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I always forget Gates is one of the elite. Then I remember how ruthless and savage he was in the 80s.
Then I remember.
80s, 90s, and a few years into early 2000s. Gates ruthlessness lasted decades, destroyed many businesses and lives, and is mostly whitewashed thanks to his philanthropic efforts and a few reddit amas and some secret santa participation
Not to mention the destruction he did to computing as a whole. The nightmare of proprietary bullshit is something that he did not architect but he pushed heavily and lobbied for constantly. He had the position to push for interoperability from an early stake in computing, to set the stage for computers to have a strong precedent to work together. Instead he and microsoft made every effort to work against open standards. They would adopt open standards and extend them with proprietary extensions to intentionally ruin them. A lot of what is infuriating about modern tech can be traced back to precedent that microsoft set at his direction
Reminder despite every donation he has made his net worth is higher now than it ever was and this has essentially always been the case. His philanthropy, while objectively good, is a measured pr effort that does not impact his overall obscene wealth and basically never has
He's still pushing 'intellectual property' as part of his philanthropy. The creators of the Oxford vaccine wanted to open source it and give it away for free. Gates opposed that and he got his way (partly because of the influence of the Gates Foundation). The delays this caused probably killed millions of extra people in the Global South (not sure if anyone ever did the maths on this).
Not shocking to hear, he’s a scumbag at heart. But now if you say that people will be like “uhhh how can you say that he’s donated so much money”
Then when you point out he’s donated literally 0% of his overall current net worth, his past (and current, apparently) behavior has arguably as much humanity if not more than he has offset, etc you’ll get whataboutism. “What have you done??”
I don’t want philanthropy to be contingent on the whims of billionaires. Gates has done a lot but it still has major issues, there is no real transparency, and it’s still authoritatively controlled because he has a great deal of influence over his foundation. The even bigger issue is that he is by far the exception. Other billionaires donate minimally only to maximize tax benefits and only to issues they have been personally impacted by.
The other day I was with people who were watching a football game. The eagles won and I asked why the owner gets to speak first at the trophy ceremony, let alone at all, given it was the teams effort. This led to a whole discussion but one thing that came up was how he donates so much money to autism research because he has a grandson with autism. This was meant to appeal to me because I have a background working in autism research and I work with people with autism a lot.
all I could think is “how fucked up is it that we have to hope that an obscenely rich person personally experiences the issue for them to decide to bequeath funding?” This inherently means that things with a much higher rate of prevalence, like autism (1 in 36, roughly) or dementia (prevalence varies widely by age range (2% to 13%) but ~10 million cases per year), will get tons of money. But what about far less common things? I’ve worked with people who have extremely rare conditions. Angelmans syndrome, prader willi, chromosomal deletions, (rates of 1-2 per 10,000) or extremely rare things like hellers syndrome (rates of 1-2 per 100,000).
This is why we fund things like NIMH, so that money can be fairly dispersed to ensure that all things are researched. Teams of people research what needs to be researched. This isn’t even just about equity; sometimes researching lesser known disorders leads to discoveries that are applicable in a broader context
But instead we let a few oligarchs hoard money. Most of them don’t bother to fund this stuff at all and they few that do only bother to do so when it’s something personally relevant to them. We have no say in the matter.
The biggest argument against philanthropy is that they get to deduct it from their taxes, so instead of us as a society collectively deciding what to do with that money (provided you had a working democracy, of course), the billionaire gets to decide that. And some of that philanthropy money actually goes to causes that further undermine democracy. Just because something is a charity doesn't mean it does good. You can deduct donations to the federalist society or the heritage foundation, for example.
I mean, if he means any of what he said here then we could use some of that right about now.
And how he fought tooth and nail against generic versions of the covid vaccines being allowed, likely leading to thousands if not millions of deaths and many more getting sick in poorer countries where most people can't afford name brand drugs.
Mr Gates actually has some power to do something about the crazyness and shittines of the world we live right now.
I don't discredit his philanthropic work, some of the things he does is actually good, neither that he calls out the insanity, any sane person should do, but, and this but is as huge as the Titanic, Mr Gates, is able to do something about it, and has been for a long time before shit hit the fan tbh, actions speak louder than words, specially the lack of action lmao.
If Mr Gates really feel this way, he should do something about it, he has the money.
Money's great and all, but where exactly would his spending help right now?
Trump's brown-nosing billionaires have trillions between them, let alone foreign governments actively supporting the destabilisation of the western world.
The far-right has the market cornered on information & infrastructure control currently. Even Gates' would struggle using his money to influence any meaningful change. It's depressing.
Attacking their fragile egos of Nazis... Now that's free and plentiful.
And if he starts meddling in politics he would just prove the nut jobs right. Nothing would change since the people that need convincing already believe he is pulling strings. They would vote for Trump either way.
Maybe it's no coincidence that Twitter has been pushing all the "Bill Gates Microchip Vaccines" lunatics over the last few years, in order to discredit a rival.
He actually does:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gates_Foundation
Meanwhile Muskyboi donates mostly to organizations that align with his business interests, such as those doing AI and STEM stuff:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musk_Foundation
Nosferatu says Dracula has gone too far
I feel like it's the other way around.
Dracula can at least fit into polite society.
Count Chocula is my buddy
Every single billionaire is a policy failure. By hoarding that much wealth, they are literally bad people. But that doesn't mean they can't do good things, or even give away what they don't need, like the ex-billionaire Charles Feeney who redeemed himself and donated most of his billions, anonymously.
I have to question the judgement of Bill Gates when he calls Musk "super-smart". Maybe if Musk started out with no money, that would be fair in some sense. I think he was just lucky and unencumbered by ethics or self-doubt.
Maybe if Musk started out with no money, that would be fair in some sense.
Why is this american obsession on weighting the value of men with the money they made? Musk is an idiot regardless of his money or how he made it.
I'm not sure what you mean. I'm not American, and I don't place much value on enormous wealth accumulation. I'm just acknowledging that there is a difference between gaining enormous wealth with a hefty leg up from family wealth versus doing it from scratch, like growing up in poverty for example.
You can't become the richest man in the world and the most powerful billionaire in the world by accident, even if you start with a golden spoon. Most millionaire child will just spend the rest of their life being spoiled and unconcerned with the world, very very few spend their money helping others and building society, but him? He spend his time and money resurrecting nazi and making those dystopian scifi real. That's some insane dedication right there. Smart or not, dude is dangerous.
I think he is dedicated, dangerous and awful. I just don't think he is smart. I've known people who achieved wealth, started successful businesses etc. They had domain expertise and ambition. But they also neglected and fucked up other critical aspects of their lives (like their relationships with partners and kids). I didn't consider them to be smart. In my mind, smart implies a well roundedness, and the capacity for self reflection, and empathy. Musk just has the personality traits, and family wealth, to enable him to "succeed" in our current society.
Bill Gates has also been riding an unearned “genius” appellation for decades. He didn’t make DOS. (His charitable work on vaccination is also questionable - iirc there were concerns over intellectual property rights)
The tide is turning against billionaires, and he’s just recognizing that Musk is making them all look bad.
The insane shit is probably Musk's obsession with trying to impress gamers with his (pretend) gaming skills. Having characters in Diablo 4 or PoE2 being clearly played by other people, while acting like this is his work alone.
If he's so desperate to impress about something as inconsequential as gaming, what kind of lies is he saying about everything else ...
I for one wouldn't rule out that, when Musk talks about working 12-hour days, what he really does is to let others work, while he sits on his ass tweeting and playing video games like the pathetic fraud that he is.
philanthropist
If he was one, he wouldn't be a billionaire
Meanwhile Microsoft is assisting the fascist state of Israel in genocide.
One oligarch calls out another for brownie points with the public
I'll not trust Gates anyway
Gates is a "lesser evil" billionaire but he advocated not to revoke the patents on Covid-19 vaccines during the height of the pandemic. I understand the need for innovation, but screw him for still being greedy in the face of immediate crisis. He is two-faced nonetheless.
yeah he's so good... at fucking up the education system. seriously fuck this guy and his wife for what they did in the name of so-called education reform, he's just like the rest of them thinking just because he made a lot of money gaming the system he suddenly knows so much about everything. and fuck the united states for allowing these maniacs completely shape the country however they want.
I thought it was foolish that they allowed gates to do education reform, but then I thought it was insane they allowed reelon the troglodyte to make tunnels for his fucking explody cars. but that wasn't enough apparently so now they give him the keys to the entire kingdom.
un-fucking-believable.
Pistols at dawn. One less billionaire either way.
Actually we have a hydra situation here. There would be more billionaires if any of them died.
It's not insane at all. It sucks but it's completely logical. Musk is just protecting his capital as best he can within a global capitalist system.
It's like corporate "greedflation" during Covid. Of course they jacked up prices and lied about wholesale costs, thereby wildly inflating profits, because profit motives are what drive our world.
Bill Gates is equally responsible for perpetuating wealth inequality
Bill Gates’ foundation also donated money strategically in European countries putatively with the goal of influencing politics
Yeah, no Billie. You've caused enough shit with Microsoft, making yourself a billionaire. you don't get to play the good guy now all of the sudden.
Bill Gates really doesn’t want to get eaten. Remember he is not one of us, he is one of them.
Right thing for the wrong reasons is still the right thing. We've got bigger fish to fry than him.
For now.
This is exactly what he wants, for you to see him as a good guy billionaire. There’s no such thing. He is one of them not one of us, this is just PR and lip service
If this is a tactical move purely for selfish reasons, its not a good one considering the power Musk now wields. I think this is genuine from Gates. Saying it out loud maybe is a degree of performance, but I think he likely legitimately finds Musk's fascist support a morally bad thing.
Assuming all billionaires are constantly playing some kind of 4D chess game is just as bad being overly charitable when a billionaire says or does something that could be seen as good. Remember, Elon Musk has put himself in the spotlight constantly despite it often times hurting him financially, his desire to be liked/beloved as a genius is also genuine its just fueling frequently terrible decisions.
That said, Gates is still an egotist and obviously pretty conventionally selfish (at what I'd describe as a pretty human level, if an average joe/jane came to have billions of dollars they'd probably treat the money in similar ways as Gates). Gates doesn't deserve his wealth and Gates is no genius either, I just don't think hes a fascist or a sociopath like Musk is.