this post was submitted on 08 May 2025
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[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 143 points 20 hours ago (12 children)

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 121 points 19 hours ago (10 children)

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.

[–] audaxdreik@pawb.social 47 points 18 hours ago (6 children)

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 27 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

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 7 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] Chastity2323@midwest.social 15 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

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 12 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (3 children)

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

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[–] diffaldo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 14 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works 8 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

It's their fault also, they could have switch to other systems

[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 19 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.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 8 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (6 children)

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

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[–] madjo@feddit.nl 7 points 18 hours ago

Why did Bill fly on Epstein's Lolita Express?

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[–] the_q@lemm.ee 62 points 17 hours ago (25 children)

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

[–] Transtronaut@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, but that's why it's great to see them fighting each other. Nobody else seems able to do it better.

[–] madcaesar@lemmy.world 11 points 15 hours ago

Fighting lol.......

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[–] vegeta@lemmy.world 50 points 20 hours ago
[–] galoisghost@aussie.zone 36 points 19 hours ago (7 children)

So are you Bill. You utter piece of shit.

Fuck all Billionaires

[–] BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 28 points 19 hours ago

"I haven't killed as many kids in so short a timeframe," is the implication here.

[–] simplejack@lemmy.world 13 points 19 hours ago (8 children)

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 14 points 17 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 8 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] brisk@aussie.zone 34 points 9 hours ago (7 children)

How many children died because Bill Gates lobbied for the Oxford Covid-19 vaccine to be patented?

[–] JacksonLamb@lemmy.world 16 points 9 hours ago

This. Thank you.

That was a villain level move from Gates. The behaviour of the rich nations towards the LICs over covid vaccines was absolutely shameful and destroyed the illusion of Gates' benevolence.

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 8 points 6 hours ago

Gates is always whitewashing his own future or past actions when he does something philanthropic tbh

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[–] seeigel@feddit.org 28 points 15 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.

[–] Tm12@lemmy.ca 26 points 20 hours ago

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

[–] thatradomguy@lemmy.world 25 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

I really do think it would be fun to compile all of the billionaires in the world and just have them fight to the death in a gladiator kind of rig. Would be awesome.

[–] minkymunkey_7_7@lemmy.world 12 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

Kat and Kropp get in an argument over the war as they rest from an hour’s worth of drill (occasioned by Tjaden’s not saluting a major properly). Kat believes the war would be over if leaders gave all the participants “the same grub and the same pay,” as he says in a rhyme. Kropp believes the leaders of each country should fight each other in an arena to settle the war; the “wrong” people currently do the fighting.

Erich Maria Remarque - All Quiet on the Western Front 1929

[–] Sarmyth@lemmy.world 9 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I feel like the only way it would work is if they got to keep the money of whoever they killed as long as that person had over a billion dollars... and I would almost be OK with that.

I like to imagine it would reduce the collateral damage the rest of society faces when these people have a dick waving contest.

Roided out billionaires with their hearts exploding out their chests from experimental steroids would really mix things up in a good way. He'll maybe we'd get some truly sick cybernetic out of it too.

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[–] anachrohack@lemmy.world 18 points 20 hours ago (1 children)
[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 11 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

In the sense that it's two Spider-Men pointing at each other

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[–] selkiesidhe@lemm.ee 13 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

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...

[–] Viper_NZ@lemmy.nz 18 points 12 hours ago (5 children)

Credit where credit is due, Bill Gates has been putting his money where his mouth is for decades now.

[–] zbyte64@awful.systems 12 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (6 children)

We don't don't need princes or kings doing PR. If we taxed billionaires out of existence we could fund that and so much more. This guy doesn't get to make up for whatever he was doing on Epstein's plane, at least not without coming clean first.

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[–] Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world 10 points 11 hours ago

Yeah, TBF that foundation has done a lot of good.

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[–] Shawdow194@fedia.io 13 points 19 hours ago
[–] Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 12 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Pretty sure he doesn't care

[–] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 10 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

Or he considers that a good thing. It's more likely that you think.

He's a breeder and a eugenicist. He believes the strong/successful should reproduce (how many kids does he have now?) and those less fortunate should die off.

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[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 11 points 7 hours ago (3 children)

so this is what he meant by eliminated world hunger, by killing them directly or indirectly.

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