• selkiesidhe@lemm.ee
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    1 hour ago

    Sounds more like someone has seen the world turning on the worthless shit that are billionaires NOT that someone has seen the light and wants to make the world a better place…

  • minorkeys@lemmy.world
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    46 minutes ago

    Well he can’t exactly kill the world 's richest, can he? Its a stronger indictment about the risks of wealth inequality than about the morality of the rich.

  • seeigel@feddit.org
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    3 hours ago

    No need for envy. He owns enough farmland that he can easily top Musk by rising prices to let many more children starve to death.

    • eletes@sh.itjust.works
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      3 hours ago

      Gates, 69, on Thursday announced plans to spend virtually his entire fortune over the next 20 years, during which time he estimates his foundation will spend more than $200 billion on global health, development, and education against $100 billion over the previous 25 years. The Gates Foundation will close its doors in 2045, decades earlier than previously envisaged.

      Yeah sounds like he’s trying

  • the_q@lemm.ee
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    5 hours ago

    Remember there are no good billionaires. No amount of “good” they do will ever be enough.

      • whodatdair@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        4 hours ago

        He’s an Edison, he’s a Carnegie, he’s a Rockefeller. He’s a robber baron like countless before and that on its own is enough of a condemnation.

        Dude single-handedly ruined many, many foss and other software projects because he couldn’t buy, bully, or otherwise get obscenely rich from. He would use windows’ reach to kill projects. “Windows ain’t done until wordperfect won’t run”

        He played dirty to get his money and now that he’s “won” and has enough money for his family to be generationally wealthy for ever he’s donating amounts that don’t cut into his oligarch lifestyle. Guess he hired a good PR team though, cuz everyone seems to forget what he did to get so filthy rich.

        Not to jump down your throat over it - I just hate that he’s managed to erase the shitty things he’s done by donating the money he got by doing shitty things.

        • yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          4 hours ago

          You’re exhausting.

          Yes, all billionaires are bad, just like all cops are bad. But some are worse than others. Idiot.

          • whodatdair@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            3 hours ago

            👅👢

            Calling a billionaire “benign” then getting pissy when I give evidence to the contrary is weak shit.

            Also, so long as we’re trading insults i think ill go with “Fragile Ego Piss Baby who thinks some boots don’t taste that bad”

            • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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              3 hours ago

              Your evidence that he is bad is that windows is bad.

              Our evidence that Bill Gates isn’t that bad is that Bill Gates has directly saved millions of lives by donating the vast majority of his wealth to an organization he created to supply medicine, food, and water to the world’s poorest regions namely Africa.

              I feel like we’re not on the same intellectual playing fields.

              • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
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                3 hours ago

                what about the numerous sexual harassment lawsuits, decades long friendship with Epstein including numerous trips on the lollita express and his longstanding board membership of Berkshire Hathaway which has presided over numerous ethics violations?

                • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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                  3 hours ago

                  The flight logs do not show that Bill Gates has ever visited the island on any plane. The most that has been confirmed is that Bill Gates flew from New Jersey to Florida on a private plane owned by Epstein once and that he had dinner with Epstain exactly once, which in interviews he expressed as a major mistake. I remind you that before 2006 Epstein was a public figure as a professional financier and broker and even until 2019 him and Ghislaine participated in major fundraisers.

                  Furthermore, your claim is one that gets constantly circulated by right wing nutjobs after a particularly viral tweet in 2023.

      • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee
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        3 hours ago

        Just not being as bad as Elon doesn’t mean he isn’t bad. It’s like saying that alcoholic drunk asshole husband who beats his wife and kids isn’t as bad as Ted Bundy. It isn’t contest.

  • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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    8 hours ago

    Cool story, Bill. Who did you donate to? Why did you cut your philanthropic efforts to fight climate change and disease? Why have you and your buddies fought for minimizing and coopting government for years? Bill isn’t innocent in all this, it’s just a good time to blame Elon. Don’t get me wrong, Elon 100% deserves it, but that doesn’t mean that Bill isn’t playing the PR game here.

    • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      Why did you cut your philanthropic efforts to fight climate change and disease? Why have you and your buddies fought for minimizing

      The problem is that billionaires should not exist but come on. $80 billion already donated. $7 Billion more just for Africa. Hundreds of millions in malaria research.

      https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2022/11/17/bill-gates-foundation-pledges-7-billion-to-support-africa-health-and-agriculture/

      Could he do more? Sure. But attacking someone who is doing a little because he isn’t doing more doesn’t seem fair.

      Years ago Elon said he was disappointed when he met Bill Gates because Gates only wanted to talk about philanthropy and climate.

      • Septimaeus@infosec.pub
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        1 hour ago

        This is the way. Thank you for your forward-thinking, non-reactionary contribution.

        If classical conditioning reliably alters human behavior, we know negative conditioning like existential threats to 0.1% will indeed work, but never as well as positive reinforcement. It’s only for lack of opportunity to reward the good that we resort to punishing the bad, so when opportunities to use positive reinforcement present themselves, jump on them!

        Concretely, if tomorrow the wealthiest of the world became avid philanthropists like Gates and divested as much as he has, the impact would be singular. It would feel like the first daybreak in human history. We’d still need to fix the systems that gave us monsters, but the friction preventing necessary reform would vanish.

      • audaxdreik@pawb.social
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        6 hours ago

        The problem is that the theft begins by simply becoming a billionaire in the first place. You don’t get to be one by playing nice and not exploiting a lot of people and rules along the way. Sure the government could be blamed some for not having enough regulations in place to prevent/stop that, but capitalism ensures that businesses exploit any available loophole possible to maximize profit, otherwise you’re a bad business.

        While I can respect a lot of those philanthropic efforts, those should not be his decisions alone to make. That money should’ve been paid into taxes and distributed in agreed upon ways. $7 Billion dollars to Africa is just great, but it could do a lot of help here, too. I have no issues with sending $7B to Africa, but that sure seems like something the people should agree upon first, through some sort of national aid, and not as an effort to spare the conscience of an aging billionaire.

        Fuck all billionaires. Every. Last. One. Forever.

        • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          The problem is that the theft begins by simply becoming a billionaire in the first place.

          That’s why that was my first sentence!

          • audaxdreik@pawb.social
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            5 hours ago

            The problem is that billionaires should not exist but come on.

            Was your first point. I expanded on it by calling out that it is specifically theft and then going further to illustrate that he was using that theft to make personal choices about how that money should be spent, compounding the reasons I find this distasteful.

            Forgiving it simply because it’s philanthropy plays exactly into their narrative. Don’t buy it! Don’t defend billionaires to any extent.

        • Chastity2323@midwest.social
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          5 hours ago

          While I can respect a lot of those philanthropic efforts, those should not be his decisions alone to make. That money should’ve been paid into taxes and distributed in agreed upon ways.

          As a capitalist, all of his solutions are capitalist. His efforts to slow climate change are primarily technological, with a focus on unproven horseshit like carbon capture rather than proven improvements like better, less car centric urban planning and reducing meat intake. He would never even consider an strategy of economic degrowth to fight climate change even though available evidence shows that that is exactly what we need.

          • arrow74@lemm.ee
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            5 hours ago

            I think we’re well past the chance of urban designing our way out of the climate collapse.

            We need to make major changes in our consumption to even make a dent, but I say our best shot is cold fusion and carbon capture. Those are obvious longshots.

            We’ve created a runaway greenhouse gas effect. Even if we cut emissions to 0 temperatures will continue to climb.

            Obviously cutting emissions to 0 would give us more time to fix this mess though

            • Chastity2323@midwest.social
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              We need to make major changes in our consumption to even make a dent, but I say our best shot is cold fusion and carbon capture. Those are obvious longshots.

              I would argue for extensive rewilding as an alternative

        • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world
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          3 hours ago

          Well now no US tax money is going to Africa, since people voted for Trump. Most Americans would rather see Africans exploited, starve and die than pay a bit more in taxes.

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          Still the wrong conversation. Yes he was appropriately villainized for anticompetitive behavior running Microsoft, accumulating excessive wealth at the expense of many others, but come on ……

          I have no issues with sending $7B to Africa, but that sure seems like something the people should agree upon first,

          Just no. His philanthropy, his wealth. His choice.

          But I’m with you on inadequate taxation for the wealthy, and that we have a responsibility as a country to help the less privileged of humanity, and should not just assume someone’s personal largesse.

      • diffaldo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        5 hours ago

        Gates has history of lawsuits against open source projects. And he actively donates against any real systemic change. For example he has invested heavily in carbon capture technology which is useless to making impact to climate change.

      • kibiz0r@midwest.social
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        4 hours ago

        I resist the urge to become a billionaire every day.

        I’ve allowed trillions of dollars to continue circulating in the global economy, undisturbed by my whims.

        I’m a goddamn philanthropic hero compared to Gates.

        And you can tell I’m better than him, cuz I didn’t have to slap my name on a “Foundation For Leaving People The Fuck Alone” to do it.

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      Wrong place for “both sides the same”. Sure, any of us could do more, and billionaires could do a lot more, but you’re equating a Nazi cutting entire government programs to aid the most vulnerable here and abroad, with a billionaire who has donated a significant portion of his personal wealth to aid humanity, including eradicating diseases

      • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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        5 hours ago

        Nah, I saw a year or two back that Bill was pulling back from his climate and disease philanthropy. I think this is just him jumping on a chance to do some PR by dunking on Musk.

    • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
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      7 hours ago

      Imagine how much extra money the countries of the world would have if they didnt have to pay for microsoft licenses and stuff like dat

        • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
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          6 hours ago

          Yes, but Gates personally has been lobbying leaders all over the world for decades whenever there was any sort of momentum of governments switching to Linux. Sadly politicians are often corrupt or at least easy to manipulate.

      • lemonaz@lemmy.world
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        59 minutes ago

        Surprised I had to scroll so long for this article. This is probably the best example (recent history too) of Bill’s actions killing kids.

        I’m still glad he called Elon out. Let them fight.

      • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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        5 hours ago

        Nobody, but I voted for Harris. Last I saw, Gates was cutting back on donating to his foundation that fights infectious diseases in the developing world.

        • Godric@lemmy.world
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          4 hours ago

          So you’re just whingeing online about someone who plans to spend 99% of their wealth on saving millions of lives, while you’ve done fuck-all.

          Let me stop what I’m doing so I can clap for you and your moral high ground.

    • Jesus@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      I’m out of the loop.

      I’m not down with hoarding of wealth or the shit software he’s made, but what are the allegations against Gates? (The legit ones, not the “he’s putting microchips in Covid vaccines” shit)

      • diffaldo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        5 hours ago

        Gates has history of lawsuits against open source projects. And he actively donates against any real systemic change. For example he has invested heavily in carbon capture technology which is useless to making impact to climate change.

      • utopiah@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        Just imagine a World where ALL governments, ALL schools of all countries did not have to pay a fee to the then world richest man.

        Imagine if a fraction of those governments invested instead on infrastructure, both physical (imagine literal bridges going to schools) and software (as some are doing now) or better paid teachers. Imagine that some of that money would be invested in Linux, gcompris, etc.

        That’s the genuine cost of Gates wealth.

        Think I’m a “communist” for thinking that? Well I guess then the American DoJ is on that boat too because the 2001 antitrust law case was a landmark, not a matter of my opinion.

        So… yes, he’s a billionaire who did donate a lot of money, but how did he get that money in the first place? It wasn’t his to donate to.

      • AA5B@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        Yeah this just seems like a troll or argument for the sake of argument. It’s just too preposterous an argument

        Did Melon discover Lemmy?

        • diffaldo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 hours ago

          I must have missed those, thanks for reminding me. Btw can u recommed podcast similiar to behind the bastards.

      • ludicolo@lemmy.ml
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        5 hours ago

        Motherfucker met with Epstein multiple times. That should be enough to say he is just as bad as Elon.

        He is also buying up farm land for pennies on the dollar for himself. His education reform was such a painful failure we continue to pay for it. The gates foundation thought they knew mkre than educators and spent a shit ton of money to run an experiment.“aimed at making teachers more effective” my ass. How do you make people more effective when you don’t listen to their needs? Time and time again bill turned educators away or straight up didn’t listen to them when they expressed concerns. Kinda reminds me of doge raiding the department of education now that I think about it. Bill just fucked shit up in a more clean non obvious manner.

        He continues to hoard his wealth and placate everyone with his “i am going to donate a lot, don’t worry fellas” statements. Bill why are you waiting til 2045 to donate $200 billion? Why not fight elon now if you are so worried? Because he isn’t.

        He is evil just like the rest of them. He has just done a better job at reorganizing the skeletons in the closet over the years to stop people questioning.

    • Akasazh@feddit.nl
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      7 hours ago

      He’s the lesser of two weevils, though.

      Let him out his money where his mouth is

      • legion02@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        He kinda already has. Supposedly already over 100B in charitable donations and has pledged another 100B (basically all of his fortune at) over the next 20 years

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          Yep. Equally evil.

          • One guy already donates $100B and pledging most of his fortune
          • other guy a Nazi who not only makes no donations despite being at times richest person on the planet, but leveraged his wealth to end government programs assisting the less fortunate both in the us and globally

          I can see how these look the same. /s

  • Tm12@lemmy.ca
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    8 hours ago

    I was promised Bill Gates would give me 5G’s with a vaccine.