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Bill Gates Is Beginning To Dream the Thorium Dream
Daniel_Stuckey writes "TerraPower, the Gates-chaired nuclear power company, has garnered the most attention for pursuing traveling wave reactor tech, which runs entirely on spent uranium and would rarely need to be refueled. But Terrapower just quietly announced that it's going to start seriously exploring thorium power, too."
What about all the stuff his foundation does about malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV? Or the stuff he's doing for sanitation and disaster relief? [Etc...]
Let's have a sober look at Bill Gates.
1) He amassed an enormous fortune by breaking the law.
Microsoft forced computer sellers to include Windows with all their products, even if the customer didn't want it or wasn't going to use it. They also made it impossible to "return" the prepackaged OS. They leveraged their popularity to suppress other competing products such as linux.
I can remember when running a service pack for Windows deleted Pegasys mail from my system and replaced it with Microsoft's product. Microsoft did this for a lot of installed products: they illegally leveraged their position as OS vendor to suppress competing products in other areas, notably browsers such as Netscape.
Many times, Microsoft would to look into "purchasing" a company, examine all their source code under NDA, say "no thanks", and 6 months later come out with their own competing product. This was done so often it became a meme in business. Several lawsuits were filed, which Microsoft quashed by using their money to leverage the legal system (ie - businesses went broke trying to fight Microsoft).
2) He lived off of his fortune in all voluptuousness for many years, siphoning whatever he needed to support his lifestyle off of his enormous wealth.
3) At the sunset of his life when he's essentially done everything he wanted, he sets aside a portion to allow his daughter to live comfortably, sets aside a portion for him (and his wife) to live comfortably, then uses the part that he doesn't need for charitable purposes.
We measure people by the strength of their belief. We can't label Bill Gates a truly charitable person because what he gives to charity costs him nothing.
This is not true charity, it's reputation repair.