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Get on the 'Gates for President' Bandwagon
netbuzz writes "Dilbert's Scott Adams kicked off the idea in his November 19th blog post, saying there isn't anything wrong with this country that President Bill Gates couldn't cure in less time than it takes to get a new operating system out the door. Today, the idea is moving forward with a brand-new 'Bill Gates for President' Web site. Adams is also back on the campaign trail, flogging the site and Gates' candidacy." A blog post at Network World includes a lot of eye-rolling about this idea, but neither Adams nor the folks at the 'Gates for President' website seem to be taking this lightly.
For innumerous jokes about constantly having to reboot the government. And the need for constant government upgrades.
Let's forget open-source software for any public activities.
Er...uh...*cowers*
On the flip side, special interest groups declare bankruptancy. Groups claim they became ineffective because when ever they tried to buy Bill Gates he declined expressing that he already had enough headaches trying to spend the billions he already has.
...but I wouldn't mind voting for Scott Adams!
Circumcision is child abuse.
My main objection to a Gates presidency is that Bill can do far more good for the world as the head of a well-funded private foundation than he could possibly do as master of ceremonies and chief law enforcement officer of the United States. Now that he's stepping down as Borg Queen, he has an unprecedented opportunity to improve the quality of living for so much of the human population... why waste a man like that on a job where he'll have to negotiate with Congress, waste time overseeing dozens of secretaries, etc.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
While I can't say I love the idea, I'd probably rather have Bill as President than most of the people who run. I certainly don't care for much of his software or related practices (WGA, anyone?), but he is a smart man.
Of course, I don't see the OpenDocument movement in Mass. going through if this were to happen. But, in honesty, if that's the biggest problem that came from his theoretical presidency, I'd be thrilled.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Bill Gates for President? I'm a Microsoft employee, and even I don't think that's a good idea.
Why not? Well, Billg is a very smart guy, he's extremely intense, extremely intelligent - can pick out and remember the smallest details from specs that are hundreds of pages long - and has generally been a pretty good leader for Microsoft. Not many people can make the transition from running a small business with 3 employees to having that business become the biggest software company in the world, with over 60,000 employees. He did, and he did it well. He's got real talent.
However, Microsoft is also a frigging bureaucratic mess of unbelievable proportions. A lot of you have probalby read that Joel on Software article about the shutdown menu in Vista, and the dev's response to it in which he describes a year-long process of weekly meetings mostly spent arguing over design features. The thing is, the whole company is like that. While I'm pretty sure Billg is a nice guy (I don't know him pesonally, but it's my impression) and he's very smart and I'm sure he has far more integrity than most politicians, I don't really want to put anyone who oversaw the creation of such a bureaucracy in charge of the government. After all, it took government far longer to evolve such a horrid bureacracy, Microsoft did it in only 30 years, and most of that happened in the last 20.
So, while I have tremendous respect for Billg for his accomplishments at Microsoft, and also for Linus Torvalds and Steve Jobs for their accomplishments, I wouldn't like to see any of them become president of the United States, thank you very much (not that Linus could, because of the stricture on being a citizen by birth, of course).
Scott Adams is hilarious, but, like most people, I guess he doesn't really know much about technical issues.
Bill gates has thoroughly hosed the IT industry, for his personal gain. But most casual observers, and even the 95% of 'IT professionals' who are political, not technical (in other words, bill gates' "base"), still have no idea this is true.
Of course, if the current administration is the benchmark of credentials, maybe he is overqualified!
Actually, if you recall Perot was doing quite well in the polls (even leading at one point) up until the point where he effecitively dropped out of the race (later to return) and thereby shot himself in the foot. His problem wasn't being smart, rich, and successful but rather that his on again, off again candidacy and claims of "republican dirty tricks" made him seem crazy.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
So.. um.. go live in Virginia or Maryland. No part of DC is more than 5 miles from a place with voting rights. No one was supposed to live there year-round anyway.* It's a freakin' swamp.
*except the president. Though it's probably supposed to be some kind of ordeal that's supposed to have a humbling effect...
I mean, you can walk to either of those two states from anywhere in DC in less time than it takes to commute to Manhattan from long island.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
serioulsy off-topic, but only here will you find a 2-point post with a 2-point "mod parent up" post. That's pretty funny.
Anyone else getting tired of corporations getting fined instead of their leaders going to jail for crimes committed?
Bush was never really unsuccessful in business. Some of the companies he headed failed, but he always made out like a bandit. Of course with his father in the President's seat, and all his family ties in Washington, no SEC investigation ever got very far. He repeatedly sold shares of the companies he was heading before they released bad financial news to the public, without notifying the SEC. Same thing that Martha Stewart was in trouble for. Hard to prove under the best of circumstances, but even harder if you're investigating a Bush.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
In U.S. history people from following classes have been elected President:
1. State Governors
2. Vice-Presidents
3. U.S. Congressional Representatives
4. Generals
5 (almost never, but once in a century or so) a U.S. Senator
This means that the following people will NOT be elected President in 2008:
Bill Gates
Condoleeza Rice
Rudy Guliani
and the following people have a real chance only if their opponent is also a U.S. Senator:
John Kerry
Hillary Clinton
John McCain
John Edwards
If 'the people' in Amendment 2 are 'the state' then Amendments 1, 2, 4, 9, and 10 benefit the state, not you.
One might suggest that the reason that it is difficult to build a successful business is ethics. Perhaps I'm wrong, I've never performed the experiment of trying to build to separate businesses, one ethically and one like MS. Has anyone else done this and produced some results? How much easier does a complete lack of concern for one's fellow man make business building?
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
If I had to pick geek icons for office I'd like to see Linus as President and RMS as vice president. Mr. Torvalds is a very good leader - he motivates people, he listens to people, he does a good job at picking others to lead under him. He is intelligent, much more ethical than Mr. Gates, and I think a far better leader than Mr. Gates. RMS would be a good VP because he is to crazy to give power to directly but he often has good points and knows how to get his voice out there to actually make a difference in the world.
I think you're absolutely right. Unfortunately, the Constitution has an outdated clause requiring the President to be native-born. RMS would be a good advisor or Secretary (in the cabinet). Other OSS people would be good in the Administration too.
Unfortunately, the big problem with this idea is that a lot of Linux development would be hampered while these guys are busy with governmental duties.
Sure Linus is from Finland but I'm willing to vote for him - something I'll never do for Mr. Gates. If I can't have Linus then I'd consider people from the EFF or any major American free software hacker. Seriously - I'll vote for you if you run guys. We need a pro consumer and pro science/technology President.
As stupid as his "Aunt Tillie" printer rant was, I'd even vote for ESR at this point.
I think I'm scared. What if the election comes down to being between Hillary Clinton and Bill Gates? I'd have to kill myself rather than be around when either of those two takes the lead of our country. Hillary is just an off her rocker lib that's never done anything but spout crap and Bill would slaughter fair use and similar consumer protection and anti-trust laws.
This would be a dark day for the country. In such a race, Gates would almost certainly be elected as too many people don't like Hillary, and Americans have a very odd tendency to worship rich people, even if their money is all ill-gotten.
> If Bill ran the USG the way he's run MS, he'd raise taxes and fund all kinds
> of hairbrained initiatives which would be expensive, poorly thought-out, and
> would flop. The only thing he'd do well is use the US's dominant position,
> unethically, to gain more power from the rest of the world, at everyone else's
> expense, and make the US even more hated than it is now.
Other than the "raise taxes" part, you just accurately described our current president. Maybe Scott Adams has the American voter figured out better than Slashdot gives him credit for!
Scott said it best:
Like it or not, capitalism is the name of our American game. Compared to Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Condi Rice or (God help us) Rudy Giuliani-- it's the first name I've heard that hasn't made me cringe.
Plus it sets a nice prescedent. As far as I'm concerned, we geeks should be running the show.
barack to the future?