So I just read Bill Gates’ 1976 Open Letter To Hobbyists, in which he whines about not making more money from his software. You know, instead of being proud of making software that people wanted to use. And then the bastard went on and made proprietary licences for software the industry standard, holding back innovation and freedom for decades. What a douche canoe.
Gates hides behind his psychopathic greed and thirst for maniacal influence and power behind charity, what few people know is that the Bill’s foundation is an excellent exercise of venture philanthropy, where seeking profits comes first over everything else, at the expense of you know, philanthropy. They admit this.
It is something a lot of billionaires do, the Zuck has one, many do. They are not charities at all, in the practical sense but they are tax shelters. Gates will say that he has no day to day control, but he does help lean it where he wants it to go, plus you know who does by proxy and by earmarking the major donations? The Gates and Melinda Trust Fund. Who controls that? Bill and Melinda Gates and until a few years ago, also Buffet.
Bill is smart. He wants to make a shitload of money on vaccine tech? Sure, have the foundation give earmarked donations to the WHO that can only be used for that, then GABI, his other arm of the foundation can serve as the middle man for that cash. That’s before he invested hundreds of millions in big pharma and then what? = Profit. He does the same on education? = Profit. He pushed fake meat, invest a bit on it --relatively speaking to him-- and then, on the side, becomes the largest if not second largest farm land owner in the USA who then leases that land back to farmers. = Profit.
How come most people do not know most of this, because he also “donates” hundreds of millions to big media, you know, out the kindness of his heart. You know, so why would they report or say or rpeort anything negative of the guy? Quite the opposite. Remember Covid, why is a billionare on the news telling you what to do? Why him? Why any billionaire? Luckily, the link below tells us who they bribe, I mean, help with generous donations to their yearly budgets. And this is a couple of year old but the trend continues.
Revealed: Documents Show Bill Gates Has Given $319 Million to Media Outlets](https://www.mintpressnews.com/documents-show-bill-gates-has-given-319-million-to-media-outlets/278943/)
You question any of this? How dare you you? You bigot, conspiracy theorist! Admittedly, that narrative keeps most people from looking at his BS critically.
Hey, remember when people cared about the environment? Nah, Gates said that we have to focus on Energy production instead now. Wait the guy who is now heavily investing billikns in AI and power hungry data centers wants more energy? You don’t say!
https://www.gatesnotes.com/home/home-page-topic/reader/three-tough-truths-about-climate
Luckily for us he already had created a seeding/funding program where such initiatives will be invested on and much profit will be had on this exact front, and most will fall for it, because they always do.
He’s missing out on his redemption arc. But I doubt if put in his shoes that anyone would pass up the opportunity he had.
All billionaires are horrible humans and parasitic to all of humanity
The most lemmy take ever
yeah, but on the other hand, he fucked up the entire reduction system in the US.
My PC repair teacher hated Gates. The first story he told us about him was about how he essentially obtained DOS for a literal pittance, turned a massive profit on it, and never credited the original creators.
I might’ve skewed the story over the years of trying to keep it in my memory, but if I did it just goes to show how much I hate Bill Gates.
Nah you about got it.
Obviously Bill Gates is a household name and in the tech community everyone knows who is Steve Ballmer. However not many people know who Paul Allen is even though he was one of the founder of Microsoft at the very start. In 1982 Paul Allen was diagnosed with cancer and Bill and Steve were worried that if Paul died the shares of the company would go to someone else along with control of the company. While Paul was literally getting cancer treatment, Bill and Steve were scheming to dilute the shares of the company to wrestle the control of the company away from Paul. Fortunately for Paul he survived the cancer. It really doesn’t put Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer in very good light though. I remember reading about this from Robert X. Cringely’s blog about two decades ago and I heard Paul Allen wrote about his version of this story in his memoir before his death.
Edit: I tried to find the original Robert X. Cringely’s story from back in 2006 but looks like that link is broken but he did referenced it in 2011 when Paul Allen’s book was released.
Paul Allen got great cards.
Most people are.
Sounds like you need to keep better company
It’s a continuum, of course, like everything. Most people sit somewhere in the middle, with a few people defining the extremes.
No, most people are not horrible.
I doubt you actually believe this, at least if we are understanding the words as written.
Just based on the website we are talking on, I am going to assume we have a few shared moral similarities, at least at a glance.
We think murder, rape, discrimination based on inalienable traits, domestic abuse, religious fanaticism, theft outside of exceptions are wrong.
If we start going down even that quickly thought up list, and just look at surveys from groups throughout the world, we start chunking massive percentages of people off of our “good” list very quickly.
These are nowhere near exact numbers because the point isn’t about any specific one of these, but about disqualifying behaviours and points of view.
Most people don’t murder, but many support it. Let’s just say we are only thinking about people who will murder at some point in their lives, and guesstimate that at 1% off the list.
99% good
Most people don’t rape… or do they? How many third world or religiously fanatic nations treat rape as standard, within marriages, on people of lower status, etc.
Even in western nations, the numbers of people who are sexually assaulted by people they know are more like 1 in [single digit number], and then further surveys always reveal that there is probably significant under-reporting going on, with many people unable to believe they were raped, told to be silent, and who ultimately rationalize away the event.
Now you go to countries with religious fanaticism, and many if not most condone rape in some fashion, especially spousal rape.
I would estimate, that the amount of people who rape, extremely roughly guesstimating, is around 1/10th the population, if not higher.
Some will overlap with the murderers of course, but this is just a thought experiment, and I already think this guess is on the low side, so lets move on.
89% good
Discrimination is where we start chunking hard. Even if you try to be charitable here, surveys show that even within western countries many are ok with and regularly discriminate against people for their inalienable traits. You go to poorer countries or countries with less stable situations and this gets even worse.
Lets just guesstimate that of the non overlaps, this takes 3/10 off the list, giving quite a bit of leeway to people with less blatant instances.
59% good
I could keep going but I hope you see the point I am making here and why I think that if just about anyone here sat down and truly pieced together what the average person was like, with whatever their personal list of disqualifiers from being a good person were, they would quickly come to the conclusion, that most people are not good, and could easily come to the conclusion that many were horrible, depending on what horrible meant in that context. Horrible doesn’t have to be saved for only hitler just because its not used for someone who steals a candy bar.
It depends on your definition of horrible. Mine is quite broad.
People are shaped by the conditions which they are subjected to. Currently, those conditions promote endless greed and exploitation as a way and means of life, and give out huge advantages to anyone willing and able to perpetrate them at scale.
Speaking for yourself it would seem
Also, the only reason they were successful at all was his mom was on the IBM board and got IBM to support their shit.
Cool, you’re taking life lessons from a 21 year old…
He’s still the same sociopath as always, except now with a savior complex. Giving away all his money, is he? His foundation has been around 25 years and he still has $100b+ net worth. A single individual shouldn’t have that much power, and the fact that he still voluntarily wields it while virtue signaling affirms every negative opinion of him. Even if he were the benevolent billionaire his PR campaign would have us believe he is, such a net worth should be reserved for governments where it’s spread across multiple agencies that have checks and balances and are accountable to voters. I don’t trust any individual with that much power, though I’d trust any random person off the street over anyone ruthless enough to become a billionaire.
I remember reading somewhere that his foundation was all a massive tax avoidance scheme. It was quite a compelling argument when broken down. I wish I could find it again.
Simply follow the big money. He’s got more net worth now than when he said he would start donating.
Idk who these ppl are even donating to, never benefits my life, wherever they go its not benefiting the ppl they took the money from, some third world country if that
He’s also a thief of course, as that’s the only way to become a billionaire.
Yup. He stole a bunch of ideas and code, then got upset that people were stealing his ideas and code. Do as I say, not as I do.
Wait… You’re telling me that people born into extreme privilege and wealth turn out to be self-aggrandizing, egotistical, sociopaths who drastically over-estimate their own importance and contribution to society?
My world view is shook!
His wife left him when she found out he’s in the Epstein files. Because Bill Gates rapes children.
That is exactly how it looks. The timing is correct. I can imagine the argument, although, they might not have loved each other enough to even argue about it by that point.
If I was a billionaire looking to make waves, I’d release a memoir upon my death bed, admitting to the kid rapey cabal. Nothing to lose. Hi Bill.
Honestly, I wouldn’t put it past him.
Not to say he’s a good person, but contrary to most billionaires, he
- actually contributed some technical know-how in building his fortune (still, billionaires should not exist)
- did not rape children (as far as we know so far)
Furthermore, he’s long gone from Microsoft, so I think your ire is better directed at Satya Nadella and similar totalitarian elitist pieces of shit
Well, not raping children is kind of a low bar. But didn’t he lobby Astra Zeneca not to open source the covid vaccine, because he has a stake there? Humanist my ass. Edit: someone already pointed this out already, I ought to read the thread before posting.
Also largest owner of arable farmland in the US
it is a low bar, but one that a majority of oligarchs fail to clear these days
Melinda Gates divorced him because he was fucking around.
To be clear - while I do consider it likely that it was as the other reply to your comment suggests - I won’t judge a stranger for cheating on their spouse as long as it is consensual and they don’t expose anyone (e.g. their spouse) to a risk of STDs
If it’s explicitly consensual then it’s not cheating because you are not breaking any understood rules of the relationship.
I meant consensual whatever sexual or non sexual act they are cheating with, i.e. not rape or sexual abuse etc. In that case I don’t judge people without knowing what their reasons are for cheating.
She divorced him because he was best friends with Jeffery Epstein. They had DEEP connections
She divorced him because it became clear he was a regular on Epstein’s island.
Unfortunately it does look like he, too, was involved in this kabal. Even though we don’t know for sure, there’s not much point in assuming innocence, even though I won’t consider him a pedo-criminal until I see some more evidence.
nothing unfortunate about him going except for the victims. Fuck his reputation with regular people, let rich people think hes a good guy
The guy is on the Epstein list and his wife left him because he was too friendly to the guy…
He also fucked over our public education system
He was friends with Jeffrey Epstein after he was convicted for child abuse. Bill Gates is just an awful awful billionaire.
I’ve read that rather than little kids, Gates was interested in Epsteins influence with other members of the elite because bill has an obsession with getting a Nobel Prize. Doesn’t absolve his character but I haven’t heard any rape allegations from victims yet.
Bill’s wife was very mad that Bill kept hanging out with Epstein and cited it as one of the divorce reasons.
She refused to elaborate and told people they should hear the rest from Bill himself. So I think we all know where this is going.
I didn’t say he did. Is more of Billy at the height of his wealth and influence he couldn’t ditch Epstein. He has so good bone in his body.
