When someone gets sick they don't just die, they are sick and requiring assistance from others for sometimes long periods of time. This might make the potential productivity of these places higher. I guess the new problem is finding them something productive to do.
I love this community. I had the exact same question, and couldn't decide if I would be judged as callous for posting it. Here, i find the question posted, and to great replies. Thanks!
No, you're not callous. You are just damn ignorant. What you need is a little compassion and try to imagine if you are that poor person and that you mom now gets sick and now try to think should she die just because there's no cheap vaccine ,should she die so that she can sacrifice herself and you can be productive writing your damn programs because you don't need to take care of her. Think About it. Think about it in these people's shoes. They are human beings like you and me. Their sufferings are real. You're saying you can't feel this in your heart? just because you're born in a rich country and all the resources? Yeah, you need to get out of your little world and try to understand not everyone is as lucky as you. And they deserve EVERYTHING you deserve. They shouldn't just die.
I disagree, simply saving someone's life from a sickness doesn't matter, if they die from starvation because there is not enough food in the country.
It is exactly like marciovm123 says, "This sort of spending tugs at the heart strings but unfortunately it can actually be quite counter-productive at improving the lives of people in undeveloped regions."
If a country is really that badly off, what difference does it make if we save people from one form of suffering only to have them be subjected to a different form. I agree with some of the above statements that the money would be better spent developing the infrastructure of 3rd world countries, rather than trying to solve a more isolated problem. Simply making vaccines cheaper is treating a symptom and not the problem itself.
>I disagree, simply saving someone's life from a sickness doesn't matter, if they die from starvation because there is not enough food in the country.
It would matter to me if someone saved my life from sickness, even if I did die of starvation shortly afterwards.
>If a country is really that badly off, what difference does it make if we save people from one form of suffering only to have them be subjected to a different form
I don't understand. By that logic, action is only worthwhile if there is exactly one form of suffering. Surely that can't be right.
>It would matter to me if someone saved my life from sickness, even if I did die of starvation shortly afterwards.
I'm not sure if the money would stretch this far, but what if instead of saving you, the money was spent developing the country in a way that would save 10x more people. Looking at this problem from a personal perspective gets in the way of doing the most good for the most number of people.
>I don't understand. By that logic, action is only worthwhile if there is exactly one form of suffering. Surely that can't be right.
Or action is worthwhile if it treats multiple forms, which I believe infrastructure development would do.
Perhaps I'm wrong and vaccination is the first step in the path to pull the countries out of poverty.
A fallacious argument. There might also be starvation, but in cases where sickness is the main risk to life then health and subsequent economic productivity outweighs the cost of delivering vaccine. Sure, poor populations are sometimes hit with multiple problems at once, but that doesn't mean all mitigation efforts are futile.
I never said that all mitigation efforts are futile, only that I think the money could be better spent helping poor countries in other ways. Like I said, I think treating disease is a treating a symptom, instead of trying to treat the main problem.
But as I said, I could be wrong. Either ways, props to Gates for trying to help out.
I think 3rd world aid could do with a lot less "imagining" and more hard facts about causes and effects. I am not saying "don't help them", but I think it is naive to think to just give them things or money would make things fine. More likely than not they are poor because they are being exploited and suppressed. Who knows, maybe some dictator will just take all the vaccine shipments and sell them to another country. (Granted, I am imagining here, too).
You've misunderstood Matt. When he says "This may increase productivity..." he means vaccines preventing disease will increase productivity, not that his mothers death will increase productivity. He assumes people will take care of their mothers and thus lower their productivity.
He's making the same point. This is why you will probably be down voted.
how does the productivity of a place increase if someone previously doing something productive is now forced to stop doing that to spend time and resources taking care of someone else?
