this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2024
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submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by jeena@jemmy.jeena.net to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[–] hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Maybe, but that's clearly not his intention as he has showed many times.

Take for example case covid

In April 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Gates was criticized for suggesting that pharmaceutical companies should hold onto patents for COVID-19 vaccines. The criticism came due to the possibility of this preventing poorer nations from obtaining adequate vaccines. Tara Van Ho of the University of Essex stated, "Gates speaks as if all the lives being lost in India are inevitable but eventually the West will help when in reality the US & UK are holding their feet on the neck of developing states by refusing to break [intellectual property rights] protections. It's disgusting."

Gates is opposed to the TRIPS waiver. Bloomberg News reported him as saying he argued that Oxford University should not give away the rights to its COVID-19 information, as it had announced, but instead sell it to a single industry partner, as it did. His views on the value of legal monopolies in medicine have been linked to his views on legal monopolies in software

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates

[–] THE_ANTIHERO@lemmy.today 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Hmm you do make a compelling argument

[–] hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It's easier to just assume all billionaires are evil. The chances of it being wrong is about the same as for any good person to become a billionaire

[–] THE_ANTIHERO@lemmy.today 3 points 8 months ago (2 children)

That is true maybe there were some exploits done by them here and there but everything is gray there are no black and white.

[–] hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yeah obviously. I'm not saying an evil person cannot do good things, Hitler was responsible for VW Beetle - objectively one of the most beautiful cars in human history. We just can't call Hitler a good person because of that one thing

[–] THE_ANTIHERO@lemmy.today 2 points 8 months ago

Making a good car isn't doing a good thing . What are you on about ?

[–] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 0 points 8 months ago

No, it's pretty black and white with Billionaires. None of them have changed the world NEARLY as much as literally any figure from history. At all.

No billionaire has earned their billions for the simple fact that a person cannot produce that much wealth on their own. They MUST steal from others to get that rich. It literally HAS to be the case, because there is no physical way they generated that wealth themselves.

[–] FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Still probably a net positive, though. Hell, he could kill 110 Million people added to every sars-cov-2 death combined and still be net positive. Good person? Debatably no. Best billionaire? Yeah.

[–] hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That's one stupid argument backed with made up numbers there

[–] FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Covid19 has killed less than 8 Million people total, and you can argue in good faith that Bill Gates would be responsible for some of those deaths by advocating for full commercialization of the vaccine.

Yeah, it's a lot, but compared to a random estimate from The Guardian of 122 Million lives saved by the Gates Foundation... yeah.

Now, I realize some people would say saving any number of lives wouldn't justify murder, but anybody who says Bill Gates is anything other than a net positive impact on the world is out of their fucking head.

[–] hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Some people would say that he has given negative 130 billion, or whatever his net worth is right now

I wouldn't go that extreme, but still think he has had net negative effect in the world

[–] FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)
  1. I would pay 130 billion to save 122 Million lives. That's only 1066 USD per life saved. You must be greedy af if you think that's a bad deal.

  2. That's not how stocks work. He hasn't taken 130 Bn USD. Most of his 129.2 Bn net worth is unrealized gains in the form of shares of companies such as Microsoft, meaning when or if it ever becomes income he will likely donate that as well, in fact he has promised to do so on many occasions. To date, Bill has donated 59 Bn USD to charities, the vast majority of his income.

[–] hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Okay I take that as you did not read the article, but only the misleading title, if you claim that Bill and Melinda saved 122m infants...

The article says that infant deaths (0-5yo) have halved from 1990 to 2015. From 1990 to 2000 the number already gone from 12 million down to around 9.5 million yearly. This is when Bill and Melinda Foundation was founded and they started pouring money on vaccinations which is good of course.

So yes, they've certainly done a part in reducing infant death rates, but they're only a small part of it. And most of the money invested wasn't even theirs, but donation from Warren Buffet who actually donated away most of his wealth.