He's almost 70. Pretty optimistic of him to think he's still got 20 years.
My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth
271–280 of 704 posts
Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth
#272Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth
#273>The Gates Foundation’s mission remains rooted in the idea that where you are born should not determine your opportunities. Arguably he's already done so much for billions of people. Had typing on computers not became the main way businesses communicate , anyone with bad, handwriting would be stuck in menial work. When I was growing up in the 90s my hand writing was so bad it was assumed I would never amount to anyth…
Is this satire? Bill Gates didn’t invent computers, he just started the company that won the PC revolution, very talented and intelligent, but also well placed and lucky.
Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth
#274He's almost 70. Pretty optimistic of him to think he's still got 20 years.
High 80s is doable with the best care in the world and no chronic health issues.
Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
> without paying capital gains tax. It's a funny day when you're feeling charitable, but go out of your way to avoid helping the entity that should be the ideal charitable recipient.
That assumes a lot about the current administration.
It assumes a lot about future administrations too. When Obama was in office I complained a lot about the Executive branch consolidating power and using executive orders, and the Democrats were fine with it because he was a "good" administration.
But guess what? If you give too much power to a position, people who want to abuse the power will try to get themselves there.
I wasn't upset that Obama was consolidating power because I thought Obama would abuse it. I'm upset that he consolidated power and then left it to whoever would come next, and then has the gall to be surprised that consolidating power under the Executive would undermine the power of the Legislature the moment a President who was willing to abuse said power was sworn in.
We're cooked because of the fucking team sports. Both parties have had the chance to reign in the Executive and neither has the balls to use it against their own guy
Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
This statement is so 90s and so BOFH-centered that it is irrelevant to a level of stupidity. Gates has done a lot to prove he's not a cold-hearted mf and compared to all the bros in their prime at the moment, dude, just think of Elon or Larry Ellison, well our man Billy is really very much a bright persona.
Agreed—I spent the 90s idolizing Jobs and despising Gates. But today I have deep respect for Gates and the way he's using his wealth as a positive force in the world. Jobs had better taste and was a more effective product leader, but I'm sorry to say that he sucked as a philanthropist. It's disappointing that he spent ANY of his mental energy at the end of his life building that dumb $100M yacht, rather than focusing…
Better taste? How so, and why does that matter when we're talking about moral character?
Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
We could also decide to live in a society that doesn't allow for such runaway wealth consolidation we need the robber barons' hand-outs to do good. C'est la vie.
We could, but we haven't yet figured it out how to.
Heavy progressive taxes and subsidized services would go a long way.
Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth
#278You could maybe compensate all the people and companies you put out of business by throwing your weight around in the 80s and 90s. Maybe throw Jerry Kaplan a billion or two for fucking up his launch of the Go Communicator. Seeing downvotes, which means you haven't been around long enough to remember all the shit Gates pulled back in the go-go 90s. ANY new technology would instantly get a press release from Microsoft…
My (bigger) problem with his legacy is Windows on every government (or otherwise important) computer and all the botnets and compromised elections, espionage and destruction enabled by it over the years.
Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
When it comes to funding various "public good" efforts, we don't need agility. We need fairness and at least some kind of public influence over what gets funded. The problem with leaving everything to private charity is that only the wealthy people and churches doing the donating dictate what counts as "public good" without you and I having any say over it. We luck out when the donor has good intentions and chooses t…
> The problem with leaving everything to private charity is that the wealthy people doing the donating dictate what counts as "public good" without you and I having any say over it. The thing about public goods is that people tend to agree pretty closely about what they are. The wealthiest person in the world benefits from, e.g. clean air just as much as you do. You should be a lot more worried about wealthy folks wh…
Given (at least the USA's) increasingly polarized population, I don't think it's at all true that people agree closely about what should be funded, and I'll admit that fact makes my argument weaker: The danger of a particular wealthy person "donating to evil" is similar to the danger that the majority of the country votes to "fund evil."
I also agree that wealthy folks spending their wealth on luxury yachts while the public suffers is also something to worry about. Who knew? Gargantuan wealth inequalities are mostly downside for everyone but the wealthy!
Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth
#280How much power is concentrated in the hands of individuals... It's great that Gates is choosing to use that power philanthropically, but it also raises questions about the long-term role of private wealth in solving public problems.
When the government doesn't do it, private parties have to; when there's a significant percentage of the population voting for "small government" parties, more responsibility goes to (wealthy) individuals.
When the government doesn't do it, it's because wealthy individuals have already bought the government. And have invested huge amounts of money into bamboozling the population into voting against their own interests.