Gates Issues Call For "Creative Capitalism"

theodp writes "Bill Gates makes his case for Creative Capitalism in TIME, citing projects like a Text-Free UI for illiterate computing, the use of Multimouse technology to allow fifty kids to share one computer display, cell phone billing by the second, and Bono's RED campaign as examples of the type of corporate creativity that can make the world a better place for the billion or so people scraping by on less than a dollar a day. Michael Kinsley, a former Microsoft employee whose wife still advises the Gates Foundation, says it's hard to object to Gates' goals, but notes that creative capitalism does have its share of skeptics, and points out that there was not a whole lot of energy devoted to lifting up the world's poor during Bill's three decades at Microsoft."

Comments

Re:Creative Capitalism

[Cathoderoytube]

Funny thing about 'creative capitalism'.. Bill Gates owns one of the larger image banks on the internet right now. Unfortunately the current laws which allow the creative individuals who make money off their artwork on those image banks are costing Mr. Gates a portion of money (what with them owning the rights to their own work). SO he's currently one of the voices trying to get the copyright laws changed so any non-registered creative works become orphaned if their creators don't watch over them like a hawk (the current laws copyright everything by default and you don't have to pay money for it). If the law is changed all the works on those image banks will lose their copyright and Mr. Gates will be able to turn a profit on them, while all the creative people learn a hard lesson in capitalism.

Re:cell phone by the second

[xaxa]

It's about time that cell phone companies introduce per second billing, but this is not going to happen anytime soon as it is a major part of their business... and fat profits.

They bill per second in the UK (e.g. Orange, O2)

Speaking of ancient Egypt

[Moraelin]

Speaking of ancient Egypt and writing, it's kinda funny... they actually invented a phonetic writing (hieratic) _before_ hieroglyphics, but preferred hieroglyphics anyway.

It's kinda funny how many things about Egypt are contrary to what we take for granted, and what stuff like Civilizations teach us. We tend to think that inventing an alphabet was oh-so-vital and a major improvement over hieroglyphics, but Egypt invented them the other way around. And for a long time it was, along with Mesopotamia (where cuneiform was also hieroglyphic), at the forefront of science and technology.

(Another anomaly about them was that they knew about coins all right, but preferred barter anyway. They first minted coins to pay some Greek mercenaries, and then continued to do so for external trade with the Greeks and Phoenicians. But internally they used barter until the Romans conquered them and forced them to. They were an economic powerhouse anyway.)

So, well, maybe there is something to the idea that a picture is worth more. The Egyptians sure thought so :P

Re:Speaking of ancient Egypt

[Angst Badger]

Egyptian hieroglyphic writing was largely phonetic, contrary to what is surprisingly common belief here. Some signs were logographic or ideographic, but the majority of signs were phonetic. Hieratic came after hieroglyphic, and was largely just a cursive form of hieroglyphics, used to write quickly in informal contexts. In any case, Egyptian used a far smaller set of signs than modern Japanese, which is also a mixture of phonetic, logographic, and ideographic signs. Alphabetic writing probably originated in the Levant as a simplification of Egyptian monoconsonantal signs, culminating in the Phoenician alphabet, which formed the basis of virtually all modern scripts of non-Chinese origin.

Currency was simply unnecessary through most of Egyptian history. Ancient Egypt was a command economy and the overwhelming majority of its trade was internal. Under those circumstances, at least in a pre-industrial state, currency is a needless complication.

Re:Gates' legacy

[QuietLagoon]

your "facts" are actually just bitter whiny opinions

.
Read the court transcripts.

The simple fact is you lost.

I did lose, as did hundreds of millions of other PC users who have had to put up with an unreliable operating system from a company that was more concerned about protecting its monopoly than engaging in the advancement of the PC industry via real innovation.

Monopoly laws are a relic of the steel and oil industries

That's your opinion. However, the monopoly laws are still on the books and have to be obeyed. If you break them, you suffer the consequences. It is good to see, however, that you implicitly acknowledge that Gates engaged in illegal activity to gain his wealth.