• Squirrel@thelemmy.club
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    10 months ago

    Good acts do not make a good person. Plenty of billionaires have done good things, but they don’t even come close to outweighing the bad.

    • Mnemnosyne@sh.itjust.works
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      10 months ago

      I love a quote I read once in a thing about alignment. “If you fix twenty neighbor’s roofs, you’re Jimmy the Helpful Thatcher. But if you eat the neighbor’s daughter, you’re Jimmy the Cannibal, and no amount of additional carpentry assistance will change that.”

      • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        10 months ago

        Traditionally this joke is:

        Bad Scottish Accent Engaged

        I build 200 ships, do they call me Seamus the shipbuilder? Nae.

        I paint 100 houses, do they call me Seamus the Housepainter? Nae.

        But ye fuck one sheep…

    • quat@lemmy.sdfeu.org
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      10 months ago

      A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad act the good. Each should have its own reward.

      • autismdragon [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        10 months ago

        OK I’m sorry maybe I’m letting the autism overflow my brain but seeing you just say “wrong” to technically correct statements that answer the question presented here is just so fucking annoying. Ooooo you got so many upbears from fellow Hexbears who dont want to think but just dunk. Getting very frusterated with this community right now.

  • Giddy@aussie.zone
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    10 months ago

    Mike Cannon-Brookes (co-founded Atlassian) has set up a 1.5b green fund to invest in green energy projects

  • Veraticus@lib.lgbt
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    10 months ago

    Sure.

    Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation will probably eradicate polio.

    Before people jump on the bandwagon about how Gates is evil and problematic, that there are no virtuous billionaires, and a government or an NGO or an equivalent should have been the one to do it… I know. But the question was “name one billionaire that’s done anything good,” and I think it’s pretty difficult to argue that eradicating polio isn’t good.

    • richieadler@lemmy.myserv.one
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      10 months ago

      However, one can posit that the Gates Foundation is creating a market for vaccines that aren’t of interest in the industrialized nations.

      I’m not sure that subsequent doses are going to be provided as generously as the first ones.

      • Vlyn@lemmy.zip
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        10 months ago

        That’s not how vaccines work. The illness is already there, it’s not like people get sick after you introduce a vaccine into the system. So the “market” has always been there and every dose administered is great.

        • richieadler@lemmy.myserv.one
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          10 months ago

          You don’t understand my point.

          • Sick people receive vaccines for free or very cheap
          • Sick people gets hope of survival to disease, hope which wasn’t previously available.
          • Sick people ask their governments to continue receiving vaccines.
          • People providing vacciones now are charging a lot more to said governments.
          • Profit (which was the whole point, and not any “humanitarian” notions.)

          And the market wasn’t there, because unless there’s some way to create high demand and guaranteed payment in poor countries, there’s no profit in said vaccines (or any medication, for that matter; do you see any multinational farmaceutical companies giving much thought to the creation of medicine to cure Chagas disease? And it’s endemic in many areas of South America. But those are poor areas, so the is no profit there).

          • imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works
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            10 months ago

            The problem with your argument is that the Gates foundation is a non-profit. They aren’t trying to make a profit, they’ve burned through tens of billions of dollars in the past 20 years.

            Are you arguing that countries should just let people die from polio rather than accept humanitarian aid or am I missing something?

    • TherouxSonfeir@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      Bill gates, also the guy who spent loads of time on epsteins island banging children. I guess it evens out /s

    • nonearther@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      On same tone, Warren Buffet.

      He has also donated billions in the same charity and largely lives controversy free.

  • hruzgar@feddit.de
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    10 months ago

    Elon Musk. I know you guys hate him somehow but. HE DID build reusable rockets. HE DID build electric cars. HE DID restore Free Speech even though you guys somehow don’t agree with that because people now can say anything they want and you can’t live in your own little bubble without any criticism anymore (on twitter). And that’s not what left wingers want lol.

    • AlexTheTurtle@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      10 months ago

      His EMPLOYEES build reusable rockets. His EMPLOYEES built electric cars. Even if he participated in this process he would be on a supporting role. Similar to a janitor on spacex, a guy that maybe enables the real pros to do good stuff. (the janitor may actually be more important than musk tbh)

      He did NOT restore free speech on twitter. Many activists a still being silenced every day. He gives their data to authoritarian goverments who have journalists executed. Free speech is about freedom from goverment retaliation and he actively aids goverments in suppressing free speech.

  • Giddy@aussie.zone
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    10 months ago

    Tony Khan created AEW and seems to genuinely care about his employees. He put on a private plane this week so the wrestlers could attend the funeral of Bray Wyatt and still make it to Dynamite

  • SirEDCaLot@lemmy.fmhy.net
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    10 months ago

    Elon Musk. Without him, electric cars wouldn’t be the almost-mainstream thing they are today. We also would be a decade behind on space launch.

    //Edit - for everyone down voting me, you may hate the guy today but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t done some useful shit.

  • ZephrC@lemm.ee
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    10 months ago

    What? They’re greedy humans who are doing things that have terrible consequences out of selfishness, not mustache twirling cartoon villains out to destroy the world for destruction’s sake. I’m sure every single billionaire in the world has done something good at some point. That doesn’t justify the kind of wealth disparity that makes their existence possible though.

  • 👍Maximum Derek👍@discuss.tchncs.de
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    10 months ago

    Chuck Freeney. He basically invented “Duty Free” stores and became a billionaire in the process. Then decided he should die “broke” and created The Atlantic Philanthropies secretly staking it with a little over a third of his wealth. In 2020 he closed the organization because he had given away the vast majority of his net worth. Mostly as grants to universities all over the world. He also may have low-key helped fund the IRA.

    He’s still got enough to live comfortably, and I’m sure his family is set up nicely.

    • 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de
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      10 months ago

      Funding one of the biggest terrorist organisations of the 20th century doesn’t sound like a very good thing to do… Same goes for all the other Americans who gave them money without realising they were (are) pretty much universally hated across all Ireland - much like how most Muslims hate IS

        • 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de
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          10 months ago

          Not at all, they’re both disgusting groups of people (as were & are unionist extremists) who ruined the lives of people they claim to be liberating

          Frankly they’re incredibly similar organisations

          • autismdragon [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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            10 months ago

            You understand that there’s a difference in like, motive right?

            Like however you feel about the IRA’s methods, their motives is still something worth fighting for. And honestly like when you REALLY fight for something like that, like actually do what’s necessary, its a messy process and you’re going to do things that moderate liberals look down on as going too far. We can argue about if all of their actions actually serve the cause, but what they wanted to do is something I agree with.

            Versus ISIS? Really? What noble and positive goals does ISIS have?

            • 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de
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              10 months ago

              To some people pleasing god and liberating people from sinful leadership is something worth fighting for. And when you REALLY fight for something like that it’s a messy process and you’re going to to things that moderate liberals look down on as going too far.

              That is the exact argument you are trying to make, and if you think that it is a deranged extremist view you should take a good look in the mirror - I can see autism shining through here due to your utter inability to see others points of view and draw equivalences.

                • 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de
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                  10 months ago

                  Don’t worry, I’m autistic too, it just so happens that I don’t hide behind it or use it as my whole identity and I’m self-aware enough to put in a bunch of extra effort trying to do the things which don’t come naturally, like seeing things other points of views

                  It’s fucking hard but at least I don’t live in a perpetually online bubble