this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2023
298 points (100.0% liked)
Politics
10176 readers
29 users here now
In-depth political discussion from around the world; if it's a political happening, you can post it here.
Guidelines for submissions:
- Where possible, post the original source of information.
- If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
- Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
- Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
- Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
- Social media should be a source of last resort.
These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Yes, please see the links below, however as a brief summary:
Bill and Melinda Gates foundation do two things: Invest in public issues and lobby governments to spend in said issues, in exchange for further donations and investments.
However, in parallel, Bill Gates also invests in specific companies that will be targeted as main providers for those activities.
One could consider that he's investing in companies that help out (e.g., vaccination) and that's not a bad thing. The problem is that he is bennefiting from lobbying in pro of the companies he has invested on.
We could also agree that even if he's bullying governments and institutions into giving him more money through those companies, at the end it is a positive boost (like the example you mention).
That's not the case with Common Core: Diane Ravitch put it better than I could here, but basically Bill Gates' is forcing public schools into programs that do not work, alienate teachers and students, have almost bankrupt public education and required purchasing materials from companies he controlled.
Furthermore, for each time Common Core failed, he doubled down, and for each consecutive failure he decided that a new drastic measure will solve the issue, even though the education community was saying otherwise.
The issue with these foundations is that rich people believe they have the solution to all the problems: not money but their intellect, and that they know more than everyone combined on that profession.
This is in parallel what is been happening with carbon capture. This foundation is also lobbying for a technology that has been heavily critisized as a pipedream; however, surprise surprise, Bill Gates do have large investments in carbon capture companies (e.g. Heirloom).
Again, I do not think he's evil or is going to inject me with pentium II mmx now; I just think he feels smarter than everyone else and is misguiding governments to invest in failed practices despite what the actual professionals are saying.
Videos:
https://youtu.be/U3Z9gBKuTIk (CNBC - How Common Core Broke U.S. Schools)
https://youtu.be/laGtd-b0vMY (FT - Carbon Capture: hopes, challenges and controversies)
https://youtu.be/ag5zQeXC-TY (THD - How Bill Gates Hijacked US Education Agenda (Opinion))
I mean, I think he's evil. But I also remember Microsoft in the 90s: the EEE strategy, the monopolistic bullshit with web browsers, the FUD against competitors, the Strong arming of computer manufacturers to not offer alternatives, etc.
You don't mean to say that the guy who tried to keep vaccines for COVID patented instead of making them free for everyone to manufacture is evil, right?
Gates is a weird figure - I don't think he's actually evil (nowadays), because evil implies malicious intent. Rather, he unintentionally commits evil actions (those which harm people and if committed with full understanding would be unambiguously evil) as a result of his own personal extremely warped values. The guy thinks patent law is the highest moral good, so the millions of people who don't get vaccinated as a result are either forgotten about or a necessary sacrifice for the societal good of protecting patents (which he might justify as making these sorts of innovations possible in the first place - demonstrably incorrect, but good luck getting him to listen to anyone who might tell him that).
tl;dr you can't be evil by human standards if you have alien blue and orange morality.
Your point is well made, except this was going to be an exception, it was not going to be a rule for all vaccines going forward, so I have a hard time accepting the story you have weaved as an explanation. There's still possible for there to be an explanation, just as much as it's possible for it to be weaponized incompetence/ignorance.
You're probably right, I just watered down my rant to make it sound less like 5G chips in vaccines gang.