Weird. I was polite, didn't insult the poster I replied to above and provided sources of evidence and my suppositions based upon said evidence.
Instead of simply downvoting me and nothing more, I would've expected other posters here to challenge my sources of evidence here at Hacker News.
Frankly, I thought most of Hackers News was better than this. I hope I'm proven right about Hacker News over time and some start backing up their downvotes with some of their own sources of evidence, etc. that disputes my own instead of simply downvoting a post they don't agree with.
You give HN too much credit. It was never a utopia, and is even less so now than 6 years ago.
That said, your parent comment isn't really a model of a great comment, either. Probably the current best example for that would be tokenadult (http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=tokenadult). He doesn't just dump a pile of links on us with a summary; he puts together very well-composed mini-essays that make individual points, backs up those points with references, and then puts it all together into a cogent conclusion.
You've made two really big claims that are difficult to believe: that Gates has been a net drain on society, and that he has cost the world "trillions" -- a significant portion of the US GDP. That is a lot of money. I quick-skimmed a few of your links and I don't see anything like that in them, mostly just complaints that the Gates Foundation isn't working the way the authors want it to.
Assume that we're all busy here and aren't inclined to sift through a breadcrumb trail of a couple dozen articles around the web to puzzle out how you've come to your conclusion.
There's a much more complete breakdown that's being worked on by a group of others and myself. In the meantime, I just throw some of these sources of evidence out there and quick summaries in various forums for those who are willing to initiate some of their own investigation/research.
So far, it's helped to bring a few more people onboard to help.
That said, I agree with your points that links to sources of evidence may be too challenging or time consuming for some and that's basically why the project was initiated.
>I quick-skimmed a few of your links
I think if you explore some more you'll come to see my points.
Instead of simply downvoting me and nothing more, I would've expected other posters here to challenge my sources of evidence here at Hacker News.
Frankly, I thought most of Hackers News was better than this. I hope I'm proven right about Hacker News over time and some start backing up their downvotes with some of their own sources of evidence, etc. that disputes my own instead of simply downvoting a post they don't agree with.