• hemko ( hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) 
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    3 years ago

    Maybe, but that’s clearly not his intention as he has showed many times.

    Take for example case covid

    In April 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Gates was criticized for suggesting that pharmaceutical companies should hold onto patents for COVID-19 vaccines. The criticism came due to the possibility of this preventing poorer nations from obtaining adequate vaccines. Tara Van Ho of the University of Essex stated, “Gates speaks as if all the lives being lost in India are inevitable but eventually the West will help when in reality the US & UK are holding their feet on the neck of developing states by refusing to break [intellectual property rights] protections. It’s disgusting.”

    Gates is opposed to the TRIPS waiver. Bloomberg News reported him as saying he argued that Oxford University should not give away the rights to its COVID-19 information, as it had announced, but instead sell it to a single industry partner, as it did. His views on the value of legal monopolies in medicine have been linked to his views on legal monopolies in software

    Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates

    • FiniteBanjo ( FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today ) 
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      3 years ago

      Still probably a net positive, though. Hell, he could kill 110 Million people added to every sars-cov-2 death combined and still be net positive. Good person? Debatably no. Best billionaire? Yeah.

        • FiniteBanjo ( FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today ) 
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          3 years ago

          Covid19 has killed less than 8 Million people total, and you can argue in good faith that Bill Gates would be responsible for some of those deaths by advocating for full commercialization of the vaccine.

          Yeah, it’s a lot, but compared to a random estimate from The Guardian of 122 Million lives saved by the Gates Foundation… yeah.

          Now, I realize some people would say saving any number of lives wouldn’t justify murder, but anybody who says Bill Gates is anything other than a net positive impact on the world is out of their fucking head.

          • hemko ( hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) 
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            3 years ago

            Some people would say that he has given negative 130 billion, or whatever his net worth is right now

            I wouldn’t go that extreme, but still think he has had net negative effect in the world

            • FiniteBanjo ( FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today ) 
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              3 years ago
              1. I would pay 130 billion to save 122 Million lives. That’s only 1066 USD per life saved. You must be greedy af if you think that’s a bad deal.

              2. That’s not how stocks work. He hasn’t taken 130 Bn USD. Most of his 129.2 Bn net worth is unrealized gains in the form of shares of companies such as Microsoft, meaning when or if it ever becomes income he will likely donate that as well, in fact he has promised to do so on many occasions. To date, Bill has donated 59 Bn USD to charities, the vast majority of his income.