What, are NFT’s officially over now 
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Silence peasant. As I already told you you are never getting out of there - your reward will come in the next life.
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Its crazy that Bill Gates’ post-Microsoft career has been dedicated to things like vaccines and clean water, saving tens of millions of lives in the process-- and the Alt-Right et al wont stop despising him for it.
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Don’t forget the push for harder IP on vaccines. Talked one vaccine out of going open source, making it harder to produce for poorer countries.
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Guy goes from narrating the Zinn biopic to telling armchair quarterbacks they’re missing out if they don’t own any magic internet money.
Heck of a way to fall.
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I’ll have you know that I have had a 100% return on investment on my portfolio of Red at the roulette table!
ETA: now to bet on red again and again, because clearly it has made me rich so far, so what could go wrong?
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I don’t ascribe any heroic powers or unique understanding to someone just because they’re a billionaire, but when Bill Gates talks about a sucker being born every minute, you gotta admit, he knows what he’s talking about.
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I personally hate that these goddamn people are making me defend Bill Gates. Bill Gates!
And I can’t stand the fucking guy. As you point out, he manages to do what should be important, worthwhile things like vaccine research in the shittiest way possible.
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Nobody is making you defend Bill Gates. Trust me, he’s fine. I mean, personally he’s fine.
I mean, he’s a predatory asshole that sexually harassed women at Microsoft and may have done even worse stuff in that arena, was a known dick of a boss, ripped off everything he ever accomplished from competitors - some of whom considered him a friend before he betrayed them. He also started a foundation to spend a lot of his hoarded wealth in a way that feeds his inflated sense of self worth and value, secure in his thinking that he can do a better job of solving the world’s problems than anyone else. But he’s ok. Nothing is bothering him.
So, yeah. Nobody is making you defend him. You are choosing to. Even though he does not need your help in any way
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to defend Bill Gates against charges that he’s using 5G and vaccines and blah blah blah to depopulate the earth. I prefer to dislike the man for the things he’s actually done.
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You can tell someone that Bill Gates implanting 5G chips in vaccines is not real without defending Bill Gates. It’s not unlike saying that 9/11 was not an inside job does not require defending George W Bush, who is a war criminal.
Sticking up for the facts does not require sticking up for the person
I don’t see the problem here. If what we’re saying is people who believe in false narratives, propaganda and conspiracy theories end up being the people who invest in crypto, isn’t that literally proving true the statement that the Greater Fool Theory is driving the adoption of crypto?
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Eh, this is getting into semantics. In your 9/11 example I’d argue that pointing out that Bush didn’t have anything to do with it is defending him, and that once again it’s possible to defend him for that while pointing out that the man is indeed a war criminal.
Obviously we disagree, and I’ll leave it at that.
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We probably agree more than we disagree.
I just prefer the semantics of “debunking a specific claim that involves a person” to the semantics of “defending this person”. To me the former is more focused, but ymmv
I think we are united in feeling all these guys are assholes, even if we disagree on how to talk about it
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Should he have disbursed his funds anonymously and secretively through front groups and shell companies? Should he have given his money to right-wing super-PACs that actively cause the destruction of democracy and the environment, like the Kochs? Should he have frittered away his donation as Ted Turner did when gave a no-strings $1 billion to the UN’s general fund? Should he have just kept his whole hoard for himself and his scion, because then he certainly wouldnt be feeding his self-worth nor would he be a busy-body trying to solve someone else’s problems in the “wrong” way?
I’m not certain of the correct way to billionaire philanthropize.
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He should have been taxed. We should not have billionaires to begin with
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Um… we just shouldn’t have billionaires. At all.
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Given the lack of taxing, MacKenzie Scott’s methods seem like a good start to me.
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The correct way to billionaire philanthropize is to not do all the dick moves that result in you becoming a billionaire in the first place.
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Well, they do say “buy low”
