Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even if Microsoft was evil, Gates is still an inspiration to me.
Because Microsoft was evil, Gates is an inspiration to me.
Why?
Bill Gates' Philanthropic Impact Put in Perspective
71–80 of 133 posts
Re: Bill Gates' Philanthropic Impact Put in Perspective
#72Re: Bill Gates' Philanthropic Impact Put in Perspective
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Most of it seems to be simply envy. For me it was frustration with Windows, until I gave it up back, in 2004. I used to rage at it's instability and difficult reinstallation process when various device drivers were involved. I would never have imagined I will have such a positive view on Bill Gates a decade later. He's smart because, after spending half his life amassing a fortune, he is now spending the other half…
His fortune went from 45B in 2008 to 75B in 2015. Hell of a way to spend money! edit: B, not M. Thanks.
Picking 2008, when stock values tanked and then rebounded, is cherry-picking and undermines your point.
Re: Bill Gates' Philanthropic Impact Put in Perspective
#74Bill Gates was a tough competitor, to be sure, and you had to bring your A game when dealing with Microsoft. But the complaints that he was 'evil', when you drill down to see what the actual complaint is, just seem to fade away. Most of it seems to be simply envy. See "In Search of Stupidity" by Chapman. P.S. I was in the industry throughout that era, and competed directly against Microsoft in programming languages.
It always bothers me when those who worship someone for his wealth dismiss those who dislike that same someone for his actions simply as a matter of envy.
I gave reasons and even a book reference. It really is a good read and worth while.
Re: Bill Gates' Philanthropic Impact Put in Perspective
#75Bill Gates was a tough competitor, to be sure, and you had to bring your A game when dealing with Microsoft. But the complaints that he was 'evil', when you drill down to see what the actual complaint is, just seem to fade away. Most of it seems to be simply envy. See "In Search of Stupidity" by Chapman. P.S. I was in the industry throughout that era, and competed directly against Microsoft in programming languages.
Sure, it was just smart business plays in the tech industry, not really "evil" like physically harming people or stealing stuff from them. But as an engineer (well, at that time, a tinkerer in high school), it was very frustrating how they had their own flawed formats and protocols. They made it as difficult as possible to interoperate in order to entrench their dominant position. I guess it's what all the biggest te…
You might think the technology sucked, but all the competition sucked worse, much worse. Nobody else could be bothered maintaining so much backward compatibility. Apple kept changing their CPU architecture and resetting the clock on developing apps. Other platforms like Amiga also pursued their own platform blind to the fact that their products couldn't interoperate with the most popular and cheap software and hardware. There was OS/2 Warp which for some reason failed in the market. Probably more of the same incompatibility problems.
It's hard to see that the world would have been better without MS. It could very well have been more fractured with people having to buy two computers because they would never know which one would run the software or hardware they might want to use. Or it could have been like the disaster we have today with native mobile development - you have to program everything twice, for two different platforms! What a waste of developer time.
The gist of what you say about MS now applies to Apple today. It keeps a similar grip over iPhones, and people love them for it. It's that grip that makes Apple successful, just as Microsoft's grip over PCs made them successful. The smartphone world would surely be worse off today without Apple too.
Re: Bill Gates' Philanthropic Impact Put in Perspective
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
If we put aside that the money isn't his, he kneecapped better products with such ferocity that a generation later our industry is still struggling to make up for the lost progress.
The FDA, CDC, American Government, and Patent System, have all crippled progress far more than Bill Gates or Microsoft ever did.
How is that germain?
THREAD OF CONVERSATION: Bill Gates is a murderer!
PHILLIP HAYDRON: Jeffrey Dahmer has murdered far more than he ever did!
Re: Bill Gates' Philanthropic Impact Put in Perspective
#77Re: Bill Gates' Philanthropic Impact Put in Perspective
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's hard to guess what motivated the grandparent's comment but if I had to guess, it has something to do with the cultural aversion to public philanthropy which traces back to Matthew 6:3 But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: As an atheist who was raised Catholic, many of the teachings of Jesus still make sense to me from a moral standpoint. This one does not. Keeping your c…
Here is the preceding verse, Mathew 6:2 "So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full." I think what Jesus meant was that letting others know was not the problem, but giving alms for the sake of being honored by others. These good deeds were not done out of…
And what people are trying to say is: that may be a bad thing, but it does not cancel out the good thing you did. You now did both a good and a bad thing. Not just a bad thing.
We try to judge people based on their actions. Someone messes up and defends themselves with "I was only trying to help!" - "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."[0] The fact that proverb exists at all, means that our society has at least a partial inclination towards judging people on their actions, regardless of intention.
Well, if that applies in the "mean good, do bad = bad" case, then it should apply symmetrically in the "mean bad, do good = good" case.
Concretely: Bill Gates does some good. Someone says: he's only doing it to atone. So it doesn't count. --- the first part is not the problem, but the second part is. He still did good, and it still counts. Hate his character all you want, but he did good. Don't use his character to detract from his actions.
[0] There's even a Wikipedia page about it; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_road_to_hell_is_paved_with...
Re: Bill Gates' Philanthropic Impact Put in Perspective
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
The FDA, CDC, American Government, and Patent System, have all crippled progress far more than Bill Gates or Microsoft ever did.
That's debatable.
Then debate it, I'm interested in your perspective. Saying "that's debatable" adds nothing to the conversation and essentially means "I don't agree".
Re: Bill Gates' Philanthropic Impact Put in Perspective
#80The size of the Gates Foundation is only impressive if you believe public policy should be disproportionately influenced by the whims of a few rich individuals. Philanthropists may not be motivated by profit like lobbyists, but that doesn't mean they understand the needs of the people any better. For issues related to relatively concrete sciences like medicine this matters less. But in areas such as education for exa…
It would appear that taxing people and then using the money for ill-thought out, centrally planned, self-aggrandizing projects is fine as long as it's rich people or corporations, not democratically elected governments doing it.
I am trying to understand the sentiment that leads to this perspective. Perhaps people abhor the inefficiency of democratic systems. Or maybe this is a sign of social decay.