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It’s as simple as his new wife wanted a foundation, just like his old wife had.
It’s all fucking BS and theatrics, it’s easy to promise shit AFTER YOU DIE.
Way to make people root for your death
Yeah, let’s go! We should start posting: Jeff, die already, we need that funding.
Yea, unless he liqidates his assets and donates it right now, get t he e fuck outta here
lol you are a silly person. You must think if he liquidated his asset he will walk away with $124 billion dollar, don’t you? So silly… lol Once he is caught selling his stocks, so will the market sell theirs, and his stock will become worth pennies in no time, before he even clears his first stock-block sale. None of these billionaires are worth the tag assigned to them, that is a market value so long they stay in the game lol
I’d prefer his head, all of his assets, and his company. All given to the communist parties in every respective country.
What that means is he will invest that much in energy related projects during the course of his life. He did this the last time as well. He is not giving his money away. We are just used to turd ass quality journalism.
You can kiss all the babies you want, you still eat the ones at home.
Fuck a pseudo Phil.
I’m so fucking sick of all these billionaires “pledging” their fortunes. “I promise to donate all my wealth when I die” then fucking do it you cowards, die already.
Was just gonna say its always some vague cause instead of an actual concrete thing they’re donating to.
They donate their wealth to avoid taxes. Basically their families control the foundations, they donate and avoid a whole shit ton of taxes their next of kin get the money from the foundation.
Adam Conover did a video on it.
They give away all their money so they don’t have to give away some of their money. Then they commit crimes so their kids can… have the money they gave away to not give away.
What a take lol
Now say this about Bill Gates and watch the downvotes pour in for… some reason
Eh, Gates is older and has shown more commitment to the idea than most. I still wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him but the foundation has done some good things for a long time. And maybe with fewer self-aggrandizing press stories compared to others.
How do you go and, true to the expression, really throw someone?
Does it imply throwing a human being as we’d throw a log? Perhaps a brick? I’d expect it involves a lot of physical strenght. And does it imply being from a stationary position?
Does throwing someone down a window or from a moving car or perhaps a boat count?
It intrigues me.
Left hand by the scruff, right hand by the belt, lift, swing forward, back, forward, and release. Easy :)
That’s not how it works.
So many of them are financing “try to live forever with vampirism” style projects so what they’re saying is they want positive PR now just in case they fail… and probably will send their hoards to their eugenics-inspired failsons later anyway.
Let’s not forget, that while they “pLeDgE”, they are also literally fucking their workers at the same time and expect that it all cancels out…
Yeah, i pledge to fix all that shit i fucked up…
Like, imagine if Elon Musk actually did spend all the wealth he got from profiting off of the shitshow of COVID and solved climate change. He’d be hailed as a hero and the left would be stuck eating their hats for decades to come. But no, he would rather own the libs because they convinced his daughter to join their side.
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One night I went through Gates’ “Giving Pledge” and I compared the wealth of the people who signed on in 2010 (when they started doing this pledge to give more than half their wealth to charity thing) to their wealth now. The average increase in wealth in those 12 years was like 170%, and the total combined wealth of the 50 or so signees had gone from like 250b to almost 700b. I wanted to make an effort-post with the data and more comprehensive analysis, but I got too busy and mad about it lol.
It’s crazy how profitable “charity” is for the ultra-rich
He just got too much money. He can make all he cares about rich. Buy anything. And still have money left. After he is dead, then giving away to charity will be his legacy. He also get a lot of tax break for this. Now, think about much he is responsible for the climate change by having all these Amazon stores etc.
Wealth is not money.
Well it’s his money to do what he wants but I think he’d be better off investing it in some promising new business ventures
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Just a reminder, these donations go to his own charities as a tax deduction.
Because of course they do. Thanks for the additional info!
And there it is…
Also irs
I mean if you donate billions you kinda don’t want someone do a extit scam or it going to some very sketchy places… Tax reduction is a point but pretty far down the list.
And even if its for tax purposes, the money is then tied to certain purposes and will definitely do more good than as regular taxes. (and its way more than regular taxes)
Man i hate that guy but this bashing isn’t justified.
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I wasn’t bashing him, just providing additional information as the headline is makes him sound like an altruistic hero “uniting humanity”. He isn’t. He will benefit from this in one way or another or else he wouldn’t do it.
If the charity itself is doing proper work, that makes sense tbh. I mean, if you had billions to donate, would you give it to some random ass organisation… Or set up your own thing to do things that you personally agree with?
If the charity itself is doing proper work
I would be utterly shocked if it was.
I’d you want to see how it’s done, check out what his Ex-wife did with her money from the divorce
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/dec/15/mackenzie-scott-billionaire-donations-non-profits
You’ll know when these billionaire charity trusts actually have an impact because they will do everything in their power to scream it in your ear.
im sure its doing something like ‘raising awareness’ like all those breast cancer charities do where none of the money goes to actually helping people with breast cancer and straight into some ceo’s pocket that makes 300k a year
that makes sense tbh
It makes so much sense to be a vampire parasite that writes their own kickbacks and gets PR and praise from sycophantic media and bootlicking rubes.
i would definitely do the latter but that is not whats happening here
If the charity itself is doing proper work
And if the charity is donating to other charities that donate to it as part of a money laundering/tax fraud scheme, what would you say?
Agreed, and I’m find with the tax deduction if the charity works they do is legit, it’s not like he is paying taxes anyway.
Yeah and if he donates a majority of his wealth, thats more than he would have been taxed regardless.
This is exactly the issue. He doesn’t “donate” shit. He opens a non-profit that does nothing but funnel his fortune to his children. It’s all a sham. Same as with that other clothing company who “donated” their entire fortune.
Not sure about elsewhere, but in Canada a Charity is a special kind of non-profit that has more public oversight as to how they manage their money, and allowed to write charitable receipts. Non-profits might do some good things, but you don’t get a tax credit for donating money to them, and there’s less oversight of how they’re managed.
That’s… actually a good point.
If the charity itself is doing proper work
Bill Gates spends his charity money lobbying for privatized education and Eugenics programs.
Also paying hush money to Jeffery Epstein.
So…
Sir, this is not your Facebook conspiracy theory group.
Noted conspiracy rags The Washington Post, Duke University, and The Guardian
I’ll cede that the WaPo is a total shit rag, if I’m pressed to it.
zifnab’s comment has links to:
- The Washington Post
- A paper from Duke University
- The Guardian
These seem to me like sources that wouldn’t usually be prominent in facebook conspiracy theory groups.
Can you please tell me what the issue is with zifnab’s comment? Why do you feel like the comment would be more at home in a facebook conspiracy theory group?
In addition to being a senior undergrad thesis it’s kind of shit. I don’t know why I spent the time to skim it but I did. I think it can be tossed right out.
Can you please tell me what the issue is with zifnab’s comment?
It makes a billionaire “good one” look bad, so they reject it.
“A paper from Duke University”. This is a random, non-peer-reviewed, undergrad honors thesis. Having supervised honors theses myself, they are not exactly the height of sociological research. Also note that the author only proposes “throughlines” between eugenics and Melinda Gates’ work, by definition flimsy and tenuous, at best.
This is a perfect example of a Facebook conspiracy theory, based on shoddy, non-peer-reviewed, amateur “research”, but appealing to authority by attributing the paper to “Duke University”, with no understanding of the academic context of the paper in question.
Can you please tell me what the issue is with zifnab’s comment? Why do you feel like the comment would be more at home in a facebook conspiracy theory group?
Jesus Christ you can smell the hexbear from a mile away. Go sealion somewhere else.
For anyone else reading this, the problems with the other two “sources” are that the WaPo article is just an opinion piece disguised as “analysis”, and the Guardian source (an editorialized version of a much better Wall Street Journal piece) seems to actually imply that Gates didn’t pay any hush money to Epstein. Either way, it does make it clear that Epstein had nothing to do with Gates’ affair whatsoever, and was just trying to profiteer off it.
Note the fact that the language used by the hexbear above effectively claims the opposite of what their source implies, and leaves out the fact that there’s no evidence for any of these assertions. Never blindly trust a source from a hexbear. Actually, never trust a “source” from a hexbear at all, for that matter.
Edit: Also, for anyone reading this, only ever comment on the errors in a hexbear’s sources and arguments - don’t ever actually engage with a hexbear themselves, because your good faith will be wasted on their disingenuousness. This comment is just a fact-checking PSA for anyone who wondered about the reliability (or lack thereof) of the above sources. Note also the bullshit asymmetry principle well at work here.
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As a moderator of Hexbear, I would like to formally apologize for our users committing the Preconceived Prejudice Bias, link if you’re unfamiliar.
As we all know, multi-billionaires do not have control of our media institutions and are unable to shut down, directly or indirectly, research and investigations into their activities. They do not have the ability to portray themselves in an extremely positive light. Therefore, you are quite right to assume that all these rumors that they are committing acts like our other users implied are frankly entirely false.
I generally take a similar tack when arguing against conspiracists in Russia who argue in the Russian media that Russian oligarchs are committing evil acts in support of the war - this is obviously untrue, as if they were, they would surely be reported in reputable journals and peer-reviewed as you rightfully point out must be done before putting ANY information onto the internet. Any accusations against Putin himself are, similarly, completely bizarre - the Russian media rightfully portrays him as a shining beacon of light. All other “accusations” are from discredited media and crank Telegram and Facebook groups that oppose Putin and the oligarchs, and I am working to try and get them shut down. It’s a similar situation in China, as far as I can tell.
Have a great day, and stay classy, my good friend!
Well I guess I should apologize for myself and others making the mistake of wanting to see claims being supported by, of all things, evidence. What were we thinking?
Preconceived Prejudice Bias, god dammit you fucking got me too
Thanks for this. I wasn’t able to read the wapo article but unfortunately devoted time to the second source. It definitely reads like an undergrad thesis paper written by someone trying to make a very tenuous connection at all costs despite a paucity of solid evidence. Kind of the written version of this:
appealing to authority by attributing the paper to “Duke University”, with no understanding of the academic context of the paper in question
Lmao you didn’t even look at the links before dismissing them you dweeb
I believe the proper nomenclature for this individual is “doorknob” as I have demonstrated below through the rigorous scientific thesis of my insult got more upvotes.
When someone makes terse accusations and you ask them to substantiate those accusations, that’s sealioning
These are well documented facts you sentient doorknob.
Regardless of whether or not the commenter or I are sentient doorknobs, “fact” #2 about eugenics is certainly not proven by the strained logic in that paper. The claim is plausible but that’s as far as one can take it with that as a source.
I mean fuck billionaires and Gates is as much a ruthless, sociopathic douche-nozzle as any other billionaire.
But he and others like him have done plenty of harmful shit without resorting to using the weakly supported arguments of undergrad thesis papers. I mean c’mon. That’s the best we can come up with? Really?
sentient doorknob
chef’s kiss
It’s not a conspiracy if it’s not a crime
Though I don’t have all day to devote to determining if these sources line up with your claims and if they’re worth a darn but I did attempt to skim.
Number 1. I dropped my subscription so I can’t view the article. Can you share?
Source 2. “The Saviorism of Melinda Gates: Eugenics, Philanthrocapitalism, and the Perils of ‘Western’ Feminisms” . This is a senior honors thesis with some pretty big claims and I’m not sure the paper presents a strong enough argument.
Mind you, Eugenics is evil dog shit steeped in racism, classism and so on. Fuck that shit.
Anyway, the author attempts to draw a line between making birth control / family planning available (to third world countries) and eugenics via population control of certain groups.
Their argument traces a very long and winding path of rather tenuous links along the way and I don’t find it very convincing. It seems more like a student grasping for straws to write a paper.
They seem to be suggesting that forced sterilization, forced sexual segregation, and similar despicable things are equivalent to ultimately voluntary family planning.
I see the point. If these programs are intended to control certain populations at a national level driven by eugenics, yeah that’s fucked.
They may have shown it is plausible that this is what the Gates Foundation has been doing but I don’t think they successfully proved it.
Source 3. Hush money… “Jeffrey Epstein allegedly tried to extort Bill Gates over extramarital affair” … yeah that’s not awesome.
If these programs are intended to control certain populations at a national level driven by eugenics, yeah that’s fucked.
Yes they are. I would have to write way too much on this bring you up to speed but, yes, Bill Gates is well known to be proponent of eugenics, of course he wouldn’t state it like that but look to what his actions and focus is on. Clearly not about access to abortion and contraception in the US. He is a Malthusian fascist.
He believes in overpopulation and therefor the “non-white people just need to stop having more kids.”
Appreciate the reply. I will dig more. I am usually more glad to be wrong and learn something new than merely being right.
PS: if I may prod a bit on this…
Is overpopulation a legit issue separate from bullshit eugenics?
Do you think access to contraception improves health and economic outcomes for individual families? Also separated from bullshit eugenics.
No, overpopulation is not a legit issue, underdevelopment and poverty and education are. Furthermore as more tangential evidence on this line: In the US there is a long history continuing to this day of the US forcibly or coercively sterilizing non-white people thus it is extremely suspicious when a white billionaire with a god complex is extremely concerned about birth rates in Africa.
Malthus’ entire concept of overpopulation stemmed from examining early industrialization in the UK and Europe and believing that population would outstrip food production, but the opposite happened; Today we produce enough food to feed everyone, but these countries remain as colonies to western capital and the threat of military intervention and the occasional CIA backed coup keeps them under the boot of the west.
So no, they don’t just need contraception they need liberation.
I’ve only done a little looking into things.
No, overpopulation is not a legit issue,
I can’t believe you actually would say this. I could, maybe, see someone thinking it isn’t the biggest issue or that our technological advancements will keep ahead of population growth … but with this categorical statement you’re essentially saying the world can support infinite population.
I don’t dispute we have plenty of food for the time being (until impacts of climate change on food supply become more pronounced over the next century. Meanwhile, right now, resources are becoming scarce. The western US hasn’t enough water for the people it already has and is just one of many such places. Fishing populations continue to be depleted by overfishing in numerous locations as another example, and so on.
I’m well aware of forced sterilization and it is absolutely horrifying.
But it sounds like you’re unable to distinguish between forced sterilization and availability of contraception to be chosen (or not) by individuals voluntarily. These are not the same thing.
The undergrad paper made the same mistake.
Furthermore, though I don’t disagree billionaires interested in the birth rates of brown people could be seen as suspicious by you and others, suspicion is not evidence.
Another possible interpretation is that Gates is interested in making contraception available because, as I stated in a prior comment, voluntary family planning reduces poverty, reduces mortality rates for moms and babies, and so on, and I even linked a few studies in a prior comment.
I don’t disagree that imperialism is a major issue for many countries and I don’t dispute that US foreign policy has royally fucked a number of countries around the globe. I agree that these countries should enjoy liberation and self determination.
But that is all a non sequitur with regard to whether family planning is an evil eugenics plot. Bill Gates isn’t the US government or CIA or any of that. It may all feel like it proves something but it doesn’t. In a few years we can look at studies of red vs blue states to see what impacts banning abortion has without brining any eugenics into it.
If contraception results in less poverty, lower mortality rates, (it does, as supported by studies, as previously mentioned) and a better economy in these countries it seems to me that it is one of the things poorer, developing nations could benefit from to gain self determination and get the boot off their collective necks.
Finally, in my brief research this far, I’ve come to find that this whole eugenics thing with Gates is basically Facebook conspiracy nonsense.
Gates is a favorite target of conspiracy nuts aka people with poor epistemological skills.
I will believe whatever theory is best supported by the best evidence. But so far I haven’t seen any even minimally acceptable evidence support such claims about Gates.
Contrast to the mountain of good evidence supporting that he is a total asshole in terms of relationships, business, stuff like that.
I’m certainly open to being wrong at any time as I have demonstrated many times in my life.
You don’t get to the truth by bending logic and searching for any scrap to support your pet theory. That’s conspiratorial, superstitious baloney you see in the movies.
You get to truth by following logic, selecting the best evidence and considering multiple explanations, being self aware about many cognitive biases, and arriving at the explanation that fits best. That is what is required to be “intellectually honest”.
It’s not a charity. It’s a way to stay in control of all of your money and not pay taxes on it. You pay yourself and your children salaries from it. You have it contract with your profitable businesses. You get to use that money to decide what the world’s ideology is. You get to use it to own a segment of science itself by being where researchers need to go if they want funding. That’s what Bill Gates did with public education the last 10 years. This is how NGOs that go on to hire death squads in South America are created. And in the meantime you spend a few decimal points on a press blitz to make yourself look like a saint.
All the while Amazon keeps using the streets we pay for, the USPS we pay for, the GPS we pay for, and on and on. That money should be taxed and returned to us and we should get to decide what it’s for.
Solving inequality through taxation in a capitalist system is like being on a boat with a gaping hole in its hull and using spoons to throw that water back in the ocean. The best it can do is slow the inevitable and inspire false hope
Honestly, I’d go for the middle option: donate to existing charities that appeal to me. I don’t want to run a charity, it sounds like a massive headache.
You’re probably a different demographic. I’d guess the kind of people that become billionaires, assuming they actually want to be philanthropic, think that they can do a better job of managing their charities than existing charities would do managing their donations.
It’s definitely fair to say I’m in the “extremely unlikely to ever be a millionaire, let alone a billionaire” demographic!
Billionaire philanthropy is as old as robber barons, and has long been a tool of washing the blood off of the legacy of the immensely wealthy.
Cornelius Vanderbilt, often considered the first of the robber barons, built his fortune first with steamboats, using his money borrowed from his parents and vicious business tactics. He later became one of the wealthiest people ever by building a monopoly within the nascent US railroad industry link. He pioneered many of the tactics used by the wealthy to abuse the rest of society for their benefit. A notable instance is the 1877 railroad strike, which occurred in response to him cutting the wages of his rail workers by 20%. As should be utterly unsurprising, he blamed the economy being depressed and encouraged the workers to work harder to improve business. link The strikers were naturally faced by police, militia, and national guard opposition. Around 100 people were killed as a result.
Vanderbilt was not one for philanthropy, but later on life did make some donations to churches (at his wives’ behest), as well as to what is now Vanderbilt university. It’s not an accident that he is remembered as the most reviled of the robber barons, to us now, and during his day.
Andrew Carnegie really was the one who established the trend of the incredibly wealthy giving away money as a method to launder his abuses of his workers and smaller competitors. Carnegie wrote an essay “The Gospel of Wealth” which outlined his belief that it is the duty of the immensely wealthy to give their money away, famously writing “The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced” link
However, when we focus on the libraries and schools Carnegie built, we lose sight of the abuses he committed. Andrew Carnegie built his steel empire by savagely undercutting his compittion. He achieved these prices by cutting wages aggressively, crushing unions and forcing workers to work long hours in incredibly unsafe conditions. The Homestead Strike occurred in 1892 in responses to back to back wage cuts. Violence broke out between steel workers and the private strike breaking firm, the Pinkertons, whom Carnegie hired. Seven workers and three Pinkertons were killed. Naturally, the National Guard was called in by Carnegie’s underling Frick to finish the job. link
Two years later, in 1894, McClure’s magazine published a piece by Hamlin Garland, which is fascinating and worth a read link. To quote Hamlin’s guide:
"Yes, the men call this the death-trap… they wipe a man out here every little while… (death comes) all kinds of ways. Sometimes a chain breaks, and a ladle tips over, and the iron explodes–like that… Sometimes the slag falls on the workmen from that roadway up there. Of course, if everything is working all smooth and a man watches out, why, all right ! But you take it after they’ve been on duty twelve hours without sleep, and running like hell, everybody tired and loggy, and it’s a different story".
Bezos, Gates, Buffet, and their ilk very much follow in this same tradition. They spend their lives abusing workers, and destroying the lives of rivals to amass unimaginable wealth, and use philanthropy in their later years to wash the dried blood off of their image. No amount of philanthropy justifies their actions. No human makes that amount of wealth without viciously abusing others.
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My first thought when seeing this picture!
Unless he’s donating everything tomorrow, this is all bullshit.
First off he doesn’t have 124 billion. He is WORTH 124 billion, the vast majority of it being the worth of his stakes in Amazon. If he sells all his stakes in it, the Amazon worth would plummet and he’d be worth a fraction of what he’s worth today.
But lets say he has a 124 billion dollars. If he gives out 10 millions every day it will still take over 300 years. In that time his worth likely would.grow faster than he’s spending it so in 300 years he’d still be worth more than he is today.
All this charity stuff is bullshit, TAX THE RICH. Taxes will give honest amounts of money to governments who can then use that money for universal healthcare, universal education, universal income…
Sacrifice the profits of parasitic shareholders for the good of society, returning America to the level of taxation when it’s economy was great, putting the money back in the hands of the workers that keep the economy running? The workers that will spend their money, stimulating the economy (unlike shareholders)?
No - that’s impossible! Pay no attention to the 90% top tax rate implemented by Eisenhower - a goddamn Republican.
governments who can then use that money for universal healthcare
Press X to doubt
Fun fact: we could having universal healthcare right now and both businesses and individuals would make more money. We don’t because voters are dumb and can’t do math.
Fun fact: it’s not that easy. It’s likely possible and likely great for everyone but it’s also an enormous undertaking that you don’t want to fail. It would take years if not decades to implement, don’t ever think it’s easy.
I’m all for it, but it’s not a “we could do it now”
It’s not that easy, which is why every comparable country does it 🤷🏻♂️
You’re right though, it wouldn’t be easy because we built a monster of a insurance industry that’s in the way that nobody wants to dismantle because muh profit
…if the governments weren’t run by the same rich psychopaths, that is…
I don’t think your math adds up.
yeah spending 10 million a day would take 34 years to add up to 124 billion
But while he gives away 3.65 billion a year, his remaining 120 billion appreciated to 130 billion or whatever. Then the next year he gives away 3.65 billion and his remaining 126 billion appreciated to 136 billion…
As long as he doesn’t give away more than his principal gains, it’s an indefinite loop.
I was a favor 10 off but that doesn’t matter, the point still stands.
No single person should be ever control that much money
I’m all for taxing the rich but the rest of this is just pure stupidity.
Like why did you cap how much he can give away at one time lol
Try to sell all your stocks at once if you own a big chunk of all available shares. The stock price would fall faster than you were able to sell your shares.
Bezos already engages in structured stock sell-offs worth vastly more than $10MM
I didn’t cap anything. There are realistic limits to what you can give to charity. Give a charity that normally gets a few millions a billion and they won’t be able to spend it in any normal way. Breeds corruption, etc.
Charity shouldn’t even exist, as it is always this patch on holes left by governments. Tax the rich until they are “normal rich” and then use that money for projects that normally would require charity
Also, his wife actually had the exact same situation I just described. She spent millions over millions and once done she had more wealth than she started with
If only there were more than one charity, worldwide.
No.
If only governments would tax the rich properly they’d have enough money to put good social programs in place. We wouldn’t need charity.
There will always be a use of some sort of charity until we live in a post-scarcity world.
I’ll believe that if his plan is to unify humanity under his rule.
Can he donate like one billion to me first please?
I’m so poor, even a million would help.
Oh I think a million would dramatically change the lives of 99% of the people on the planet.
So selfish, he should give me a million, and then give 15usd to literally every single person on the planet (including himself).
So selfish
I’m practicing for when I’m a billionaire after he gives me a billion dollars this Tuesday.
No, to me