Nancy Bailey read a post written by Bill Gates (or his writer). It seems he read a book that led him to write a post called “The Purpose Problem: What If People Run Out of Things to Do?”
I can say that the purpose problem could be very troubling for a billionaire. Most people find their purpose is to survive, or to make enough money to have a comfortable life and to send their children to college. Others find a purpose in their religious activities, helping others.
For a man worth north of $50 billion, the purpose problem must loom large.
He doesn’t need to work, but most people find their life enriched by work.
He doesn’t need to make money, but most people find that making money is necessary for the essentials of life.
He has spent billions trying to solve global problems, and he very likely has helped untold numbers of people by investing in medicine and science.
His educational investments have not panned out very well, but he can’t seem to give up trying to fix the schools and ending up by demoralizing teachers and driving them out of their profession.
Bailey hopes that Gates will give some thought to how his activities have a negative effect on other people’s careers, lives, and purpose:
Gates ironically reflects on what it means to have purpose in one’s life.
I say ironically, because many blame Bill Gates for the current push to replace teachers in our public schools with technology—calling it personalized or competency-based learning.
Not only will teachers lose their profession and their purpose, a whole segment of society will be displaced—careers shattered.
This will drastically affect how and what students learn. Even our youngest children will obtain their knowledge on machines.
Brick and mortar schools will be a thing of the past. Children will learn on devices anyplace and anytime. Or they will attend online charter schools with baby-sitter-like facilitators instead of teachers. Connections to humans for learning will be distant…
He doesn’t ponder what troubling results can occur when “disruption” through technology happens in our public schools, or what it will mean when there is no more public school system in America.
Can you help Bill Gates as he tries to find his purpose in life?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It seems to me that he waited too long to wonder about the meaning of life. I concerned myself with such questions at the age of eight.
Now that he has it all, he must be thinking is this all there is.
It is ok not to be “productive,” especially when half of what you produce is negative. Maybe it is time to admit that sitting quietly and thinking about unintended consequences is valuable.
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Excellent comment, West Coast Teacher. He TRULY DOES NEED TO PONDER HIS “UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES.” However, I am convinced he won’t see this one at all. After all, Gates doesn’t admit he makes HUGE mistakes esp. when it comes to $$$$$$$$$.
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Rich in money, poor in understanding social commonwealth and the actual meaning of life.
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Bill Gates HAS invested billions of dollars in medicine with the same awful results as his education platform. He took his money into Africa and set up competition among the many scientists tying to eradicate disease. These scientists now compete for Gates money instead of collaborating with each other to solve these issues. As soon as the competition for money started, the process became closed, secretive and progress slowed. Whenever money and free market is involved, the good of the service is always compromised. Maybe Gates needs to do some soul searching on the purpose of his money.
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Gates NEEDS to just GO AWAY and SHUT HIS MOUTH.
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Even more important: shut his wallet. :- )
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“Shut up”
Shut your wallet
Shut your trap
Whatever you call it
VAM is crap
Shut your DAM
Foundation too
Shut your clam
It makes us blue
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Also had an effect on use of UNESCO resources, slowed their to response to the ebola outbreak–got to please Gates because he sends us money.It is the same story for too many organizations who have become too dependent on billionaire funding.
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Gates is trying to get everybody ready for a robots taking over scenario. He is pushing a robots taking over future. All the technocrats and technophiles have been discussing UBI (universal basic income) lately as an excuse for the fact that automation is ruining so many lives for the benefit the wealthy technophiles and technocrats. It’s all ridiculous nonsense. Technological disruption is an unsustainable practice and a dystopian fiction of a future. It’s make believe. It’s childlike fantasy. That’s common sense. For someone so smart, Gates is amazingly dumb.
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Seriously, can you imagine trusting your life to Microsoft Windows?
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Or Fakebook news!?
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I’d sooner jump out a window than trust my life to Windows.
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Gates ain’t so smart. He never invented anything. He purchased his operating system and then told his sales people that they could NOT sell another operating system. That is how he got rich. And btw, his father was a lawyer … says a lot.
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His father got him his first contract and I believe loaned him the money for the purchase of that operating system. Gates is a business man….he is NO computer guru as he likes to portray himself. He has so much money he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He needs to take a year and go live among the natives in a 3rd world foreign country….with no cash. That is where he will could do some soul searching. Foraging for food and water and living in squalid conditions would make anyone look at money in a different way. He couldn’t do it as a faux-cation.
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I didn’t know Bile Gates had a blog. I followed Nancy Bailey’s link and read some of it just now. The comments on his blog are all flattery, the mealy-mouthed, obsequious sponging of professional sycophants. Perhaps he needs a few trolls — er, teachers and education experts — to make some honest, straightforward comments on his blog. One might teach him a thing or two about life in the real world, maybe provide him with some of the education he missed dropping out of school. I wonder if he allows counterpoint to his flights of fancy. Or perhaps he tracks, hunts down, and ruins people who disagree with him. Hmmm… What to do…
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He’d probably block them from his site. Bannish their posts to the trash can.
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That does seem to be the trend.
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There’s only one way to help Bill and Melinda Gates, but it may not be the best idea to discuss it here . . . .
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I would just be thrilled if billionaire Bill paid his fair share of taxes to the nation that allowed him to build an empire. I would be happy if all that extra cash served the common good instead of Bill’s pet projects. Instead, Gates uses every tax avoidance strategy in the book. http://www.seattletimes.com/business/microsoft/how-microsoft-parks-profits-offshore-to-pare-its-tax-bill/
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The first link is a movie to teach how to be an excellent leader.
The second link is a movie to remind people that ambitious and greedy people in the wrong path cannot be trusted. Also, the main character is shown how to be the true religious leader who only cares for the well-being of the unfortunate in both material and spirit.
I hope that educators will inform Mr. Bill Gates if they have a chance. Back2basic
1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiS7EzS6wbo
《老子出关》|| 1080HD【Chi-Eng SUB】 荣获美国世界民族电影节大奖 一个关于道家文化起源的故事
“Laozi off” || 1080HD 【Chi-Eng SUB】 won the United States World Film Festival on the origin of the story of Taoist culture
2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp7rCdQuBxw
Zen (2009) – RO , EN subtitles
(Please watch at 1:39; 1:44; 1:45; 1:48; 1:49:31; 1:51 the 8 best advices)
1) First, be free from desires
2) Second, be satisfied
3) Third, be tranquil
4) Fourth, be diligent
5) Fifth, remember the teachings (NOT TO BE greedy, lusty and egoistic)
6) Sixth, meditate
7) Seventh, practice wisdom
8) Eight, avoid pointless talk
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LOL! Now I have heard everything.
Many people do not have to wonder, their purpose is to work and earn enough so they do not have to choose between rent and food, or medical care, no to mention the dentist or college.
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Speaking of purpose and Bill Gates…
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All areas of American life are suffering from the destructive effect of “The Billionaires’ Disease.” Too many billionaires are delusional: They have accumulated not only great wealth, but also sycophants who tell them they are geniuses. These sycophant-surrounded billionaires come to believe themselves not only to be geniuses, but that they alone are responsible for the wealth they have accumulated; they rationalize away the key and essential roles played by others in the success of their businesses. In their delusional minds they see their “genius” as being applicable to other areas, such as government and public education, notwithstanding the fact that they have no experience or expertise in these areas. So what we have today are billionaires with no governmental experience who think they know best who our elected officials should be, what government should and should not do, and billionaires who never taught a classroom full of children but who think they know exactly what “reforms” are needed in public education. And, of course, what’s needed in public schools is the charter school business model because the business model is the only thing the billionaires know even a bit about. And of course there are plenty of simpering sycophants to tell the billionaires how insightful they are about reforms and charter schools because these sycophants see an opportunity to cash in on unregulated charter schools to bleed tax money away from children and into their own pockets. If only there was a simple cure for The Billionaires’ Disease, then perhaps cured billionaires could turn their resources to combating the true root causes of problems not only in schools but throughout our nation: Poverty and racial discrimination.
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To reproduce, nothing more.
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This sounds a bit like the “affluenza” story, whereby a young man had done something criminal, but was defended on the basis that he “suffered” from “affluenza” (spoiled rotten rich kid), so didn’t know any better.
Don’t you all just feel SO sorry for poor, purposeless Billy?
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“Can you help Bill Gates as he tries to find his purpose in life?”
Bill, try not to be so bored, try supressing your urge to change things. Look around the world, and try to appreciate what 1 billion year of evolution, and 1 million year of humanity have produced.
Perhaps it’s time for you to go to school and finally pay attention so that you learn about the world surrounding you. You’ll find that your single minded delusions about what life is about are lame in comparison.
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The question that Gates poses at his advanced age coupled with his pattern of destruction, is confirmation that he was born hollow. Gates is one of 5 men with wealth equivalent to 750,000,000 people, an economic condition he created and fosters with his co-conspirators among the richest 0.1%.
If he had a soul, his legacy would not be the humiliation and unease that his children will feel (assuming they were born with the capacity) as a result of his enduring reputation for greed and for the re-definition of “philanthropy” as a yoke on the 99%.
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