No.07
CA: I mean, you do the math on this, and it works out, I think, literally to thousands of kids’ lives saved every day compared to the prior year. It’s not reported. An airliner with 200-plus deaths is a far, far bigger story than that. Does that drive you crazy?
BG: Yeah, because it’s a silent thing going on. It’s a kid, one kid at a time. Ninety-eight percent of this has nothing to do with natural disasters, and yet, people’s charity, when they see a natural disaster, are wonderful. It’s incredible how people think, okay, that could be me, and the money flows. These causes have been a bit invisible. Now that the Millennium Development Goals and various things are getting out there, we are seeing some increased generosity, so the goal is to get this well below a million, which should be possible in our lifetime.
CA: Maybe it needed someone who is turned on by numbers and graphs rather than just the big, sad face to get engaged. I mean, you’ve used it in your letter this year, you used basically this argument to say that aid, contrary to the current meme that aid is kind of worthless and broken, that actually it has been effective.
BG: Yeah, well people can take, there is some aid that was well-meaning and didn’t go well. There’s some venture capital investments that were well-meaning and didn’t go well. You shouldn’t just say, okay, because of that, because we don’t have a perfect record, this is a bad endeavor. You should look at, what was your goal? How are you trying to uplift nutrition and survival and literacy so these countries can take care of themselves, and say wow, this is going well, and be smarter. We can spend aid smarter. It is not all a panacea. We can do better than venture capital, I think, including big hits like this.
ボキャブラリー
CA: I mean, you do the math on this, and it works out, I think, literally to thousands of kids’ lives saved every day compared to the prior year. It’s not reported. An airliner with 200-plus deaths is a far, far bigger story than that. Does that drive you crazy?
BG: Yeah, because it’s a silent thing going on. It’s a kid, one kid at a time. Ninety-eight percent of this has nothing to do with natural disasters, and yet, people’s charity, when they see a natural disaster, are wonderful. It’s incredible how people think, okay, that could be me, and the money flows. These causes have been a bit invisible. Now that the Millennium Development Goals and various things are getting out there, we are seeing some increased generosity, so the goal is to get this well below a million, which should be possible in our lifetime.
CA: Maybe it needed someone who is turned on by numbers and graphs rather than just the big, sad face to get engaged. I mean, you’ve used it in your letter this year, you used basically this argument to say that aid, contrary to the current meme that aid is kind of worthless and broken, that actually it has been effective.
BG: Yeah, well people can take, there is some aid that was well-meaning and didn’t go well. There’s some venture capital investments that were well-meaning and didn’t go well. You shouldn’t just say, okay, because of that, because we don’t have a perfect record, this is a bad endeavor. You should look at, what was your goal? How are you trying to uplift nutrition and survival and literacy so these countries can take care of themselves, and say wow, this is going well, and be smarter. We can spend aid smarter. It is not all a panacea. We can do better than venture capital, I think, including big hits like this.
do the math: 計算する
work out: うまくいく、いい結果が出る、良い結果となる
literally: adv. 文字通り、まったく、実質的に
prior: a. （時間・順序が）前の、先の；事前の（通達・承認など）
airliner: n. 定期旅客機、旅客機、定期航空便、民間航空機
crazy: a. 怒った、イライラした
have nothing to do with ~: 〜と関係[関連」がない、〜とは没交渉である
natural disaster: 自然災害、天災、不可抗力
and yet: それなのに、それにもかかわらず、なおかつ
charity: n. 慈善行為、チャリティ、義援金、援助物資、施し
the Millennium Development Goals：ミレニアム開発目標。（国際社会が 2015 年までに達成すべき，目標数値を伴った開発目標。国際連合ミレニアム宣言と主要な国際開発目標を統合したもの。貧困の撲滅，初等教育の達成，男女平等の推進，疾病との闘い，環境の持続可能性確保などの 8 項目を目標とする。）
generosity: n. 寛容さ、気前の良さ、寛大さ、惜しみなさ
well: adv. かなり
engage: vt. 引きつける
contrary to ~ : 〜に反する
meme: n. ミーム〈遺伝子によらず、模倣によって人から人へと伝えらえる情報の単位。イギリスのオックスフォード大学の動物行動学者リチャード・ドーキンス(Richard Dawkins)が1976年に著した『利己的な遺伝子』(The Selfish Gene) で提唱した言葉で、ギリシャ語のmimeme（模倣する）とgene（遺伝子）掛け合わせている。〉
aid: n. 援助、救済、補助、助成
well-meaning: a. 善意の、悪気はない
venture capital: ベンチャー・キャピタル（ベンチャービジネスに投資する会社またはその資本）
investment: n. 投資、出資、投資金
endeavor: n. 努力、試み、企て
uplift: vt. 持ち上げる、上昇させる、高揚させる、向上させる
survival: n. 生存、生き残ること、存続
literacy: n. 読み書きの能力。ある分野に関する知識やそれを活用する能力
panacea: n. 万能薬(cure-all)、万能の解決法
big hit: 大当たり、ヒット商品
解説
ビル・ゲイツのように若い頃から自由な発想をする習慣を付けている人間は、既存の教育による発想に頼らず、新しいものにチャレンジし新しい方法を生み出す、それと同時に現れる問題点を解決するという発想が身についているようです。日本の受験のように決まった答えがある（自分には関係ない）問題を解く練習をするより、自分が決めた道でその都度出会う障害を越えていくという発想で生きていくことのほうが楽しいですね。
