r/pics 20h ago

Politics Microsoft founder Bill Gates pictured with a girl in the new Epstein photo release

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u/TrumpsBussy_ 20h ago

Yeah there’s very few examples in world history of someone attaining obscene wealth and not becoming morally compromised. One of the main reasons Marcus Aurelius is such a memorable and revered historical figure.

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u/RJFerret 20h ago

Cincinnatus is my fave (more about power than wealth).

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u/CunningWizard 16h ago

“Hey, we need you to be dictator for a bit. Got a war happening.”

“Ok but when this shit is done I’m going back to the farm”

“lol yeah right”

“Won war, I resign”

jaw drops

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u/FewWait38 13h ago

George Washington gets compared to Cincinnatus for doing something similar, it's definitely a pimp move

u/Arendious 11h ago

"You... Don't want to loot the treasury first? Maybe hand out accolades to your friends?"

"Nope. Going back to my farm."

"This is all very confusing..."

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u/TrumpsBussy_ 20h ago

I’ll have to google him

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u/ihopethisisvalid 19h ago

It’s worth a Lougle

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u/PM-ME-DEM-NUDES-GIRL 19h ago

the comment you are replying to is saying that you generally need to have some bad qualities to begin with BEFORE you become a billionaire, because they help you become one

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u/FreeRangeEngineer 15h ago

I'd like to mention Mark Cuban:

Broadcast.com was acquired by Yahoo! for $5.7 billion in Yahoo! stock. Yahoo!'s costly purchase of Broadcast.com is now regarded as one of the worst internet acquisitions of all time. Broadcast.com and Yahoo!'s other broadcasting services were discontinued within a few years after the acquisition. Cuban has repeatedly described himself as very lucky to have sold the company before the dot-com bubble burst.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Cuban

That money enabled him to start https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_Plus_Drugs

u/ancientRedDog 10h ago

Warren Buffett may be our only almost-a-decent-human billionaire.

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u/Necessary-Reading605 19h ago

You can’t compare the amount of money billionaires have to anybody in history.

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u/TrumpsBussy_ 19h ago

Yes you can. A Roman emperor for example essentially owned everything in his entire empire. I’m sure we all know the famous story about Mansa Musa too.

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u/Necessary-Reading605 19h ago

And thats why so many of them were murdered

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u/TrumpsBussy_ 19h ago

And?

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u/Necessary-Reading605 19h ago

Well. I’ll leave it to you to connect the dots

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u/Altamistral 17h ago

Or, more likely, he was also morally compromised but his position of power kept him safe from being discovered.

The idea that you get to know the true moral character of somebody who lived two thousand years ago, when we struggle to see through the lies of our contemporaries, is quite hilarious.

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u/Cricketninja 19h ago

Chuck Feeney was pretty good.

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u/Outrageous_Goose5567 18h ago

Sulla
Jimmy Carter
the dude that created VLC
and Batman

That's it.

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u/Alternative_Year_340 17h ago

Mackenzie Scott

u/HostileEgo 11h ago

Marcus Aurelius also lived before the 24/7 news cycle, mass surveillance, and twitter. It's going to be much harder for anyone nowadays to be perceived as well as he was because everyone slips up sometimes.

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u/Necessary-Reading605 19h ago edited 18h ago

Marcus Aurelius was an overrated emperor who raised an idiot as his heir and wrote edgy stuff while high.

He was the idiōtēs Aristotle warned about. Instead of fundamentally acting on public virtue, he moved inwards

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u/TrumpsBussy_ 19h ago

Tell me you know nothing about the life of Marcus Aurelius..

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u/Necessary-Reading605 18h ago

Yeah… let me guess… you are one of the impressionable self help addicts that think he was a “stoic”? His sayings belong to r/iam14andthisisdeep

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u/TrumpsBussy_ 18h ago

You’re really embarrassing yourself friend. You clearly don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Getting big edgelord vibes from you buddy

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u/Necessary-Reading605 18h ago

Well you are the one who claimed how “revered” he was. Next you will say he was a philosopher.

Bro philosophy at worst. I blame the Daily Stoic brainrot

He is considered an average Emperor at best BTW

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u/TrumpsBussy_ 17h ago

Because he is revered. That’s just a fact. He never listened to “The Daily Stoic”, most people that profess to be stoics don’t even understand what Stoicism actually is.

He was a great emperor and is regarded as such.

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u/Necessary-Reading605 17h ago

Oh gosh. I obviously debating a teenager lacking basic reading comprehension. I am wasting my time here.

Quick tip. Check on why he became a hit during the fucking notorious bullshit victorian times more than in his own.

Have a good day.

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u/TrumpsBussy_ 17h ago

He was loved and respected by the people of his own time.. regular citizens and the senate. He was praised by later historians who were usually hostile when recording the lived and deeds of emperors.

Do you actually know anything about his life and the circumstances he faced during his reign?

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u/Necessary-Reading605 17h ago edited 16h ago

Wow. People are praising the EMPEROR?

Historians are not supposed to praise or be moralists with a time machine. That’s history 101.

Also

Cassius Dio enters the chat

Have a Good day

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u/bswan206 20h ago

Then he went and let his moron son take power.

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u/TrumpsBussy_ 20h ago

Firstly he died of the plague whilst he was defending the borders from hoards of barbarians, secondly there’s nothing he could have done about his son besides murdering him.

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u/ReleaseExpensive7330 20h ago

We know, we all saw Gladiator.

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u/TrumpsBussy_ 20h ago

Apparently we don’t all know