It’s good that he’s a billionaire that uses his wealth for truly great humanitarian causes. However, he is an exception and most billionaires don’t do this. And they probably shouldn’t have to, if we created a system that doesn’t allow for this kind of obscene enrichment of individuals.
Personally I trust Bill Gates to do more good with his money than the US Government. Eradicating polio in other countries seems very much preferable to bombing them into democracy.
That’s a false dichotomy. The WHO and other International aid organizations were founded and funded at the direction of the USG. The US continues to fund humanitarian causes around the globe. Gates himself has said that Government funding is essential to the causes he’s interested in.
Re:Africa declared free of wild polio
by CWuestefeld on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @02:02PM
(#24285252)
he is an exception and most billionaires don’t do this.
Citation required.
But that harm was done to competitors, on the business field. The people who became collateral damage could always go and get jobs at some other company. The companies suffered and sometimes died but such is the way of capitalism.
If the upside was that his money gets redistributed to the genuinely poor and needy, who don't have any opportunity to earn for themselves in some cushy IT job, then I'm personally OK with it.
(I forget the specifics, but a piece of ancient code we wrote included a dummy assignment to a variable called BILLGATESBOLLOCKS, to get around some MS devilment).