Bill Gates

[Teewithmo]

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?

Dolly Parton gave a chunk of money to vaccine research too y’know......

@DynamoKev

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Personally I'd say Steve Jobs is an infinitely worse human being - dumped his girlfriend when she became pregnant and refused to acknowledge that the child was his despite a court ordered DNA test saying he was. He paid just $385 per month child support (court ordered) for several years before increasing it to $500 per month when he became a multimillionaire - such a generous man. Although they were reconciled when she was about 9, Jobs initially refused to pay anything towards her college education fees.

The Russell Kane Podcast about him is worth listening to (as is the rest of the series): www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p065y3q6

Steve Jobs was a nut. Did you know that he name his company Apple because he was a fruitarian?

Only sometimes!

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

I get what your saying but Israel has just opened its first lab grown chicken restaurant apparently and big meat corporations in the US have invested millions into meat alternatives. There is definitely a lot of interest in getting 'clean meat' into the mainstream.

Oh lord. We're back in Soylent Green territory.

Add a splash of Logan's Run and we could be totally self sustaining, no farming required!

I had to ask to have my post deleted as I accidentally mentioned an unconnected organisation.
I have no evidence of any current misdeeds by Bill Gates but as I said, he would appear to have been an awful boss at times. With that said I am not in the position of being a highly motivated genius in tech. so maybe it was ok for him/them.
One point I was trying to make was the arbitrary way Microsoft fired around 10% of the workforce each year for a while - a highly divisive and discredited way of doing business. That wasn't in the early days of the firm either, but it was while Gates was still in charge.
As for him "bringing computing to the masses" that was a side effect rather than an objective, in my opinion, and there is nothing to say another organisation wouldn't or couldn't have done it.

I don't like his meddling much but I think he is probably a rather nice man.

What I mean by that is that while he is perfectly entitled to spend his money how he likes, and I think his desire to help people is admirable, I think people give his opinions on a lot of issues more weight than they should because of his wealth and status.

He has a real tendency to think technology will fix problems and isn't always great at understanding cultural differences or underlying issues that may be more important. He also tends to have a rather American perspective and not always a lot of insight into that. His vision of a better world is one where everyone is a nice liberal capitalist with the values that flourish in that sort of society, and his decisions about funding projects tend to reflect a tendency to make over other groups in that same image.

A simple example might be some of his educational stuff with computers. He has what seems to be a rather naive belief that lots of classroom tech will make for better learning (though some people think cynically that he is really wants to hook kids on computers. I tend to think he is sincere but who knows, they may be right.) But in reality, there is no research that supports the idea that a lot of tech especially in elementary school, creates better educational outcomes. There are other things, like music programs, which do, but not tech. And yet we have all kinds of schools, because of BG's ventures, that turn over lots of space and time to tech in the classroom. That means that the kids are not doing other things too, they only have so much time and end up spending it on computers that are not particularly great learning tools in many cases.

One person/organisation shouldn't have so much control/influence

I agree (whoever it was). And it's worse as it's on a global level

note that the MHRA receives large grants etc from the Gates Foundation

This should be illegal

I follow IT topics for work and interest and have done since the web was founded in 1995. Bill Gates is rather similar to the old fashioned Victorian employers. He fleeced his employees and played all manner of dirty tricks to ensure that his rather poor product was preferred above all else. It was quite a normal business model for him to rip off other companies' software and use delaying tactics against monopoly and other legal cases until the much greater market coverage he had had driven competitors' out of business. Even much of his 'charitable' foundation, oh completely coincidentally of course, just by chance happened to increase the dependency of the world on his rather poor software offerings. However having now fleeced everyone and having become one of the richest people in the world he seems prepared to accept that you can't take it all with you, or perhaps he's just interested in establishing a 'legacy' reputation beforehand.

I don't have an opinion on him, specifically.

But I think part of the problem is that people can become cynical and distrustful when someone lectures others on fields they have no qualifications in. It borders on being offensive and disrespectful to the audience.

People associate him with computers, he is not a virologist, epidemiologist, dietitian, and so on.

Having money to fund a cause does not make you an expert on the subject and does not make you right.

Another issue is activism fatigue.

We are relentlessly bombarded with 'campaigns'. Everyone feels that they can preach about a cause and others have to listen and endure it.

I would like chefs to cook, singers to sing, actors to act, sportsmen to compete. I am not interested in their personal opinions and when they jump on this bandwagon I instantly switch off and never see them in the same light again.

I have my own opinions and I don't feel I should have to tolerate all this constant sermonizing.

Well said, Turquoise.