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"Bill Gates just released mosquitos into the audience at TED and said, 'Not only poor people should experience this.'"

That was the post by Facebook's Senior Platform Manager Dave Morin on social networking site Twitter.

The event took place at the TED2009 (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference on Wednesday in Long Beach, Calif., where the Microsoft chairman was delivering a presentation about malaria education and eradication. Malaria is transmitted from person to person via mosquito bites.
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The mosquito incident was confirmed by the media office of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which also noted that the insects released were not carrying malaria.

(Msnbc.com is a joint venture between Microsoft and NBC Universal.)


Fact file
Image: Mosquitoes

All about malaria
Lean about this serious, sometimes fatal disease.

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The philanthropist has been pushing to reduce malaria deaths through the nonprofit. In September, Gates announced that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation would provide $168.7 million to the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative to help develop a vaccine for the deadly disease.

Malaria is an infectious disease caused by parasites in the red blood cells. Each year, 350 million to 500 million are infected, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and more than one million cases result in death. Symptoms include high fever, nausea, chills, sweating and weakness.

The disease is still prevalent on continents such as Africa and Asia, which have tropical or subtropical climates. Malaria has been eradicated in most countries with temperate climates. There is currently no effective vaccine against malaria.

kinnison wrote:I think that Mr. Gates was being and continues to be a total asshole, who completely misses the point.

Hundreds of billions of dollars, pounds, roubles, yen, you name it have been poured into Africa for most of a century, and damn near all of it has ended up either in Switzerland or in various high-class casinos, clothing vendors, arms dealers and purveyors of expensive cars. And that will continue, as long as the West continues to allow post-colonial guilt to determine its actions.

If Mr. Gates had really wanted to help Africans (and the rest of us) he would have put his billions into a prize fund, to be paid out when some determinant of our progress towards large-scale space industry was reached. I would nominate some fairly large amount (perhaps a gigawatt) of power delivered from space with good reliability for an extended period of time. That would really help the whole of humanity - partly by cutting down the money tree that funds global terrorism.

kinnison wrote:I think that Mr. Gates was being and continues to be a total asshole, who completely misses the point.

Hundreds of billions of dollars, pounds, roubles, yen, you name it have been poured into Africa for most of a century, and damn near all of it has ended up either in Switzerland or in various high-class casinos, clothing vendors, arms dealers and purveyors of expensive cars. And that will continue, as long as the West continues to allow post-colonial guilt to determine its actions.

If Mr. Gates had really wanted to help Africans (and the rest of us) he would have put his billions into a prize fund, to be paid out when some determinant of our progress towards large-scale space industry was reached. I would nominate some fairly large amount (perhaps a gigawatt) of power delivered from space with good reliability for an extended period of time. That would really help the whole of humanity - partly by cutting down the money tree that funds global terrorism.

kinnison wrote:I think that Mr. Gates was being and continues to be a total asshole, who completely misses the point.

Hundreds of billions of dollars, pounds, roubles, yen, you name it have been poured into Africa for most of a century, and damn near all of it has ended up either in Switzerland or in various high-class casinos, clothing vendors, arms dealers and purveyors of expensive cars. And that will continue, as long as the West continues to allow post-colonial guilt to determine its actions.

If Mr. Gates had really wanted to help Africans (and the rest of us) he would have put his billions into a prize fund, to be paid out when some determinant of our progress towards large-scale space industry was reached. I would nominate some fairly large amount (perhaps a gigawatt) of power delivered from space with good reliability for an extended period of time. That would really help the whole of humanity - partly by cutting down the money tree that funds global terrorism.

CarsonPalmer wrote:

kinnison wrote:I think that Mr. Gates was being and continues to be a total asshole, who completely misses the point.

Hundreds of billions of dollars, pounds, roubles, yen, you name it have been poured into Africa for most of a century, and damn near all of it has ended up either in Switzerland or in various high-class casinos, clothing vendors, arms dealers and purveyors of expensive cars. And that will continue, as long as the West continues to allow post-colonial guilt to determine its actions.

If Mr. Gates had really wanted to help Africans (and the rest of us) he would have put his billions into a prize fund, to be paid out when some determinant of our progress towards large-scale space industry was reached. I would nominate some fairly large amount (perhaps a gigawatt) of power delivered from space with good reliability for an extended period of time. That would really help the whole of humanity - partly by cutting down the money tree that funds global terrorism.

How on earth is a space ship going to help Africans dying of malaria?

The Jester wrote:Video. He unleashes the mosquitoes at about five minutes. Pretty unexciting, actually.

kinnison wrote:Mr. Wong, how exactly is an increase in the number of zeros in some African dictator's bank account going to help those same Africans dying of malaria?

The real cause of Africa's problems is massive corruption and inefficiency in government. Large amounts of any monetary aid end up in Switzerland, and all too often material aid such as sacks of grain ends up being stolen by the military and other gangsters who have the sanction of the State, and then sold on for huge profits to those who are supposed to have been given it for free.

The West did Africa no favours colonising it. They did even less leaving too early; there is a very good example of colonialism actually benefiting the native inhabitants of the colony. Its name is India.

Coyote wrote:He could spend a lot of that money in building a wall around the Vatican so that the Pope can't send missionaries there to teach the Africans that birth control is "evil". That'd be a good start.

Phantasee wrote:So your plan is to fly all the dictators to the moon?

kinnison wrote:Mr. Wong, how exactly is an increase in the number of zeros in some African dictator's bank account going to help those same Africans dying of malaria?

The real cause of Africa's problems is massive corruption and inefficiency in government. Large amounts of any monetary aid end up in Switzerland, and all too often material aid such as sacks of grain ends up being stolen by the military and other gangsters who have the sanction of the State, and then sold on for huge profits to those who are supposed to have been given it for free.

The West did Africa no favours colonising it. They did even less leaving too early; there is a very good example of colonialism actually benefiting the native inhabitants of the colony. Its name is India.