• AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    In the real world, no one that has Bruce Wayne’s degree of wealth is a truly positive influence on the world on the whole.

    Bill Gates almost completely eradicated polio, contributed seriously towards the eradication of malaria, and is addressing the AIDS epidemic in Africa. He and Buffet have been working on a micro-reactor energy project for several years now.

    • Laticauda@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      He’s also done a lot of wide-spread horrible things to get that money though, that’s the thing, the good stuff billionaires do rarely makes up for the stuff they’ve done to get that money in the first place. The most fantastical thing about Batman is that he and his parents are usually depicted at face value as good rich people who get their money legitimately without hurting anyone and then only do good things with that money. And despite that Gotham is still an eternally crime-ridden cess pit. Most billionaires donate huge amounts to non-profits or start their own. Hell I bet trump himself has done plenty of philanthropy, but that automatically doesn’t make up for the way they earned their blood money in the first place. Is Bill Gates going out of his way to lobby for taxing the rich, or universal healthcare, or other systemic changes that would help a lot of people but likely reduce the rate he accumulates wealth? Because he has more than enough money to make large waves in those political arenas and still be rich for the rest of his life. If he never made another cent and gave away 90% of his money to homeless people he would still have enough left to be rich for the rest of his life.

      • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        That’s true. He was a ruthless businessman while running Microsoft, and hurt a lot of people, and the industry as a whole.

        Hell I bet trump himself has done plenty of philanthropy

        I seriously doubt that. Every one of his charities that I’ve heard of was actually a fraudulent grift. He stole from cancer patients! I’d be seriously shocked to learn that he’s done a single charitable thing in his life that didn’t directly benefit him.

        Is Bill Gates going out of his way to lobby for taxing the rich

        No, but he has stated that he thinks he and his peers should be taxed a lot higher than they are.

        Idk if Gate’s overall influence balances towards the negative or positive, but I do recognize that he has done some seriously positive things for the world after accumulating his wealth.