Slashdot Mirror
Billions Donated to Charity
Anonymous Philanthropist writes " Warren Buffet , the world's second-richest man, announced over the weekend that he will soon donate 85% of his entire net worth, weighing in at around $37 Billion, to charities, with over 80% of it going to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This makes it the single largest monetary donation in history."
Although, it's hard to believe that the timing is entirely coincidental... especially since Bill said he'd be leaving Microsoft over the next two years, and Warren said:
Visualize the world of wine
"The man who dies thus rich, dies disgraced,"
--Andrew Carnegie
I'd never pay that much to get into the Guiness Book of Records
Bravo, sir.
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
Mark 12: 41-44
41 And he sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the multitude putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums.
42 And a poor widow came, and put in two copper coins, which make a penny.
43 And he called his disciples to him, and said to them, "Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury.
44 For they all contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, her whole living."
Isn't good enough for you? The prize for abolishing disease, starvation, education and humanity isn't worthy?
come on
None of the $30 billion is coming from Microsoft. It's coming from Warren Buffet's stock in Berkshire Hathaway, the company he founded. The existing endowment of the Gates Foundation comes from Bill Gates' stock in MS, and is a result (if you will) of MS's monopoly and predatory practices.
There is a long tradition of this (supporting charities through monopolistic profits), such as the Carnegie Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Ford Foundation, etc. Bill and Melinda are following in the footsteps of their capitalist predecessors.
The question of whether a charity should accept money from donors with questionable business ethics has been long debated and never resolved. George Bernard Shaw wrote several plays about this question, and he didn't have an answer. His best was probably Major Barbara, in which the Salvation Army must decide whether or not to accept support from a gin distiller and an arms manufacturer.
Gates is an avid card player so he might even appreciate the analogy. He's done some evil things, but it came out all right in the end because he's donating practically all his winnings to charity, and doing so at a relatively young age. Had he not been so greedy and obsessed, a much broader spectrum of people in the software business might have become wealthy or affluent, and we would undoubtedly have had a more interesting marketplace ecology in the personal computing business over the past 15 years. But I doubt that the incremental contributions to charity would have had nearly the same impact that Gates and Buffett are making now.
He and Buffett will be remembered as great Americans for their charity, while his past role as founder and leader of Microsoft will be debated for decades.
Seriously, that's not funny. Maybe if their practices weren't so predatory then we wouldn't have to donate so much to charity because the original companies would still be around...
So, let's see here... the Gates foundation does things like fix up millions of kids with innoculations they wouldn't otherwise get, bringsd truckloads of networking infrastructure to places like New Orleans when the local government doesn't have a chance of procuring it on their own that fast, provides millions for scholarships, and so on. Are you actually suggesting that if Netscape had managed to make a real go at being a stand-alone business, or if BeOS had thrived, that there wouldn't be no place for the billions in philanthropy that Gates is doing?
Are are you certain that part of Netscape's plans included clinics in Africa? Or that despite Novell being largely annoying in so many ways, they would have somehow also gotten into fund raising if they'd pursuaded more people to stick with their NOS? You're trying to set up a false dichotomy just because you like demonizing Bill.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Microsoft is not evil. They engage in some unfair business practices, and make a lot of pretty mediocre products. To call that evil trivializes truly evil actions, like the ongoing genocide in Sudan. Do people on here even realize how fortunate they are to be able to devote their time to complaining about DRM or IE security holes? How many people have died because of Microsoft? Few, if any. How many people can be saved by things like vaccination programs? Millions. Gates is no saint, but what he's doing is good, and he deserves to be applauded for it.
First off it's not real charity.
Much of it is simply targeted to block F/OSS. Even the actual charity parts deal with dumping millions on ineffective, corrective treatments involving expensive medications and getting some level of matching funding from the local governments. And those expensive medications come from big pharmas which, surprise, Gates is heavily invested in.
There is also a strong element of PR in the Foundation: since 1995 MS has had various plans on how to direct corporate giving in ways that guarantee the greatest returns to the company. We've also been seeing loads and loads of vanity puff-pieces appearing across a wide variety of news publications. The NYT even publishes ones written by (or ghost written for) Chairman Gates himself.
The point here is that in this case it appears that charity is simply being used as tool to affect the market in ways that lobbying and plain old sales can't. It allows individual institutions or regions to be targeted quickly with a level of speed that defending governments and businesses have trouble reacting to.
It's seems that with this infusion of funding from Buffet, MS, through the Gates Foundation, crosses the line from being a lobbying entity to being fully a political/ideological movement.
Welcome to the next level.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
"Today, with a $60 billion fortune, Gates is both hated and loved. Unlike many, he has promised to contribute over 90% of his wealth to charities when the big guy calls his number." 90% of the richest man is more than 85% of the second richest man. Gates is just being more low-key about it.
While Warren may trust Bill and Melinda to use the money wisely (he is older and probably anticipates dying before them), what happens when Bill and Melinda are gone too? What do we end up with? Well, we could end up with another Ford Foundation. In other words, it could end up straying from some of the common-sense approaches applied now, such as distributing mosquito nets to prevent malaria. It could degenerate into an organization with a questionable agenda, or an organization that simply parcels out donations to other orgs, the primary results of which are (though probably not intentionally) to finance the lifestyles of the "chattering class" in Washington DC and various other world capitols. So, Bill and Melinda, while you still have time, you need to figure out a way to keep that from happening. Poor people can't eat UN studies, and no "blue ribbon commission" ever swatted a single mosquito. When the visionaries pass on, it's inevitable that the committees take over. Maybe that's why Carnegie built libraries in his own lifetime. Today, many are still in use, and there's only so much lunacy that can take place in a building, whereas a monied organization can create no end of politically-oriented drivel.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Leaders / Copyrights
A radical rethink
Jan 23rd 2003
From The Economist print edition
The best way to foster creativity in the digital age is to overhaul current copyright laws
IMAGE (Reuters)
CRITICS have derided a 1998 extension of American copyrights as the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act” because it stopped early images of the Disney company’s mascot from entering the public domain. But such laws, they argue, are no joke. Extending and strengthening copyrights, they claim, will help a handful of big corporations crush creativity in the digital age. On the contrary, say Hollywood studios and big record companies. Without stronger copyright protection, a wave of piracy will destroy their industries, depriving consumers everywhere of a broad choice of movies, music and books.
Last week America’s Supreme Court weighed into what is rapidly becoming a nasty worldwide battle about the scope and enforcement of copyrights, by rejecting a challenge to the 1998 law on constitutional grounds. But even as it upheld the law, the court expressed misgivings. Blistering dissents from two justices dismissed the 20-year extension of copyright as unwarranted, and even the majority’s opinion hinted that Congress’s decision may have been “unwise”.
The court’s ambivalence is understandable. The growing quarrel over copyright is just one of the many difficult issues thrown up by the spread of the internet and related technologies (see our survey of the internet society in this issue). But of all these issues, the copyright battle is becoming one of the most urgent, and bitterly fought, because it could yet determine the future character of cyberspace itself.
Both sides have a point. Digital piracy does indeed threaten to overwhelm so-called “content” industries. As the power and reach of the internet continue to grow, the illicit trading of perfect copies may well devastate the music, movie and publishing industries. The content industries want to protect themselves with anti-copying technology, backed by stronger laws. So far, they have been at loggerheads with technology firms about how to implement such schemes (see article). But a deal between Hollywood and Silicon Valley is likely eventually. Critics are right to fear that, when such a deal is struck, it will be in the interests of big firms, not the public.
A grand new bargain
The alternative is to return to the original purpose of copyright, something no national legislature has yet been willing to do. Copyright was originally the grant of a temporary government-supported monopoly on copying a work, not a property right. Its sole purpose was to encourage the circulation of ideas by giving creators and publishers a short-term incentive to disseminate their work. Over the past 50 years, as a result of heavy lobbying by content industries, copyright has grown to such ludicrous proportions that it now often inhibits rather than promotes the circulation of ideas, leaving thousands of old movies, records and books languishing behind a legal barrier. Starting from scratch today, no rational, disinterested lawmaker would agree to copyrights that extend to 70 years after an author’s death, now the norm in the developed world.
Digital technologies are not only making it easier to copy all sorts of works, but also sharply reducing the costs of creating or distributing them, and so also reducing the required incentives. The flood of free content on the internet has shown that most creators do not need incentives that stretch across generations. To reward those who can attract a paying audience, and the firms that support them, much shorter copyrights would be enough. The 14-year term of the original 18th-centur
The extreme centre is the paper's historical position. --Geoffrey Crowther
"I'm not at all sure that I trust the B&MG Foundation to spend their money in a way that would be selected by the masses."
You don't "trust" the Gates Foundation to spend their money as you would see fit? Well, whoop-dee-doo!
Wow, I knew that slashdotters were an arrogant lot (you know, the whole "I know everything there is to know about tech, I'm God's gift to the tech industry, I look down upon anyone that accepts money for programming, blah blah blah" mindset), but to question how others go about their own charitable work? That is the height of arrogance. Look, I know it's very painful for you Gates haters to hear about his charitable work, but grow up. I really doubt that Gates gives a damn whether you "trust" they way he donates money to various causes. If you haven't contributed to the foundation, then it's not your place to "trust" the way it's spent, as it's none of your business. You don't like the causes that Gates contributes to? Then don't contribute to his foundation, simple. Good grief.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
Incredibly enough, some people have higher priorities than space hotels or a moon base, things like not starving to death today, having children without passing HIV to them, or learning how to read. I know it's tough to empathize with such ignorant and short-sighted people but they are out there...
The People (tm) would vote for fuel subsidies and tax cuts. Just like they do every time they can.
I already "donated" several times by buying copies of Windows.
Purchase != Donation.
As it happens I also give every month to Concern Worldwide via direct debit and to put it bluntly, I would rather I was able to allocate my wealth to charities of my choosing rather than letting Gates do it for me ....
Then do that. But don't be hypocritical and criticise him for not letting you choose where your "wealth to charities" can go while simultaneously saying you should be able to dictate to him where his "wealth to charities" is apportioned.
Bill Gates liquidates all assets of Melinda & Gates Foundation and vanishes into thin air as the World's richest & second richest man...
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!