Warren Buffet Giving Away Almost $40 Billion! (1 Viewer)

[John Watson]

To repeat, given that Windows and PCs are mighty instruments for trivializing life, and wasting time and energy, I am sceptical that Bill Gates can have any useful notions about efficient and effective levers for significantly ameliorating the condition of life of masses in parts of the world that don’t have our advantages.

To add, the best legacy Bill Gates or Microsoft could give the world would be a stable simple OS, that was not a money-sucking time wasting game for the privileged or the trivial minded.

Another possible form of redemption for Bill Gates would be to use the power and money he has to lobby his counterparts in government and big business (the masters of the universe) who impose our useless or counter-productive ideology of social development - with its unfair trade terms, cruel exploitation of the misery and powerlessness of the workers, indifference to the environmental consequences of our economy, or outright collaboration with thuggish or corrupt governments - on the planet. Something much more than clean water and an Aids vaccine is required to alter the tendencies of our planet.

The only mogul I’ve heard of offering any other than the most bone-headed of conventional wisdom to these intractable problems of ongoing poverty, disease, primitive social behaviour (jihaads, genocides, tribalism) is George Sorokos. Buyers and sellers like Buffett, affable though he may be, aren’t in the same league. Tho I’ll give him some marks for not giving that money (the shares are being sold off, are they?) to the UN.

And I cannot forget the role of Foundations as devices for preserving family power and keeping massive private fortunes intact from governmental tax raids. (The top 10% of the population controls more wealth than the other 90%, thanks to their lobbyists getting the mind-numbingly complex legislation through compliant politicians). The real public service some of these foundations offer (libraries, hospitals) is usually a smokescreen. Robber Barons didn’t fade away. They come back in new forms.

Sorry. Buffet may be warmer than Gates, but I'm not a fan of either man.

 

[Ricardo C]

Wake me up when the space lizards land.

 

[AjayM]

Do you have anything more than wild idle speculation that Gates/Buffet are only doing this to keep "family power"?

And libraries and hospitals are smokescreens? So next time you have a medical emergency, where are you going to go? Surely not one of those evil corporate smokescreen places, right? Don't want to support the Robber Barons and all.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

So Buffet is a bad guy because he manipulated money to earn money, and anything he does is tainted with the virus of capitalism. But George Soros (I spelled it right), who did the same thing to earn his money (the difference being Buffet was not convicted of breaking the law, unlike Soros) is a good guy why? Could it be Soros has declared himself a socialist? Some socialist he is, after being convicted of insider trading.

 

[MarkHastings]

While people CAN waste their times and energies on computers; the VALUE they offer is far beyond what you imagine them as being "a waste".

Computers are like cars; people drive cars in a VERY wasteful manner all the time, but that doesn't mean the car is trivial and a waste of time and energy.

Ford has this program where they sponsor and donate to womens breast cancer: Warriors in Pink

Does this mean that they are evil because cars are trivial? that their efforts should not be praised?????? :frowning:

 

[Lew Crippen]

Well, I’m writing this on a Mac, so I suppose that Jobs and Wozniak also only have tainted money because of their contributions to trivializing society and culture.

And let us not forget to throw in Michael Dell, Jim Harris, Bill Murto, Hewlett, Packard, and Noyce and Moore to the list. And so many, many more who contributed to our time wasting lifestyle.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

I don't suppose Mr. Watson is going to be posting his replies via anything but carrier pigeon, being he would not want to be a hypocrite like Gates, Buffet and (John would not agree, but I think he's the only one guilty of the accusation) Soros. After all, being that the PC is only used for wasting time and trivializing life; a person above all that, like John, would certainly be familiar with the old adage "physician, heal thyself".

 

[Cees Alons]

You know what?
EVERYTHING can be made a mighty instrument for trivializing life, and wasting time and energy.

And much worse, morally.


Cees

 

[RobertR]

Where did you get the idea that manual labor is somehow "morally superior" to the efforts of a brilliant mind? Everything we have, everything we've been able to acheive, everything that gives us wealth is derived from the human ability to THINK, not how strong our backs are (as an example, the folktale about "John Henry" and what a "heroic worker" he was is one of the most idiotic things I've ever heard of--we'd be ridiculously POORER if we relied on our backs instead of the machines that are the product of the mind). And the capitalist system that rewards the minds that create such wealth is the best such system ever invented.

 

[dany]

I've done manual labor my whole life and have never had a talk with a fellow laborer how much fun this is,how much easy money this is and how this is making us a better person. Why do ya think i'm sending my daughter to college? So she can have a non-back breaking job. Come on.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Not to mention the fact that he says capitalists "who have never done any manual labor in their lives." How does he know this?? I have a desk job, I consider myself an agent of capitalism and I worked my way through college by pulling pallets and racks of milk off trucks. Also, I worked 11pm-7am stocking shelves and one of my college jobs was pulling up and putting down the basketball floor at Northeastern's Matthew's Arena (the most backbreaking 3 hours you'll ever do). I also spent a summer working on a lobster boat, with no winch. Try hauling wooden traps by hand and then throwing them back from a moving boat and you can tell me I'm not doing "manual labor". :rolleyes

 

[Chuck Mayer]

It's a fallacy that white collar is evil and blue collar is good. It's a fallacy that white collar workers are more educated and valuable than blue collar workers. Those are old and tired stereotypes. Yes, manual labor provides some excellent character-building, but it's a mistake to presume that, and expect the inverse to be true. I've worked blue collar, I've worked white collar, and I've learned there are precious few jobs that tell you the character of a person. It's how they do the job they have. And why.

Donating $20-30B does tell me a lot about the character of a person, though.

 

[Holadem]

Well, I dunno about value, but by definition, white collar has to be more educated in general.

Anyway, a similar school of thought, often spouted by this particular friend of mine, equally gets under my skin: The notion that the president, or higher cabinet officials or CEOs, basically anyone at the top of a large organization doesn't actually do any work because their staff and subordinates handle all the work for them.

--
H

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Even if that is the case H (and I agree it is not), they certainly have to have the talent to recognize who to hire. I was lucky, the last CEO I had to deal with was a graduate of West Point, a combat veteran and the first thing he ever said to me was "I can't do what you do and the company relies on what you do, so tell me how I can work harder to make your job easier." He was basically schmoozing, but I liked his approach and he was a great guy and truly brilliant.

 

[MarkHastings]

Exactly, it's like saying that a sports coach doesn't deserve the victory because it's the players that do all the work to win the game.

 

[John Watson]

I assume every human needs redemption, I am assuming Bill Gates is not one of the space lizards. So even he and I seek some justification.

I’m only suggesting that there are vastly more effective levers, and that Foundations are not necessarily wise instruments of public policy. The diseases that are endemic stem from the cultures of poverty and ignorance and violence. The circle will not be broken by an Aids vaccine.

But I’m not at all hopeful that the Military-industrial- pharmacological-informatics-public relations Complex has any interest in modifying the Matrix. The Road Ahead looks rough to me.

As to computers, all technology is transformative, from the wheel, steam engine, the car, and computers, etc., changing the way people live. But doesn’t make them smarter or better. I certainly don’t think that millions of hours spent playing on PCs has improved the world much. Computers offer some productivity advantages for calculations, ordering and stock management, or computer driven lathes, etc., but the rest of the keyboard noodling is the worst form of make-work fake-work in which the privileged areas of the world have ever indulged. As for those of us with time to post on Home Theater as a hobby, it’s obvious we are very privileged. ‘Weapons of mass distraction’ ring any bells?

Well, there I am obviously outnumbered by fans of the munificent billionaires here. I just know they couldn’t pay me to celebrate their success and occasional generosity. I may be older and savvier to the Zeitgeist, and less easy to jive than some posters, but I like the notion of looking at the difference wrought by the Gates Foundation in 10 years. We’ll see whose personal opinions are more in tune with the reality. In the meantime, I am able to go to a hospital that was funded by taxes, not by a few wealthy individuals.

 

[Ricardo C]

People in the third world dying from diseases the industrialized world hasn't heard of in decades don't care who's footing the bill, they're just glad to receive the help. They don't give a toss if the money keeping them alive is "tainted" according to the standards of first-world "socialists" who put more importance in politics than in real solutions.

 

[MarkHastings]

AMEN! It doesn't matter to these people (getting the treatment) wether the donated money (to the hospital) was done for self gain on the individuals part. All they care about is, they are being saved.

Just like when my boss donated a bunch of old computers to a school. He was doing it for the tax write off, but the school was still gald to get them even though the donation wasn't as heart-felt as it could have been.

Again, WHO CARES! The donation is what's important, not the reason for the donation,

 

[Jeff Gatie]

John, I won't speak to the proselytizing and highly assumptive parts of your posts (nor to the thinly veiled insults in your claims of being "older and savvier to the Zeitgeist, and less easy to jive than some posters"), but I will speak to that which I have a vast amount of experience, me being a software engineer:


Leaving aside any judgments as to who is "privileged" vis. who is "rewarded for effort", you have assumed quite a lot about the industry which you ridicule. I assure you, the computer industry is not all "make-work, fake work". For every example of "keyboard noodling" you can give, I'll give you 100 advantages/advances for mankind which would not be possible without the computer. Let's start with the hospitals you get to go to at the taxpayers expense. CAT, MRI, X-Ray, diagnostics, image enhancement, monitoring equipment, IV/O2 machines , medication scheduling, admitting, record keeping, and aministration are all made possible/better your "trivial" industry and all benefit mankind a heck of a lot more than solitaire. Not to mention the computer is used in almost every other aspect of the medical sciences, from computer simulation of procedures and medications to the computer design of prosthetics. This type of analysis could be applied to every industry that benefits man.

Need I go on? Would you like me to list another field? Education? Physics?Engineering? History? Journalism?

Just because a few people use a technology in their leisure time and you do not approve, does not mean it is inherently evil and certainly does not mean that any profit recognized from the sale of the technology is "tainted". Furthermore, it is even more of a stretch to claim that any charitable agency that benefits from that profit is likewise "tainted" or "good money after bad". That and the obvious hypocrisy of condemning Buffet as a "manipulator of money" while simultaneously setting Soros, another "manipulator of money", on a pedestal is why you are "obviously outnumbered by fans of the munificent billionaires here". It is certainly not due to your self-stated condition of being "older and savvier to the Zeitgeist, and less easy to jive than some posters". If you cannot see that, maybe you are not as savvy as you think and any "jive" you are experiencing is self-induced and I'm sad to say you are not very immune to it.

 

[Holadem]

As a third-worlder, I will take Mr Buffet and Gates' tainted money over bouts of fruitless self-righteous pseudo-intellectual masturbation any day .

I am a die-hard leftist, but it stops where the disconnect from reality begins.

--
H