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this post was submitted on 24 May 2025
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Asklemmy
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Closest I can think of is post-Microsoft Bill Gates, with the humanitarian/healthcare stuff he's been involved in. He was a total piece of shit as Microsoft's CEO, though, what with the aggressive anti-trust practices and all. Not that the ones that came after were much better (especially Ballmer).
What Gates is doing right now is a massive publicity stunt to make people believe he's actually a "good person". He is not. He is still a disgusting billionaire that contradicts everything he preaches.
He is constantly buying farmland, to the point where he's the biggest land owner in the whole US. This is seriously harming small farmers.
He preaches about climate change and using cardboard straws while in his massive ($650M!) mega yacht
The "humanitarian/healthcare" stuff he did, while helpful, was only done because he could use it as a tax writeoff. He wouldn't have done it if it wasn't the case.
Also introduced voucher schools because he didn't want teachers telling him laptops won't solve education
• That's good for climate change?
• He has unimaginable influence. Doesn't the change he makes outweight his mega yacht? (Yes I now how ridiculously expensive these monster ships are) I doubt he is only committing to netto his yacht.
• Oh you know him well, could you make a meeting happen? I have an idea
How is that good for climate change?
Nobody listens to this guy. Have you been recycling just cuz Gates told you to? Also these kinds of yachts pollute so much with a single trip that it outweighs any good that he could have done by convincing millions to save electricity or water.
I don't need to know him well. It's not rocket science.
The "buying farmland" part is just a product of him being a billionaire tbf, it's what he does with it that could be concerning.
The Gates foundation explicitly lobbied against Oxford's initial plan to open source their covid vaccine. Gates' worship of intellectual propery law is responsible for the patent on the astrazeneca vaccine. The project was initially started under the hope that the third world being able to manufacture their own vaccines without owing royalties would be important in limiting the spread of covid.
I remember reading about that at the time but couldn't find a reliable source to back that claim. Fascists and anti-vaxxers love to scapegoat Gates along with George Soros (and jews in general) so I kind of dismissed it as far-right misinfo. Sucks if actually true, though.
A lot of us were genuinely cheering on the announcement that the Oxford vaccine would be opensourced, it was the reason people were actually following updates on that vaccine specifically. It was a big point of discussion here on lemmy at that time and when the decision was reversed the focal point of every criticism was that it would very obviously limit vaccine accessibility at a time when we desperately needed the population vaccinated as quickly as possible. People were angry over his justifications because even if we assumed the best-case scenario where he was somehow correct and it wouldn't restrict vaccine access at all, it still would not be an improvement over not having a patent at all. The absolute best case scenario for that reversal would have been vaccination rates being just as high as if it stayed open-source.
I don't doubt some morons found those headlines after-the-fact and did their own spin without reading, but the idea that antivaccine sentiments and blind Gates-hatred were the motivators for people being upset with him when that happened is wrong.
Bill Gates’ PR machine strikes again.
Billionaire philanthropy doesn't have to be selfless, my donations to relief aids are tax deductible too.
When people say "climbing the corporate ladder" the only image that comes to mind is a ladder shape made of coworkers and whoever is capable of stepping on more heads is declared the winner