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submitted 2 days ago by Maerman@lemmy.world to c/opensource@lemmy.ml

So I just read Bill Gates' 1976 Open Letter To Hobbyists, in which he whines about not making more money from his software. You know, instead of being proud of making software that people wanted to use. And then the bastard went on and made proprietary licences for software the industry standard, holding back innovation and freedom for decades. What a douche canoe.

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[-] DupaCycki@lemmy.world 14 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

There have been many times when I thought to myself: "Hold on. Can I be absolutely sure that billionaires are scum? Maybe there's a crucial part of the story I'm missing?"

Every single time I just found even more cases of them blatantly lying, manipulating data and taking advantage of everything and everyone around them for personal gain. And every one of those times, it got me more depressed about the current and future state of society and the world in general.

You can try this yourself. I highly recommend it, even though the outcome is obvious. We can very rarely, if ever, be 100% sure about anything, so it's always a good idea to put your beliefs to the test. However, I find it fairly self-evident that anyone seriously arguing in favor of any billionaire has simply never critically examined this topic.

No matter where and how deeply you look, it's just evidence upon evidence upon evidence that they are, in fact, the worst filth that has ever shared the air with us. Though at least this one thing is comming to an end. Soon, we'll be breathing toxic waste while they'll be enjoying clean air in their doomsday bunkers larger than entire neighborhoods.

[-] dx1@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

There's some theoretical possibility that a billionaire could be a non-sociopath. If they literally dedicated their life to extracting money from the wider economy or top crust, not spending any of it on themselves or their descendants, but instead solely redistributing to the most needing people in the world. Monetary wealth at the end of the day is just economic control - it doesn't become evil until it's actually used for your own benefit, i.e., the economy is being rewired for you to live in luxury.

Assuming of course (big fat assumption) that you don't screw people over to get it in the first place - and, even if you are giving it all away, it's questionable why you'd end up with a surplus of money that large, if your goal is to donate it, why would the rate coming in exceed the rate going out, unless the goal was to purchase some institution or something, i.e., purchase Walmart and turn it into a cooperative. Probably not to invest the money to grow it to have more to give, because the return on investment for the money also has to come from somewhere, i.e., has its own ethical ramifications.

But I mean, name a single person in the last century who fit that profile. I can't name one. So.

[-] wabasso@lemmy.ca 0 points 14 hours ago

Oooh, ruin Warren Buffet for me!

(This isn’t a snarky rebuttal I just never heard anything but figures it’s too good to be true)

[-] Aljernon@lemmy.today 5 points 13 hours ago

Warren Buffet is an interesting case. He's straight up said that their IS a class war going on and billionaires are winning. He also expressed some amazement that society would award his skill set with so much money. That being said he is a capitalist thru and thru and has faith in a failed economic system because it turned out well for him.

this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2025
753 points (94.5% liked)

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