Why doesn't Bill Gates just buy Autism Speaks?

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He is probably on the spectrum and very rich.

Rich yes but nothing I observed while contracting at Microsoft lent the impression of being preordained by one of us. If he is in fact on the autism spectrum, his philanthropic interests aren't really about public relations or domestic matters. Not that I would mind if the world's largest 501c3 took A$ over by force.

As a technology insider I find this perception pretty tiring - it pushes everyone's expectations of both aspies and technologists ever higher and somehow lends the impression that those in both aforementioned groups must have it so good. Armchair diagnoses are one thing, armchair socioeconomic op-ed guesswork is quite another.

Well, mostly because he's not an idiot.

He is a baby boomer so if he is autistic he comes from a generation where business leaders admitting human frailties is looked down upon. Or may he does not want to propagate the Bill Gates aspie stereotype.

Why should he?

Maybe he's smart enough to know that Autism Speaks is not a worthwhile investment ...

In behalf of his tax-exempt foundation, Bill Gates once said "The world today has 6.8 billion people. That's heading up to about 9 billion. Now, if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services ... we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent" ( http://www.disinfo.com/2010/03/bill-gat ... h-vaccines ).

The "that" he is talking about is, of course, people.

His illegal testing on children in India ( http://www.globalresearch.ca/bill-gates ... es/5407864 ) has earned him a law suit from that nation (something I believe is closer to crimes against humanity).

If you think the Wrights were bad for the popular image of autism, think again about Gates.

He stole DOS and his own OS backbone is called NT. His company destroyed the economy of a whole city in Finland (Espoo) when they commandeered Nokia. Microsoft routinely kills off its' absolute most versatile, innovative product lines in favor of glitzy gimmickry and shady, materially wasteful hardware lockdowns (UEFI "secure" bootloaders). Bill is head to toe the stereotypical Lexus owner.

Bill is a creative individual who marches to his own drummer. He may or may not be on the Spectrum, and either way is perfectly okay.

He's Bill Gates. He can buy what he wants.

From what I have read, the Gates Foundation has really tried to be right down the middle in terms of public health.

I mean, we could look at testing in my own country the good 'ol USA, and the influence of big Pharma. And in general, the media doesn't cover public health, doesn't cover corporate misconduct unless it kind of becomes the requisite story of the day, but they don't dig deeper, they don't look for similar things which have become common practice.

For example on the public health angle, oral rehydration solution and preventing dehydration when a child has diarrhea or really for anyone, this should be basic first aid information and it's really a public health miracle over the last twenty years or so, but I guess it's kind of boring stuff and no one really covers it.

Or, have things improved that much since Nestle Corp. was boycotted in the 70s for various slick and crafty ways of marketing infant formula? Well, seems like a hell of an interesting question, and there should be a periodic news story on this. I have looked and found a couple, but not many.

I remember the Gates Foundation helped to finance a quicker test for tuberculosis in AIDS patients which also tests for whether that particular TB bacteria is drug-resistant. And I'll try and find a link for that.

I am strongly anti-corporate, and in many ways I'm anti-establishment. If I say the Gates Foundation is probably better than average, it might sound like I'm excusing them. But I don't mean it that way. I mean we need to keep doing the work when we can, which might only be every so often and that's okay, of very realistically making the world a better place.