Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds have apparently never met in person before, despite their pseudo-rivalry.

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[–] 26 points 1 year ago (52 children)

Maybe I'm wrong, but isn't Gates retired? And I have no idea if Torvalds is still active.

But historical photo aside, isn't this meeting a bunch of nothing?

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  • [–] 121 points 1 year ago* (46 children)

    Torvalds is still very active on the Linux kernel. As far as I know, he's in charge of it and makes major decisions about its direction.

    Bill Gates retired from Microsoft in 2008.

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  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago (37 children)

    Gates is still very active in his charity organization

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  • [+] -19 points 1 year ago (35 children)

    Making money/influence. It's such a scam his "Bill and Melinda Charity" (no taxes on charities).

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  • [+] 70 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (20 children)
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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I hate billionaires as much as the next gal, but I think comparing Bill Gates to Hitler is a bit extreme

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  • [–] -5 points 1 year ago

    I didn't compare them, but in your mind you understood it that way.

    I used Hitler as an example, an extreme one, but still an example of "the ends justify the means".

    could have use any number of examples, but I went with one I thought everyone could relate to. clearly I miscalculated the selfishness of modern day philosophies.

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  • [+] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)
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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago*

    You're being obtuse. The nuance here is that Bill Gates being.a bad person and his charity org having done some good in the world are facts that are not necessarily dependent or correlated with each other. That's all. The fact that Gates might be using his org to prop his image is also a consequence of his character, and doesn't take away from the good the charity has done. Or would you rather the charity didn't exist at all just so your thirst for consistency would be appeased, all the while people would be dying?

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Lol no. Of all the sleazy and greasy millionaires, Gates is one of the few whose actions speaks for themselves. Dude has been doing noble causes for most of my life.

    I'm all for talking shit about the rich, but it better be true.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    His pr firm really works well.

    Check out when elon ditched his pr firm. He went frm that loved lil crazy fun type to what he really is.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Name one bad historical person that didn't do at least some good.

    Your moral compass is broken.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    The charity did more than some good though.

    Also, name one good historical person that didn't do at least some bad.

    It is almost like things aren't black and white but more like Yin and Yang.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (10 children)

    It's still giving money away though? Why would you want there to be taxes on charity?

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  • [–] 24 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    It's more nuanced though. Here's how rich people use charities to gain wealth:

    Rich person has tons of money that would be taxed if bill Y passes. Rich person creates a charity and donated 20% of what they would had to pay to the IRS to the charity, with that money the charity uses half for good causes and half is given to X lobby company, which then lobbies politicians to avoid passing that bill.

    In the end, the rich person saved 80% of what they would had to pay.

    Yeah, 10% went to good causes but imagine what the society could afford if 100% went through instead of 0.

    This is a very rough outline of how they do it, but the summary is that they use charities to donate to lobbies while skipping taxes on the donation itself.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Because they are tax avoidance mechanism first and charity seconds.

    Money is a brokering system of power, charitues being tax free makes these entities unaccountable to democratic institurions.

    That's how we ended up with this infection of corrupt megachurches.

    The "prosperity gospel" is billionaire-serving propaganda. It empowers their formation, growth and necessary abuses that come from such widespread exploitation.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    The point here is that in many jurisdictions doing charity exempts you from certain taxes, and it is possible to shuffle money around under the disguise of philanthropy while still getting all the financial benefits like an actual charity

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (5 children)

    That means there are highschool seniors who weren't even alive while Bill Gates was at Microsoft. Interns might not even know who he is.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS 👏🎸

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    That was balmer though, IIRC. Crazy times

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  • [–] 35 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    without checking, Gates’ wealth is probably tied up in a lot of MS stock, and he could probably walk into the office and ask the intern to get him a coffee. but yeah i think mostly retired.

    Linus is still active is maintaining the Linux kernel.

    and yes, this is fluff, not some kind of summit

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  • [–] 29 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Gates could probably walk into most offices and get a free coffee and an impromptu meeting with the CEO if he wants to.

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