Cruelty is a feature not a bug.
Gates also announced that his Gates Foundation will cease operations in 2045, sooner than previously planned.
Didn’t he just get divorced? Wonder if this has something to do with that.
Good move by Bill Gates.
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.
Paying off student loans would be a nice start. ALL student loans, not the crap that always seems to miss me by a dollar.
Man, it’s sad my generation got suckered into taking out loans for college.
So many of them now have debt and are doing the same jobs as people that don’t have degrees.
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.
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 positive forecast for his legacy.
I would be more than happy to be wrong.
Yeah instead of billionaires giving away their wealth to charity, I’d much rather tax them and let the government distribute that money.
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 thrive and also learn to live in balance with the planet. Consumerism is certainly out of control, but it’s reductive and unfair to single 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.
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’s been giving away his wealth for decades, and only got richer during this time.
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 bever 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
Gates at least seems determined to buy his salvation.
