Pen-Elayne on the Web

Opening Up the FloodGates

So Bill Moyers interviewed Bill Gates on the installment of his program NOW which ran yesterday, all about how he's giving away 95% of his wealth to help fight infectious diseases and help with family planning issues in the Third World. This has created a weird schizophrenia among a few lefty bloggers. It looks like Jeanne d'Arc (link at sidebar) started the ball rolling by saying, "My Microsoft-hating son will never forgive me for saying this, but I love Bill Gates." To which a blogger calling himself OneMan responded at length, with more whiplash-inducing "but"s than Patty and Selma's ashtrays. The whole thing reminds me of some fanboys' reaction to an issue of a comic that didn't read the way they expected it to regardless of whether the story worked: "How dare the writer do this when he should be doing that?" An example: "Gates refuses to even address, let alone challenge, the political conditions in which poverty, disease, and poor pre- and neo-natal care are rooted." Why do I get the feeling that, if Gates were to decide to run for office, this same person would be the first to protest the intrusion of wealth into politics? I mean, sure it's annoying that all computer roads seem to lead to Gates, but he's giving back. Big time. And I may feel empathetic towards the workers he's said to have exploited (hell, I feel like I'm exploited too, okay? most office peons are) but I agree with Salon, that's bupkiss compared with the millions of kids this money will help. Ninety-five percent of $43 billion. I'm sorry, I have very little patience for people whose main point seems to be "how dare this rich person do things out of enlightened self-interest" and harp on and on about the self-interest part rather than the enlightened part. "If you're going to do good it should be entirely altruistic or don't do it at all" is a lovely pipe-dream but pretty damned unrealistic and utterly unhelpful. As Steve Bates (rhymes with... well, never mind) notes in his response, "If Bill Gates should offer the charity on whose executive committee I sit a large amount of money to pursue one of its undeniably worthy projects... even if that project somehow indirectly benefits Gates... I'll take his money without a single twinge of conscience, and write the thank-you letter myself." (As he's a contract software developer I wouldn't be surprised if he gets the old "but they're responsible for your household income" whine that I've received sometimes when talking about DC Comics with fans.) So then OneMan comes back with another blog entry: "I'm not against charitable giving per se, nor even large-scale philanthropic giving at Bill Gates' level. Rather, I am concerned with the issues of power around such giving..." I suppose it's nice to have luxury enough to sit around and debate these philosophical issues rather than, you know, fighting for survival and accepting charity graciously from one of the too few people inclined to give same. To bring this 'round again, Jeanne posts this follow-up. Update: Check out Mac Diva's comments on this as well (link at sidebar).