Brilliantly illustrated analysis of why Capatilism screws us.

[Anonymous]

Fascinating stuff as always on this thread.

What is it about Gates that you admire, Scott? This is, as ever, a question asked in good humour and genuine curiosity.

On my admittedly rather lazy reading of history (I wasn't around back then in the homebrew days), Gates took something shared and developed by a community and commercialised it, called it his own and the rest is history.

The man was certainly a self-starter and he has been incredibly successful but somehow that whole approach to innovation feels kind of dissatisfactory to me.

I am referring to his and his wife's philanthropy. I think the guy is going to give away nearly every nickel he's ever made, which is worthy of admiration, imo.

 

[L'arriviste]

I am referring to his and his wife's philanthropy. I think the guy is going to give away nearly every nickel he's ever made, which is worthy of admiration, imo.

Thanks. I often wonder what are the motivations behind philanthropy on that sort of scale. Must be something that happens to a few people who, having made a lot of money, realise that trying to make even more is just meaningless.

Will Gates ever come to be best known as a guy who gave it all away as opposed to 'the Microsoft guy'? Andrew Carnegie managed it, I suppose.

 

[CycloErgoSum]

Wow. You must be one helluva lot of fun to hang around with.

I go like a turbogoth.

I can out-bummer Leonard Cohen.

 

[CycloErgoSum]

Thanks. I often wonder what are the motivations behind philanthropy on that sort of scale. Must be something that happens to a few people who, having made a lot of money, realise that trying to make even more is just meaningless.

Will Gates ever come to be best known as a guy who gave it all away as opposed to 'the Microsoft guy'? Andrew Carnegie managed it, I suppose.

Andrew Carnegie, another robber baron. Maybe their guilt redeems them.

 

[buckwheat]

talk about thin skinned. I dont do it deliberately but at the same time i wont be told what to write.

You want to take it as a provocation, i dont really care one way or the other.

Consider me provoked then.

I apologize for criticizing you for being unintentionally annoying.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks. I often wonder what are the motivations behind philanthropy on that sort of scale. Must be something that happens to a few people who, having made a lot of money, realise that trying to make even more is just meaningless.

Will Gates ever come to be best known as a guy who gave it all away as opposed to 'the Microsoft guy'? Andrew Carnegie managed it, I suppose.

Time will tell;

"Melinda and I see our foundation’s key role as investing in innovations that would not otherwise be funded. This draws not only on our backgrounds in technology but also on the foundation’s size and ability to take a long-term view and take large risks on new approaches. Warren Buffett put it well in 2006 when he told us, “Don’t just go for safe projects. You can bat a thousand in this game if you want to by doing nothing important. Or you’ll bat something less than that if you take on the really tough problems.” We are backing innovations in education, food, and health as well as some related areas like savings for the poor."

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/annual-letter/2010/Pages/bill-gates-annual-letter.aspx


Admirable? For me, yes. I'd love to be in a position to work on projects that will have this much impact.

 

[buckwheat]

Time will tell;

"Melinda and I see our foundation’s key role as investing in innovations that would not otherwise be funded. This draws not only on our backgrounds in technology but also on the foundation’s size and ability to take a long-term view and take large risks on new approaches. Warren Buffett put it well in 2006 when he told us, “Don’t just go for safe projects. You can bat a thousand in this game if you want to by doing nothing important. Or you’ll bat something less than that if you take on the really tough problems.” We are backing innovations in education, food, and health as well as some related areas like savings for the poor."

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/annual-letter/2010/Pages/bill-gates-annual-letter.aspx


Admirable? For me, yes. I'd love to be in a position to work on projects that will have this much impact.

Maybe his position, but not the way he got there.

http://www.crazydepos.com/2008/01/bill-gates-depo.html

edit..darn, couldn't access it..

Read Gates' deposition in the U.S. v Microsoft. I read it in Boies book....It's nuts...

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19990316&slug=2949718

 

[The Hitch]

Your analysis is very good imo. I think there are two problems with Romney. His Mormon beliefs and his Massachusetts Health Care Plan.

"Instead of attacking the real causes of the explosion in costs -- the combination of overly generous state aid and a dearth of competition among hospitals and physician groups -- Massachusetts is vilifying prestigious, non-profit insurers, and punishing them, believe it nor not, with price controls. In April, Governor Deval Patrick refused the request of carriers such as Harvard Pilgrim, the top-rated plan in the country, for premium increases of 8% to 32%. Instead, his administration is refusing all rate hikes over 7.7%; any rate requests the administration rejects are automatically held at 2009 levels."

http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/15/news/economy/massachusetts_healthcare_reform.fortune/index.htm

This will become low hanging fruit for his conservative contenders in the primaries.

THis is the same Mitt Romney who in 1994 run Against Ted Kennedy of all people for a senate seat, on a platform of "pro choice". The same mitt Romney who run for president against Mike Huckabee in 2008 on a platform of "pro life".

This didnt cost him much. Hes an expert flip floper. Sure his opponents try to magnify this issue, make a big deal of it, but its forgotten the second they see another cartoon of Nancy Pelosi in the roll of Godzila, stamping all over buildings.

If he says the right things it wont cost him too much.

Besides every candidate has major flaws electoral wise. Id say Romneys are relatively minor, considering.

 

[rhubroma]

You ever notice how most of us can get our point across in a few sentences? I know it's hard but I have confidence you can do it.

I admire hard work and success and that does not necessarily translate to wealth. I have a client who is a gifted grant writer and managed to land a $20,000,000 grant from some rich capitalist named Bill Gates (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation). She's not wealthy but does exceptional work and I admire her. I admire Gates too.

BTW, your empathy and $2 will get the weak a cup of Starbucks.

We may in fact see the end of western civilization in our lifetimes. There's clearly the will to run governments the way you espouse.

Only if the corporate finance totalitarians get overthrown.

People like you have always roused my ire and brought it to a white heat, as they say, because they present a distorted image of humanity, an intolerable caricature that brings out all the ridiculousness, which is not to be confused with helplessness.

It's one thing to be confronted by a simple person, quite another to be confronted by a proletarian, the one being tolerable and reassuring, the other intolerable, disturbing and grotesque. The petit bourgeois and the proletarian are pitiful but insufferable products of the machine age, creatures of industry who did not exist before industrialization. We are shocked when confronted with them and forced to contemplate what the machine and the office have made of them. The bulk of humanity has been destroyed and annihilated by the machine and the office, I thought. He is a slave to the machine and the office, constantly degraded and vulgarized by the machine and the office, but is unable to defend himself from this indignity.

All in all, we should have most sympathy for poor people, Scott SoCal, because we know ourselves and know that they, like us, lead a miserable existence, whether they want to or not, and have come to terms with it.

 

[Anonymous]

Only if the corporate finance totalitarians get overthrown.

People like you have always roused my ire and brought it to a white heat, as they say, because they present a distorted image of humanity, an intolerable caricature that brings out all the ridiculousness, which is not to be confused with helplessness.


It's one thing to be confronted by a simple person, quite another to be confronted by a proletarian, the one being tolerable and reassuring, the other intolerable, disturbing and grotesque. The petit bourgeois and the proletarian are pitiful but insufferable products of the machine age, creatures of industry who did not exist before industrialization. We are shocked when confronted with them and forced to contemplate what the machine and the office have made of them. The bulk of humanity has been destroyed and annihilated by the machine and the office, I thought. He is a slave to the machine and the office, constantly degraded and vulgarized by the machine and the office, but is unable to defend himself from this indignity.

All in all, we should have most sympathy for poor people, Scott SoCal, because we know ourselves and know that they, like us, lead a miserable existence, whether they want to or not, and have come to terms with it.

People like me rouse your ire because we think for ourselves and don't buy your theoretical BS.

I am, however, open minded and I do have real world experience. I think this is part of my charm.

 

[Spare Tyre]

I am referring to his and his wife's philanthropy. I think the guy is going to give away nearly every nickel he's ever made, which is worthy of admiration, imo.

Yes, it is worthy of admiration. Although the processes through which he accumulated it stink to high heaven.

 

[simo1733]

People like me rouse your ire because we think for ourselves and don't buy your theoretical BS.

I am, however, open minded and I do have real world experience. I think this is part of my charm.

You don't seem very open minded. I suppose everything is relative though.

 

[rhubroma]

People like me rouse your ire because we think for ourselves and don't buy your theoretical BS.

I am, however, open minded and I do have real world experience. I think this is part of my charm....

"The Tea Party is the boogey man meanwhile a far leftists is on msnbc advocating violent overthrow with nary a whisper," etcetera, etcetera.

The very first line of this effort, when I reread it, "think for ourselves" underlined, gave me the idea of editing a book-like collection of Scott SoCal's short descriptive pieces, in a time such as ours when everything but what is noteworthy, everything but what is truly original as well as what is most brilliantly political is edited and published, when every year hundreds and thousands of tons of imbecility-on-paper are tossed on the market, all the decrepit garbage of this totally decrepit American civilization, or rather, to hold nothing back, this totally decrepit modern world of ours, this era that keeps grinding out nothing but intellectual muck and all the stinking constipating clogging intellectual vomit is constantly being hawked in the most repulisve way as our intellectual products though it is in fact nothing but intellectual waste products, at such a time it is simply one's duty to bring out a work of art as unassuming and unadorned as the art of Scott SoCal's prose, to publish it, even though it would not be likely to make any kind of stir, I think, but just to make sure that it would never be lost again, once it is printed and preserved forever, because these prose pieces of Scott SoCal's are indubitably precious gems and the greatest rarities anywhere, including our country.

 

[rhubroma]

You don't seem very open minded. I suppose everything is relative though.

That's because he isn't.

Open mind equals an objective mind. If he were truly an open mind then surly he would be able to see the balanced system of the social democratic State, and therefore one between the tyranny of the political class in the former Soviet Union and the totalitarianism of the financial capitalist elite in the US democracy. The difference between Public oppression and Private exploitation and, therefore, one form of injustice set against another.

But he can't.

PS: In the latter case the colossal corporate finance bailout with public funds we witnessed that resulted from the mendatious and thoroughly appalling colusion, to sum things up correctly, between Wall Street with the US political direction, allows us to see just how totalitarian and oppressive the neoliberal capitalist regime in fact is. Its ugly head has been reared for all to see. That's the truth.

 

[Anonymous]

You don't seem very open minded. I suppose everything is relative though.

Admittedly, I'm not big on group think. I also understand how to raise the ire of the poster I responded to. And he knows how to raise mine.

 

[Anonymous]

That's because he isn't.

Open mind equals an objective mind. If he were truly an open mind then surly he would be able to see the balanced system of the social democratic State, and therefore one between the tyranny of the political class in the former Soviet Union and the totalitarianism of the financial capitalist elite in the US democracy. The difference between Public oppression and Private exploitation and, therefore, one form of injustice set against another.

But he can't.

PS: In the latter case the colossal corporate finance bailout with public funds we witnessed that resulted from the mendatious and thoroughly appalling colusion, to sum things up correctly, between Wall Street with the US political direction, allows us to see just how totalitarian and oppressive the neoliberal capitalist regime in fact is. Its ugly head has been reared for all to see. That's the truth.

That's because he isn't

Yes, of course. Your definition of 'open minded' means to agree with you. It's typical of the left.

You have built a narrative of what you think I think. This is why I continue to respond to you.... it's entertainment for me.

That's the truth

No, that's your truth. There's a difference.

 

[The Devil]

Yes, of course. Your definition of 'open minded' means to agree with you. It's typical of the left.

You have built a narrative of what you think I think. This is why I continue to respond to you.... it's entertainment for me.



No, that's your truth. There's a difference.

tHE TRUTH IS THAT THIS fOUM IS FULL OF INSTITUTIONALIZED INTERNET ADDICTS WHO HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO WITH THEIR TIME ONLY PRETENDING THAT THEY ARE EXPERTS IN EVERY FIELD kNOWN TO MAN WHEN INFACT THEY AINT.

 

[The Devil]

THis is the same Mitt Romney who in 1994 run Against Ted Kennedy of all people for a senate seat, on a platform of "pro choice". The same mitt Romney who run for president against Mike Huckabee in 2008 on a platform of "pro life".

This didnt cost him much. Hes an expert flip floper. Sure his opponents try to magnify this issue, make a big deal of it, but its forgotten the second they see another cartoon of Nancy Pelosi in the roll of Godzila, stamping all over buildings.

If he says the right things it wont cost him too much.

Besides every candidate has major flaws electoral wise. Id say Romneys are relatively minor, considering.

tHE hITCH yOUR ARE FULL OF NONSENSICAL IDIOTIC BORING RUBBISH ANOTHER INTERNET ADDICT

 

[Anonymous]

The very first line of this effort, when I reread it, "think for ourselves" underlined, gave me the idea of editing a book-like collection of Scott SoCal's short descriptive pieces, in a time such as ours when everything but what is noteworthy, everything but what is truly original as well as what is most brilliantly political is edited and published, when every year hundreds and thousands of tons of imbecility-on-paper are tossed on the market, all the decrepit garbage of this totally decrepit American civilization, or rather, to hold nothing back, this totally decrepit modern world of ours, this era that keeps grinding out nothing but intellectual muck and all the stinking constipating clogging intellectual vomit is constantly being hawked in the most repulisve way as our intellectual products though it is in fact nothing but intellectual waste products, at such a time it is simply one's duty to bring out a work of art as unassuming and unadorned as the art of Scott SoCal's prose, to publish it, even though it would not be likely to make any kind of stir, I think, but just to make sure that it would never be lost again, once it is printed and preserved forever, because these prose pieces of Scott SoCal's are indubitably precious gems and the greatest rarities anywhere, including our country.

See, I knew there was some entrepreneurial spirit in that academic brain of yours.

I'd like to discuss terms of royalty, as I'm sure this book will be quite a hit. I'd like to see your girlfriend illustrate the book as well. She can have total freedom to illustrate as she sees fit. And, of course, she must receive fair compensation and royalties.

Even if it doesn't sell, people still need something to wipe their backside with.

 

[rhubroma]

Yes, of course. Your definition of 'open minded' means to agree with you. It's typical of the left.

You have built a narrative of what you think I think. This is why I continue to respond to you.... it's entertainment for me.



No, that's your truth. There's a difference.

Everybody's got their Truth, Scott SoCal.

And I must make a correction to what you thought about what I thought you thought. In reality it wasn't about what I thought about what you thought, I thought, but was actually about what you had thought about what I said about what you thought. This is called philosophical thinking and, of course, critical thinking, Scott SoCal, about the thoughts of another person, when thinking about everything they thought about what we thought and said about what they were thinking and saying about our responses, which obviously had led us to the conclusions we made.

 

[rhubroma]

See, I knew there was some entrepreneurial spirit in that academic brain of yours.

I'd like to discuss terms of royalty, as I'm sure this book will be quite a hit. I'd like to see your girlfriend illustrate the book as well. She can have total freedom to illustrate as she sees fit. And, of course, she must receive fair compensation and royalties.

Even if it doesn't sell, people still need something to wipe their backside with.

So we can print it on toilet paper then.

 

[Anonymous]

tHE TRUTH IS THAT THIS fOUM IS FULL OF INSTITUTIONALIZED INTERNET ADDICTS WHO HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO WITH THEIR TIME ONLY PRETENDING THAT THEY ARE EXPERTS IN EVERY FIELD kNOWN TO MAN WHEN INFACT THEY AINT.

So that would explain why you post here...

 

[Anonymous]

So we can print it on toilet paper then.

You are full of great ideas today.

 

[Anonymous]

Everybody's got their Truth, Scott SoCal.

And I must make a correction to what you thought about what I thought you thought. In reality it wasn't about what I thought about what you thought, I thought, but was actually about what you had thought about what I said about what you thought. This is called philosophical thinking and, of course, critical thinking, Scott SoCal, about the thoughts of another person, when thinking about everything they thought about what we thought and said about what they were thinking and saying about our responses, which obviously had led us to the conclusions we made.

So in order for me to qualify as a critical thinker, I must agree with your position.

Only in acedemics will one ever see this. Sheer brilliance.

 

[The Devil]

hihihihihihihihihijojookpkpk