Bill Gates Did A Reddit AMA; Here’s Everything We Learned
There's a good chance Bill Gates just foretold the apocalypse.
There are many, many reasons to listen to what Bill Gates has to say.
As co-founder and long-time CEO of Microsoft, he has an enormous amount of knowledge about and influence in the tech industry. As one of the world’s richest people, he probably has one or two worthwhile tips about business. And as a renowned philanthropist, he’s currently working on a load of interesting causes and campaigns to help those who are less fortunate than himself (read: everyone).
Now, to harness all that excellence, Reddit invited him to hold another AMA yesterday — you can check out his first one over here. It was predictably very, very good; though still not quite as satisfying as the GIF he used to introduce himself.
Here are a few things we learned from trawling through the full thing.
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Poop Is The Future Of Everything
In case you missed the news earlier this month, we can now make water from human poop. Look, here’s a video of Bill Gates drinking some. Hooray! What delicious turd water!
This actually incredible and revolutionary feat is made possible thanks to The Janicki Omnipressor — a new machine which has been championed by Gates himself. With the potential to turn human waste into electricity and clean water, there’s no doubt of the enormous benefits this thing has for the developing world.
But, when you put videos of yourself drinking poo on the internet and then ask everyone to quiz you, you’re bound to get a few follow-up questions.
FIVE YEARS. Five years until dozens of cities — and their millions of citizens — will be drinking poop water. And, there’s a good chance it could catch on even sooner. This week, a group out of Portland announced their intention to make a poo-based homebrew.
We’ll cheers to that.
“That’s water!”
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There Are A Bunch Of Things Unrelated To Poo We Should Also Be Paying Attention To
Bill and his wife Melinda are well known for their incredible philanthropic work, and this latest AMA has been timed to coincide with the publication of their latest annual letter to the public. They also translated it into handy, if not somewhat creepy, claymation form for you.
In his AMA, Gates discussed much of this work pointing out in particular how far the world has come with vaccinations:
And how far it still has to go:
He then also took a swing at the problems first-world nations should be looking at on a domestic level. Ping: climate change.
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Yes, Robots Will Probably Be The End Of Us
Basically, if one of the most knowledgable tech leaders in the world is to be believed, the future is going to be full of increasingly intelligent mechanical beings who will slowly take over our personal lives and then all of our jobs.
And we should be very concerned about what happens next.
Yeah. So. Thanks for that, Bill. I’m really glad I learned that humanity is basically fucked via a thread on Reddit.
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He Is Suspiciously Similar To A Normal Human
Because you deserve a little bit of a pick-me-up after the bombshell that we’re probably all going to be become enslaved/eradicated entirely by beings not dissimilar from those seen in 1980s sci-fi, here are some comforting little facts we learned about Bill Gates that make him reassuringly fallible.
He doesn’t know everything!
If it weren’t for that silly private jet, he’d be just like you!
He ages!
He stays up late when he shouldn’t!
He spills BBQ sauce all over himself!
He has a dog called Oreo!
CHEESE SPREAD!
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FYI these are Bill Gates’ dogs Oreo and Nilla. Stare into their eyes and let the fact that we’re going to die at the hands of our robot overlords slowly drift away from you.
NILLA, HALP.
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Read the full AMA here.