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Comment by bluedevil2k | Hacker News Reader

In what way is Bill Gates or Musk a bad person?? Grouping them with McAfee is really kind of dumb...blasphemous really.

More to that, good and bad isn't necessarily immutable. Bill Gates was seemingly as callous at his anti-trust depositions as Zuckerberg, but I believe he's redeemed himself in his philanthropic contributions that have had real outcomes in some of the poorest part of the world.

Blanket 'good' and 'bad' designations are often a little reductive for what are complicated human beings who do both 'good' and 'bad' things across their lifetimes.

Musk is bad person because of the way he treats people who hurt his ego. Making up pedophilia accusations is not cool. Also, the way he treata his workers and attributes himself achievements of others.

Bill Gates, well, the way his imperium came to be was not allright. The war against competitors ans linux was too dirty and merits calling him bad person. And I dont even like linux much.

It is not just what you do when you have power and can play lord. It is also what you do to competitors and how you treat those who don't bow to you.

It’s a spectrum - Musk isn’t irredeemably terrible, but he’s shockingly callous about the well-being of his workers and, like Edison, despicably shameless about slapping his name on other people’s work. His recklessness on COVID is immoral, even if it stems from narcissism rather than an evil death cult.

Bill Gates isn’t a psychopath like McAfee - and more to the point, unlike McAfee, he is rational. Bill Gates is also one of the worst economic criminals in American history.

> Bill Gates is also one of the worst economic criminals in American history

What? Why?

I think the logic is that there's not way to have money coming into your control that isn't theft. If that's true the biggest economic criminal is the one with the most money.

Have a quick read on the so-called robber barons.

Many of the tactics of the era should sound very familiar, and many of the resulting social issues should also ring a bell.

I’m personally dreading what the next several decades will bring.

Edit: In case it isn’t clear, Gates is a lot like Andrew Carnegie or some of the other ruthless businessmen, some who later turned their wealth around and became great philanthropists.

Some of the robber barons were miserable to the end (Larry Ellisons of the day?)

I actually read the biographies of the 12 richest Americans in history a few years ago. The common thread across all these men - they never sold any part of their business. They bought out partners, bought out competitors, bought out suppliers. I wouldn’t call those activities evil. And I wouldn’t say any were miserable to the end.

I said “ruthless”, not “evil”. There is a difference.

Individuals like Jay Gould crossed the lines to get his way (attempted kidnapping? bribery?).

While others Russell Sage never gave his money for philanthropy (in his case, it was his second wife after he died).

Likewise, John Osgood’s life was all about trying to make more money before he croaked.

George Pullman, who controlled his own town and controlled the postal mail, prevented mail for his town from getting the through (it built up to rioting and striking).

In fact virtually all were against unionization, though they took different approaches to head it off. And it took the Federal government to trust bust and create a genuine middle class.

The details are what makes one scrupulous or not.

More disturbingly, many of their ideas and approaches will be familiar today.

Bill Gate constantly broke the law and even if his post-MS work is wonderful. He should have gone to jail. But American does not punish rich people.

>In what way is Musk a bad person??

Publicly supporting the US-backed coup in Bolivia comes to mind. [1]

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20200725040621/https://twitter.c...

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