing it for the children” because, as they righteously insist, it’s the “civil rights issue of our time.”
Vomit. It’s literally sickening to hear such deliberate deception and consciously cynical exploitation of the struggles of good people like Martin Luther King, Fanny Lou Hamer, James Meredith, John Lewis, Rosa Parks and so many more.
And just how stupid do they think WE are that we would fall for this vile, obvious manipulation and mendacity?
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PSP,
Would you also insist that every single child have teachers that have the same qualifications and employment contracts as are typically used at private schools?
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They think we are stupid enough to call for our own enslavement by demanding a tax on carbon. On September 2, in NYC, there will be a large rally on climate change where thousands of people will gather to show their support for the greatest hoax in history–anthropogenic global warming.
They will demand a tax on carbon which will mean the enslavement of themselves and their children. They will forgive Al Gore for flying around in his jet using all that fuel, creating all that pollution, because he buys carbon offsets from himself to salve his conscience (and as he says, What’s wrong with making a profit on being green?)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/11/03/blood-and-gore-making-a-killing-on-anti-carbon-investment-hype/
Still, the U.S. Government Accounting Office can’t figure out what benefits taxpayers are getting from those many billions of dollars spent each year on policies that are purportedly aimed at addressing climate change. A May 2011 GAO report noted that while annual federal funding for such activities has been increasing substantially, there is a lack of shared understanding of strategic priorities among the various responsible agency officials.
The question now remains how long it will take before majority population segments in America and the rest of the world realize, as Australia now finally does, that they have been duped by unaffordable and unreliable climate benefit-premised “green energy” promotions.
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Dawn,
Here is a pretty standard argument made by economists: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/06/04/318458373/episode-472-the-one-page-plan-to-fix-global-warming
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TE, clearly you do not understand the gist of my post which is that Global Warming Is A Hoax. A carbon tax would be a travesty here just like in Australia where they just voted the guy out that inflicted it upon them.
I am trying to point out that people think the Common Core is so obviously odious but at the same time they find a tax on carbon to be a lovely solution to another fabricated problem.
There is no great crisis in our education system that calls for a complete overhaul like the Common Core represents and there is no crisis on the planet and in the atmosphere that calls for a complete overhaul like carbon taxes. CO2 is not a pollutant.
In both instances the same people have fabricated a crisis, ginned it up with lots of well place media propaganda, shut out detractors, shamed critics, and pushed the agenda through with lots of Gates money and United Nations and NGO complicity.
I don’t know why I bother answering you. You seem to bait people just to be perverse.
But since Bernie Sanders who is capable of better things has made a huge mistake in introducing actual legislation to create a carbon tax, it is important to bring this issue up to warn people of the dire consequences of such a stupid law which would only effect the poor and middle class because the rich and congress of course will be exempt.
So my plea is, don’t be stupid and beg for your own enslavement. No carbon taxes.
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Dawn,
I am curious why you think a carbon tax is so much worse than other taxes, for example a payroll tax. The proposal is basically to switch from taxing income to taxing consumption. Why is that going to have dire consequences?
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It is important to stress why enacting a carbon tax would be economically devastating and environmentally meaningless.
As Australia is currently experiencing, the adverse effects of a carbon tax will ripple through the economy. A majority of American’s energy needs come from carbon-emitting conventional fuels, so Americans would not just be impacted through higher energy bills but also higher prices for the goods and services they purchase. Low-income families that spend a disproportionately higher percentage of their budget on energy would be hardest hit.
Last year, the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated that a carbon tax that starts at $25 and rises by 5 percent per year (after adjusting for inflation) would:
Cut the income of a family of four by $1,900 per year in 2016 and lead to average losses of $1,400 per year through 2035;
Raise the family-of-four energy bill by more than $500 per year (not counting the cost of gasoline);
Cause gasoline prices to increase by up to $0.50 gallon, or by 10 percent on an average gallon price; and
Lead to an aggregate loss of more than 1 million jobs by 2016 alone.
Proponents of a carbon tax may argue that’s a small price to pay to save the planet, but the reality is that it’s an exorbitant price to pay to not have any impact on climate change whatsoever. Unilaterally reducing greenhouse gases would not make a dent on global emissions and only moderate temperatures a few tenths of a degree Celsius over the next 85 years.
It is nothing more than wishful thinking to assume that if the U.S. enacts a carbon tax, the rest of the world would as well.
http://dailysignal.com/2013/03/21/carbon-tax-still-a-bad-idea/
“The carbon tax is a bad idea,” said Jay Timmons, president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, who added that manufacturing output could fall up to 15 percent if a carbon tax were to be imposed.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/26/manufacturers-group-carbon-tax-is-a-bad-idea/#ixzz3BJZhSbOG
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All Gates’ comments do is highlight his myopia and bias. He sees American education as a disease like malaria, a plague, that needs to be eradicated.. That is his first fallacy. In addition, he wants to remake American education according to his own distorted view. With a Stalin like iron fist and ego, he wants to remake American education in his own image, place where students sit at computer terminals all year and enrich Microsoft.
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Don’t forget about Bill’s ideas about “wasting resources” on the last year of life for our elderly population. He thinks panels of experts should have the final say over who lives and who dies. He is all about inventory and control and sorting and analyzing the “value” of human lives.
He obviously doesn’t value spending resources on special education students. Why does he insist that they be tested just like everyone else? He has to create a national standard that everyone has to meet. What are his plans for children that never meet those standards? Just remember that Hitler was euthanizing mentally and physically disabled people for years before he started murdering Jewish people. Letting people like Bill Gates anywhere near children is a bad idea.
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Hi Duane:
Your question: “What is this supposed “law” of “The universal law of impermanence, gravity and causation”??”
My answer: It is not about supposed “law”, it is obvious to most of people’s eyes. It is called universal because the majority of people cannot escape its force.
For instance: it is inscrutable to human eyes about these universal laws because our life expectancy is too short to compare to the universe. However, we live in two-dimensional idea of yin-yang and dichotomy. To Albert Einstein, his formula E=mc^2 help us to built spaceship that explores the moon. Now, we recognize that there is existing third dimension (invisible force?), beside time and space, or body and mind.
Regarding law of gravity, we pause a second to examine Einstein’s famous theory of relativity between mass and speed, or between body and mind in order to figure out the power of human energy. This may help us to overcome the law of gravity.
Regarding law of impermanence, everything and everyone on this earth will go through the partial or full cycle of BIRTH, Growth, sickness/wear and tear, finally DEATH/self-destruction. Nobody or thing can stand with time forever. Yet, the power of compassion or unconditional love will last forever beyond time
Regarding law of causation, most decent psychologists, excellent educators, famous writers like all fables’ authors, Frank Kafka, Charles Dickens, George Well, and our beloved Dr. Diane Ravitch relentlessly express/warn people about Law of Causation in their precious stories. Yet, the power of enlightenment completely DETACHES or OVERCOMES law of Causation.
I hope that I amicably clear your challenging question. If my answer is not satisfactory to you, I hope that some readers in this thread will volunteer to give their own experienced examples. Thank you for sharing. Back2basic
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The link that I http://newint.org/features/2012/04/01/bill-gates-charitable-giving-ethics/
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Bill stands to make money via the tech end, even if the schools go Apple, Microsoft is the devil in the details. Oh, and the hedge funds, where certainly he stands to gain. He does nothing for the feel-good of giving; its all philanthropic/control/investing that he does; and, he gets tax breaks for it too. Win-win for him.
As to his fights against malaria and polio, he’d have done more good with mosquito nets and DEET instead of trying to, somehow on the back end, make money on a malaria vaccine or cure. As to the polio, some kids came down with “polio-like” symptoms after his vaccines and are still afflicted. Didn’t I read somewhere his money assisted in sterilizing people unawares with tainted vaccines?
He is no messiah. He is not the panacea. He is not the solution. He is in bed with the problem, the selfish shit-stirrers. It is an “us” “them” mentality, and they detest us.
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