272
this always works.
(lemmy.sdf.org)
trust me bro
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this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2025
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They exist??
Sadly yes. Ever since he became a "philanthropist", people come out of the woodwork to say he's "one of the good ones". I have to remind them that he may be "good" now but he can still pay his fucking taxes and be better.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation lobbied against waiving intellectual property laws that would've let countries produce the vaccines themselves. Instead, only the pharma companies that owned the IP could produce it, and those vaccines were immediately gobbled up by wealthy countries leaving millions in poorer countries without a vaccine. So no, he's not one of the good ones, his philanthropy is still evil with a hint of good purely to launder his reputation.
I'm probably one of the people OP is thinking of. Before my time he was apparently a massive bastard, and he even admits to it. These days, as far as I can tell, he rescues Africans and doesn't do much else. Every other famous billionaire is higher on my shit list.
Almost certainly, he's saved far more lives than he's taken at this point.
He scalped Western technophobes pretty hard and tried to hobble a lot of early FOSS efforts (although we came through in the end). Few of the idiots buying Windows XP licences needed that money more then the recipients of the Gates fund, though, so if that's his lifetime transaction it's based.
It's not clear good people exist at all.
People also say he's putting microchips in the COVID vaccines, so pardon me if I'm skeptical about all that. It appears to be a philanthropic project. Maybe not the best possible one, but one nonetheless.
Wouldn't the "holding accountable" itself involve some bad actions?
<3
I killed 5, now I gave blood and saved 3, only 2 to go to be "morally clean" am I right?
Pfff.
Hey, it's a pretty popular ethical philosophy. Generally, people like to leave caveats, but fully rejecting all consequentialism is similarly uncommon.
If you're going to be a pure deontologist, you have to pick out single actions he's done that went against your chosen rules. One hurdle there is that most of his activities were legal in their time or place. Another is that seeking personal profit is almost universal and often commended.
Have you heard of the trolley problem? You should check it out instead of trying to "get me" with some slop. Also, legit isn't moral!
The fact I know what deontology means should suggest that I've heard of the trolley problem.
Correct. But, you'd have to figure out an alternative system of rules that he broke. And it may very well capture people you like as well. Most people would have no problem killing a technical standard for a very large sum of money.
I can't say it's impossible to do reasonably, but I can't say it is possible either. Most people just acknowledge that sometimes the ends justify the means.
You're just moving the goalpoast, as you most probably know what that is too, you know what you're doing and this acts in bad faith.
Go bootlick a billionaire if you want to but don't come here try to convince anyone that they are in any way good people, that's just propaganda, and if you're not paid to do it then you are also a fool.
Edit: it's clearly just ai slop now, I'm not answering that lol.
It's not clear what goalpost you mean, exactly. Any consequentialism being bad, or pure consequentialism?
I was pretty careful not to set a goalpost of any kind on pure consequentialism, if you go back and double check, exactly because it has well-known problems.
Don't flatter them with the evil genius shit either. That's how they want to be seen.