Yes I’m not disagreeing

Dinner sentence with reprieve.

foundation which quietly pays the Gates kids as much as they want

Any sources?

I will say, the business of fake charities is so common that it does sound almost preferable to make their own, and actually understand where aid is needed in the world.

It’s an old topic for me, but I do remember hearing about the B&MGF working on clean water solutions in other parts of the world.

Also; Warren Buffett recently pledged to the charity, while having his own trust for his kids. That action wouldn’t make sense if the charity just existed to protect family.

American people have not been known for wise choices lately.

He was anti-competetive towards Netscape navigator, admitted guilt and paid for it, since then he’s putting his money where his mouth is. Anything else I left out?

Microsoft has gone to shit after he left.

Lemmy sounds exactly like magas

Too knee jerk. Needs “tax” incorporated as it’s so unpopular.

Bill Gates uses his “charity” to exert influence worldwide and demand stuff in return.

If this man was truly giving away his money then world hunger would have been solved by now.

He is the largest landowner in the US

I mean if I want my next of kin/whoever to get my money, it’s better to do it while alive when you can get creative with the accounting. Especially when you’ve got Gates money and setting up something like a nonprofit is relatively easy.

Once you’re dead and you’ve got this lump declared assets you’re trying to pass on that Uncle Sam will take up to like 40% of.

I’m using it sarcastically

Communism is a word with different legitimate meanings and it sound like this comment is conflating two of them.

• The communist movement, guided by the various theories within Marxist schools of thought. [as you can see, there’s a huge range of ideologies in this school of thought, and a few different ones have become ruling governments, and any claiming to be the one true ‘real communism’ are being arrogant and ignorant]

• Communist society, a society with a socialist mode of production replacing the capitalist mode of production, which those theories are trying to achieve. This has not been accomplished by a post-industrial society.

Because it’s a dream that would suffer the same fate that capitalism does.

Yo this motherfucker fights diseases that kills millions and absolutely is nowhere near Musk or his shit filled ilk

Stop consuming right wing propaganda. This dude tries more than most let humans be human fuck sake not like he set this system up

His son recently gave half a billion to Ukraine, out of pocket. I get the impression they At least have their minds on the right side of history.

What would be great is if the trust is designed to be given to charities, rather than for his kin’s space flights. But they may do that anyway.

Well if you just manage your money properly, it grows. I would argue it’s better to do that and give you money away rather than not manage your money properly. In the end, more money goes to good causes that way.

If they “stopped” that would mean leaving their money in a bank account sleeping. The only entity benefiting from this would be the bank.

You making yourself our enemy won’t make us take your side.

…you do realize that, for example, if you had 100 billion dollars, you already have every asset you ever wanted, and then you lost 99 billion, and still had a billion dollars, your life wouldn’t be impacted at all, right?

99 percent of his wealth being lost does what to him exactly? I literally can’t think of one thing he loses with this.

i think you could benefit from reading yourself, my point was about what he loses by donating the wealth, if you think money has inherent value I feel very bad for you, honestly.

This thread is keyboard warriors complaining that a billionaire is taking action to save millions of people, from the comfort of their couches.

You say this as if Gates isn’t making their announcements in luxury. It’s an odd point, as if it would invalidate their objections somehow.

[Bill Gates announcing they will eventually donate money] is objectively a good thing.

It’s more complex when you look at the bigger picture surrounding philanthropy. (As a side note: moral concepts like “good” and “evil” can’t be objective in the first place; there wouldn’t be these arguments if it was)

Saving many innocent lives from preventable disease benefits those societies in need, I’m not disagreeing with that. I donate to fund malaria nets and vitamin supplements too, I think it’s a worthy cause, and more money does mean more help.

My objection is that this is philanthropy being used as buying good will. Bill Gates gained their money through exploiting the needy and continues to do so. We should not pretend that donating a minor chunk to charity makes this ok, can redeem Gates, or can make them a “good billionaire” (quoting others, not you). It’s better than nothing, yes! It’s also not enough to justify their actions.

Nor should we be satisfied with far-off statements, like “I’ll donate most of it to good causes when I’m dead”, or “I’ll donate most of it in 20 years”, and interpret them as selfless or noble actions - in fact, delaying some of these life-saving donations until 2045 is allowing large numbers of innocent people to die. Isn’t that clearly a bad thing?

Philanthropy is almost always reputation laundering, not some uncharacteristic Scrooge-like change of heart. It’s a simple trick and we shouldn’t enable it and defend Gates for it - we are obliged to re-iterate that Gates is still a greedy billionaire. Because Gates isn’t the first to play this transparent trick and won’t be the last.