4 ms·

> I dont know Well good thing you started with that since you are clearly not familiar with him at all. He is very very well read and highly involved with the

> I dont know Well good thing you started with that since you are clearly not familiar with him at all. He is very very well read and highly involved with the charity.

jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
Whatever. The man runs a vertically integrated monopoly which has been evading taxes for decades. You all need to quit with this blind hero worship for rich people. Sure he's saving Africa, but he fucked america first, and that makes all his spending and reading very underwhelming to me.
- dctoedt 6y ago
  > but he fucked america first I dunno: He played a crucial role in a long-term, industry-wide collaboration that resulted in practically every household having at least one computer. And for years he's been devoting his fortune and his intellect to solving global-scale problems. That has gotta be worth some redemptive value for past sins, yes?
  - jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
    Im not catholic, so I dont believe in redemption through third parties. The courts dont either. Jus ex injuria non oritur. Just acts do not follow unjust acts. Even if we do good with our ill gotten gains, we are still accountable for our own actions. The sentence for tax evasion is not "Donating to malaria research" and anyone else who had microsoft's numbers would have been destroyed. Oh and that "computer in every home" crap? That's the monopoly! Microsoft is so big it competes with its own products. That's why it's untouchable. How are you going to audit microsoft when the IRS runs office 2010 on legacy copies of windows 7? This humanitarian stuff is just smoke and mirrors. A glamour cast on the american people.
  - gowld 6y ago
    It's not "his" fortune, it's profits from an illegal antitrust operation.
    - modmans2nd 6y ago
      No it’s not
      - jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
        Yes it is.
        strbean 6y ago
        I mean, it's pretty hard to argue it isn't his property at this point. And overall, he stole from the rich and is giving to the poor.
        jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
        Wow. Microsoft wants to own us, do you get that? They want our kids to go to microsoft school, to train for a microsoft job, get married by a microsoft priest and be laid to rest at a microsoft funeral. This is where microsoft will take us if we continue to willfully ignore their world-conquering agenda. Yeah, I know, there are lots of world-conquering agendas out there. Microsoft's actually warrants concern because their plan might actually work. In fact, it definitely will, so long as there are people like you who will ignore facts and advance their interests. I am very worried that the government so far has proven too weak to break up, or audit microsoft. What's next? Too weak to jail microsoft? Too weak to refuse microsoft products? Will the government even try in the future? Or will they fall in line, for fear of failure and embarassment? The last two encounters had pretty big negative consequences for computing, and the nation as a whole. Another dust up may leave the government in a weaker position than it is now, with case law already on the books making it more difficult for the IRS to audit large corporations.
    - dllthomas 6y ago
  - mcv 6y ago
    His fight against disease certainly does a lot to redeem him in my eyes. I was never a fan of him in his Microsoft days, and I'm still not a fan of Microsoft or their products, though they stand out less today because the other Big Tech companies are just as bad in various ways. Remember when we all loved Google and Apple? Windows is still terrible, though, and not fulfilling the promise of what should be possible with computers. I also remember how we laughed when his Encarta encyclopedia tried to sell Bill Gates as widely known as a philanthropist. It wasn't true then, but it is true now. He certainly deserves that credit.
    - jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
      It's as if the entirety of computing would be better off today if Microsoft had been broken up back in 2001, and the world wasn't forced to suffer through decades of windows stagnation.
      - globular-toast 6y ago
        People are simple and need a single figure to worship. Gates is an example of that.

> I dont know Well good thing you started with that since you are clearly not familiar with him at all. He is very very well read and highly involved with the charity.

jacobwilliamroy 6y ago

Whatever. The man runs a vertically integrated monopoly which has been evading taxes for decades. You all need to quit with this blind hero worship for rich people. Sure he's saving Africa, but he fucked america first, and that makes all his spending and reading very underwhelming to me.

dctoedt 6y ago
> but he fucked america first I dunno: He played a crucial role in a long-term, industry-wide collaboration that resulted in practically every household having at least one computer. And for years he's been devoting his fortune and his intellect to solving global-scale problems. That has gotta be worth some redemptive value for past sins, yes?
- jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
  Im not catholic, so I dont believe in redemption through third parties. The courts dont either. Jus ex injuria non oritur. Just acts do not follow unjust acts. Even if we do good with our ill gotten gains, we are still accountable for our own actions. The sentence for tax evasion is not "Donating to malaria research" and anyone else who had microsoft's numbers would have been destroyed. Oh and that "computer in every home" crap? That's the monopoly! Microsoft is so big it competes with its own products. That's why it's untouchable. How are you going to audit microsoft when the IRS runs office 2010 on legacy copies of windows 7? This humanitarian stuff is just smoke and mirrors. A glamour cast on the american people.
- gowld 6y ago
  It's not "his" fortune, it's profits from an illegal antitrust operation.
  - modmans2nd 6y ago
    No it’s not
    - jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
      Yes it is.
      - strbean 6y ago
        I mean, it's pretty hard to argue it isn't his property at this point. And overall, he stole from the rich and is giving to the poor.
        jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
        Wow. Microsoft wants to own us, do you get that? They want our kids to go to microsoft school, to train for a microsoft job, get married by a microsoft priest and be laid to rest at a microsoft funeral. This is where microsoft will take us if we continue to willfully ignore their world-conquering agenda. Yeah, I know, there are lots of world-conquering agendas out there. Microsoft's actually warrants concern because their plan might actually work. In fact, it definitely will, so long as there are people like you who will ignore facts and advance their interests. I am very worried that the government so far has proven too weak to break up, or audit microsoft. What's next? Too weak to jail microsoft? Too weak to refuse microsoft products? Will the government even try in the future? Or will they fall in line, for fear of failure and embarassment? The last two encounters had pretty big negative consequences for computing, and the nation as a whole. Another dust up may leave the government in a weaker position than it is now, with case law already on the books making it more difficult for the IRS to audit large corporations.
  - dllthomas 6y ago
- mcv 6y ago
  His fight against disease certainly does a lot to redeem him in my eyes. I was never a fan of him in his Microsoft days, and I'm still not a fan of Microsoft or their products, though they stand out less today because the other Big Tech companies are just as bad in various ways. Remember when we all loved Google and Apple? Windows is still terrible, though, and not fulfilling the promise of what should be possible with computers. I also remember how we laughed when his Encarta encyclopedia tried to sell Bill Gates as widely known as a philanthropist. It wasn't true then, but it is true now. He certainly deserves that credit.
  - jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
    It's as if the entirety of computing would be better off today if Microsoft had been broken up back in 2001, and the world wasn't forced to suffer through decades of windows stagnation.
    - globular-toast 6y ago
      People are simple and need a single figure to worship. Gates is an example of that.