Entity/williohm/CAT#97352782/SYSTEM/sub%routine/pavlov/positive;reenforcement(net)@reward/approv:choc:ration/2.5G~gain/DECEMBER:increase/valid
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You could say the same about any regressive oligarch - thereâs never a shortage of bootlickers incapable of critical thought.
Oh yea much better someone spend their unimaginable wealth âowning the libsâ and strip-mining South America over (checks notes) irradicating malaria and making Windows 95. We dodged a bullet there.
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Nothing else? Needs more critical thought 
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Well there was that time he did the goofy dance on stage with Balmer
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Entry#72538382/data%point/EVENT/SYSTEM~cntrl/pollitical;divide/prgm@ALPHA/redirect/SUCCESS
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Dude Vista 
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Bill Gates is a huge proponent of IP (intellectual property) capitalism, meaning US corps own the patents and the rest of us lick their asses.
His philanthropy is deeply routed in this and taking it comes with that trojan horse inside.
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He was out by then, thatâs all on Ballmer I think
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A complicated topic but thatâs not what Iâd call an objective perspective on it. The intent, and continued value of patents (especially), is that they protect smaller businesses, who need such protections to remain competative.
Maintaining the privelage to compete against mega corps in a free and open market without IP wouldnât help all that much, because those mega corps will steamroll you via other means - cost of production, efficiency, existing market relationships etc.
Being able to protect your idea or creative works is one of the few powers us small fry still have against these monoliths.
Not to say it canât be abused, but the same can be said for anything awarded to the masses.
I wonât pretend to know much about Billâs relationship with IP law, but itâs fair to say that without patent protections MS would have never existed, because anything they attempted to bring to market would have just been stolen by IBM.
Edit: Sorry this got way off topic
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He is a crafty git for sure, the hand that isnât bitten.
Hereâs a good discussion of the matter:
(itâs not Qanon conspiracy bullshittery)
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A Fight Club reboot would be cool where the plan is not to erase all debit but to erase the cloud and all social media.
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Thanks! Probably reading too much into the title itself but I donât think thereâs such a thing as a âgood billionaireâ - but without doing too much research I feel instinctively that Iâd take 10 Gates to every Musk 
(but ideally weâd have none of these resource hoarders)
Remember when he said heâd give $6b if it could help solve world hunger if only the WFP could deliver a good plan on how it would help (as if thatâs ever been a barrier).
Still waiting Elon. Maybe check your back pockets, youâve got $44b to spend on a free website for lols.
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The problem is: patents (and copyright laws) in general donât benefit the smaller businesses (and content creators) much, they are mostly leveraged by the larger corporations against smaller businesses, and against the consumer, especially so in jurisdictions where those rights are alienable. See this article in Forbes form 2013 or this article in Der Spiegel from 2010, this article on why we need to abolish patents in The Atlantic or this working paper from the Research Division Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis that explains the same thing in more detail.
Even the amount of money an artist earns when their music is streamed on Spotify depends on whether you are signed to a big label, or not. How does that help anyone buy Spotify and the big labels to âremain competitiveâ?
You assume that (a) IBM would have been as big and powerful in a world without copyright and patents protection for this to matter, (b) this would have somehow led to a worse outcome than the current state of things (including windows being an insecure heap of trash, and Gates deciding alone what to to with the obscene amount of money he âearnedâ) and © Microsoft would not as well have benefited from standing on the shoulders of the giants that came before them.
BTW: Cory Doctorow made a good point itâs not a good idea to these things intellectual property
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Hey thanks for the thoughtful and detailed response!
I do appreciate a lot of the nuance with IP law, Iâd say itâs complicated and you definitely raise some of those complications. Lots of good resources there.
A) Good point, however I donât think most big businesses owe their success to IP law, theyâre just able to leverage it. Many small businesses could never get off the ground without IP law, so thereâs a hot debate there regardless.
B) Seems tangenital to the point, although I appreciate youâre looking at this from a truly objective standpoint. Whether the outcome is better or worse isnât really the point - Jim down the street can make a better casserole than me but it doesnât justify him stealing my crockery.
This doesnât seem related to IP - so maybe drifting into a different conversation. A bigger label isnât able to sell my music, which is the point, itâs mine - and the only protection that deems it such is copyright law.
Iâm very familiar with Cory - he has some good takes but also a lot of bad. I consider him someone thatâs privelaged enough to leverage creative commons to his own advantage, when many smaller creators would be whistling into the wind, so his perspective on things is a little biased. I am big on a lot of opensource and CC stuff though so I donât want that to come across like I have some hard-on for copy protected works, I just recognise how valuable they can be to a wide range of people trying to make money in this nutty world.
I recall hearing this piece on NPR last year which pretty much changed my understanding about what Luddites were actually against.
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I actually use a Light Phone II itâs been great, it definitely is designed for you to use it at as little as possible. I enjoy it very much.
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Well, I know a lot of examples where people create something, and they also build up followers and subscribers who enjoy what is created and pay for it. And I know of cases where that is then taken away by a larger business without these laws helping the smaller business.
I think the outcome for society as a whole is a very valid reason for making (or in that case abolishing) laws. What else would you want to optimise for?
Except that in this case, heâs stealing your receipe, so that he, too, can make your casserole. Your ability to make your casserole is entirely unaffected. Thatâs why the term intellectual property is misleading.
My argument is that even though you are protected by these laws, the outcome is not in favour, of the the small content creator, as the bigger fish still get more money for the exact same thing (a track of equal length streamed on the same streaming service).
I think heâs had a head start at the very least. And still, he is also embracing a business model that makes him more resilient, and other small content creators could learn a thing or two about that? Content creation is almost never so much about the content than about marketing oneself. Which reminds me what I should rather be doing right now
Maybe in a less nutty world, one where money is not continuously redistributed from the poor to the rich protections like this would no longer be necessary. At least that is the world I dream of.
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Honestly, the problems with online optimizations there would be much lessened if not for the deprioritization of physical spaces in favor of online monetization, and the commercial properties available to the public arenât great right now with the ongoing pandemic either 
Seriously, a great deal of problems would be rooted out by just destroying the robber-baron levels of wealth disparity that are only accelerating.
So much economy devoted towards bullshit jobs and exploiting the bodies and human-hours of life of a class of perma economically-insecure individuals, with billionaires pushing âhustle grindsetâ to justify why people inevitably fail (because life, health, and luck is not perfect) and when they drop to a level of poverty that can be further exploited for money like payday loans, rent-seeking behavior on any necessities for life.
Well itâs a discussion of private ownership so Iâm left a bit unsure how to answer. Unless you subscribe to a communist mindset (which I have no gripes with) then Iâm just not sure how itâs relevant. In this case IP laws are balanced around the needs of creators and consumers, I donât think the aims are much more egalitarian than that.
IP law doesnât cover every form of enterprise, Iâm stuck wondering if you want fewer or more IP protections? Removing IP protections wonât have helped those people, unless youâre talking about people that were profitting from someone elses IP?
Sorry Iâm not following this point. If you have protected IP they canât make money from it at all. Thatâs the exact benefit being discussed - removal of IP law would empower them to do that more, not less. How does any of that impact the power they have at the table when writing contracts with Spotify? Thatâs to do with volume and who they represent.
I still think you have the relationship the wrong way round. IP benefits all creators that want to financially profit from their works. It has little to do with wealth distrubution.
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I think where it gets murky is when the enterprise goes beyond mere enterprise. Not being able to sell a widget or a song that someone else created is one thing, but it does get iffy when you start involving medicines, or widgets that can have huge far-reaching impacts. Thatâs a tougher one to slice. Because many of the same arguments remain but the drawbacks, as you point out, to society, become quite severe.