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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Bill Gates

139 replies

Teewithmo · 19/02/2021 23:00

Not a conspiracy thing..just what are your thoughts on him? So much flying around about farm land, vaccines etc etc
What’s up with Bill gates?

OP posts:
TravellingTilbury · 22/02/2021 13:08

You do know that the Gates Foundation funds (directly or indirectly) fact checker sites right? But hey, it's 'Bill' money to do what he wants with ... nothing to see here ...

oil0W0lio · 22/02/2021 13:09

He seems pretty good......for a billionaire, remember that money = power and power corrupts even the best of us

TravellingTilbury · 22/02/2021 13:10

This thread brings all the Bill Gates apologists to the yard ...

Why do so many people on MN love him and stick up for him so much? It's uncanny.

CuriousaboutSamphire · 22/02/2021 13:11

@TravellingTilbury

This thread brings all the Bill Gates apologists to the yard ...

Why do so many people on MN love him and stick up for him so much? It's uncanny.

Well... not uncanny. Just not paranoid about a man with unimaginable riches and a desire to spend it all on good deeds.

Show me something concrete that exposes him as a tyrant... a con man... a megalomaniac... or anything else...

CuriousaboutSamphire · 22/02/2021 13:12

And has anyone apologised for him?

Or is that just another empty phrase?

TravellingTilbury · 22/02/2021 13:12

Power does corrupt many people, which is why trusts/organisations/ businesses shouldn't be allowed to have too few people in charge of so much power. It's pretty simple. But I guess if you/your organisation is also greedy and corrupt then you'd be happy to collect the money and not complain too much. You'd rely on the money (because the Foundation gives such large grants). And so on.

Nanny0gg · 22/02/2021 13:13

@TravellingTilbury

This thread brings all the Bill Gates apologists to the yard ...

Why do so many people on MN love him and stick up for him so much? It's uncanny.

God forbid that some people have a different opinion to you...
TalbotAMan · 22/02/2021 13:14

He was always very clever.

He used to be pretty brutal. Melinda changed him and made him very much better.

TravellingTilbury · 22/02/2021 13:14

@derxa

He can stuff his lab grown meat up his arse.
Classic!
lljkk · 22/02/2021 13:15

I'm gonna start my own thread...

CuriousaboutSamphire · 22/02/2021 13:16

@TravellingTilbury

Power does corrupt many people, which is why trusts/organisations/ businesses shouldn't be allowed to have too few people in charge of so much power. It's pretty simple. But I guess if you/your organisation is also greedy and corrupt then you'd be happy to collect the money and not complain too much. You'd rely on the money (because the Foundation gives such large grants). And so on.
What does that actually mean?
TalbotAMan · 22/02/2021 13:18

Oh and regardless of all the Microsoft dirty tricks, Apple fanbois (female equivalent?) and Linux nerds, basically he brought computing to the masses.

TravellingTilbury · 22/02/2021 13:20

Nanny- I don't mind different opinions - I used to feel differently about him too. But many people on MN just seem to really love to defend him and be blind to the problems of having too much power because they believe he is using his power and money solely for 'good' ...

Read his books, watch his interviews. Hear what is agendas are - from him. Read about the litigation he has been involved in. Follow the chain of money from his Foundation and see how much influence he has. Look what he has invested in. Look where he has made grants to. Look up the FBI Epstein flight logs. He is a creep and not a nice man.

CoalTit · 22/02/2021 13:23

His plans for the world seem a lot more reasonable than, say Jeff Bezos' plans to colonize other planets. But he has no qualification to decide our future other than a vast amount of money (as other posters have already pointed out). He's a ruthless businessman from a family of ruthless business people, not a genius or a philanthropist or an epidemiologist.

TravellingTilbury · 22/02/2021 13:26

Curious - I meant that if a business received regular - large - grants from the Gates Foundation, then they would be aware of how reliant they are on receiving that money. So even if a business disagreed with things that the Foundation were involved in, they would not want to risk losing additional future funding - depending on the ethics of that business. It's then easy to see how large grants can influence the future actions of a recipient. More so if such a recipient was already morally dubious/corrupt.

DynamoKev · 22/02/2021 13:26

I don't think Microsoft as a corporation has been a force for good so I am cautious about one the founders and a major architect of Microsoft's behaviour over the years.
With that said, I know he can't rewrite the past and I can't claim I'd have done any better/different if it had been me.
I think it's laudable that he and his wife are now trying to do good.

oil0W0lio · 22/02/2021 13:34

He only has to be not as bad as Zuckerberg Musk and Jeff, so it's not a very high bar

NoMackerelInSwindon · 22/02/2021 13:35

I see him as a very rich man who is keen to share (some of) his wealth for the good of other, less fortunate people. This is what makes him a target for suspicious minded people who can't believe in the concept of philanthropy.

Add to that he is a 'geek' and many people do not trust geeks because they do not bend to the system.

Now a ruthless businessman, invited into the system, would be someone who climbed up to the highest political spheres, promoted and voted for military intervention in the middle east, became an investor in a range of worldwide professional security and other businesses, then sold those services to nationalised oil industries in Arab states, in exchange for future oil revenues into perpetuity. That is ruthless. That is Godfather stuff.

Bill Gates is not a Godfather.

cushioncovers · 22/02/2021 13:37

Lab grown meat will be a good alternative for the pet industry for sure. It's no different to a skin graft etc using cell growth to produce skin etc. Eventually it will become mainstream for us all in my opinion as developing countries want to live the same as the developed world and the planet just won't cope with billions of us all living how the US Europe etc live. This is just my take on it.

TravellingTilbury · 22/02/2021 13:40

Nanny - re the vaccines, note that the MHRA receives large grants etc from the Gates Foundation. The MHRA is under pressure to 'pass' (for want of a better expression) vaccines etc.

It is sensible to be aware of where money comes from and where money goes to.

www.gov.uk/government/news/mhra-awarded-over-980000-for-collaboration-with-the-bill-and-melinda-gates-foundation-and-the-world-health-organisation

TravellingTilbury · 22/02/2021 13:43

@cushioncovers

Lab grown meat will be a good alternative for the pet industry for sure. It's no different to a skin graft etc using cell growth to produce skin etc. Eventually it will become mainstream for us all in my opinion as developing countries want to live the same as the developed world and the planet just won't cope with billions of us all living how the US Europe etc live. This is just my take on it.
I'm sure we'll be told to not own pets too ... it will just be a 'good alternative for the greater good fo the planet' and all that.

Luckily, not everyone things this way. Personally I don't eat meat but I don't want factory grown meat, thanks.

Anniegetyourgun · 22/02/2021 13:53

I looked up the Epstein flight logs, when the subject was mentioned on another thread. Seems he travelled on a plane owned by Epstein ONCE and that wasn't to go to any place owned or run by Epstein. However if you want me to be a mite suspicious, it was probably disingenuous to claim he didn't even realise who owned the plane. The accusation on the other thread was something like that Bill G was a regular on Epstein's wossname island, for which there is no evidence.

CuriousaboutSamphire · 22/02/2021 13:55

He influences the MHRA?

OK!!

DynamoKev · 22/02/2021 14:27

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

CuriousaboutSamphire · 22/02/2021 14:40

Deeply unpleasant men, bosses, both of them.

But that doesn't negate what he is doing now, might be an explanation for it.

I would want evidence of now, not assumptions based on decades ago.