3 ms·

It's still a bit like taking with one hand and giving with the other, if you know what I mean? Where the money comes from does matter. So it's not quite as disc

It's still a bit like taking with one hand and giving with the other, if you know what I mean? Where the money comes from does matter. So it's not quite as disconnected as the examples you cited, IHMO. Kinda like drug barons who help kids and poor people in their communities; sure it's great for those they help, but it doesn't make you forget the dead bodies they are also responsible for. Not just the companies ripped to pieces, consider all the FUD about open source - haven't heard that stuff in a while, huh? But imagine if that would actually have taken root; and it wasn't for lack of trying, that's for sure. Did Microsoft cost the world more than it gives back? How would the world look if what they wanted, they would have gotten? Hard to tell. I do think Gates is aging well, and getting cooler as he does; but it would help if he at least could say "in hindsight, some Microsoft tactics and claims were kinda low, oh well", instead of going on about how everything is so wonderful and smart and clean, and the past full of hard work and friendly ribbing and nothing else. But to be fair, that seems to be the norm of the industry, and he seems to be less full of it than most. So yeah, good for him, but still let's not confuse him with people who spend all their life doing good, or saints. If I give someone 5$, my generosity is not measured by how poor that person is, but by how much 5$ are for me. That sometimes gets forgotten in all the money porn.

bmelton 13y ago
I don't necessarily disagree. The broader point that I was trying to make was that idols shouldn't be idolized, nor should demons be demonized. People may or may not be the sum of their actions, but even if you just mugged somebody an hour ago, you giving that $5 to a poor person is still an act of good. Not quite as benevolent, but still, preferable to having spent that $5 on crack cocaine. Robin Hood he isn't (though I'd argue that people's view of Robin Hood is also very skewed -- he did not steal from the rich and give to the poor, as the nutshell synopsis goes), but nor is he Satan. In real life, we're very few of us saints. In regards to 'credit', it's worth noting (forgive me if you already knew this) that I just learned not too long ago that Mother Teresa, often pedestooled as the archetype of things saintly, was not only not very Saintly, but depending on how you read it, quite the horrid cunt, whose good deeds were mostly a marketing ploy that she used to amass wealth. All totaled though, yes, it'd be fantastic if Bill Gates came out and decried the actions of his 'former self'. But that doesn't mean that his current contributions don't massively benefit society.
- PavlovsCat 13y ago
  I agree with all of that, though maybe he actually is a bit of a Robin Hood, considering Microsoft "plundered" mostly the first world? It may not have been his initial intention to give it away, but you're right, it's still a good act to do it. For kids it's more important to not die of a disease than to use Linux, that stuff can come later, and if I told a mother who is happy about her kid being alive that "yeah fine, but Linux is better, and Microsoft ads are dishonest, so how ethical is this?!", she'd slap me, rightfully so. > In regards to 'credit', it's worth noting (forgive me if you already knew this) that I just learned not too long ago that Mother Teresa, often pedestooled as the archetype of things saintly, was not only not very Saintly, but depending on how you read it, quite the horrid cunt, whose good deeds were mostly a marketing ploy that she used to amass wealth. Yes, I remember reading an article about that in like 1998, and being kinda shocked. Something about basements full of donations that went unused or to missionary work because she thought the poor were ordained to be poor by God or something, or purified by being poor, something like that. But considering this, I wouldn't call her a horrid cunt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Theresa#Spiritual_life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Theresa#Spiritual_life It's not like she was freely enjoying her life as superstar, it rather seems to me she was a simple woman who genuinely believed in the value of faith even when she herself didn't have it, which seems kinda tough. That doesn't make some of her actions less misguided, but because I like crude analogies so much: if you're in the bathtub, and a kid wants to bring you some super fresh toast, so it just throws the toaster in the bathtub... that's a bad outcome, but born from good intentions. Similarly, if from her perspective all that matters for the ultimate outcome for a person is faith, and if poor people have a better chance to get to heaven, it kinda makes sense. Which is utterly off-topic but hey :)
  - bmelton 13y ago
    Perhaps I've absorbed the bias from whichever exposé I read on the matter, but (paraphrased), she ran medical centers more like "places for poor people to go and die", and ran them zero painkillers, inadequate, unhygienic conditions that were understaffed, all so that she wouldn't 'interfere' with their suffering, which she felt likened them to Christ. As I stated, it's very likely that the truth is somewhere in the middle, and I certainly don't have any knowledge that would consider me insightful on the matter.

bmelton 13y ago

I don't necessarily disagree. The broader point that I was trying to make was that idols shouldn't be idolized, nor should demons be demonized. People may or may not be the sum of their actions, but even if you just mugged somebody an hour ago, you giving that $5 to a poor person is still an act of good. Not quite as benevolent, but still, preferable to having spent that $5 on crack cocaine. Robin Hood he isn't (though I'd argue that people's view of Robin Hood is also very skewed -- he did not steal from the rich and give to the poor, as the nutshell synopsis goes), but nor is he Satan. In real life, we're very few of us saints. In regards to 'credit', it's worth noting (forgive me if you already knew this) that I just learned not too long ago that Mother Teresa, often pedestooled as the archetype of things saintly, was not only not very Saintly, but depending on how you read it, quite the horrid cunt, whose good deeds were mostly a marketing ploy that she used to amass wealth. All totaled though, yes, it'd be fantastic if Bill Gates came out and decried the actions of his 'former self'. But that doesn't mean that his current contributions don't massively benefit society.

PavlovsCat 13y ago
I agree with all of that, though maybe he actually is a bit of a Robin Hood, considering Microsoft "plundered" mostly the first world? It may not have been his initial intention to give it away, but you're right, it's still a good act to do it. For kids it's more important to not die of a disease than to use Linux, that stuff can come later, and if I told a mother who is happy about her kid being alive that "yeah fine, but Linux is better, and Microsoft ads are dishonest, so how ethical is this?!", she'd slap me, rightfully so. > In regards to 'credit', it's worth noting (forgive me if you already knew this) that I just learned not too long ago that Mother Teresa, often pedestooled as the archetype of things saintly, was not only not very Saintly, but depending on how you read it, quite the horrid cunt, whose good deeds were mostly a marketing ploy that she used to amass wealth. Yes, I remember reading an article about that in like 1998, and being kinda shocked. Something about basements full of donations that went unused or to missionary work because she thought the poor were ordained to be poor by God or something, or purified by being poor, something like that. But considering this, I wouldn't call her a horrid cunt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Theresa#Spiritual_life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Theresa#Spiritual_life It's not like she was freely enjoying her life as superstar, it rather seems to me she was a simple woman who genuinely believed in the value of faith even when she herself didn't have it, which seems kinda tough. That doesn't make some of her actions less misguided, but because I like crude analogies so much: if you're in the bathtub, and a kid wants to bring you some super fresh toast, so it just throws the toaster in the bathtub... that's a bad outcome, but born from good intentions. Similarly, if from her perspective all that matters for the ultimate outcome for a person is faith, and if poor people have a better chance to get to heaven, it kinda makes sense. Which is utterly off-topic but hey :)
- bmelton 13y ago
  Perhaps I've absorbed the bias from whichever exposé I read on the matter, but (paraphrased), she ran medical centers more like "places for poor people to go and die", and ran them zero painkillers, inadequate, unhygienic conditions that were understaffed, all so that she wouldn't 'interfere' with their suffering, which she felt likened them to Christ. As I stated, it's very likely that the truth is somewhere in the middle, and I certainly don't have any knowledge that would consider me insightful on the matter.