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Bill Gates Is More Admired Than the Pope
walterbyrd writes "Americans admire Bill Gates more than the Pope, the Dalai Lama and even Glenn Beck. The Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist was named the fifth most admired man of 2010, according to the latest USA Today/Gallup poll."
Most people admire his money, not his work, or the individual himself. I bet he also makes the "most loathed" list as well (along with the Pope)!
There are only 68 million Catholics in the US according to wikipedia. How many Windows users are there?
Americans admire Barack Obama, George Bush, and Bill Clinton more than Nelson Mandela. That is a sad commentary on America. Neither of the former faced true adversity like Nelson Mandela.
the fact that Glenn Beck and Billy Graham are even on this list makes me want to vomit.
Money buys admiration, I suppose. Gates is also perceived as being very smart; and, to be fair, he is a very smart man. You try building an empire as huge and powerful as Microsoft was at its height of power and influence based only on technological and business accumen. It's not so easy.
My blog
that America's true religion is money.
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
Or a Nazi
The other one sold DOS and Windows.
Mu
That depends. You also have to include all of the Star Wars fans who sympathize with the Empire when you count the pope's supporters, since everyone knows he's the preincarnation of Emperor Palpatine.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
What is there to admire about the Pope?
Then again, there's not too much to admire about Bill Gates if you consider that the damage he's done with Windows may outstrip the philanthropic work he's done. I wonder how many homework assignments/theses etc have been lost to BSODs, and how much money people have lost to malware and zombie-assisted spam scams, etc.
which is totally what she said
Most of them on the list are political and religious personalities. I wouldn't put any of them as admirable, they are all just very personable people who wants everyone else to think they way they do. Actually with that List Bill Gates is probably the most admirable one there. He is actually trying to make a difference where everyone else just talks about it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Title.
i thought the US was mostly protestant. if so, its obvious they wouldnt admire the pope... or the dalai lama. only trendy and spiritual hipsters would be surprised by or care about these results
I'm assuming most people voted for him because of his philanthropy.
What can possibly be admired by the Pope, or Glenn Beck and his straw-man arguments
The man gave billions of his personal fortune to help make real change possible. Tangible things that save lives. The Pope may have done some great things too--but his biggest accomplishment is being politically successful in the church. That may require a higher level of personal generosity than does Bill Gates' decision to give billions away once he had them. But the church would have done good with a different pope. And most billionaires don't give so much of their fortune away.
Part of it may also be the institutional problem--people think of leaders as the individual doing something great more than of the individual making slight political changes to a major established institution.
A lot of it will also be the money. A lot of Americans have problems in their life that money can solve. Spiritual guidance may help them be content with their lot in life, and make them happier--but it doesn't solve the fact that you're out of work while your spouse has cancer and needs the insurance, or that your son or daughter needs money for college, or for legal bills about one really stupid thing they did. Money makes these things easier. It doesn't always make them easy, but it makes them easier.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Yeah, why should anyone admire a man who donated enormous amounts of money to charity?
Palm trees and 8
Flamebait? It has been proven that the current pope personally acted to relocate molesters and hide the evidence of their misdeeds. If not a child molester himself, he is directly responsible for child molestation.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Given that ol' Bill has both the philanthropic bleedinghearts and the sociopathic profit Uber Alles demographic absolutely sewn up, I'm surprised he didn't rank higher...
Once you take those two slices out of the American population, what've you got left, the 30-odd% of total Jesus freaks?
I am not a windows user, and I despise alot of microsoft products, but what they did for society is amazing, its all due to bill starting it. Now he carries on his good work with an immensely good charity. The pope wants to hold back progress and finds poverty and disease being spread as nothing less than a holy must. This is a good sign of clear thinking.
Yes it is true. He's has been at the #1 or #2 for Richest Americans in Forbes magazine.
Most people think of him as just a hard driving businessman who got fabulously wealthy due to hard work and brains - most don't know about the million dollar trust fund.
And then, he takes his billions and starts a charity and gets other billionaires to give up billions more.
He's also quite admired around the World too. All of my foreign classmates in B school admired him. Bring up monopoly or some of the other criticisms against him that are mentioned here and you'd get a blank stare like you wanted to wear a crash helmet to play Cricket or a counter argument that boils down to of 'he was a tough businessman and all the criticisms are from people who have the case of sour grapes' - which is an argument I can sympathize with (just listen to Metcalfe whine like a little bitch how MS screwed him - while he walked away with over $100 million.[Revenge of the Geeks, IIRC])
And no, the general public doesn't feel screwed over by 90% market share of Windows.
Also Nolan Bushnell. Most people have never heard of these guys, due to MS and Apple becoming dominant and rewriting history, but these guys were the True pioneers. Nolan Bushnell created the first successful videogames company. Atari was dominant from circa 1972 to 1984.
Commodore's Jack Tramiel had a "business is war" philosophy that put 30 million ~$200 computers in people's homes, and forced the competitors to drop their prices too (from the previous ~$3000 standard).
And Jay Miner practically invented the multimedia computer. First with the 128 color Atari video chip, then the more-advanced 128 color ANTIC used in the 400/800 computers, and eventually the 4000+ color GPU inside the Amiga. He also pioneered music-quality sound with his Paula device, and multitaking for home computers. It took the Mac/PC world ten years to catch-up.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Some one had to say it.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
So did you really think all of those Astroturfers didn't have a God?
Well, it's not that hard to be more admired than the head of an organization that's gotten lots of attention for paedophilia and child abuse lately -- not to mention such revelations like they were running glorified slave camps even in the west and in the 20'th century, see the Magdalene asylums in Ireland -- not to mention the revelation that said head of the organization was personally involved in covering up the paedophilia incidents. Add such stuff as his telling places in Africa that have an AIDS pandemic to not use condoms, and the like. And really, I'm surprised that the Pope has any respect at all.
I think even for most devout Catholics he's more like the guy who unfortunately happens to be at the head of their church for the moment, than a shining example of sainthood.
So, really, being more admired than the Pope is a bit like being more admired than Kim Jong Il ("president" of N. Korea.) Even if technically true, it doesn't really say much.
Add the fact that Bill Gates does get some genuine admiration from a lot of people, ranging from those who only heard that he "made" Windows and Word and of his charity stunts, to apologists of ruthless unregulated capitalism for whom breaking the rules and making a monopoly actually kinda makes one a hero. Which again, is actually more than the current Pope has to show as a claim to fame or infamy.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I get the Pope and Dalai Lama part, but more admired than Beck?? That's just wrong!
weinersmith
They asked just over a 1000 people through a telephone survey... hardly an in depth poll.
Most people probably responded with the only names they could think of at the time. I'd like to think most Americans are more educated and would put more thought into their vote given the opportunity.
Philanthropy and the fact that Gates didn't run an organization which hid and shuffled its pedophiles around the world.
Trolling is a art,
Who do you suggest we admire, then? Bill Gates is the epitome of a person who has achieved the American dream. He has made himself the one wealthiest people on Earth through (mostly) honest means. By helping to make the PC ubiquitous in the household and office, he has had great influence on American and world business, technology, and culture. And now that he has stepped down as leader of Microsoft, he is spending his time donating his wealth to worthy causes. He's not a saint, and has certainly engaged in questionable business practices, but there are certainly worse people to admire. It is so bad to admire someone who made good by using his intelligence rather than athletic ability, appearance, family name, religion, etc?
And yet they have so much in common.
Bill Gates has a history of rather predatory business practices, but at least he donates lots of money to charities and manage one of the biggest charities. Has he outright ruined anyone's life? I highly doubt it.
The pope is a cunt, a backwards, über-conservative dickhead who would rather ignore the problems facing his millions of subjects than take any real action. Problems like pedophilia, AIDS and crippling poverty and hunger.
Eat the rich.
What a horrible poll.
The sample size quoted was 1019. At 95% confidence level, the simple statistical error is about 3%. That puts basically everyone from 2-9 at the same amount of admiration...
It's okay. Moderation is just a number.
Someone felt that my post that is critical of the pope was designed to draw flames. Should I hold my tongue because I fear the censorship of small minded people with power?
If you ask whether I'd rather have surprise diarrhea while having sex or while making a speech in front of a thousand people, I guess I'd still have to pick one.
Bill Gates, Glenn Beck, the Pope, or the Dalai Lama? What were my other choices again? As a liberal atheist if that's all i've got to choose from i'd go with either Bill Gates or the Dalai Lama too, and i've been boycotting the XBox ever since the first model came out, despite being an avid gamer.
I haven't read TFA, so i wouldn't be surprised if those weren't the only options, but from my perspective at least that's a pretty weird selection to choose for comparison.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
What exactly did Windows do for our society? When last I checked, it was the Internet that really changed things, and the Internet was not built using Windows. The only reason people admire Bill Gates is his philanthropy, and to be honest, although I strongly disagree with a lot of Microsoft's tactics under Gates' leadership, I am glad to see that he is willing to give so much to charity.
Palm trees and 8
People are distrustful of religion in general, and the Pope in particular. Bill Gates comes with none of that baggage. Aside from a few of us /. geeks, Bill Gates' reputation as both a philanthropist and entrepreneur is pretty much spotless among the general public. And, among much of the American public, Companies like MS and Apple are also seen as some of the few bright spots in an economy that has seen American manufacturing going into the shitter for the last 40 years. It wouldn't surprise me if Steve Jobs beat the Pope too.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
One built an empire on bedrock of fear, paranoia, and hatred.
The other looks like Senator Palpatine.
Another tip this poll is worthless. The top 3 answers are US Politicians... People admire politicians? News to me.
Why would anyone admire the pope? An idiot with a silly hat, that's all there is to him.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
And why not? Bill Gates has done a lot of good with this wealth; real tangible things. And it's not just about giving money, it's about being involved. He and his wife are both active in the process and that's what makes it impressive - they're not just signing checks. And why would anyone put Glenn Beck in the same sentence with the Pope, the Dalai Lama and Bill Gates? Except maybe for contrast with the Dark Side.
Unlike the Pope, Bill Gates spends a lot of his riches on charity research. Wikipedia states that he's donated $28 billion of his own money to charitable causes (mainly the Bill & Melinda foundation). He has also agreed to give at least 50% of his fortune (currently valued at $54 billion) to charity.
I'm not particularly down with the Vatican kids, so I ask you; What has the current Pope actually done? I doubt very much that he has the means to even equal Bill Gates' contributions.
"He's not the Pope. He doesn't look anything like her."
Bill Gates is not heading an organisation which systematically has indulged in child abuse? Yeah ok, Microsoft fucks their customers over. And their suppliers. And their partners. And the lawmakers. But those are all ADULTS!!!
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
Bill Gates is less evil than the Pope. And he gives away more money, instead of taking it from people.
Sarah Palin wasn't on the list.
Dear Bill,
I admire you so much I switched from Windows to Linux, an operating system I can control, not one where you / Microsoft think everything I produce is yours, and I don't have to constantly justify to you my legit copy of Windows as legit.
Could you please refund me the cost of MS-DOS 5, MS-DOS 5.1, Windows 3.0, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98SE, Windows XP.
Yours
A more contended computer user.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
And that's the way it should be. Any Catholic should follow their faith and not worship false idols anyways. The same cannot be said for Windows lovers.
Big surprise.
Pope Benedict XVI
and the notion that you can get super rich coming from humble beginnings. That said, the funny part is Bill Gates comes from money. His day was a rich, well connected business lawyer whose experience & connections gave Bill what he needed to succeed, and the 1 million dollar trust fund in 1970 didn't hurt either. I guess the illusion is all that counts.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Don't forget, a lot of "Jesus freaks" aren't Catholic. Protestants don't tend to be that enamored of the Pope.
I hate Bill Gates, but I admire him more than I do the Pope. Yes, that's how much I don't admire the Pope at all.
According to TFA, a grand total of 1,019 people were polled, giving a grand view of 0.00036% of the population of one country.
How is such a small sample size indicitive of the rest of the country, much less the rest of the world.
On top of this, according to the source of TFA, the poll posts a margin of error is +/- 4%, making any such statement as "Gates better than Pope) completely erroneous.
Seriously /. ?
Beck is awesome...Two Turntables, baby! I didn't know his first name was Glen.
Most admired men, Top 3: Obama, Bush, Clinton.
Most admired women, Top 3: Clinton, Palin, Oprah.
So the top 3 admired men are the 3 most recent presidents (in order of forgetting). The top 3 women are two loudmouths and a dimwit. Pick yourself who is what.
I refuse to believe that this survey is representative for the US population. I know too many US people to simply assume that this is what Americans admire.
I'd rather have the gut feeling that this is what could be reached at home during daytime, i.e. when people who have a job go to work...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You know, I can't shake the feeling that I've read that kind of argumentation before. Is it ok to do something evil, just because then you'll use (some of) the ill gotten gains to do something good? Oh, right, that's Dostoevsky's "Crime And Punishment".
Turns out that in America you can actually be admired for being a modern day Raskolnikov.
It also turns out that you don't even have to do all that soul-searching and all, either.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Read it and weep. I assume you're packing your bags already...
No sig today...
I've seen people generalising, and insulting a nation or a nationality in general. You managed to insult every individual person in a nation. That's actually quite impressive.
If you take into account that the pope is based on nothing (PS, for those who don't know it, Jesus never existed, neither Marie, neither Joseph, neither a lot of them). It is only a story, like any novel out there !
A bit like you'd say : Americans admire Bill Gates more than James Bond !!
So, the next step, tear down the churches, remove the vatican and give the money they have to the people who need it !!!
Now the Dalaï Lama, that's another story.
I've never heard of Glenn Beck !!!! (I'm not Americn, and don't want to be ...)
Bye then.
40 years ago, John Lennon said that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus.
OTOH, I have never cursed the Pope by name, but I have often cursed Bill Gates while recovering from a crash or a lock-up.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Why?
If you admire business success he checks that box.
If you admire charitable works he checks that box.
If you admire wealth he checks that box.
If you admire brains he built a tech company before tech companies were cool which checks that box.
If you admire brawn, then he's not your man.
Note, that "checks that box" doesn't mean if you dig into it he was great. It doesn't matter if he was a great business man, or just lucky, or just a monopolistic parasite. It doesn't matter if he is or isn't smart.
This is admiration from people who have never been in the same room as the guy. Impression is all that matters.
... how is that a surprise? Are you surprised that Americans are, on average, more intelligent than you thought? Shame on you!
Bill has both the philanthropic bleedinghearts and the sociopathic profit Uber Alles demographic absolutely sewn up
Those two are mutually exclusive.
You can see the Pope's MVP certificate.
Task Mangler
Also, you have to ask yourselves how do people answer these. Were they asked in a quick phonecall? Were they asked to think about it and reply? I think the answers may be a little different in both these cases.
America, Home of the Brave.
Bill Gates:
Represents technology and it's advancement to where we are today.
The Pope:
Represents child molesters.
Any questions?
That rich entrepreneurs should just do like Steve Jobs and keep it all for themsevles? Or are you arguing that no one should be allowed to be a rich entrepreneur?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Any harm Bill Gates has done has been mostly to other businesses, and people who aren't gong to suffer unduly as a result. His charitable endeavours have very likely saved thousands of lives, and improved the quality of life of more than enough people to more than make up for any of the harm MS has done. He is inoffensive and doesn't poublicly judge others. All in all, whether he believes in God or not, he has many of the attributes a good Christian should admire.
Pope Benedict has actively campaigned against measures to reduce AIDS in Africa. He's helped cover up hideous sexual offences. He's highly judgemental, and regularly blames those not of his faith for the problems of the world. All in all, he has few of the attributes a good Christian should admire.
Quite honestly, I'm surprised Bill Gates didn't rank higher.
In the 80s and early 90s, Gates looked like the kind of business-villain the world has known and disliked for centuries. Since then, however, he has largely removed himself from business decisions and the world has discovered a new kind of corporate supervillain. Gates and his old school business tricks will never be able to compete with today's evil businessmen like Zuckerberg, Page and Brin. They're aiming to profit by creating a dystopian future; Gates merely chased his profit by conniving to create a future with a skewed market share. In terms of evil he just can't compete, and when you try to compare the fraction of wealth given away for charity, today's villains don't even register against Gates.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
[Insert obligatory remark about child molestation here]
Jason-Palmer.com
I know a few users who give quite the sermon when using the Windows Driven Computer.
With one important difference: Jean Valjean's fortune isn't a direct result of his crimes. He doesn't get to be the good guy by robbing Paul to give to Peter, no matter how far apart the two events are. Whereas Gates is getting to be the public philantropist hero with money made by breaking the antitrust laws in the '90's.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Why would you assume this? If one was to only read Slashdot they would think Bill Gates is an evil borg that has caused untold misery on millions and millions of people because of his monopolistic ways. Fact is non techs admire him because he lived/lives the dream. They see him as the ultimate success and what is possible in America. Americans like to live large, and what better example of excess can you find then Bill Gates? Also the TFA shows 2% or respondents so its not like a bursting dam of love.
Bingo. Actually, the top 3, and #5, all turn my stomach. A poll like this goes a long way toward explaining how dim bulb slimeballs win elections and predominate as the heads of soulless mega-corporations.
The greatest thing Bill Gates did wasn't to donate several million dollars. It's great that he did but what is much more improtant is that he applied a more business like method to measuring the success of a charity. The simple calculation of dollars per life saved rather than how low overheads are.
If a charity has low overheads but spends twice as much as it needs to on medicine, then it makes sense to hire a negotiator. That actually increases overheads but also increses efficiency.
It's a simple innovation but extremely important.
Bill Gates has done more for humanity than all of the Popes put together. I dislike a lot of what Bill Gates does but I won't say he has not done a lot for everyone. We wouldn't be sitting here discussing technology as it is if it weren't for him. They may have never had a keen eye for design or innovation, but they were and are the suits and they have shaped our world. The Pope is a figurehead that produces nothing and benefits no one. I admire my dog more than the Pope. Similarly I admire thousands of people more than Bill Gates.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
How can anyone admire scumbag politicians like Obama, Bush and Clinton above someone like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs? People are stupid.
Probably as popular as Pablo Escobar, and for similar reasons.
"even Glenn Beck"? Why in the fucking world would anyone expect Glenn Beck to be more popular? I have to admit, in a choice between syphilis and Glenn Beck, I would probably choose Glenn Beck. Probably.
I see the "troll" tag was removed but the "and even Glenn Beck" comment still remains.
He gave billions of your money. And, despite all that giving away, he was still richer 10 years after giving it away than when he started. So in what sense has he "given away"? He lost more wealth when the economy dropped a bit (in comparison with other countries wealthiest) than he's given away.
He's not a borg?? Scratch my vote please.
Many non-Catholics are ambivalent towards the Pope, and a few are even outright hostile; the church sex scandal cover-ups don't help either. Most people probably don't know enough about the Dalai Lama to have a strong opinion. And Glenn Beck?! Jeez, get real...
I have a grudging respect for Gates and his business savvy, in much the way that one can respect the abilities of a ruthless predator. As an engineer it irks me tremendously that MS managed to become the dominant force in the software industry, with products whose quality has ranged from competent to cringe-inducingly awful. I applaud his philanthropy, but the cynic in me says that his motivation for the creation of his charities was not entirely altruistic, coming as it did in the midst of the DOJ anti-trust investigations into Microsoft's business practices. Still, whether his motivations were pure or not I believe he's doing some good things now, and is deserving of respect.
I wouldn't put him anywhere near as high as #5 though.
Ballmer and Allen on the other hand... well, let's not go there.
Nevertheless, he manages it. Humans aren't exactly know for their long memories or logical consistency.
I suspect it has to do with the fact that he as the "classical robber baron" thing going on, in an age where that is largely extinct. Back in the robber baron days, you had highly recognizable individuals who piled up huge fortunes by dubiously ethical/legal means(monopoly power on a scale that actually made the Sherman antitrust act popular, shooting strikers, that sort of thing); but then spent a pretty substantial chunk of it on pieces of civic infrastructure with their name on them.
Today, when so many fortunes are either in the hands of people who have nothing more than their yacht named after them, or in the hands of largely opaque capital management groups that studiously avoid having any recognizable personalities whatsoever, classical robber-baronism is practically charming...
who is Glenn Beck?
M$ bribed their way into the local government numerous time and our tax money went straight to them , hundreds of thousands of licences for public institutions.
And you know what ? I'm glad it did , if they didn't take it someone else would've stolen the money , the government would still be corrupt. At least this way old Bill here have some of it away to deserving charities.
i wouldnt consider mod points "power"... that aside, I agree with your description of the poop.
I don't like Catholics, however even I know John Paul II was a much better person than Gates. The Current Pope just seems like he doesn't care.
So we do need to quantify which Pope. The Pope that is or the one that was while Bill Gates was in office.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
... Windows is a bigger religion.
(Ducking and running)
Have gnu, will travel.
That is a truly troubling thought.
If one was to only read Slashdot they would think Bill Gates is an evil borg that has caused untold misery on millions and millions of people because of his monopolistic ways.
It would seem then that Slashdot has a pretty accurate picture of the situation. With the understanding that we all know he was not actually decanted in a borg cube.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
I'm an atheist and thus the most hated minority in the United States. But the most hated majority in the United States are the Catholics. There is a great deal of antipathy for the Catholic Church among Baptists and other Protestant denominations. When Haiti was smashed by the earthquake last year, there were many evangelical Americans claiming that the Haitians deserved it because they were Catholic. Among these people, there are those who still drink "Confusion to the Pope".
With these sorts of prevalent anti-Catholic feelings in the United States, how can there be any doubt that Bill Gates would be more admired than the Pope?
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
You don't know that. Maybe Microsoft is just **WAY BETTER** at hiding and shuffling pedophiles around the world than the Catholic Church is?
Of course people who worship money will admire Gates.
When the bar's so low, it's almost IMPOSSIBLE to miss. This guy's dark as sin, which is ironic.
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Outside of Catholic bashing by competing denominations, why should someone admire the Pope, either the office itself or Benedict personally? Aside from the extremely mixed record of the Catholic Church, Benedict was personally involved in covering up sex abuse scandals in Europe. When he wasn't doing that, he was pushing a conservative brand of Catholicism that rejected both abortion and birth control, and is rigidly anti-gay. He's not a moral exemplar, he hasn't accomplished great works of charity or mercy, and he's generally a force for nothing but the preservation of a worldwide institution's survival and autonomy.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
yeah... because building a multi-billion dollar company and ending up on the top of PC revolution is not something to be admired... /s
Any information anywhere on how this telephone poll was conducted? Were people asked to name their single most admired person and that persons count was increased or they were added to the list? Or possibly asked for their top 3,5,7,10, etc. If we got to look at the raw data, would there be a thousands of outliers with a single vote (probably mostly consisting of peoples parents :) ) and a smaller cluster of people with multiple votes? Or, were people simply given a pre-compiled list of people and asked to rank them somehow? I think some variation on the pre-compiled list is probably a lot more likely. I also think it's pretty likely that this poll was conducted specifically on USA Today subscribers, so it will have a bias right off the bat.
That's got yet another significant difference, though.
The likes of Robin Hood and later Dick Turpin were lionized precisely because of a rise in popular sentiment against the era's equivalent of Bill Gates. Especially in the 18'th and 19'th centuries, as the slow rise of industrialism created a class of people even poorer and more exploited than even the medieval serfs had ever been.
And we're also talking an age when child labour rose to the extent of deliberately planning some mine shafts so they could only fit a child crawling to pull a cart of coal, because, you know, fuck you, it would be too expensive to do that for/with adults. It was an age when the parliament ruled that setting a house on fire with people still in, as a way to kick out them and make room for more pasture land where the hose was, is perfectly within the rights of the owner and in fact it would be a violation of their property rights if you told them not to. (A bit later they relented and did stipulate that you must give them 24 hour notice before doing that, which just drives home the point that before that just showing up with a torch was perfectly ok.)
It was an age where it was ok to "adopt" or even just kidnap a small army of orphans and use them as basically slave labour (no law said you had to pay your children, after all.) Including for some jobs like cleaning under mechanical looms while they're still running, and routinely mangled or scalped one of those children. (Having hair and crawling under fast spinning wheels and shafts kinda produced the results you'd expect.) Or for such delightful jobs as chimney sweep... and just light a fire under them if they don't want to go up the chimney. Etc.
The class who made vast fortunes at the expense of others, and then made public displays of piety and charity with those money, wasn't loved at all by the poor and even middle class.
Any criminal who robbed from the rich -- also giving to the poor was just icing on the cake, rather than a necessary ingredient -- was an instant darling of that mass of discontent poor. And I mean, seriously, forget Robin Hood, they lionized the likes of Dick Turpin which was as base and vile a criminal as it gets. Even with the spiral to the bottom in Hollywood, it's not the kind of guy you'd call even an anti-hero these days, and certainly not the Han Solo kind of lovable rogue. But he robbed from the rich and that was enough.
So that nowdays someone like Bill Gates could pass for a Robin Hood, rather than the villain... is... proof that times have changed a lot, to say the least.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Did Gates speak out against condom use that would have prevented the spread of AIDS?
Was Gates trying to make sure that the population grew as much as possible so there would be more customers for what he was selling, even if the over population caused famine?
No I thought not, as far as I am aware the same can't be said for John Paul II.
So no I don't think it matters which Pope because everyone I look at I see in their works moments of moral behaviour which to me (and pretty much most of the civilised world) are abhorrent. For an organisation which sells itself as a moral authority I can't see how people don't see this.
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
I remember reading about studies where people simply changed their behavior towards people once they found out that they had money. Even if they did not like the person in question they still acted less hostile or even became friendly after revelations.
It's simple, for reasons we all know personally, yet never want to admit publicly people always treat rich people better because they hope, just like the lottery that they can somehow parlay it someway or somehow into personal gain of some kind. Most will even do it for bragging rights or to just say I meet so-and-so once and had a 5 minute conversation and them people think of them as total geniuses. Well what do you expect. If you idolize someone your brain is actively dismissing the shit stain on their forehead and overemphasizing their powers of speech to the point you would consider a drunken homeless guy a great orator!
Lets take Sigourney Weaver. The Woman is near ugly as sin, but some people keep calling her hot! Yes its perfectly natural to call ugly women beautiful when they are in power. Kinda like being the Queen. You didn't dare not call her Royal Ugliness anything but the most desired woman in the room!
lets see, who do i like better...
:)
some rich guy that sells software and bullies his competition...
or..
some rich guy that distributes pedophile priests and covers up their crimes...
Gates wins as the lesser of two evils
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
and least successful company. I cannot imagine why anyone would admire Bill. Microsoft is a company waiting to die for all of its bad designs, bad attitudes and general abuse of the public weal.
Frankly, I won't have anything to do with them now that I've learned better (actually some time ago).
Like the inimitable Groucho Marx, I would never join a club that would have me as a member.
As the next generation emerges in maturity they are firing final blows at a dead concept, the Pope is a patriarch of a dying institution. People are no longer sheep, but the shepherds and if they are going to believe in anything it will be one another not a ancient, hipocritical framework of fearmongering and rules. People will not forget God but they are, in terms of the people in my life that I have grown up with, losing all faith in the Church and its leaders. I dont believe the Church has ever done anything in the name of God but used his name to further their own goals and ambitions. Bill Gates on the otherhand came up from nothing, revolutionized information technology, brought modern computing into the home, made it accessible to just about everyone, has donated ridiculous amounts of money in furthering the progress of humanity medically and scientifically.. He is a man to be admired, he is also a man to be feared as is any man or institution with too much power...just look at the government.
When you dislike the human race as much as I do, Karma:Bad is inevitable lol.
Hell, I admire Bill Gates more than Glenn Beck too.
I barely feel like punching Bill Gates in the face a tenth as much as I want to punch Glenn Beck.
Recovering Catholic .
As for new features, after the Spanish Inquisition I figure that less is more.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
When you look at the top three most admired people: Barack Obama, George W Bush and Bill Clinton, you can immediately see poll responders were giving USA Today/Gallop extremely predicable responses.
What pollsters don't discuss – and will never discuss – is their poll results annoyance factor. Responders are at home, intruded upon by a complete stranger, who is asking scripted, inane and repetitive questions. Responders are too polite to say, "Hey, you're bothering me. You're boring. Get lost!" So they give quick answers simply to get rid of the pollster.
What's disturbing is how many people take these poll results seriously. Barack Obama, George W Bush and Bill Clinton aren't really the most admired men in the world. Nor, for that matter, are Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama the most admired women in the world. They're merely unimaginative responses from people who are eager to get rid of an annoying pollster.
HRH The Duke of Windsor
How dare you offer such a reasonable dialogue about MS and Bill Gates on /., sir!!! Don't you realize he's Satan?!?!?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Wow even more than Glenn Beck? Why even throw his name in the mix? Did he do something worthy of admiration?
The fact that Microsoft gained most of its market position through illegal actions is lost on most people.
It's nice that Gates is "living the dream", but it's sad that he had to get there by using such underhanded and shady means.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
I guess they didn't poll Slashdot users...
This isn't the sig you're looking for... Move along.
You must have read that in Encarta! (Damn I wish I could find the link to when after Encarta was bought by Microsoft, edited the Bill Gates entry to say that he was famous for being a philanthropist instead of a brutal buisness man.)
All of you compare me to killers, drug cartel heads, Hitler? What have you done with your lives that can compare to the billions I've given?
Slashdot is home of the bitter nerd sucking on sour grapes.
And I still admire him more than the Pope.
Really? Even Glenn Beck? The moral paragon by which human perfection is measured?
The poll results look more like.. "Who can you remember when I ask you for a few names during a random phone call?"
If you just ask me for a few random famous people's name from a phone call, I'd probably answer Obama, Billy Gates too. If I say it's Mark Zuckerburg or even Linus Torvalds, I'd probably have to explain who the fuck Mark Zuckerburg or Linus Torvalds is.
It may help that Bill Gates was never a Nazi.
Glenn Beck Fail: Best Of Beck Clips
Jon Stewart Tears Glenn Beck's World Apart!
If Americans admire Bill Gates more than the Pope, that might just mean that the relative popularity of different religions fluctuates.
Well duh - few people are Catholic and their numbers are ever dwindling. The Paap also hasn't done anything even remotely useful either. So no surprise there. I would also rate O'l Billybob much higher than the Paap, even though I avoid using stuff made by his old company as far as possible and don't agree with his business methods. I would even rate O'l pyramid scheme Madof higher than the Paap. Coming to think of it, even the old CEO of Enron is/was better than the Paap.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Seriously, I'm really not surprised. What has the pope done that deserves admiration?
Bill has (or will anyways) given half of his fortune (what ~30 billion now?) to charity. That's admirable.
The pope has... uh... allegedly not had sex and... uh... that's it.
~Syberz
I bet there is a direct correlation between IE useragent strings in the poll data and viewing Gates favorably.
Despite what everyone thinks, Bill Gates also wasn't in the Nazi youth either... or against contraception, etc...
Seriously if anyone promoted contraception it was Bill.
Ya ya I know, the pope had to join the Nazi youth, and didn't want to etc... whatever, he still was. (that even sounds weird to write it)
I'm sure he is a wonderful guy, just not high on religion either.
He was at the right place at the right time with the right people. The people he worked with and he himself were no slouches. I doubt you could find a group of people here who put in the hours they did when they started out. When they had to work within real constraints of very limited hardware and hand writing everything. Gates is definitely more technically inclined than Jobs ever could be.
Read Gates bio, what he and Allen did isn't the stuff of idiots, people here might not like Windows or Microsoft, but don't deny that Gates did what few people at his time could. He had the ability and the drive at the right time. Most people lack the drive, it is what separates message board bitchers from those they bitch about
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Um. Presumption of innocence until proven guilty?
Unlike the Pope, Bill Gates has never been a member of the Nazi Youth Movement.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
feels like gates is trying to buy his way into heaven. How many did he crush on his way to his wealth?
But what would their purpose be? Checking for back doors?
'nuf said.
It's not as though the pope is particularly admirable...reactionary, bigoted, indifferent to crimes committed by his priests, controlling, and so on.
I would venture his effect of helping millions make money through products he produced has done more good than "Giving Away" his fortune. A pile of money is not as good as a money machine.
It appears you misspelled Steve Jobs.
It's easy to hate ambitious people who fantastically succeed on their business.
While, many times, this hate might have more to do with scruples than envy, it will always be hard to separate them if people insist on belittling the amount of work needed to implement and commercialize a product/service.
"Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world. " - Asimov.
Gery Kildal to be the one who wrote the first Desktop PC OS CP/M and who was tricked by Billy the Gates, son of a lawwyer.
Tim Patterson who wrote the original Q-DOS stealing from CP/M.
and so on and so on and so on
Americans have problems in their aquaintance with the truth.
Don't forget the First and Second Vatican Councils! They are like SP1 and SP2. The other Catholic Ecumenical Councils are like the regular updates.
Maybe SPI and SPII? I guess they would use Roman numerals.
Nothing new. Minnie Mouse has been since the 1970s[1]
[1] judging by the outfits & hair, umm, "styles"
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I was going to post something along the lines of "What's the difference? One of them wears funny clothes and has a mindless herd of sexually deviant followers who believe everything he says without question, and the other one lives in Rome".
But then I realized it wasn't about Steve Jobs.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I should sure as hell hope Bill Gates is more admired than Glenn Beck.
Bill Gate's "philanthropy" may not be as altruistic as you seem to think.
http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/Gates_Foundation_Critique
A corporate criminal, two religious zealots and a fear-mongering gold-pimp.
I guess the Dalai Lama is the least offensive of the lot. At least he doesn't proselytize and hasn't, to my knowledge, been the head of a conspiracy to cover up institutional pedophelia.
-deane
JP II was just another hidebound arsehat who blocked progress in all bust the least important directions. Condoms were off the table, and pedo-priests were at least as well shielded as they are today.
JP I, now, was showing some promise, which is probably why he had to go.
Hey, never underestimate the power of "Has never covered up a massive multinational paedophilia ring" on your CV...
To be fair, that's just because there have been a lot of bugs in the code. The productivity tools to cover up a massive multinational pedophilia ring will come standard in Office 2012.
That just proves the superiority of Microsoft XP's EFS! =MORE reason to admire Gates, not less!
What about admired women?
The story is all about admired men, with only a passing reference to women in a sentence at the end.
I'm a man, but... hey this is quite sexist isn't it?
>>>Americans have problems in their aquaintance with the truth.
I did not lie in my original post, as you are implying.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I thought about the presentation of things in the public: Who remembers that Bills dad is/was an outstanding lawwyer in Washington plus his mother on social terms with two IBM directors?
Eat shit! Recent polls conducted among a selected population of flies clearly point to...
I'm not surprised, because there are people who admire Osama Bin Laden and hence he is/was not caught.
Govt must constitute a panel to rewrite US Constitution and Quran
Bill Gates vs Government WIN
Bill Gates vs Robocop WIN
Bill Gates vs No Pants FAIL
Bill Gates never used knowingly harbored child molesters in his company.
Gasp! On a serious note, there are more MS users and philanthropists than there are Roman Catholics. Plus, as much as people may has MS, MS never hunted and killed people for political gain.
How much of a philantropist is B.G. any way?
I mean; isn't the anti-malaria project just another business?
I know little about this (thus I'm likely wrong), but don't they demand reciving countries to accept some crazy silly copyright agreements?
Which of course is getting B.G.Foundation or whatever it's called quite a bit of money from 'someone' ( *IAA I assume?)
Or I do recall reading some such. Please correct & enlighten me.
urd
Well its not hard to understand this at all. Bill Gates doesn't put up with any of his employees preying on children. He also doesn't condone Child Porn.