Bill Gates calls Elon Musk’s embrace of far-right politicians abroad ‘insane shit’

[peruvian_skies@sh.itjust.works]

Untrue. Most don't engage in actual philantropy at all, but donate only to causes that will directly benefit their bottom line, such as sectors that depend on their products, or for scholarships in fields where their companies hire heavily. That isn't actually donating. It's just tax-exempt investing. In this sense, Gates is a cut above other billionaires.

His actions merit a freshly sharpened blade on his guillotine. Musk can have the rusty one that we'll need to drop thrice to get the job done.

[peruvian_skies@sh.itjust.works]

Apart from Australia and New Zealand, the Southern hemisphere houses pretty much just the poorest countries. Poverty also correlates strongly with average temperature, so it increases as you approach the Equator from either side (oil-rich Sultanates included, since the countries are rich but the people are still poor).

For what it's worth, many people here in Brazil use the phrase "global south" as a better alternative to "third world", an expression which no longer makes sense since the fall of the USSR, and I haven't ever seen anyone on the Left here be offended or bothered by it.

[notmyoldredditname@lemmy.world]

Ya, that does make sense. Rewards bring out a lot of fake shit.

And ya, definitely Meta too. They've been at it so long, I imagine it would dwarf anything we find out about Twitter.

[mutilationwave@lemmy.world]

Colin Powell was one of the two Republicans I respected. Then he went on TV and lied to the nation to start Iraq 2.

[merc@sh.itjust.works]

He's a greater evil billionaire with a good PR team.

[a9cx34udp4zz0@lemmy.world]

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.

No, it's absolutely insane, and short sighted. You know how much his capital will be in the event of WWIII? Assuming he doesn't get himself assassinated first by people that actually care about democracy. The absolute BEST thing to protect his capital is a strong spending class in the US, which would require the economy to not collapse. You gut social services, there is exactly one logical outcome and it is social unrest followed by either class war or civil war.

[merc@sh.itjust.works]

Gates had two lawyers for parents, one of whom served on a board of directors with the CEO of IBM. IBM had been continually fighting an antitrust suit with the government for years, so they knew they had to tread carefully with the operating system for their first personal computers. It's no surprise they hired Gates to do that work. Also, because of the antitrust case, they directed Gates to buy QDOS instead of buying it themselves. As for the contract that gave Gates a very sweet deal when it came to selling DOS to for non-IBM computers... I wonder if his two lawyer parents might have been involved in that contract.

[agent641@lemmy.world]

Put him on a starcraft tourney

[merc@sh.itjust.works]

His philanthropy, while objectively good,

I wouldn't even go that far.

Say you have a crazy idea that education would be better if kids went to school blindfolded so they wouldn't be distracted. You then use your vast fortune to arrange for that to be tried out on a bunch of kids for a few years. It's a disaster. It sets those kids back for years. You realize it's a disaster, so after a few years you abandon the project.

In that case was your philanthropy objectively good? Or was it probably bad?

Those are the kinds of experiments the Gates foundation has done. Because Gates is so insanely rich, he doesn't have to bother with convincing people he has a good idea. He doesn't need to run his ideas by education experts or psychologists, he can just run with them. So he does, and he fucks shit up, then he leaves.

[merc@sh.itjust.works]

It's a common term, used by the leftiest of lefty think tanks.

[tankovayadiviziya@lemmy.world]

He still has given away a lot of his wealth to charities, to be fair. He was the richest man after all until Elon came. But Gates is still a billionaire in spite of donations so he's still evil but to a lesser extent.

[phoenixz@lemmy.ca]

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.

[fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de]

Sorry mate this dumb factoid doesn't withstand even a moment's scrutiny.

If you donate $10 you might save $3 in tax but you lost all $10.

The Gates Foundation might use a few cents from that $10 for fancy dinners for Gates and his wife or whatever but there are auditors to ensure that the money is used for the people they purport to help. Their records are public and I can assure you that if there were any wrong doing whatsoever the internet would be afire with every detail.

[merc@sh.itjust.works]

A lot? He's currently worth $107 billion. That's the most he's ever been worth.

You would think that someone giving away "a lot" of their wealth would be worth less than before. If you're giving away so little that your wealth is actually growing, I'd say you're not actually giving away a lot.

[rekorse@sh.itjust.works]

Born into millions in the mid 1900s is what I would call born into wealth.

[peregrin5@lemm.ee]

If you read my response, I never disagreed that he was born into wealth.

[tankovayadiviziya@lemmy.world]

I thought his net worth went down but it looks like it plateaud. However, according to this article, Bill's net worth could be much higher but donates a lot of his assets to charities and his foundations. https://moneyweek.com/investments/605912/bill-gates-net-worth

[twig@sopuli.xyz]

Definitely worth listening to the Behind The Bastards podcast episode on Gates.

[softestsapphic@lemmy.world]

Bill Gates is equally responsible for perpetuating wealth inequality

[supervivens@lemmy.world]

Eh as morally reprehensible as his business practices may be/were, at least he mostly stayed(s) out of politics (aside from the lobbying pretty much all big companies do). At the very least his shittiness only really extends to his companies employees and maybe prices. Musk and his cronies degeneracy extends to all of us.