If you had as much money as Bill Gates

[lljkk]

How would you spend it in a way to benefit humanity that didn't attract huge buckets of criticism, including accusations of meglomania?

ps:
No copping out with only long lists of "Well I wouldn't do XY or Z"
You need to list the active ways you actually would spend.

I would donate to charities for the homeless, children charities, animal charities & medical research close to my heart

Buy up land and plant forests.
Fund training centres in developing countries for locals to learn trades such as building, plumbing and electricity.
Fund projects for these workers to travel around their country building schools, hospitals and wells for clean drinking water.
Fund training centres for teachers, doctors, nurses and vets.

I think if you had that much money no matter what you did you’d be criticised.

The gates foundation has nearly eradicated malaria - they are an enormous force for good and have carefully researched over years to make sure their activities will bring about sustainable change . I’d follow their template TBH

He’s doing a pretty good job!

I'd plant lots of trees.

I've noticed that people without money always have opinions about how people with money could spend it better.
I find the existence of billionaires sickening, as it is usually built on the back of slave labour, but I don't really understand the production of Microsoft products, and I do know that the Gates' have funded loads of medical research (AIDS springs to mind). I think they're doing a decent job!

I'd try to eradicate malaria, among other things

Try to combat climate change. Don’t know how but he will know boffins with ideas.

I don't think there's a way to fund essential global projects without attracting some kind of criticism. If everyone knows about it they will have an opinion. And if you tried to not be public about funding things it would seem suspicious in other ways.

Housing and education

I’d focus on those two. Not sure how exactly I’ll need to think more.

@WholegrainCustard

I think if you had that much money no matter what you did you’d be criticised.

This.

It's only ok to have that much money if you hoard it and exploit people. If you actually try to help others, you'll be viewed suspiciously.

I’m not sure you could do it in a way that didn’t attract huge criticism.
But I would focus on climate change (don’t ask me for specifics, I’d hire people who know about it than I do to tell me the specifics).

I'd start by explaining that l had earned the money and now was going to spend it. That anyone who had issues with how I had been whilst earning it need not benefit from it.

Not sure I know how to word it but it would be something along the lines of I was what I was and am what I am. Take it or leave it.

Then I'd probably spend too much time and money working out how best to write the Trust documents for after my death.

And then do pretty much what Gates has done. Find poverty and work out how to address, focussing on the individual rather than organisations as often as possible.

I'd make the whole world self employed, self determining, self reliant, if it could ever make financial sense. 😁

I don't know.
It sounds like it should be easy to give money away but the logistics involved in making sure it gets to the right people and used properly must be huge. That would set my anxiety off, making sure it didn't get into criminal and corrupt hands.

Mackenzie Bezos seemed to get stuck in last year didn't she.

I would recruit a team of people to seek out the best of humanity - the small, deserving charities around the world and give them big donations. I'm not sure how I'd make sure that my team acted with integrity in the long term though - maybe I'd restrict the job to close friends and family? People I trust.

I'd then build my own pharma company, employ my own scientists and work on creating treatments and cures that are made freely available, not for profit.

Also agree with PPs about investing in tackling climate change.

I'm sure I'd get criticised but I would buy huge tracts of land in order to preserve the Rain Forests and Wildlife all over the world. How much has Bill Gates got because I am sure my idea would cost mega bucks?

In my opinion he is doing a damn good job of using his wealth for good and I can't understand the criticism of him.

I think he’s done well to focus on some significant global issues where his wealth can make a substantial input to achieve change. Although he’s phenomenally wealthy there’s still only so far that wealth takes you directly - the ability to leverage the resources of others and achieve wider change to practice and behaviours is really important.

I'd probably ask Bill and Melinda to advise me. No individual fortune is going to be enough to right all wrongs and I think that their approach of looking for something that they could do which would have a global benefit - ie trying to eradicate malaria - was pretty inspired. Personally I think that this approach is the opposite of megalomania but an acceptance of all the things that they couldn't do and then settling on one that they could. I don't necessarily admire some of what he has done in his business career but I really do respect the pair of them enormously for what they have done as philanthropists.

I'd set up a newspaper (online content included) to rival the Daily Mail. I'd ask my journalists to publish information and photos on the Daily Mail journalists - actually no - their managers - who oversee sexist and bullying content. Give them a taste of their own medicine.

I think that might make you into a big target, Pamela, but full credit for having brass ovaries.

I am struggling to think of much I'd differently from what Gates has done, too. Maybe a bit more micro-targeting of small businesses (micro loans, even). Maybe more initiatives targeted at children uner 10 yrs old (which malaria cure obviously is, tbf). Also more on sanitation. Improving sanitation and cleaning up environmental pollution can do a huge amount to improve absolutely everything else about the human condition.

Plant lots of forests - proper mixed native tree species appropriate to the bioregion, not sitka spruce plantations, which are biologically dead monoculture zones.

Rewild the grasslands and prairies and put the herbivores like buffalo and bison back on them. Rotational mob grazing has huge carbon sequestration potential... when the Americas were discovered, the prairies were up to sixteen feet deep with carbon rich topsoil. By the 1930's there were largely dustbowls across the land, due to soil erosion from generations of agriculture for wheat, corn and soya. Pea-protein artificial meat burgers is not going to put the carbon back into the soil... grazing herbivores are an essential part of grassland ecology on all continents that directly affects the relative amounts of carbon cycling between the biosphere and the atmosphere.

Educate girls. Educate girls. Educate girls. Even girls who have just enough literacy and education to graduate from primary/middle school have enough autonomy to decide how many children to have when they come to get married. Education gives them confidence, choices, security and self-determination.

Small business loans for young women to follow on from the above.

Bursaries and scholarships for things like medicine/nursing/law etc.

Ditto contraception.

Long distance cycle ways between cities.

When CJ is asked this by a Bill Gates-esque character in the West Wing she says she would build highways and toilets. I am generally happy to defer to CJ on most important decisions. Although climate change wasn't such a priority then so perhaps if it were written now she may have said something about that?