Carnegie chose to do good things with his money, as did Gates and Boros. Now, it’s easy to criticize all three of them for an arbitrary number of bad things they are responsible for. Which is entirely beside the point:
There is obviously a scale of good and bad things oligarchs decide to do with their money. Musk, Thiel, Sachs and the likes are on the “huge asshole” end of that scale. And other oligarchs are not. Assuming Gates was as bad as Musk because somereason fails to see this and ultimately leads to letting the true assholes off the hook.
Gates was (and arguably still is) an enormous asshole and has only recently started spending money on “charity” and PR to improve his public image (similar to Carnegie). That you’re willing to let him off the hook for all of his past evils only shows that spending a tiny fraction of their ill-earned gains on PR will wipe their slate clean and people like you will let them off the hook.
If you let Gates, Carnegie, etc off the hook for their rotten past, expect future generations to let Musk et al. off the hook once they buy back their reputation when they get old.
Carnegie chose to do good things with his money, as did Gates and Boros. Now, it’s easy to criticize all three of them for an arbitrary number of bad things they are responsible for. Which is entirely beside the point:
There is obviously a scale of good and bad things oligarchs decide to do with their money. Musk, Thiel, Sachs and the likes are on the “huge asshole” end of that scale. And other oligarchs are not. Assuming Gates was as bad as Musk because somereason fails to see this and ultimately leads to letting the true assholes off the hook.
Gates was (and arguably still is) an enormous asshole and has only recently started spending money on “charity” and PR to improve his public image (similar to Carnegie). That you’re willing to let him off the hook for all of his past evils only shows that spending a tiny fraction of their ill-earned gains on PR will wipe their slate clean and people like you will let them off the hook.
If you let Gates, Carnegie, etc off the hook for their rotten past, expect future generations to let Musk et al. off the hook once they buy back their reputation when they get old.
Top ten Gates “evils”? Just curious 🍿