is this arguing over who killed the poorest children?
I’ll respect Bill for calling out this POS. I saw and shook hands with him at Coachella like a decade ago. He was a chill dude. And I totally could have taken his security detail. They were little dudes.
Why not spend a couple of those billions and put a bounty on Musks head? America is a lawless hellhole already, so some good and put your money where your mouth is.
old billy has been visited by a ghost
Bill is definitely not a good person, but he does do a lot of good things. And I’m willing to temporarily forget about all the bad things while he’s dissing Elon and forking over his cash.
He at least learned the ‘right’ lesson from the famous robber barons like Rockefeller, Carnegie, etc: when you make a fortune by exploiting everyone you can then you should spend that fortune to whitewash your name for future generations.
That is the right lesson. Use that money to make people love and respect you, even though you’re a bastard, by building libraries, hospital wings, and other community projects.
“He abused his workers, but he cured cancer” kind of a toss up when it hits the history book.
Gates at least seems determined to buy his salvation.
Got a real Rockefeller vibe to him now, don’t he?
Ah, those gilded age.
He’s been giving away his wealth for decades, and only got richer during this time.
Hasn’t he mainly been “giving it away” to a Charity he himself controls?
Yep, and he’s using that charity money to get influence with research institutions and universities. Meanwhile he privately holds stock in big pharmaceutical and energy companies. Not sure if anyone has done the work to trace the money, but I’m sure his charitable donations end up benefiting those private investments.
So the money he would’ve otherwise paid in taxes went to a vehicle that buys him PR and benefits him financially through his other investments.
I know of an organization attached to a prestigious university that solely exists because at the end of some billionaire’s life, he decided he wanted to chuck some cash into a foundation to try to burnish his image.
But he was so morally corrupt that his version of helping others was to mandate that the foundation focus on “helping” people in developing countries find business opportunities.
Read: they assess how people and environments can be exploited for capitalism while focusing on telling stories about how that exploitation improved the quality of life for people there.
Most of the professors who work with the foundation are very wealthy from their non-academic pursuits.
Of course, but that’s more than most of the ruling class can say.
Credit where credit is due, and only where it’s due.
Billionaires can never do a good thing while remaining a billionaire.
They can do good things, but it doesn’t make them overall a good person.
I don’t think it’s possible to amass $1 billion in worth and not be a bad human.
I…think you misread me? I said a billionaire cannot do a good thing while remaining a billionaire?
They didn’t misread you; they just didn’t agree with you
Oh cool, we’re all having problems reading.
At least one of us, yeah
Cool captain capitalism defender guy
People will say a lot of things about me when I die, but I am determined that ‘he died rich’ will not be one of them
I’ll just save time for my future self: He died complicit, supporting and enabling the system that creates inequality and blocks progress, and he directly stagnated technology by engaging in monopolistic practices.
Bill Gates quite obviously pays a lot for PR, and giving away wealth to those in need is obviously positive, but if he used his influence to call out Microsoft for using their technology/AI and infrastructure in war, called out the imperialism and destabilizing influence of the US empire, and so on; maybe I would have a more charitable forecast for his legacy.
I would be more than happy to be wrong and I hope I am.
Yeah instead of billionaires giving away their wealth to charity, I’d much rather tax them and let the government distribute that money.
You mean the government that uses that money for concentration camps and eradicating minorities?
Do a significant group of people will for this policy, and if so, are they being propagandized into willing for it?
Portraying our modern slaves (e.g. 40% of US agricultural workers are undocumented immigrants) as violent and criminal is a big stretch. We largely rely on them to pick our cotton (so to speak), we subject them to horrible working and living conditions, we don’t give them any rights, we keep them in poverty and lack, and deportation has always been on the table for them.
A large fraction of the country doesn’t vote. I haven’t looked at the polling recently, but most people don’t really seem to approve of Trump overall.
Trump and his administration represent capital. Capital wants to maintain control through fascism and authoritarianism.
You don’t simply ignore your oath to uphold the constitution, openly ignore due process, and also be in contempt of court. This is all being allowed to play out by all of our “representatives”, who also represent capital.
The constitution and its bill of rights is inconvenient to capital, just like true democracy. That’s why corporations (et. al) write our laws and tell our representatives how to vote through legalized bribery (lobbying).
For example, it’s bipartisan to want to limit or control speech and expression. It’s also bipartisan to engage in mass surveillance through private corporations, advertisement firms, data brokers, and through the NSA and PRISM. So, the first and fourth amendments have been under attack for a while. It’s nothing new.
This is their final push. If you remember, Clinton, the DNC, and the mainstream media (which represent capital) pushed for Trump in 2016:
The Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee called for using far-right candidates “as a cudgel to move the more established candidates further to the right.” Clinton’s camp insisted that Trump and other extremists should be “elevated” to “leaders of the pack” and media outlets should be told to “take them seriously.”
Are you having a stroke?
Read the edit that I just put in at the end — Trump’s rise to power is bipartisan.
Democrats currently writing strongly worded letters to the White House, while Trump openly violates the law and shits on the constitution and due process, is not sufficient action and shows their complicity. Again, these people represent capital. Human rights and even a hint of democracy is inconvenient to capital.
You’re allowed to disagree and continue getting gaslit. It’s fine, you do you. I know things are complicated.
I still dont understand what youre getting at? My point was funding the current government is in no way better than having Bill Gates own the money who at least donates it. What part of your comments contradicted that?
My point is that the government doesn’t exist, it’s a facade that veils the reality. Just seems like we are desynced here, which is fine.
Bill Gates could be spending his money to develop Africa. He could’ve already put money towards solving the water crisis and made significant strides towards that goal.
He could be the addressing colonialism, imperialism, and modern slavery - including calling out our companies that knowingly use and support child slavery (e.g. for our cocoa). It is a raw deal for these countries - and the first-world overwhelmingly benefits from their labor, resources, and goods/exports.
Capitalism exists in the form it does because government doesn’t exist. It’s a big lie. We are in the age of modern feudalism, ruled by corporations, oligarchs, and others that concentrate wealth, power, and influence.
I wouldn’t trust the government to reliably redistribute the money or to reliably tax the very rich.
We have a system that rewards greed, parasitism, and exploitation with wild success. Until that is solved, redistributing wealth will be unsuccessful — a temporary fix, at best.
Right. The solution is a better government.
To get that, we need a better culture.
To get that, we need to rescind our consumerism.
The culture is already there. We have a great base called the constitution and its bill of rights — we largely already support concepts like democracy and human rights.
Humans and our units tend to be weak and vulnerable, we are easily manipulated, and we are easily corruptible. Capital has an greater influence on individuals (and especially our leaders and institutions) than forward momentum and the act of working towards solutions — making life better on this planet for everyone. Capital should not be a factor operating at a level above our ability to govern and direct our societies.
Humanity has to start to learn how to thrive and simultaneously learn to live in balance with the planet. Consumerism is certainly out of control, but it’s reductive and unfair to single out any single person, group, or entity. Humanity is largely kept in survival mode (and also in fear, hate, and division), scarcity is artificial with our current level of technology and organization, and the truth of our consumerism (and its roots) is veiled to us.
Nobody besides the oppressed truly knows the extent of modern slavery, of modern child slavery, and of third-world exploitation.
In my eyes, the solution is direct democracy and socialism. Building up our communities and making our society at large (and especially our cities) self-sustainable.
I personally think that an international human bill of rights would be a wonderful goal to have to kick off a golden age for humanity.
The culture is not here, no.
Right now, most of us believe that those who have more deserve more and those who have less deserve less. We don’t see an issue with, say, someone getting most of their meals through Doordash while complaining they ‘need’ more money.
Until that changes, we can’t expect society to change. We don’t want it to change unless it directly benefits us. If we have to sacrifice anything so those who have less than us can have more, we immediately become conservatives in our rhetoric.
Yes, I do think it’s important to address the echo-chambers and the centers of propaganda, no matter which side of the coin you’re looking at.
To the side that you’re referencing: Fox News (et. al), conservative think-tanks, and the many conservative influencers spread these perspectives and viewpoints. Responsible individuals and organizations convince everyone that it is a matter of survival that they don’t contribute to their societies.
These groups and influencers convince people that others shouldn’t have it easy because it invalidates their struggle. They also convince them that the government is out of control, that it is interested in taking their wealth and their rights, and that it largely doesn’t serve their needs — that they are getting a raw deal.
So these individuals want a small government. They don’t really care what happens to society at large because they are just focused on themselves, potentially their families, or at best a portion of their local communities or churches. They are in the weeds of survival mode and tribalism — they are warding off invaders and perceived threats and stopping others’ ability to take what they earned, including their status and power in society.
The answer is finding the real cost of capitalism, of ineffective governance, and of not making any forward movement as a global society. What are the real costs of this apathy and inaction? It can’t be something that you simply argue with science — with the costs of runaway industrialization, because they have been propagandized to think our emissions/etc. have no affect on the world at large. They are thinking small, and again, in a state of survival.
Conservatives, under the rule of this current administration, are going to be faced with some harsh realities and truth as this stagnation (and at worse, this regression) continues. They are going to quickly find out the source and human cost of our goods, be it domestic produce or various other items sourced from exploited countries.
It’s relevant to point out that an estimated 40% of US agricultural workers (arguably more) are undocumented immigrants. This administration is deporting workers that we depend on to work our fields, harvest our food, and likely produce the products that go on our shelves. They are doing so at a breakneck pace. When these conservatives are forced to work the fields to survive or forced to go into the factories, they will quickly understand how much blood, sweat, and tears go into their consumerism.
As for Doordash, it is a symptom of our apathy, the disconnection with our communities, and the result of local business being crushed. Just like Doordash being not so great, you can’t go to the grocery store and not support modern slavery. You need to consume food to live. The food on our shelves is devoid of nutrition, it is loaded to the brim with chemicals and contaminants (like PFAs, from the use of biosolids to fertilize our crops), and it is vastly under-regulated and making us ill. Our soil practices are also unsustainable and they will only remain viable for approximately 60 more harvests.
If RFK and some of his proposals (particularly regarding food) resonate with these voters, there is hope yet, especially if these individuals get a wake-up call in the form of a food crisis, facing the consequences of alienating our trade partners, and our store shelves going empty.
They already resonate with the government being broken, and we don’t need to give up anything as a society to thrive and live sustainably. We can accomplish all modern convenience and privilege with our technology and ingenuity without raping the environment.
These individuals are propagandized against green energy and regulation (industrial or otherwise). If we can convince them that everybody can thrive without breaking a sweat, and show them the costs of deregulation of our environments (e.g. their communities and their water tables) and the costs of the deregulation on our health (their health and the health of their children), they will probably come around quick.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/a63152930/proton-batteries/
If that technology is finished, we won’t even need rare elements to store energy. It is a story that many slept on. Solar panels are very cheap comparatively to make.
Paying off student loans would be a nice start. ALL student loans, not the crap that always seems to miss me by a dollar.
I’m reminded of one of my favorite quotes, alleged to be from A. Carnegie:
“The man who dies rich, dies disgraced.”
I detested the Microsoft Bill (I’m in tech) but the post-M$ Bill seems to have reformed quite a bit. I have to admire someone who gives away all their $ (whatever the route - directly or through a foundation) to try to solve some of humanity’s problems. Of course MAGA/Qanon portraying him as a villain doesn’t hurt his image either, it pretty much guarantees that there must be something good about him.
The only good billionaire is a dead one.
If Bill sheds all his excess wealth he can be a human being with the rest of us.
He sheds more than anyone else. He’d be much higher on the richest-people list otherwise.
So far, he’s given over 60 billion to the Gates Foundation, which has given away over 100 billion (the rest of the money comes from Warren Buffet and endowment growth).
It’s designed to spend to zero (over 200 billion dollars) by 2045 so it doesn’t become a self-sustaining wealth generator for staff like other endowments have.
The idea is that the harm caused by him amassing such excess caused more harm than any good he can do through philanthropy.
And the crazy part of this philanthropy is that there’s no guarantee to anything. These oligarchs live like kings amongst men and we can see ourselves lucky to be in the light of their philanthropic sun.
I mean yes thank you Bill Gates for not being such a dipshit like Elon, but I also think that this kind of power should not be in the hands of individuals ever.
Cause as you said: the harm they caused (actively or passively by f.e. not paying taxes in countries outside the US and therefore stealing money from governments and people) can never be fixed by any philanthropy.
You just don’t get that kind of rich without being an asshole along the way.
