With the us and Russia in free fall, China is the assumed number 1 super power in the near future. And they’ve done an amazing job in the last 30 years developing the nation, lifting people out of poverty, and growing their soft power. But a population and housing crisis could really hamper things so its really anyone’s game right now.

I grew up in rural america in a tourist town. We hated the tourists. Wealthy. Arrogant. Rude. Unaware of local customs. Drove up rent and grocery prices.

But, at the end of the day, we were the only town within an hour radius that wasn’t crumbling. All those vacation homes paid property taxes and the school system was great. There were jobs for people.

There are a lot of issues with unregulated tourism and immigration. But it’s better to regulate the issues and keep up with fostering good job markets and building government controlled affordable housing instead of try and ban a chunk of your economy. Which, from this limited article, it seems like the government is trying to do.

This is more what I mean. This is beyond people not caring and not voting. This is normally liberal institutions supporting genocide and silencing dissent. It’s just a whole other level.

Why does it feel like everyone is falling in line for this genocide? History will not look back kindly on the way the world watched as this happened. At least (and this isn’t much of an excuse) other genocides werent on the news every day as our leaders and institutions sat by and silenced any dissent.

I linked a research paper, an article interviewing Africans, and a third article outlining all the unintended consequences of bill gates program. The problem with his program is not just that it didn’t focus on education. It’s that Bill Gates got to decide where the majority of money for medical purposes was in sub Saharan Africa in a way that actually limited medical care outside of very specific programs that the bill and Melinda gates deemed important and had unintended consequences. Honestly, the big part that I haven’t honed on enough is the aspect of how much control this gives Bill Gates has over peoples lives. He’s a major donor to the UN health agency and the WHO and has a huge amount of power there that he actually sways to dictate policy. He has huge sway over who lives and who dies. I’m glad you’re confident Bill Gates didn’t just land in Africa without support from leaders of African countries and thus and inferred “support from Africans”. But you and I both know that his huge wealth creates a weird power imbalance with whoever he donates to and I argue that he exercises that power imbalance in a negative way to do what he thinks is best for others instead of asking people what’s best for them.

And, honestly, his vaccination and anti malraia programs saved crazy amounts of lives. I’m not here to act like his philanthropy did nothing to save lives. I’m here to argue that individual men trying to save whole continents by throwing money at problems in ways that also gives them influence and control over a population doesn’t absolve them of their other sins, this isn’t the most effective way to actually save lives, this has unintended consequences that actually costs some lives, and generally how bill gates uses his foundation isn’t how world problems should be handled.

You say at least he spends money on programs unlike others. But I argue that this doesn’t make him good because he doesn’t do it from a place of good or do it in a good way. he doesnt actually pay attention or care about his philanthropy. He was pressured into becoming philanthropic by his mom and, after she died, his dad who then handled it. He only got active after he stepped down as the head of Microsoft (because he was forced down after anti trust shit) and I argue he stayed for the power he gained after he lost power at Microsoft. Much of his foundation money actually goes… To other large companies (like Monsanto, MasterCard, and Vodafone). So, on top of everything, his philanthropy has a huge “giant capitalist companies will save the world” twist to it when we should be focusing on universal health care.

Also, to be detailed on the AIDS thing, the reduction in transmission by 60% is highly controversial in the science community. The research was extremely flawed. There was a lot of skepticism in the science community before and for good reason. And, don’t get me wrong, circumcision probably does decrease the spread of sexually transmitted HIV by reducing the likelyhood a man will get HIV from vaginal sex and then spread it… And HIV is down some so part of some anti HIV program actually was successful. But I’ll also leave this reddit comment here as it highlights a lot of journal articles that indicate it wasn’t circumcision.

Bill gates is not a good guy. Bill Gates is a guy who throws his unethically obtained eboranant wealth at issues in a way that gives him control and actually hinders non capitalistic universal health care which would arguably be more effective. Many times it works out. But it also warped.

Seriously there 2 hours of a behind the bastards episode on this that organizes everything much better than I can on Lemmy.

Bill Gates has saved 50 million lives according to Bill Gates. But his business and philanthropy practices have directly and indirectly led to degradation of quality of life and death in such complex ways we can’t even put a number on it.

Because Bill Gates, and generally philanthropy from people of his generation, want to throw money at a problem without asking the people they are trying to help how to help them. When you just try to save people without including them in the process because you think you know better than them what’s best for them, there’s usually pretty unintended and bad side effects.

So, not only was he a pretty cut throat and immoral business man, but even when he tries to buy his way into being a good person with the money he makes from his business practices that rely on monopolies and unethically cheap labor, he fucks it up.

Bill gates put a lot of effort into making monopolies. He tried to stomp out Linux. And, part of his whole weird philantrophy was trying to circumcise the men of Africa to save them from aids but inadvertanly likely increased the spread of aids which is just one case study in how his foundation can help but also does harmful bananas shit.

Listen to the behind the bastards on him. Warren buffet might get a pass if you squint, but Bill Gates is a bastard.

Edit: I would like to say that “increased the spread of aids” is probably misleading in that I make it sound like the program overall increased AIDS in Africa. That is not true. There is controversial evidence that circumcision may decrease the spread of AIDS. There’s controversial evidence that circumcision led the risky behavior in circumcised men who felt they were immune after circumcision. The data, since its an uncontrollable population study, is messy. But, Bills foundation involvent in Africa has had many unintended consequences across the continent that has saves some lives and cost others and no one man should have such strong say on the health policies of an entire continent. Personally, I also feel very strongly no one man should have such strong sway on campaigns which result is mass surgery on the genitals of an entirely different group of men when there are arguably better ways to mitigate disease transmission.

I have mixed feelings. His gist is basically that he agrees billionaires shouldn’t exist and that there’s no ethical billionaire and he wants reforms to make it so they don’t. But he argues that we live in a system where billionaires are inevitable and that it would be stupid not to invest wisely and make billions if he can because if he doesn’t someone else just will and he can use the money for good.

However, even if you buy this narrative of good billionaire, you can just look to his ties will Bill Gates and the Bill and Melinda gates foundation to see that, even if he did mean well, his perception on how to do good is completely twisted.

I understand the issues with organized religion. It’s just not an excuse to discriminate against religious people in general when most are low on the religious hierarchy and don’t actively hurt or want to hurt others.

What is this, middle school?

Islamic/religious beliefs don’t necessarily infringe on others. I’m not religious. But religion is more complicated than what you’re portraying.

Treating people badly simply for holding a religious belief, so long ad those beliefs do not directly infringe on others (paradox of tolerance blah blah), is bigotry. Using mental gymnastic to say that the people themselves are not being treated poorly is disingenuous.

If you actually think gay people are accepted the same now as in the 80s then you’re so dedicated to nonfactual pessimism that it’s a lost cause. Is there still room for improvement? Yes. But gay people used to be treated like lepers by general society.

Also its blatantly incorrect that half of society wants to tear down institutions that help black and gay people. Don’t get me wrong. It’s really bad. There are too many hateful people. But never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. I think we both agree people can be very stupid, but really disagree in the way we see that play out. Many who vote maga are low information voters. But that’s because the right wing runs a propaganda machine of the highest order that promises these people the fascists aren’t the bad guys who want to take away peoples rights. Even then, not even half the population voted maga.

You’re not laying out facts. You’re feeding into negativity in a way that exaggerates things in a way that is harmful. For example, you just inferred eugenics might not be a bad thing? Serious wtf my man. You need to get a grip on your pessimism because its warping your mind. You’re seeing threats in a way that you’re horseshoeing into what you criticize.

Maybe they were being genuine and not sarcastic. I came out swinging because I was riled up by the first poster to be honest. If they’re genuine, then I feel like a bit of a dick. Oops.

Yes. Its observable just by looking at culture and society now versus thousands or even just hundreds or tens of years ago and comparing it to the time it takes for even a subspecies to arise. And, as information exchange speeds up due to technology, culture exchanges even faster and society develops faster.

I didn’t say we don’t have in groups and out groups (tribalism). I say we have control over what we consider in and out groups. It’s not idealism. It’s not what the world could be. Its just observable fact. We’ve literally shifted cultural perception in the last 50 years on all sorts of in and out groups (black and gay people are easy examples).

Indicating that people who argue that humans aren’t intrinsically shitty and appeal to our better nature are performative, as you’re inferring due to social conditioning, by just being super dismissive is still underwhelming.

So it is! Still in underwhelming response.

For someone coming in with an air of all facts and logic in your first post, this response is pretty underwhelming.

A lot of words to defend bigotry. The human species can be a lot of awful things if we look to our worst nature. Our major advantage as a species is that we evolve faster culturally than most species can genetically. It makes us highly plastic and adaptable to our circumstances. It also means we don’t need to be assholes just because we can be. We can redefine and shape what is means to be an outsider. And, if a human can look at a drawing of a cartoon dog and feel empathy and humanize it and have their brains label it as part of the in group, we can definitely manage to not dehumanize other people just because they have different religions and customs. Appealing to tribalism is a bullshit excuse.

I got a soda stream with glass bottles. You can make soda from fruit (lemons and oranges are especially delicious - plus I can control whatever sweetener I use). Also, if you really want cola, then you can get concentrated syrup so there’s less plastic and liquid transport overall.