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Journal FortKnox's Journal: Submitted: Bill Gates gives the most to charity 38

Journal by FortKnox
According to a recent study, Bill Gates, and his wife Melinda, are the most charitable people in America. They have given or pledged $23 billion (~ half their net worth, equivalent to the GNP of Hungary)! Bill has always been known as a great philanthropist, but now proves to be happy in giving to others. Perhaps this warrants a change in Microsoft icon at slashdot (after all, he isn't CEO of MS anymore)...?

I'm guessing either its declined, or the little blurb on changing the MS icon will be removed...

Update: Rejected. God forbid /. acknowledges Bill Gates doing something good...
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Submitted: Bill Gates gives the most to charity More

Submitted: Bill Gates gives the most to charity

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  • That story is pure fiction. Everyone knows Bill Gates is the devil.

    $23 billion. Yeah right! That's what Linus gives away EVERYDAY!




    Whoa. Gotta stop at 4 cups of coffee...

    • That story is pure fiction. Everyone knows Bill Gates is the devil.

      OR I present this idea.

      He has signed a deal WITH the Devil and is attempting to salvage his soul by giving away lots and lots of money.

      Damn him, why doesn't he have my address? I could use a check for 15k right now and that would not even register as a drop in the bucket!

      Sorry, three days before I leave for vacation, the mind is going to weird places without me.
  • I can't think of anything useful to discuss about it (as opposed to George Soros' donations, many of which are actively harmful) and can't see a /. story yielding anything but mindless flaming.

    The FBI arrests story yesterday was a good example: a bunch of Internet scammers were arrested and probably no one would have taken notice -- except that the submission mentioned John Ashcroft. 95% of the comments were random shrieking about the Patriot Act, detentions, military tribunals, we're living in Nazi Germany

  • Yes, they give more money to charity. But does that really make them more charitable? What's more charitable - someone with $50 billion giving away $23 billion (and still having $27 billion), or someone with $2000 giving away $100 (and leaving $1900)?

    The difference is, in situation A, the donor still has $27 billion dollars. WTF can anybody possibly do with that much money? The mind boggles. However, the second person is much closer to the line. I'd probably call the second person more charitable,

    • How to even respond?

      Yes, that $100 is more of a sacrifice for that person. And to make charitable giving into some sort of a competition is distasteful to begin with. Nevertheless, that $100 doesn't really do a whole lot by itself, but the amount of good that Gates donations can do just boggles the mind.

      If you want to dislike Gates becase of his business practices or shoddy software or because he doesn't like purple lollipops then fine, but at least be willing to admit that he's not some greedy ass hoardi

      • It seems my comment has been taken the wrong way.

        Personally, I have no reason to like or dislike Mr. Gates. However, I don't believe that he can be called more charitable just because he can afford to give more money than anybody else. The linked article seems to be a "feel-good" article - he could afford to give lots of money, and did so. I don't think that it should be newsworthy, except in a "see, he's not totally evil" sort of way. But since I never believed him to be totally evil, I don't really

    • But does that really make them more charitable?

      Until we find a way to feed the starving with good intentions, yes it does.

    • Yes, they give more money to charity. But does that really make them more charitable? What's more charitable - someone with $50 billion giving away $23 billion (and still having $27 billion), or someone with $2000 giving away $100 (and leaving $1900)?

      The difference is, in situation A, the donor still has $27 billion dollars. WTF can anybody possibly do with that much money? The mind boggles. However, the second person is much closer to the line. I'd probably call the second person more charitable, because
    • Bill is an entrepreneur even in charity. With $23 billion sitting in the William & Melinda Gates foundation, there's serious pull there. He has the ability to be the Wal-Mart of Charity; he can say, "Look, I've got $5 billion to spend on research to prevent children from contracting AIDS in utero. If you won't give me the support I want, well, there are other reasearchers who could use $5 billion..."
  • If I had that much money, I'm sure I'm be willing donate that large of an amount to charity too. After all, half of obscenely rich is still obscenely rich.

    Not that I'm blowing this off as not a big deal - it definitely is a lot of money that will be quite useful to all the various charities, and seems to indicate the Gates care more for fellow human beings than most big corporate folks out there. But the more money you have,the higher percentage you can donate and still have plenty left over for everythi
  • Update: Rejected.

    I am stunned, nay, shocked! ;)

    Actually when I read the journal subject, I thought to myself, no way in hell would slashdot post something like that. News for Nerds, with an undeniable bias. Don't come looking for truth here, we gotta put our anti-establishment spin on everything.

  • 23 billion is a lot, but it still leaves them with another 23 billion. To them, 23 billion is nothing, because they have so much beyond what they can realisticly spend. I'm not going to go all liberal on you and say they can afford to give more, so they should, but look at it like this.... its still pocket change to him.

    It's like having hundreds of toys that you don't know what to do with, so you give half of them away. Its like, ok, there you go. Why not stop gobbling up the worlds fortunes and let pe
  • What the hell else is he going to do with the money? Assuming Bill lives another 40 years, he will have to spend in excess of $65,000 PER HOUR 24/7/365 to get rid of the other 23 billion he has left. That calculation assumes no interest, no appreciation of those assets, et al. 23 billion is just a staggering amount of money.

    Philanthropy can have a lot of different motives, only Bill and Melinda know what their motives are. Therefore, any discussion of their motives, which is the only thing in dispute c
    • Sorry, I don't see how what Microsoft does could be seen as a blight upon humanity.

      Hell, most people have computers ONLY because MS created the Market and Marketing to convince them to get them. Internet boom, Microsoft.

      People seem to forget that.

      That being said, they ruined my hobby, and I finished it off by taking a perfectly good hobby and trying to make a career out of it, the bastards.

      Back to tinkering with my code. Toodles :)
      • Well, as long as we can keep it civil.

        I got into Microcomputers back when Dos 3.3 was the OS of choice. At that time, there were several alternatives, DrDos was the best of them.

        Microsoft Word came out, it was the first of the wysiwyg wp's. Microsoft put code in it that crashed everything but MSDOS, that's when they pulled ahead.

        It is my *opinion* that had the playing field stayed level, we would have several alternatives to Windows for workstation OS's, each of them, including Windows, would be better
    • I'm not a very good student of history, but as I recall, most all of the great robber-baron's of the USA became philanthropists in their older days.

      So I think what we have here is agreement - Microsoft's corporate strategy (and that buck lands on Bill G.'s desk) was predatory (evil); but, now that he is personally wealthy beyond imagination, he is spending - and often on great humanitarian projects.

  • I'd reject it, too! "Hey, that guy who gave away more money than carnegie*? Yeah, him? He's STILL given away the most!" Not news worthy.

    *-I refuse to do any research to support this claim. It is for hyperbole ONLY, to get the point across that Bill's philanthropy is quite well known.
  • Why is it that whenever someone wealthy gives money the response is "Who cares, they're still rich?" When someone owns something, it belongs to them. They have no obligation to give it up. No one but them has a claim to it. We have no right to demand that anyone give a certain amount or to complain about the lack of giving.

    Why does everyone assume that the rich owe money to everyone else? On what basis? I don't get it. It seems more and more that we live in a nation where the society (via the govern

  • Perhaps this warrants a change in Microsoft icon at slashdot

    The icon is not a reference to people who don't give to charity. The icon is a reference to the behavior of purchasing other companies in order to add their products to one's own catalog.

    No amount of giving money to charities, can make the icon become inappropriate. Prolonged abstention from purchasing other companies, though, might eventually cause the icon to become outdated -- or an in-joke that people start to forget the origin of.

  • The B&M G foundation is notorious for making donations that benefit MS. Look at India. The government is investigating the use of Linux and suddenly a big donation shows up and the governement is quiet about Linux.
    • So? If you give because your God of choice says it's the right thing to do, or because it gives you a warm fuzzy feeling inside, or because it'll make your stock go up, or to impress some chick, what does it matter? The important thing is that people in need are being fed and cared for.
      • You're kidding right? Motivation is important, especially when it leads to questionable decisions that have long term consequences. Also, we don't know what the terms of this backroom deal were. Basically it was a big bribe, but you don't care.

        • So what? What is exactly it you're upset about? Would it have been better if Linux had been set aside because of technical superiority of windows? If so, better for who? Would it have been better had Linux become the OS of choice instead? If so, better for who? Ooooor, does this way mean that hungry people are fed, or educated, or housed, or whatever else they need while the Indian government get what they want.

          You do know that backscratching business deals are the norm right? You buy fighters from us, we'

          • I'm saying don't chalk it all up to the goodness of Bill's heart. The JE was about how Bill's generosity was ignored by /. I am just pointing out that sometimes his giving has purposes that directly relate to Microsoft's corporate interests.

            So yes, it is great that he is giving. It would be even better if he were giving without strings attached.

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