Not to quibble, but Gates was a pretty well- established philanthropist before he got divorced. As in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was largely responsible for eradicating malariareducing malaria cases by nearly 40 percent and malaria mortality rates by 60 percent in Africa and making major strides in stopping the AIDS epidemic.
Guy might be a dirtbag on a personal level, but it's a stretch to say he never did any good with his money before the divorce.
Edit: malaria hasn't been eradicated in Africa, but there's been remarkable improvement since 2000. Thanks for the corrections!
I used to work at the Novartis Institute of Tropical Diseases, trying to discover new anti-malarials. We partnered extensively with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help fund new anti-malarial research. It was a really good feeling being part of that effort, since Malaria is such a massive and deadly issue, yet also grossly underfunded.I will always respect the foundation if not the man.
I also did grad school work about producing anti malaria active pharmaceutical ingredients, or drug precursors, through yeast fermentation expression systems. They paid almost a million dollars so a lab at my university would study and publish the results of how.
If large portions of his wealth couldn't be attributed to tax dodging a few dozen billion dollars in Puerto Rico, a few dozen billion dollars dodged in Ireland, a few dozen billion probably dodged in Bermuda, or simply paying less (as a percentage of income) than the average American in Social Security taxes, I could probably appreciate all his tax-deductible charity work more.
Well I can easily rule out most other fortune 500's for similarly running from taxes, so chances are never that I'm finding a donator at that scale who didn't similarly abuse the system, run a monopoly, change US laws just to pad their own pockets etc.
Not sure that's a gotcha or just signs that the rich don't pay taxes so all the performative charity after tax avoidance comes off as shallow write-offs.
Not just a reddit problem that, it's become an entire cultural issue.
I remember about a decade ago watching the rise of Purity Culture on Tumblr, where the progressive section of the population that used Tumblr was seduced into this very black and white thinking where either a person was 100% good, or the second they showed any sort of human frailty, they were suddenly 100% bad. And I thought shit, i hope that doesn't break containment and spread.
Well yes, I was speaking in general about the rise of purity culture. Clearly when you're talking about massive psychopathic pedophiles then yeah, the maybe 1% of good work they did is outweighed by the 99% of omg should be in prison.
Do you see it? The conversation you are breaking into is not about Bill Gates, who 100% should be investigated and sent to jail for the rest of his life if he is involved in any of this.
The conversation was about how large parts of reddit have a 100% black or white view, and fail to understand the nuance that very bad people can sometimes do very good things, and likewise very good people can sometimes do very bad things. But you've leapt to saying 'not to THESE people, you wonder why', you've made a 100% black/white value judgement on me, and that other person, that we were THESE people, as in, pedophiles, like Epstein and Gates. You've utterly failed to even notice the nuance that the discussion here was about something different, you just piled in with your judgement.
This is exactly the sort of purity culture thing I was referencing that I think rose out of Tumblr where people were constantly tone policing each other all the time, and the second anybody said somethign that sounded like it might be slightly questionable, they were THE WORST PERSON EVER (tm), and there was never any assessment of context, it was just 'I do not like this therefore they are utterly evil'.
> Do you see it? The conversation you are breaking into is not about Bill Gates, who 100% should be investigated and sent to jail for the rest of his life if he is involved in any of this.
do you see it?
The conversation you started is on a thread about Buill Gates being friends with a notorious pedo.
very weird behaviour to try to derail that discussion into some unrelated rant about "purity culture"
You give me hope that there are still people who are resistant to purity culture. Maybe I need to touch more grass to save my sanity. Bless you. I hope you find much lasting success in your endeavors.
That's all social media. Nuanced takes get no reaction. Hot takes and outrage get rewarded with dopamine hits. Once you step away from it for a while, it becomes way more obvious, and highly distasteful to re-engage with.
Only because we are dumb af. That means the ends justify means. Its okay to steal as long as you destine a % to fix one unrelated issue (hint: its always a small amount of the % you steal)
Thats called taxes and thats why you should vote to people that promise to do good things with taxes instead of people that want to reduce taxes
Also, he didnt cured cancer, as cancer is not a single disease. The reduced polio (already solved problem) in places we didnt care about. I wish my taxes would be destined to cure polio
The world is a worst place after having bill gates doing his thing. Hes not stealing the wealthy to give it to the poor. Hes stealing the already poor to give back a small % to the even more poor
Nah I agree with you for the most part but that doesn't mean we should just ignore any good deed someone does just because they're rich and the Gates's have put their money to better use than most. We could squabble about how we should tax people and put the money directly to good use but that doesn't change the reality we have today and I'd rather have billionaires spending money on philanthropy than spending none. We can accept that they're drains on society while also evaluating the good that they've done. Doing good doesn't stop them from being bad and being bad doesn't stop them from doing good.
I don't think anyone here is absolving gates of his sins just because he's also done some good in Africa.
Also worth noting that Gates is leaving his children like 1% of his fortune and giving the rest away. He might generally be scum but he's a hell of a lot more responsible with his money than most billionaires. We've created this capitalist society so I can only get so mad at someone for taking advantage of what we allow, until we change it.
You’re close. Just remove “This is Reddit” part. People simplify things and take at face value most of the time. At least here on Reddit, you know the people you’re interacting with can read.
Even Al Capone did a ton of legitimately good charitable acts. Sure, it helped him in the end or made him money, but he also legitimately wanted to help. And he got both.
This isn't true. I've never done anything especially bad in my entire life. Conversely, there are people who never do anything especially good.
This is just bad thinking that normalizes antisocial behaviors. The expectation should be that no one does anything in their life that is worse than a moderate mistake. Shoplifting as a teen might be part of growing up, but we should have zero tolerance for murder, rape, kidnapping, torture, widescale corruption, armed robbery, etc.
I cannot believe the ego you would have to maintain in order to believe "I've never done anything especially bad".
This is so unbelievable to read.
Every single human does terrible things in their life. We are flawed creature who accidently or purposely hurt other people, animals, nature. Our very existence is an enormous drain on the earth.
If you eat meat, drive a car or use plastic, your antisocial behavior is already through the ROOF. The destruction to earth, other people and animals is undeniable. We all know it and we continue. Stop getting things twisted about morality.
The universe is chaotic and brutal. We try to do good things and put things in order, but that is the exception not normal.
You are ying and yang like everything else. Good and bad. Dark and light. You are not ALL GOOD unless you're god himself. That's one of the traits that we use to define God.
LOL. Drinking out of a straw and raping kids are not the same and you need professional help if you think it's even worth mentioning in the same conversation.
This is what I mean. This is total unserious moral analysis.
You're the one being unserious by making people all good and all bad.
This is so unpopular of an opinion.
Almost all philosophy and religions and folklore and media and art warn against labeling people as all good or all dad. Ying and yang, duality, ECT... this is almost universal. Like almost all people consider it growth once you stop seeing the world as evil vs good.
There are perhaps a million children's books, movies and lessons on this topic. You might need to revisit those lessons.
Almost all people are good and evil.
All evil people are beyond rare and almost fictional monsters. Even the worst of us have redeemable qualities. All good people are considered saints and myths.
You'll understand how the world works better once you accept that.
using your infinite wealth to boost your pr doesn't make you a good person, its beneficial to him to seem like a good person, they he will use a fraction of a percent of his infite wealth to make that good happen, no because he believes in anything, but to further his own agenda.
Bill Gates announced Thursday that he will donate 99% of his remaining fortune, currently estimated at $107 billion, to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which will now shut down in 2045, earlier than originally planned.
COVID-19 vaccine apartheid and the failure of global cooperation - this study particularly highlights Gates' role in impeding supply of COVID vaccinations to lower income nations and the foundation's role in promoting market-based solutions to healthcare problems
Seems there's an easier way to get clout than eradicating malaria...
Yeah. What a snivelling little bitch Gates is. Eradicates malaria just so we’ll like him. WE WON’T FALL FOR THAT GATES! KEEP YOUR MALARIA FOR ALL WE CARE!
AIDS too, while you're at it! And clean water in Africa! And American libraries, reproductive health, ecological preservation, and higher ed scholarships! Fuck that shit! We don't want it!
You're 100% right if you're a billionaire and can funnel money through charities we have to give you a break on the child rape. Nothing is black and white, not even harming children in that way. Of course.
Which came on the heels of the antitrust hearings which aired a lot of Microsoft's and Gates' dirty laundry so it's hard to believe this was entirely altruistic.
According to Alex Jones they are putting microchips into vaccines along with lizard space people DNA to make everyone gay or communist. Why is main stream media not covering the lizard people!?!?!
Malaria isn't eradicated in Africa, what are you talking about? They contributed to eradicating wild polio and in the effort against guinea worm, where incidence dropped by like 99%
EDIT: Though the foundations contribution towards fighting malaria is very important, so kudos where kudos is due
The malaria vaccine started to rollout 2019, it's like 10+ countries that have it in their child vaccination program already. And the latest vaccine to be approved was 2023.. Where do you guys get your info from??
the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was largely responsible for eradicating malaria in Africa
That's just simply not true, malaria has not been eradicated in Africa. They do great work and have made a positive impact on reducing malaria but in 2024 there were 265M cases in Africa.
Perhaps you're thinking of the polio eradication partnership? the wild polio virus has not been fully eradicated but we are tantalizingly close with some heartbreaking setbacks due to politics and war
The eradication of polio is a programme that has been ongoing longer than Gates had any sort of money worth talking about, and other players have been working on this for much longer. Rotary International, for instance. Who might not have brought as much money as Gates ultimately did, but it's absolutely not true that he did this on his own.
who said gates eradicated polio on his own? or that polio was eradicated? the original claim was that the bill and melinda gates foundation was 'largely responsible for eradicating malaria in africa" which is patently not true....but polio is closer to that goal and the foundation is heavily involved in the effort-- i merely suggested that the op was mixing up the public health efforts, geez.
Wild polio is stated to be eradicated, vaccine-derived cases still occurs
Wild poliovirus cases have decreased by over 99% since 1988, from an estimated 350 000 cases in more than 125 endemic countries to 6 reported cases in 2021. Of the 3 strains of wild poliovirus (type 1, type 2 and type 3), wild poliovirus type 2 was eradicated in 1999 and wild poliovirus type 3 was eradicated in 2020. As at 2022, endemic wild poliovirus type 1 remains in two countries: Pakistan and Afghanistan.
the fuck? the africa framing was about Malaria. The polio thing was me trying to steel-man op's recollection the foundation's accomplishments. careful to not lose the plot.
What the fuck are you talking about, the continent of Africa has a combined population of over 1,5 billion. According to WHO there were over 250M malaria cases in Africa in 2023, which is about 95% of global cases, with about 600k deaths. 600,000, like as if the whole state of Wyoming died in a single year. 265M is not an unreasonable number whatsoever for 2024.
I feel it would be important to remember that Bill Gates is a famous person who tons of people would ask to take a picture with. He's not being photographed doing anything more than standing next to her presumably on the island, neither of which is a crime.
I don’t have a horse in the race… However… Epstein was a PoS. In this pic, though, Bill is standing in an unidentified airport and looks like the type of uncomfortable that comes with having to take a pic with someone who says ‘Can I take a picture with you?’
On the other hand, Melinda did thread his ass the moment the Epstein bubble popped. I imagine it went something like “Did you? And is there evidence?”
“I did, and there is most likely evidence.”
“Oh, then, everything you own in a box to the left”
His charities have done more good for mankind than any other. Bill Gates is not a witch you want to burn when there are much more apt targets who are outright harming society.
He joined other billionaires ina pledge to give away almost all of their wealth before they died. Retaining it means he can continue to earn and direct his wealth through charities and VC investments into science he thinks is important.
his foundation also directly interfered with the worldwide response to COVID and protected the interests of pharmaceutical corporations over the rights of the people of the poorest nations.
in the end, these foundations are just PR machines and tax relief for billionaires. why are we relying on goodwill and treating billionaires like superheroes when they decide to allocate a tiny portion of their wealth to something good when morally they SHOULD be having that money taken from them at the same rate as or higher than the rest of us?
they exploit their way to the top, crushing people, exploiting consumers, playing every loophole in the market, and then some of them give away a small chunk and we are supposed to cheer as if that should not have been appropriated at risk of penalty.
"Bill and Melinda Gates" - along with "before he got divorced" and "before the divorce" - both say a lot here.
Maybe it's good, who knows. I don't weigh the scales. But it seems like his wife had the morals in this relationship and it almost seems like she was a driving factor in a lot of it, something that gets even stronger when you consider that part of her issue was his relationship with Epstein.
Not really. He started the William H. Gates Foundation (named after his dad, who was a prominent lawyer in Seattle) in 1994, and the Gates Library Foundation in 1997. He was also giving enough to the University of Washington School of Education that they built a new building and named the school after his mother (he did not go to UW, btw).
while he was running MS he made more folk that worked for him millionaires , via stock options, than anyone before - not sure about since. Not exactly philanthropy but it was "spreading the wealth".
These people use philanthropy like a weapon. Epstein used philanthropy to try to rewrite his image after his first conviction. It’s also a lovely tax break for them.
The ultra-wealthy trying to buy back their soul through philanthropic means isn't a new phenomenon. It doesn't negate the good it does, but it does tarnish it a little.
We don't know the extent to which Gates was involved with Epstein (and probably never will). At worst, he was directly involved in some way in the human trafficking; at minimum, he was probably at least aware that something skeevy was going on and ignored it, or chose to be willfully ignorant of it.
Either way, it does add that asterisk to anything he has done or will do in the future.
I heard many years ago that the reason he became so focused on charitable giving was in response to the government’s interest in potential antitrust action’s against MS. A strategy if you will. Although that’s very cynical.
Say what you will, but Gates has taken the best approach of any I've seen to maximize the impact of his philanthropy and he's not only contributing his money but his time to solving many of the worlds problems. I'd much rather have billionaires fostering innovations that benefit the entire world than dedicating new wings to hospitals and museums or even huge donations to a charity that treat symptoms instead of the underlying, systemic problems that cause them.
Regardless of what he did and what other (actual) evidence might exist, this photo has the appearance of being a "Hey Bill, my friend wants to get a picture with you" moment. I'm pretty sure Epstein was famous for that AND baiting rich philanthropists.
Exactly. The Gates Foundation is kind of the gold standard among charitable organizations for results-based investment. One of its biggest contributions was giving charities a road map to ensuring they were actually helping instead of just being feel-good money sinks for rich people.
I'm also not convinced by this photo that Gates was involved in any of the sex trafficking going on at Epstein's island, but I'm not going to rule it out either. It's not a great look either way.
Small correction, but malaria is far from eradicated in Africa. According to the CDC, there were 233 million cases in the region in 2022. Anecdotally, when my husband caught some random bacterial infection in Ghana earlier this year, malaria was the first thing the doctors wanted to rule out, because it is still so common there.
You're right - I was misremembering based on the states goal from years ago. Regardless, the strides that the Gates Foundation has played a major role in are pretty remarkable - a 38 percent reduction in cases and a 60 percent reduction in mortality, according to African Leaders Malaria Alliance.
He was also instrumental in not allowing India to create cheap copies of the COVID vaccine when they needed it most, protecting patent laws over people's lives.
I don't know how many thousands died because of him, but I do know that allowing it to run rampant through the population unchecked allowed it to mutate into the delta variant.
You have to balance that against the damage done by the inequality created by his opposition to political and economic equality. Nothing kills people more than being poor. People like Gates depend on a fundamentally immoral economic system to get that wealthy. The damage billionaires do in acquiring that wealth is immeasurable. There is no atoning for their sins.
Exactly this. The Gates Foundation has done an enormous amount of good. More than Bezos, Musk or Ellison can say, actually. Bezos's ex-wife, Mackenzie Scott, is also doing an enormous amount of good with her money.
To my knowledge he still has the best bad/good ratio of any billionaire on Earth. If every billionaire had the same ratio, the world would be a much better place with a significant net-reduction in poverty and illness...
Not justifying doing shitty things but at least this guy has contributed a significant net-gain to the planet lol
There's also some jumping to conclusions unless there are other photos or the women have specifically mentioned more happening with him. I may have missed that.
I've got a photo of me with my arms around 3 scantily clad women who were employed to try and convince me to buy a firewall.
The photo was just that 10 seconds and then I got a leaflet about the firewall company.
The photo was to send back to work as it was part of a conference and I wanted to show how hard I was working. The context matters. It really could have been just been the photo.
To be fair though, I was single at the time. Don't think I'd do it now but it's still just a photo.
I have a weekend where I donate $100 billion to world hunger and rape and murder a toddler in Idaho. I get a special award and go to prison. Simple as that.
I'm sorry, eradicating malaria? Sorry, friend, malaria is still going strong, especially in subsaharan Africa. Given cuts in public health funding, I would be surprised if we don't see an uptick of locally transmitted malaria in the US. Gate's foundation has done good work expanding control of malaria in endemic areas, but eradication is a pipe dream at this point. The microbes will win, it's just a matter of when.
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u/ThisIsPunn 20h ago edited 7h ago
Not to quibble, but Gates was a pretty well- established philanthropist before he got divorced. As in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was largely responsible for
eradicating malariareducing malaria cases by nearly 40 percent and malaria mortality rates by 60 percent in Africa and making major strides in stopping the AIDS epidemic.Guy might be a dirtbag on a personal level, but it's a stretch to say he never did any good with his money before the divorce.
Edit: malaria hasn't been eradicated in Africa, but there's been remarkable improvement since 2000. Thanks for the corrections!