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My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

gatesnotes.com

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Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#531

Post by kubb »

_bin_ wrote: post #88
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #39

His foundation really does seem to do a good job with 'effective altruism'. There's a reason they're marked as secondary beneficiaries on all my accounts. Also, as a recommendation, you guys should look into whether your employer matches charitable donations to 501Cs in any amount. I find giving a solid chunk of my discretionary budget to charity every year lends a sense of purpose to a job that wouldn't otherwise ha…

[flagged]

Oh it's you again, you're the guy echoing specific contemporary political figures, and dressing up American isolationism in rhetoric. In the other thread you were claiming that America subsidises Europe's healthcare by paying for its defence.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#532

Post by eirikbakke »

akudha wrote: post #517

Good on him for giving away his fortune. Anyone else feeling uneasy that society is increasingly dependent on a handful of ultra wealthy people's generosity for investment in certain good initiatives? We live in a time where there are individuals who have more money than many small countries, governments are cutting funding for good programs while individuals are stepping in to help. What is the point of living in a…

The government has a fixed pie to allocate to various projects. Businesses, by contrast, can create more pie, from labor and raw materials that cost less than the value of the final product. So funding charitable causes with money earned from honest business is a win-win for society.

But then we can debate if Microsoft made their money honestly or not. If Microsoft exploited their monopoly, then perhaps Bill Gates stole from the rich to give to the poor...

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#533

Post by abeyer »

schmookeeg wrote: post #260
999900000999 wrote: post #133

>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…

> When I was growing up in the 90s my hand writing was so bad it was assumed I would never amount to anything. I'm curious where you grew up? I am high school class of 1992. I skipped third grade, where a lot of penmanship is taught. We had a computer lab in Junior High (so late 1980s), I had a PC Clone at home that we bought in 1985. I'd turn in writing assignments printed on my epson dot matrix printer. To my knowl…

This feels like one of those threats teachers use to reinforce something they don't have any other strong argument to support... while reminding you that it will end up "on your permanent record."

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#534

Post by alabastervlog »

GuinansEyebrows wrote: post #480
CamperBob2 wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it's not what just happened. More billionaires supported the Harris ticket than the Trump ticket. It's just that Trump's pet billionaires -- especially one in particular -- hustled harder for him.

i don't want to speak for GP but they did say "a faction of the rich" and not "all billionaires" again, i dont think this is a matter of political party. it's a matter of capital interference in politics.

Plus what I'm getting at started shortly pre-WWII and really started to see serious policy and "Overton window" effects in the 70s. There was a huge boom in organized pro-(big)-business and pro-rich lobbying starting in the late 30s and really taking off just after the war. I think it'd be pretty surprising if the following shifts in public perception and opinion, and in policy, just happened to align with what they were promoting by coincidence.

I don't think any of the folks pushing for deregulation of media ownership (to allow it to consolidate) and defanging anti-trust and cutting rich people's taxes and reducing government social spending or other spending that competed with potential "market solutions" or made the labor force less-desperate, or pushing anti-union policies, while promoting the view that "actually all of that is good for normal people, so you should vote for the party promoting it... also, the blacks and gays are out to get you, in case that other argument didn't convince you" had in mind getting someone like Trump, specifically, into power, though without their actions over several decades it surely wouldn't have been possible.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#535

Post by calepayson »

wewewedxfgdf wrote: post #512

The only billionaire worthy of deep respect. And I don't care about your Gates hating, for whatever reasons you have I am just not interested the cynicism and conspiracy theories about Gates - tell it to the hand.

high-fives the hand

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#536

Post by svieira »

daveguy wrote: post #514
jll29 wrote: post #508

It is an interesting game-theoretic question how to spend money x (say, hundreds of billions) to maximize good. - Should you first educate anyone who cannot read or write? - Should you first feed anyone hungry/thirsty? - Should you first provide shelter for all without homes? - Should you first make peace for all without safety? (all the way down the Maslow pyramid of needs) How would the philanthropic billaires unit…

> If I had the financial means, by gut instinct I would start out with the most vulnerable, those that can least help themselves, e.g. orphaned small children, the handicapped, the unborn. You left out expectant mothers under control of a repressive regime that demands their death sacrifice.

Mothers are vulnerable too. All that means is that two vulnerable people need care. The law in some places says that only one of them does. Anywhere that it says that, it is wrong.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#537

Post by michaelt »

frereubu wrote: post #522
nostromo wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked there and would encourage you not to do that. It'd be smarter to see who they are giving money to (which is all public) and give directly to those orgs. The Gates foundation itself spends a lot of money on consultants, "government engagement" (aka lobbying by another name), and fancy dinners. That's fine or maybe even noble for a family foundation, but it's probably not something individuals would want to fu…

Anecdata, but the brother of a friend was working on malaria in a SE Asian country and the Gates Foundation got interested in what they were doing, and wanted to find out more about it before possibly funding some of their work. They flew the entire team to the US, put them up in expensive hotels for a few days and flew them all back. They calculated that the cost of that was three times their annual budget. It would…

> They flew the entire team to the US, put them up in expensive hotels for a few days and flew them all back. They calculated that the cost of that was three times their annual budget.

Are you sure about that?

Let's say every employee gets a $1000 round trip flight, plus $2000 for 4 nights in a decent hotel, a total of $3000 per head. Are you telling me that employee is paid $1000 a year or less?

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#538

Post by purpleidea »

Bill Gates has done more harm to software and innovation than anyone in history.

He's a bad dude, and the only reason he does all this is so that waiters don't spit in his food at fancy restaurants.

The world suffers under the crippling weight of proprietary M$ Windoze everywhere, and we're far worse off because of it.

Want to help, donate money to support Free Software projects with strong copyleft licenses.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#539

Post by mancerayder »

purpleidea wrote: post #538

Bill Gates has done more harm to software and innovation than anyone in history. He's a bad dude, and the only reason he does all this is so that waiters don't spit in his food at fancy restaurants. The world suffers under the crippling weight of proprietary M$ Windoze everywhere, and we're far worse off because of it. Want to help, donate money to support Free Software projects with strong copyleft licenses.

While many of us Linux and open source nerds share the sentiment you described, I seriously doubt waiters see him and remember how they murdered the competition by bundling software with Windows OS in the 90s and 2000s.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#540

Post by orochimaaru »

purpleidea wrote: post #538

Bill Gates has done more harm to software and innovation than anyone in history. He's a bad dude, and the only reason he does all this is so that waiters don't spit in his food at fancy restaurants. The world suffers under the crippling weight of proprietary M$ Windoze everywhere, and we're far worse off because of it. Want to help, donate money to support Free Software projects with strong copyleft licenses.

You could always buy a Linux laptop or an android tablet. Tablets and smartphones is where windows lost. Those devices far outnumber PCs. Your complaint about windows is old. You have options to not use it today.

Now he did lose my trust and that’s because of two things:

1. His association with Epstein. It is documented and quite possibly the reason for his divorce.

2. His trust made controversial deals during Covid. The poorer countries wanted the formula so that they could scale up production themselves. However, the gates foundation supported the patent on the vaccines instead and had themselves and middlemen to arbitrate price on the supply

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