Will Bill Gates give away his fortune ?

[spikegifted]

Hey, that capitalism and economics at work - he jointly founded a company that become the dominant software house in the world. I'm not going to question the company's tactics, it is all 'legal'. At the end of the day - it is his capital (and his energy) that made the company it is today and it is reflected in his wealth.

[DaBeeeenster]

No I pretty much hate the fact that individuals can amass that much money as well. Gates is a rubbishrubbishrubbishrubbish. If he wanted to be philanthropic he could stop his company from making such monopolistic actions.

How much is he giving? 100 million US? That's small change to the bloke.

[Oakey]

Don't forget, a lot of this money will be tied up in stocks and investments, etc. Unlike certain people who may invest in, oh, let's see, a £50k watch.

Also, don't forget that Bill Gates is providing employment for hundreds of people. Again, unlike other people who earn the annual minimum wage of 9 people!!! Every week!!

[DaBeeeenster]

Originally posted by spikegifted
Hey, that capitalism and economics at work - he jointly founded a company that become the dominant software house in the world. I'm not going to question the company's tactics, it is all 'legal'. At the end of the day - it is his capital (and his energy) that made the company it is today and it is reflected in his wealth.

Yeah I disagree with it. I dont think individuals should be able to amass that amount of money.

It's capitalism at work, not economics. There are millions of people in the world that work harder than he does. They aren't worth billions tho. They will die by the time they are 40. That's capitalism at work, too.

[spikegifted]

Originally posted by Oakey
Also, don't forget that Bill Gates is providing employment for hundreds of people. Again, unlike other people who earn the annual minimum wage of 9 people!!! Every week!!

Thousands!! Don't forget those who work in consultancies setup to support MS products.

[Skii]

< strokes ripped CD of Windows XP >

[Oakey]

MS don't care if the home user rips off Microsoft products. Everyone gets used to them, and when they go into employment, those are the apps they're familiar with and want to use. That's what Microsoft wants. They want the companies to buy Microsoft products. That's where their money comes from.

[Skii]

Still feels like one in the eye for Gatesy though

[Oakey]

Yeah, cos, you know, you not spending £120 is really going to make a huge dent in his $45billion bank account.

[Saracen]

To those members wondering where some of their posts have gone, Question Time is not an IRC chat room - please don't treat it like one!

[Skii]

C'mon Scaracen - a couple of light hearted exchanges after a point is hardly a case for stamping your foot down now is it ?

[Saracen]

Yes, it is.

I've said time and again that "Chat" will be deleted from this forum on sight. It is for proper debate .... otherwise there will be no difference between GD and QT. It's even the the Sticky up there ^^^^^, and has been since day 1 of this forum.

Comments where it is two members addressing remarks directly to each other, completely off the topic of the thread, distract everyone else, and cause complaints.

Last time that happened (a few weeks ago), I wasn't feeling very well and didn't catch it for quite a while ...... in fact, until OTHER MEMBERS started RTM'ing about getting theirs threads being ruined.

That took me about an hour and a half to edit the thread. Taking out some comments leaves some other comments with references that mean nothing and will be confusing, so it is awkward, painstaking and fussy work to do it in a way that leaves the thread making sense afterwards ..... or delete the thread completely, thereby annoying everybody else that contributed to the thread. The only way to avoid that is to catch it before it gets started. I don't propose to keep doing it because people ignore the purpose of the forum, and my requests not to do it.

Remember, it's ME that has to waste my time sorting out such messes, because people won't abide follow the purpose, rules if you like, of this forum, and those "couple of comments" (in fact, I deleted about 7 or 8 posts from this thread) can easily get out of hand. People see some people doing it, assume it's OK and start doing it themselves. Then I have a trend to break. I've seen it happen before, and don't wish to see it happen again.

QT does not have to involve lengthy, detailed posts all the time, but I DO expect posts to be relevant to the thread, not chit-chat.

The sticky points out that such posts will be deleted on sight, and they will. The comment above was to bring it to the attention of those responsible, to remind them, and hopefully to prevent repeated instances of the same thing from the same people. If it isn't pointed out (and no names were mentioned) then it is likely that the same people will do it again, thinking it's fine. It isn't.

I prefer to moderate with a light touch. Frankly, I'd prefer just to doze in the corner and not have to moderate at all. But the same situation has been happening more frequently recently (not necessarily the same people), and I want to make the point before it gets out of hand.

If you think this is just me stamping my foot, then you are missing the point and assuming this is some irrational fit of pique on my part, are likely to ignore a gentle hint and carry on in the same vein. Please don't. I don't necessarily explain the reasoning for my actions every time, but I DO have reasons. A comment like above is one action open to me, but not the only one. Another option, among many, is simply to lock anyone that can't, or won't, play the game in here out of QT altogether.

I don't want to do that, but will if necessary. Once again .... knock off the IRC-style chatter in here, please.



Oh, and the posts deleted weren't comments being made AFTER a point had been made, they WERE the entire post - or I'd either have left it alone, or removed the chat part and left the actual point. But there WAS no actual, relevant, point.

[Saracen]

Also, this thread needs to go back on topic now, please - not continue a debate of moderating activities in here.

[Ravens Nest]

When you see bill gates wearing a jumper, NHS glasses and a mop top haircut you think.. he looks harmless enough, the sort of guy a girl could take home to there parents (well when he was younger)

But could it all be a clever deception, the jumper is fitted with enough c4 explosives to take out a whole city, his hair is a wig hiding hundreds of robotic spiders that when released scamper over to there nearest victim pounce on there head and drill into there brain and upload the latest version of windows ce into ther longt term memory and his glasses are infrared,heat sensitive and lie detecting.

or he could be noel edmonds younger brother.

To get back on topic, i think perhaps he does a lot for charity as it might make him feel less guilty every time he cashs his cheque.

who knows?

[Blub2k]

Sorry to cast a shadow on his apparent altruism but the donations are all tax dodges and the donations to Africa are actually damaging as they are being given as a pay-off for Africans not getting the rights from the US to produce generic versions of patented US drugs. He is supporting the extremely crooked business methods of the US, who claim that their motives are altruistic when they insist that the dying African aids victims pay their inflated drug prices over locally produced generic licenses. Bill is not a good guy, he is a businessman.

[Gia]

I doubt he would. Think about it, the largest company in the world, owned by the richest man in the world, using the most famous piece of software in the world.
What would make him stand and his company stand out more? Curing the diseases. I just think that it's a publicty stunt and nothing more.