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It depends on how you look at it. It turned out that Bill Gates is a kind of Robin Hood: in a sense, he robbed the rich (those who could buy a computer or who

It depends on how you look at it. It turned out that Bill Gates is a kind of Robin Hood: in a sense, he robbed the rich (those who could buy a computer or who owned a software company) and gave it to the poor. Unless you believe that richer people should be richer because they deserve it and poorer people should be poorer because they deserve it, I think that he made a positive impact on the world at this point by redistributing wealth.

anonbanker 11y ago
the only way you could compare Gates to Robin Hood is if you've never heard of his letter to the Homebrew Computer Club[0]. But now you have, so you have no excuse anymore. Gates made a career stealing from not just the poor, but the charitable[1]. Then he pioneered new ways to destroy competing markets[2] He'll have to cure cancer to offset the damage he's done. 0. http://www.digibarn.com/collections/newsletters/homebrew/V2_01/gatesletter.html http://www.digibarn.com/collections/newsletters/homebrew/V2_... 1. http://slashdot.org/story/00/05/02/158204/kerberos-pacs-and-microsofts-dirty-tricks http://slashdot.org/story/00/05/02/158204/kerberos-pacs-and-... 2. http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/halloween1.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/halloween1.html
quadrangle 11y ago
I don't know all the facts, but I know a lot about this particular case. I'm certain that Gates' impact on the world has been almost entirely transfer of wealth from less wealthy to more wealthy. Microsoft's legacy been technologically bad (as in buggy lousy software), actively hurting (explicitly fighting against) the free software movement which aims to empowers regular people, and bullying governments around the world (literally taking taxpayer money). The elites of Microsoft took home among the greatest amounts of wealth of any company, and employees spend absurdly lavishly on all their business trips etc. Microsoft is a good example of how richer people do NOT deserve their riches, so we're in agreement about the injustice of the system. Your idea that Bill Gates is on the right side of this is, well, almost completely backwards except that some of his philanthrophy is postive today. On the other hand, the Gates Foundation is a major pusher of Common Core testing in education, which is, by many accounts and perspectives, destructive and terrible policy. So, I'm not even sure that the Gates Foundation is all that positive, even there it's a mix.

anonbanker 11y ago

the only way you could compare Gates to Robin Hood is if you've never heard of his letter to the Homebrew Computer Club[0]. But now you have, so you have no excuse anymore. Gates made a career stealing from not just the poor, but the charitable[1]. Then he pioneered new ways to destroy competing markets[2] He'll have to cure cancer to offset the damage he's done. 0. http://www.digibarn.com/collections/newsletters/homebrew/V2_01/gatesletter.html http://www.digibarn.com/collections/newsletters/homebrew/V2_... 1. http://slashdot.org/story/00/05/02/158204/kerberos-pacs-and-microsofts-dirty-tricks http://slashdot.org/story/00/05/02/158204/kerberos-pacs-and-... 2. http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/halloween1.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/halloween1.html

quadrangle 11y ago

I don't know all the facts, but I know a lot about this particular case. I'm certain that Gates' impact on the world has been almost entirely transfer of wealth from less wealthy to more wealthy. Microsoft's legacy been technologically bad (as in buggy lousy software), actively hurting (explicitly fighting against) the free software movement which aims to empowers regular people, and bullying governments around the world (literally taking taxpayer money). The elites of Microsoft took home among the greatest amounts of wealth of any company, and employees spend absurdly lavishly on all their business trips etc. Microsoft is a good example of how richer people do NOT deserve their riches, so we're in agreement about the injustice of the system. Your idea that Bill Gates is on the right side of this is, well, almost completely backwards except that some of his philanthrophy is postive today. On the other hand, the Gates Foundation is a major pusher of Common Core testing in education, which is, by many accounts and perspectives, destructive and terrible policy. So, I'm not even sure that the Gates Foundation is all that positive, even there it's a mix.