Bill Gates Gives $20 Billion To Stem 'Significant Suffering' (apnews.com) 130
Bill Gates, concerned about the "significant suffering" caused by global setbacks including the COVID-19 pandemic, announced Wednesday that he will donate $20 billion to his foundation so it can increase its annual spending. The Associated Press reports: The donation, combined with longtime board member Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett's $3.1 billion gift last month, brings The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's endowment to approximately $70 billion, making it one of the largest, if not the largest in the world, depending on daily stock valuations. In an essay on the foundation's website, Bill Gates said he hopes "others in positions of great wealth and privilege will step up in this moment too."
The Gates Foundation plans to raise its annual budget by 50% over pre-pandemic levels to about $9 billion by 2026. The foundation hopes the increased spending will improve education, reduce poverty and reinstate the global progress toward ending preventable disease and achieving gender equality that has been halted in recent years. "Despite huge global setbacks in the past few years, I see incredible heroism and sacrifice all over the world and I believe progress is possible," Bill Gates, the foundation's co-chair, said in a statement. "But the great crises of our time require all of us to do more... I hope by giving more, we can mitigate some of the suffering people are facing right now and help fulfill the foundation's vision to give every person the chance to live a healthy and productive life."
In his essay, Bill Gates wrote that polarization in the United States makes battling global crises tougher. "The political divide limits our political capacity for dialogue, compromise, and cooperation and thwarts the bold leadership required both domestically and internationally to tackle these threats," he wrote. "Polarization is forcing us to look backwards and fight again for basic human rights, social justice, and democratic norms." While achieving gender equality has long been one of the foundation's primary investment areas, in his essay, Bill Gates singled out the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade as "a huge setback for gender equality, for women's health, and for overall human progress." "The potential for even further regression is scary," he added. "It will put lives at risk for women, people of color, and anyone living on the margins." You can read the full essay via Gates Notes.
The Gates Foundation plans to raise its annual budget by 50% over pre-pandemic levels to about $9 billion by 2026. The foundation hopes the increased spending will improve education, reduce poverty and reinstate the global progress toward ending preventable disease and achieving gender equality that has been halted in recent years. "Despite huge global setbacks in the past few years, I see incredible heroism and sacrifice all over the world and I believe progress is possible," Bill Gates, the foundation's co-chair, said in a statement. "But the great crises of our time require all of us to do more... I hope by giving more, we can mitigate some of the suffering people are facing right now and help fulfill the foundation's vision to give every person the chance to live a healthy and productive life."
In his essay, Bill Gates wrote that polarization in the United States makes battling global crises tougher. "The political divide limits our political capacity for dialogue, compromise, and cooperation and thwarts the bold leadership required both domestically and internationally to tackle these threats," he wrote. "Polarization is forcing us to look backwards and fight again for basic human rights, social justice, and democratic norms." While achieving gender equality has long been one of the foundation's primary investment areas, in his essay, Bill Gates singled out the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade as "a huge setback for gender equality, for women's health, and for overall human progress." "The potential for even further regression is scary," he added. "It will put lives at risk for women, people of color, and anyone living on the margins." You can read the full essay via Gates Notes.
Why do we beg billionaires (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re:Why do we beg billionaires (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why do we beg billionaires (Score:5, Insightful)
Rob or tax its a matter of opinion. Also I don't believe we can fund everything that we want as a society, there are plenty of things most people say need to be funded but are not. This is mainly because the political system is set up in a way that means the rich own it. Just running for president costs in the millions this means instantly rich people get a vastly disproportionate say.
It seems to me we fund the minimum so the rich have a work force.
We've been able to feed, cloth and house everyone (Score:1)
And we're doing fuck all about the American Southwest's water crisis. If you think things are bad now wait until there's 50 or 60 million water refugees from Texas, Arizona, NM & California flooding into your city.
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So, what's your estimate on the cost to replace California's water supply with desalination?
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I'm not talking about "doing good" (Score:1, Insightful)
And you can bet your ass there's no shortage of people begging for money. 90% of GoFundMe accounts are people trying to pay medical bills to live. Stuff like insulin and cancer meds.
Finally, if you think it's a drop in the bucket you're objectively wrong. Watch this. [youtube.com]
Billionaires are starving us of the money we need to run a functional civilization. You h
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So it's probably not a coincidence that it is also billionaires like Gates and Soros and Bezos that pumps money into "social justice" and "progressive" groups.
Lure people in with the real issue of wealth inequality, and then before long the useful idiots spend all their time looking for nazzis and racists where there isn't any and actually trying to redefine what a woman is.
I'd like to think that if not for that, we've have taken "In God We Trust" off our currency by now and have moved on to the serious iss
It's cheap (Score:2)
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On the other hand, Gates and Buffet have been trying to get taxes on the wealthy raised since the 1990s, unfortunately everyone in Congress is either rich, or will be rich soon.
They talk a good game (Score:2)
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Pelosi's hot garbage (Score:2)
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Because if we don't he'll wreck us.
He can spend his money on what he wants. If we want something, we should pony up for it ourselves rather than depending on the generosity of the wealthy. So, explain how he can 'wreck us'. I mean other than preventing us from booting the OS of our choi... [No bootable OS found] [theregister.com]
It's not his money (Score:2, Insightful)
Beyond that he's single-handedly held back computing by at least 20 years maybe longer. I remember seeing BeOS doing things on a 400 MHz AMD back in the late 90s that Windows 10 and 11 can't do to this day. It's not just that he didn't earn the money fair and square it's that he actively retarded the development of technology
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For starters he used illegal monopolistic tactics to get it.
Then the DoJ needs to claw those profits back. Not spend them on pet projects that the rightful owners of those funds might not agree with.
That's one of the reasons why antitrust fails. It's easy to turn a blind eye toward unethical/illegal behavior if the end result is a big pile of money somewhere that the politicians couldn't have justified collecting based on the merits of their own favorite programs.
You're mistaking money for power (Score:4, Insightful)
Little surprised to find you in support the gov't of seizing private property like that though.
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Little surprised to find you in support the gov't of seizing private property like that though.
Not really. It was a facetious remark. There is no way that the government is going to hamper the accumulation of ill gotten gains if they think that they can guilt trip people into contributing part of those gains to political campaigns or pet projects.
Re:Why do we beg billionaires (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember when shops tried to sell Linux pre-installed alongside windows machines. MS sold them their OS at a much greater cost, so that they would go out of business.
I remember when governments went to cut their MS costs, so gates flew to them to undercut the free product, and ensure the monopoly.
I remember when MS was convicted of leveraging their OS monopoly to get a monopoly on browsers, office and main.
I remember when MS and Google were convicted of colluding to keep the salaries of Developers down.
I remember when MS was sitting so comfortably on their monopoly that they had invested so little in development that when AMD stopped making their 32 bit chips, windows had not yet moved to 64 bit. Probably keeping software about 20 years behind where it would have been with competition.
The reason it's his money is because the legal system isn't good enough to recover the proceeds of white collar crime. It stands on the destruction of a billion staff or small businesses that failed on a knife edge that better competition would have been enough to save.
But sure, if the good friend of Epstein doesn't want to be generous we should forgive his transgressions: He's now trying his level best to vaccinate the world. His MO of being a monopoly might be counterproductive [msf.org] in actually vaccinating the world [nature.com], but his criminal activities gathered the money, so he chooses how it's managed. His ex wife still seems to work with him even after she left him shortly after Epstein's arrest. That must take spine if she found out what we must suspect she found out.
I can see why (Score:5, Funny)
Having foisted Windows on us for decades and caused suffering on a global scale, the man's conscience is torturing him.
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Common Core is a far more evil thing to have pushed upon America than Windows...
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Having foisted Windows on us for decades and caused suffering on a global scale, the man's conscience is torturing him.
Conscience? When the hell did Bill Gates acquire one of those?
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It doesn't matter, under him Microsoft ruined everything it acquired. Presumably if he found one somewhere, he'd ruin it anyway.
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His conscience really does seem to be bothering him. This $20bn is just the start - he plans to give away most of his wealth: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/bus... [bbc.co.uk]
It does seem rather ironic (yeah, I know I'm losing the yank crowd with this) that the guy should have spent so much of his life super-focussed on being an utter arsehole to so many people, and that such behaviour ended up making him the richest person in the world - but now he doesn't want it. For him now to decide that he doesn't want all that wealt
The Gates Foundation Is Evil (Score:2)
Yay, he's pouring money into something he controls, some of which gets funneled back into his own bank account.
They are cleaning up water in places. In some of those places they polluted the water by making factories.
They are controlling th
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Haha. No not conscience. Megalomania. And most journalists are on board with him being our Great Savior.
Tax dodge (Score:2, Insightful)
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> Another moron that doesn't understand how tax deductions work
*Sigh*
You are the prime example of a useful idiot. Not only does it work that way, it's even worse.
It's HIS foundation. He gets the tax benefits AND gets to use the money anyway.
https://privatebankingconcepts... [privateban...ncepts.com]
Same as the Clinton Foundation. The only wastage is in the overhead of the foundation.
Re:Tax dodge (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't treat it like it's his piggy bank, it's disingenuous.
Doing so is illegal. [ny.gov]
The site you linked has great difficulty understanding the difference between assets and income.
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It's not a piggy bank, but he can direct its investment in ways that are profitable for him. Also, saying things are illegal is irrelevant. It was illegal for Bill Gates to willfully operate Microsoft in an anticompetitive fashion, but the US government didn't punish him or Microsoft for it. That's literally why he had enough money to endow the foundation. Suggesting that they're going to hold him accountable for abusing his position atop the Gates Foundation when they didn't hold him accountable for abusin
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It's not a piggy bank, but he can direct its investment in ways that are profitable for him.
No, that's literally illegal.
Also, saying things are illegal is irrelevant.
No, it's not.
It was illegal for Bill Gates to willfully operate Microsoft in an anticompetitive fashion, but the US government didn't punish him or Microsoft for it.
Yes, they did. You disagree with said punishment. That's not the same as not punishing.
That's literally why he had enough money to endow the foundation.
The opinion you are delivering here as fact, is that Microsoft could not have become a major business as literally the sole provider for a competitive operating systems on PCs, without anticompetitive practices. This doesn't pass the smell test.
Suggesting that they're going to hold him accountable for abusing his position atop the Gates Foundation when they didn't hold him accountable for abusing his position atop Microsoft seems foolish.
Nonsense. There are 50 states a and a Federal government, and violation of 501(c)(3) rules will get 51 prosecuting agencies after you.
Tha
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It was illegal for Bill Gates to willfully operate Microsoft in an anticompetitive fashion, but the US government didn't punish him or Microsoft for it.
Yes, they did. You disagree with said punishment. That's not the same as not punishing.
No, they really didn't, this was acknowledged by AG John Ashcroft, who stated that it wasn't in the nation's best interest to prosecute.
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No, they really didn't, this was acknowledged by AG John Ashcroft, who stated that it wasn't in the nation's best interest to prosecute.
Come on, dude.
They did prosecute. In fact, Microsoft was ordered to break up.
They won on appeal, and then entered into a consent decree.
That consent decree barred them from doing things with their operating system that would make someone laugh today.
That consent decree was definitely a "slap on the wrist", but that's what happens when you win your appeal.
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> Don't treat it like it's his piggy bank, it's disingenuous.
I'm certainly being honest about the world, insofar as the Gates Foundation board is full of Gates (and/or Gates Foundation)-funded organizations like Tom Tierney, etc. I think it's more like a piggy bank than you're implying, so I'm not being disingenuous. In theory the law constrains reality, in practice it does not. You seem to think the opposite. That's delusional, but I'm sure it's a nicer reality. Good luck.
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I wish everyone would understand this, or at least understand that only a subset of a foundation like this is truly charitable.
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501(c)(3) requirements are that all money must go to an exempt purpose, and may not be used for the benefit of any of its shareholders or their families.
Running afoul of that is a crime, as Trump found out the hard way.
Operations costs are obviously allowed, and it's true that there's room to give yourself a healthy salary via operations costs, but for someone like Bill Gates, the salary he took would be meaningless, and beyond that, it's publicly available: Bill Gates earns 0 dollars f
Re:Tax dodge (Score:4, Informative)
No one said Gates got money from the foundation. They said he used his foundation as political leverage and to channel money into pet issues and projects. Which is true. Gates has identified things he thinks are problems and is channeling money into it using his very powerful and very well-financed tax-exempt foundation. If you happen to disagree with those things being issues, or with the way he's trying to address them, that to you would seem like abuse.
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Rather, only a tiny fraction is not charitable. Your beef is with what you define as charitable.
Please explain the method, and an example, by which he uses his tax-exempt foundation to force public policy.
Keep in mind that 501(c)(3)s are explicitly forbidden from using money for this purpose, and doing so is a crime.
I've often seen the fact that they utilize partnerships (like nearly any large charitable foundation) to leverage their money, as if their rel
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You could compile a massive list. Here's an item from that list: Common Core. Is that not political? Being instrumental in modifying the curriculum of what every K-12 US student would be exposed to?
As The Washington Post put it: "What followed was one of the swiftest and most remarkable shifts in education policy in U.S. history."
"The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation didn’t just bankroll the development of what became known as the Common Core State Standards. With more than $200 million, the foundati
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You're ignorant about the topic you're discussing, but rather than seeking knowledge you're digging in your heels and refusing to educate yourself. https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
>But that wasn’t enough. The duo needed money — tens of millions of dollars, at least — and they needed a champion who could overcome the politics that had thwarted every previous attempt to institute national standards.
>So they turned to the richest man in the world. ...
>The Gates Foundation spread mon
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But that wasn’t enough. The duo needed money — tens of millions of dollars, at least — and they needed a champion who could overcome the politics that had thwarted every previous attempt to institute national standards.
The states were chomping at the bit to institute a common standard, that's because the recently funded Race To The Top awarded points for usage of a common standard.
So they turned to the richest man in the world. ...
Ya? That's what people do when they need money.
There were many organizations competing at this time to create a common standard that the states could use for RTT.
The Gates Foundation spread money across the political spectrum, to entities including the big teachers unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, and business organizations such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — groups that have clashed in the past but became vocal backers of the standards.
The Gates Foundation is legally barred
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If you don't accept that source then you're the conspiracy theorist. I set a bar for the standard of evidence, it's now up to you to produce a source that's even more credible.
>There was no Gates money, that is a fucking conspiracy theory.
You're an idiot. https://docs.gatesfoundation.o... [gatesfoundation.org]
It's on their own website.
Here's a list of the grants they've given backing up those numbers: https://www.arkleg.state.ar.us... [state.ar.us]
$150M+ as of 2013
You're clearly a conspiracy theorist wackjob
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The Gates Foundation is legally barred from using their money to influence legislation.
That's a good one! It's false, however. They're not allowed to do direct lobbying, but every time they spend money it influences many things, including legislation. Which projects they choose to fund fundamentally influence legislation, whether in support or opposition.
Common Core generated some serious yelling from a small amount of people, but after all that yelling, do you know how many states still use it?
41.
I frankly don't know shit about common core so I have nothing to say about it, only the logic you employed there. The appeal to popularity remains a logical fallacy.
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If you don't accept that source then you're the conspiracy theorist. I set a bar for the standard of evidence, it's now up to you to produce a source that's even more credible.
So that's the game? I pick any source I want, and if you don't accept it, you're a conspiracy theorist? Give me a fucking break.
And no, it's not on me to provide evidence against a spurious claim. That article you cite gives zero evidence for its conclusions. It's an opinion piece.
You're an idiot. https://docs.gatesfoundation.o... [docs.gatesfoundation.o] [gatesfoundation.org]
No, you can't parse reality from a stream of numbers.
I picked one random grant from that site. It led me to a grant (a grant is something that is applied for, not something you used to "pay off" someone to do your bidding) for a
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That's a good one! It's false, however. They're not allowed to do direct lobbying, but every time they spend money it influences many things, including legislation. Which projects they choose to fund fundamentally influence legislation, whether in support or opposition.
Of course. I never claimed they couldn't wield their money. No spending of money is without influence.
I frankly don't know shit about common core so I have nothing to say about it, only the logic you employed there. The appeal to popularity remains a logical fallacy.
I think you missed the point of my argument- it wasn't that common core is good, by any means.
The claim being refuted here is that the Gates Foundation used their money to undemocratically push a standard upon the entire country. This claim is false because of the reasoning applied here. Whether or not common core is great or not- I have no idea. I'm not an educator. I have heard from educators that it is
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They want to override democratic government & channel public money into their own pet issues & projects, regardless of whether they're actually beneficial, needed, or wanted by the electorate.
Oh no, how terrible. Bill Gates wants to end malaria and give people clean drinking water. What is that sick bastard going to do next?
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My biology textbook from the 1980s notes that malaria was the largest killer in the world, and that global spending was just $5 million. Meanwhile spending on cancer research just in the US was over $445 million that same year. The only reason that malaria, snail fever, rural sanitation, and a host of other issues are being addressed at all is because of the Gates Foundation.
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Oh no, how terrible. Bill Gates wants to end malaria
No, he wants to spread strong IP law on behalf of Big Pharma. If your nation doesn't have it, you can't get vaccinations from the Gates Foundation.
and give people clean drinking water.
We'll see. I presume he only wants that because he can profit from it somehow, like nuclear power that he's pushing as an AGW solution even though it won't help.
Wasted (Score:3, Insightful)
He is spending money on the front end UI when the backend is horrible. For example, spending money on Alzheimer's diagnostics instead of trying to cure it is really stupid. We don't need a diagnostic for Alzheimer's, there is no cure. At best a diagnostic will only reveal that a person has (or will get) Alzheimer's instead of some other dementia. How is that useful in any way? The other thing is spending money on farming the same old crops with the same old technology is a giant toilet for money. The money should go towards how to generate food/protein. Building disease treatment centers is stupid when if you cured the disease you won't even need the treatment center.
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We don't need a diagnostic for Alzheimer's, there is no cure. At best a diagnostic will only reveal that a person has (or will get) Alzheimer's instead of some other dementia. How is that useful in any way?
Earlier detection could lead to new discoveries about the causes. It could also lead to new treatments. You know, basic fucking research.
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\We know Alzheimer's patients have amyloid plaques, the problems are that we don't even know for absolute certainty if the plaques are the cause or a byproduct of the Alzheimer's and another big problem is we don't know why (in many cases) the plaques form, and how to safely/reliably degrade or remove the plaques.
Sounds like you just made a great case for why further research is needed.
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If the diagnostic is merely detecting the presence of amyloid plaques, that is useless.
Ah, yes.
Because treating a disease without a known cure is useless.
That's some solid fucking reasoning there, chief.
I think everyone agrees that a cure is ideal.
However, starting cholinesterase inhibitors upon detection will give them more time without some of the really socially debilitating symptoms they have almost certainly mistaken as other things.
Right now, there is no detection of AD. Someone comes in when symptoms have become problematic enough, or their life has been sufficiently fucking de
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Would you rather spend $10 billion on opening up a bunch of memory care centers forever, or spend that $10 billion on ending the need for those centers?
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1) It's not zero-sum.
2) There's no direct conversion from a dollar for A and a dollar for B.
The only thing that can be said for sure, is that dollars for detection at least have a realizable benefit, while dollars for a cure have the hope of a benefit.
So, let me rephrase your question.
Would you rather spend $20 to know that you made a doomed person's life more comfortable when it mattered, or would you rather spend $20 on preventing their doom, knowing that your $20 had
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It is zero-sum. Money supply isn't infinite. I actually know people involved in basic Alzheimer's research. There is actually very little funding available to them -- 99% of Alzheimer's spending is on the treatment and care of patients. They are consistently dealing with having to get funds. And it's not like they haven't any new ideas or things they want to try out. Costs associated with Alzheimer's disease reached $277 Billion in 2018. It is probably well over $300 billion by now. Guess how much is going
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Is curing it also a goal? You bet. But acting like early diagnosis doesn't matter is pure fucking idiocy. Whoever moderated you up should be kicked in the teeth.
Corrected Headline: Bill gates moves money around (Score:1)
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OK, so you're saying that no money goes to benefit anyone else other than Bill Gates?
Mind sending me a link to back yourself up here?
Government spending isn't always 100% above board (Score:3)
$4.8 Billion - DOD duplicating computer systems
$100,000,000 on a harbor and airport for a town with 75 people in it.
$2,000,000 for an intern program that only hired 1 intern.
$16,400,000 paying for food stamps for dead people.
$8,500,000 for Bio Fuel @ only $424.00/gal
$12,000,000 for DOD Bio Fuel "Going Green" project @ $27.00/gal
$Billions and Billions on Department of Education with only 65-70% actually going to classrooms.
$45,000,000 for cameras in Chicago which were destroyed right away by weather.
The rest of this list is way to long for here, but you get the point.
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$8,500,000 for Bio Fuel @ only $424.00/gal ...and more
$12,000,000 for DOD Bio Fuel "Going Green" project @ $27.00/gal
150% more money for a 94% reduction in price? That's a bargain! How often is DoD that effective?
He's just fueling the polarization.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Bill Gates singled out the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade as "a huge setback for gender equality, for women's health, and for overall human progress." "The potential for even further regression is scary," he added. "It will put lives at risk for women, people of color, and anyone living on the margins."
The fact he'd single out that one ruling (which, BTW, is irrelevant to the entire world EXCEPT for the USA) shows he's funding a personal agenda made of his opinions.
All of the people acting like
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What the Supremes essentially said is that there is no right to privacy, since that was the concept that Roe v Wade was settled on. If you don't think that's a big deal then I don't know what would be.
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Well, there is a prescribed way to instantiate privacy nationally....add it as a constitutional amendment.
re: right to privacy (Score:2)
There *is* no Constitutionally enumerated right to privacy. Privacy isn't mentioned anyway as a natural/God given right for the government to uphold.
Privacy has always been only legally upheld as a conditional right "by extension" of having other rights. (EG. Anyone is allowed to photograph you if you're out in public, period. If you're in your home and someone sticks a camera up to your windows (trespassing on your property to do so) and takes photos of you inside your place? Now you have some legal prote
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How about some Windows reparations? (Score:3)
We all deserve to be compensated for the anguish and frustration caused by blue screens in the past and for the wasted time and frustration caused by unanticipated Windows updates.
or maybe too much Linux is being used (Score:3)
I hardly ever hear much about politics are robotics build sessions or meetings. Nor at maker space builds of other types of things.
Always here about money needed for licenses for this that and the other things though.
Go figure, here comes Bill Gates like a shining armored knight ready to save us with Microsoft software. oh boy, thankyou sir may I have another?
LoB
Polarization (Score:3, Insightful)
""Polarization is forcing us to look backwards and fight again for basic human rights, social justice, and democratic norms." While achieving gender equality has long been one of the foundation's primary investment areas, in his essay, Bill Gates singled out the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade as "a huge setback for gender equality, for women's health, and for overall human progress." "The potential for even further regression is scary," he added. "It will put lives at risk for women, people of color, and anyone living on the margins.""
So 'polarization' shifting things back to the middle is what is preventing his polar position from dominating?
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It's not bringing things back towards the middle, unless you consider that loss of bodily autonomy, privacy and access to healthcare somehow balances out the imaginary scales where social justice and trans people are tilting them the other way.
You can't have half a right, you can't half control your own body. The US certainly tried it for decades, but in reality there is no middle ground, and there are no scales to be tipped. You either accept other people have rights and may exercise them in ways you don't
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"You can't have half a right, you can't half control your own body."
I've never followed this talking point. Abortion isn't about the woman's body it is about whether or not you have the right to kill a child if you are its guardian. The woman isn't the one who dies and the procedure is to kill the child not treat the woman. The child doesn't have the mother's DNA and is not a body part. Some religion may claim otherwise but modern science is straightforward, there is no magic blessing or even a growth devel
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The issue is that what you think is a human being is not to many people.
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There is no objective basis for that position. As a rather polarized and outspoken political agent yourself we both know you'd have raised it if there were. A very solid indication that you are on the wrong side of history is when your argument depends on dehumanizing someone, especially someone who isn't in a position to defend themselves, to make terminating their life acceptable. That is why the arguments of anti-life proponents are either attacks on their opposition or rare edge cases (most of them arti
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My view is based on science.
If you go back 200,000 generations, your direct paternal ancestor was a fish. Somewhere between him and you, human beings evolved. There was no first human, it was a gradual process.
People eat fish without a second thought. Murdering a person is a serious crime that most people would recoil at. There wasn't a specific ancestor of yours who was the first to be due human rights, who wasn't food. It was a gradual process.
It's the same with pregnancy. There is no definite point where
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There is no evolutionary process occurring between fertilized egg and adult human just as there is none occurring between a fertilized fish egg and the adult fish. If you eat a fertilized chicken egg, you are eating a chicken. If you eat a fertilized fish egg, you are eating a fish. To say fertilized X egg is simply to be more specific about what sort of X you are referring to. Barring some sort of environmental failure disrupting the process an omnipotent cell containing viable DNA is a complete lifeform a
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"You can't have half a right, you can't half control your own body."
I've never followed this talking point. Abortion isn't about the woman's body
See, to you that's true. But to other people, the woman's body is relevant and important, and the woman has rights.
the money would be better spent on elections (Score:2)
A few candidates winning in key races could do more for easing the suffering of the entire world than $20 billion dollars could ever do.
Still a smart fool. (Score:2)
Want to stem human suffering? Pour 20 billion into real, useful AI. Get us that, and we have solutions to all the solvable problems instead of attacking them piecemeal with slow, fumbling human reason.
He could have started that process 30 yesrs ago. And who knows where we'd be now if he hadndone so?
Blaming politics for making politics hard? (Score:2)
No, you're just losing for the first time and wishing that people would do what you want instead of having to convince them your ideas are any good. You know, through dialog, compromise and cooperation. Maybe the problem isn't the political divide, maybe it's that you're just bad at politics. Maybe it's that
nope (Score:2)
Gates controls the foundation and directs its investments to profit him directly.
The headline should read "Bill Gates transfers $20 Billion from one hand to the other To Stem 'Significant Taxation'".
Poor Bill (Score:2)
Which while better than a vast majority of CEOs but not something to be proud of.
Where's my compensation? (Score:2)
I've experienced "significant suffering" due to COVID e.g. having to listen to blowhards bleat incessantly about it and having supply chains disrupted unnecessarily. I'll need two million dollars compensation. Better make that four million to adjust for inflation. Oh, and I'll need another million for a stupid regulatory taxation recovery fee.
Good On Ya, Bill (Score:2)
I really don't care how you made it. It's what you're doing with it now that's the important thing.
Re: (Score:1)
Torvalds explicitly said he's not a nice guy. Gates is pretending hard to be one.
Re: (Score:1)
You cannot have privilege without polarization since you have to justify why you deserve more and why everyone else does not. But privilege is "supposed" to resolve in to why you can do more with what you get, eventually. I mean how many people made a living just repeating what they heard on fox news for example, as privilege dictated that you must be a "terrorist" for disagreeing with it and took that privilege all the way to the capital while it was in session? So..make something with the privilege you en
Re: (Score:2)
He derives no money from his foundation.
Businesses that the foundation may invest in that Gates might hold stock in are held in blind trust.
I know it pisses you off, but the foundation is above board, and highly scrutinized by regulators in every state that it operates in, as well as federally.
You can dislike what the foundation chooses to spend its money on, but claiming its his piggy bank is a flat out lie.
Re: (Score:2)
It was meant to be funny. And don't project emotions of your own on me, you don't know me except through my comment.
Yeah, lie like a rug I suppose, funny?
Josh K.
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But accusing of "projecting my own emotions"?
Eyeroll. So clever. Your mommy must think you are so smart.
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Thank-you for the laugh..."accusing" and making a personal attack. And you still are projecting, and don't know me.
Whatever...
Josh K.
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Don't know you? I don't need to. You're a fucking imbecile.
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I mean, last I checked, his tax rate was significantly below 100%.
I.e., donating money is a money loss.
The tax breaks are a lolly pop given to them for donating their money.
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I mean, I know you think your white ass shines in the dark, but it doesn't. Skin color is pigmentation, not light.