Asklemmy

Fuck Bill Gates apologists in particular

I believe all billionaires have done something good. I don't think that makes them good people due to the staggering amount of wealth they withhold from the population.

Doing good things, doesn't make you a good person. Donating millions is nothing when you have billions.

If I had to choose a specific, I'd say Bill Gates. I've never fact checked it but I've heard he set up multiple charities and donates for helping children, seems like a great thing to do.

Bill Gates is the obvious answer. He's done a ton of good things through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundation

Bill gates and Warren Buffet have both argued for higher taxes on the wealthy and have donated millions to solve social problems.

Brian Acton is the only billionaire I can think of that hasn't been a net negative.

Co-founded WhatsApp, which became popular with few employees. Sold the service at a reasonable rate.
Sold the business for a stupid large sum of money, and generously compensated employees as part of the buyout.
Left the buying company, Facebook, rather than do actions he considered unethical, at great personal expense ($800M).

Proceeded to cofound signal, which is an open, and privacy focused messaging system which he has basically bankrolled while it finds financial stability.

He also has been steadily giving away most of his money to charitable causes.

Billionaires are bad because they get that way by exploiting some combination of workers, customers or society.
In the extremely unlikely circumstance where a handful of people make something fairly priced that nearly everybody wants, and then uses the wealth for good, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with being that person.
Selling messaging to a few billion people for $1 a lifetime is a way to do that.

For all his shortcomings, Forrest Gump put a lot of the money he made from his Apple stocks back into his community.

This query is counterproductively reductive. Every human alive, even the worst of them, has done at least one good thing. Many even do their bad things because they were misled to believe they were doing an overall good.

The point should be that it doesn't matter what good they've done, because the state of being a billionaire necessarily requires one to have done more net bad to the world than good. You could save a million lives by your own hand, but if you're a billionaire, it is a given that you have destroyed far more lives than that. No billionaire's heart was ever weighed by Anubis and judged worthy of the Field of Reeds.

All of them, without exception, end up as greasy streaks on the gleaming teeth of Ammit.

ITT: people who can't understand the difference between doing something good and being good.

Of course there are plenty of billionaires who have done good things, and pointing out all the ways they are still a shit person doesn't change that. Shitty people occasionally do good things, even if for shitty reasons.

Gabe Newell is the least shitty billionaire I can think of, I'm not sure what he does for philanthropy though but at least it doesn't seem like he tries to influence the country for his benefit.

Some posts mention people giving away billions in their later life. That sounds great.

However, you need to ask yourself how much of their obscene wealth was created by screwing someone else over? Essentially nobody can get so rich without taking money out of the pockets of other people. You can't just generate money out of thin air.

Not a modern "billionaire", but you can make an argument that Andrew Carnegie spent a lot of his fortune on things that weren't awful.

is this a psyop? surely its a psyop

youd probably have a hard time naming one billionaire that hasnt done anything good

theyre still a shit thing to have, practically never got the money they have by being a good person and shouldnt exist in the same world as homeless people, starvation or massively underfunded public projects

Osama bin laden did 9 11

Philanthropy is just a tax break and PR move.

You haven't looked beyond the surface of Gates philanthropy. His involvement diverts focus away from critically acclaimedneeded work in these regions for his pet projects - the science doesn't dictate the focus, the whims of the billionaires do.

David Koch died, which is a very good thing he did for humanity.

Jeffrey Epstein, when he killed himself, probably.

Do you mean net good (more good than bad) or is a good thing like "established public libraries" acceptable even if he also oppressed workers and stifled unions and bought government officials and stuff?

His foundations pioneered developments in medical research and were instrumental in the near-eradication of hookworm and yellow fever in the United States. John D. Rockefeller

Jack Dorsey bought me lunch once.

What? They're greedy humans who are doing things that have terrible consequences out of selfishness, not mustache twirling cartoon villains out to destroy the world for destruction's sake. I'm sure every single billionaire in the world has done something good at some point. That doesn't justify the kind of wealth disparity that makes their existence possible though.

In these comments: People who think someone can accumulate obscene personal wealth and then give a small percentage away makes them good. But if someone dares suggest taxing that obscene wealth they are a monster.

MacKenzie Scott, Bezos's ex. She's given more than $14 billion to charity.

Markus Persson made a pretty cool game you may have heard of.

Batman?

Trick question.

The billionaires who do good don’t want their names attached to their deeds because that defeats the purpose. The point of altruism is you don’t want credit.

(Seriously there aren’t many, though, because if you’re hoarding money, you’re a horrible person.)