• yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    15 hours ago

    You’re exhausting.

    Yes, all billionaires are bad, just like all mountains are big. But some mountains are bigger than others. Amazing concept, I know.

    • Michael@slrpnk.net
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      7 hours ago

      Why does society need to have billionaires? Why can’t (e.g.) Bill Gates just participate in society based on his own merits like the rest of us?

      • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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        3 hours ago

        Why does society need to have billionaires?

        It doesn’t. In an ideal utopian society there wouldn’t be billionaires.

        But, given the reality that billionaires do exist, I’d rather have them using their accumulated wealth on disease curing/prevention than them just sitting on the money or using it to actively fuck over entire populations (like Musk has been doing).

        That doesn’t mean Gatws or Buffet are *good billionaires *, it means they are less bad.

        Shades of grey exist. Nuance is a real auseful ful thing.

        • Michael@slrpnk.net
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          2 hours ago

          I’ll reiterate the point from my other comment. Value judgements are a waste of time, energy, and our voices.

          Whether or not Bill Gates is worse than Elon Musk is just as important as to whether Tom Cruise is a better actor than Leonardo DiCaprio. Neither value judgement is worth my breath. It’s a pointless exercise.

          We are reaching a critical junction in our timeline where these billionaires can not and should not exist any longer. We’ve learned our lessons, their benefit and merit is irrelevant because even the best billionaires sit silently and are complicit. They have power, influence, and wealth - all the ingredients needed to directly affect change.

          At best, they throw around pennies that don’t address root causes and play the PR game, or play the blame game by focusing on individuals who are absolutely not responsible for the root causes of various issues that plague our societies.

      • yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 hours ago

        I would personally gleefully murder every billionaire. Who said society needs billionaires? You ideological-purity testing MAGA-resembling turd muncher.

    • whodatdair@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 day ago

      👅👢

      Calling a billionaire “benign” then getting pissy when I give evidence to the contrary is weak shit.

      Also, so long as we’re trading insults i think ill go with “Fragile Ego Piss Baby who thinks some boots don’t taste that bad”

      • jsomae@lemmy.ml
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        8 hours ago

        They said “as benign as it gets” which is not the same thing as “benign.” To give evidence to the contrary, you must find a more benign billionaire than Bill Gates.

      • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Your evidence that he is bad is that windows is bad.

        Our evidence that Bill Gates isn’t that bad is that Bill Gates has directly saved millions of lives by donating the vast majority of his wealth to an organization he created to supply medicine, food, and water to the world’s poorest regions namely Africa.

        I feel like we’re not on the same intellectual playing fields.

        • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
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          1 day ago

          what about the numerous sexual harassment lawsuits, decades long friendship with Epstein including numerous trips on the lollita express and his longstanding board membership of Berkshire Hathaway which has presided over numerous ethics violations?

          • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            The flight logs do not show that Bill Gates has ever visited the island on any plane. The most that has been confirmed is that Bill Gates flew from New Jersey to Florida on a private plane owned by Epstein once and that he had dinner with Epstain exactly once, which in interviews he expressed as a major mistake. I remind you that before 2006 Epstein was a public figure as a professional financier and broker and even until 2019 him and Ghislaine participated in major fundraisers.

            Furthermore, your claim is one that gets constantly circulated by right wing nutjobs after a particularly viral tweet in 2023.

            • Michael@slrpnk.net
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              5 hours ago

              Bill Gates knowingly associated with a person involved with and convicted of some pretty crazy stuff. Bill knows it’s crazy, that’s why he’s been spending out the ass on PR for many years. His wife divorced him, and Bill’s relationship with Epstein was seemingly a big factor.

              https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/articles/melinda-gates-opens-divorce-betrayal-211513816.html

              Melinda: “I did not like that he had meetings with Jeffrey Epstein, no. I made that clear to him…He was abhorrent. He was evil personified. My heart breaks for these women.”

              The philanthropist stressed that Bill’s relationship with the sex offender affected her deeply, writing: “That October, things had reached a fever pitch when The New York Times published a deeply disturbing article that raised serious questions about Bill’s conduct.”

              “Questions that suggested he had betrayed not only our marriage but also my values,” Melinda lamented in her book.

              If even his former wife throws Bill under the bus, why are you defending him?

              • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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                7 hours ago

                If you had rumours about you of being involved with a worldwide sex trafficking ring I think it would put a strain on your relationships too, pal.

                • Michael@slrpnk.net
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                  7 hours ago

                  So in the absence of evidence, let’s defend Bill. Got it.

                  We could stay neutral, but still be concerned that this person still has power, wealth, and influence…but everybody loves billionaire philanthropists, am I right?

                  • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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                    7 hours ago

                    Saying Bill Gates is as bad as Elon Musk is not Neutral. You should not be Neutral about Musk, Zuckerberg, or Bezos, they are the enemy.

          • Auli@lemmy.ca
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            22 hours ago

            What friendship. He was never at the island according to records. Unless you have some proof.

            • Michael@slrpnk.net
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              7 hours ago

              Ah, right. It was just Bill getting financial advice - purely business.

              It’s certainly normal to get financial advice from sex offenders and those convicted of prostitution, with multiple accusers in court against them.

            • Psychadelligoat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              18 hours ago

              Oh, so he just flew on the plane named after the pedophile book and was known to also have children on it for the sexual pleasure of whoever was there?

              The island wasn’t the only place kids were getting fucked, dude