
Bill Gates Is the Most Interesting Man in the World - mhb
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/22/opinion/bill-gates-coronavirus.html
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xamuel
Oh come on. Here's a five-minute-brainstorm of people still living today who
are FAR more interesting than Bill Gates.

* Linus Torvalds

* Bob Dylan

* Paul McCartney

* Terence Tao

* Elon Musk

* Saul Kripke

* Noam Chomsky

And that's just people HN might've heard of. I could quadruple that list in
another five minutes if I were going to include people that aren't household
names.

~~~
happytoexplain
For what it's worth, I do find Gates, the person, more "interesting" than
these folks, even though I would describe the people in the list as "great",
"luminaries", etc. Can you elaborate on your reasoning?

~~~
xamuel
Interestingness is in the eye of the beholder. I, for one, find people very
interesting who go "rags to riches". I don't find it all that interesting when
people with rich families grow up to be rich. I also find people interesting
when they have interesting and unique philosophical, mathematical, scientific,
or artistic ideas. I find people interesting who have become extremely
skillful at various things through years of practice and who thereby give us a
glimpse of the extremes of human capability. I don't find it particularly
interesting that a philanthropist with lots of money can throw lots of money
at problems (and at PR).

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RichardHeart
Bill gates thinks every life is worth the same. Perhaps that makes him a
better man than I. He has given more to charity than anyone in history (while
getting others to do similliar.) He warned everyone about the pandemic risk
long before it came knocking. You might be using his software right now. I
really don't know what more a man could be to do be "good." Than Bill gates
has done.

Beyond just "giving" more money to help people, I think he's given an insane
amount of his personal time and effort as well. Basically, if you don't like
what this man has been doing lately, I think it says a lot more about you than
he. We should all aspire to have even 1/1000th the positive impact he's had.

(Yes, everyone knows he played biz dirty in the past. (Embrace, extend,
extinguish, etc.)

~~~
globular-toast
> I really don't know what more a man could be to do be "good." Than Bill
> gates has done.

There are many people throughout history who have sacrificed everything to do
the right thing. Bill Gates is not one of them.

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smikhanov
He’s really not

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hn_throwaway_99
> The global lunacy community — anti-vaxxers, science-deniers, Russian agents
> — has spread so many conspiracy theories regarding Gates that misinformation
> about him is now among the most widespread of all coronavirus falsehoods.

This is true, but I think this minimizes the size of "the global lunacy
community". It is truly baffling to me how Gates has now become a huge
boogeyman when it comes to the pandemic, right up there with George Soros.

I don't know how to fix this - crazy is crazy. But the sheer size of this
crazy shouldn't be underestimated.

~~~
briantakita
> It is truly baffling to me how Gates has now become a huge boogeyman when it
> comes to the pandemic

For the same reasons why many don't like Donald Trump. Power. People tend to
be suspicious of those who have power over them; those who can influence their
lives, autonomy, & health.

~~~
ethanbond
Plenty of people don’t like Trump but did like Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush,
etc. on down the line.

“X has power, you don’t like x” is a demonstrably poor hypothesis.

~~~
briantakita
Let me restate, "X has influence to change things & many people don't like the
change". Trump & Gates both change things. Plenty of people also do/did not
like Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush. Plenty of people also like (& don't like)
Trump & Gates...One only needs to look at the approval rating. If any one of
these people were universally liked, wouldn't their approval ratings be 90%+?

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CawCawCaw
What a shame that some people here would rather harp on the bad things a
person has done in the past than all the good they have done for the past few
decades.

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ravenstine
> When Trump snubs the World Health Organization, he hurts American citizens.

The same WHO that mislead the global community about COVID-19 for months and
is in the pocket of China?

Trump didn't snub the WHO. The WHO snubbed the WHO.

I like Bill Gates, I really do, but it's fucking tiring that every single
snooty journalist has to frequently express their hatred of Trump, even if it
means siding with a corrupted organization.

Also, I know several people of less wealth and social status than Bill whom
are much more interesting. Just saying.

~~~
Infinitesimus
> The same WHO that mislead the global community about COVID-19 for months and
> is in the pocket of China?

What misleading are you referring to? WHO declared it an International Health
Emergency on Jan 30th. We knew this was a huge global risk and unfortunately
were still under-prepared for the full wave a month later. There were
certainly some missteps made along the way

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globular-toast
Oh my goodness. Now he's a polymath, the most interesting man, the most
admired man, what else? How has this happened? This is idolatry at its worst.
The man has done an incredible amount of harm to the world but that's all
going to be forgotten because so few people understand it?

~~~
Infinitesimus
People are focused on the incredible amount of good he's doing now more than
the anti-competivie practices he led decades ago. People change and grow and
it seems he did too.

