You should already know that Bill Gates relied heavily on political protections and plunder in amassing his fortune. IP laws, trade protections, subsidies, etc. are anti-market government interventions.
However, it must also be noted that we are all vastly, immeasurably wealthier as a result of the computer revolution. Imdustrialist wealth is measured in dollars. Our wealth is measured in goods and services, more efficient products, less paper waste, instant global communication, new forms of entertainment, automated drudge work that no longer rwquires time and labor, and so on.
Of course, with manufacturing in China, we do have real problems of literal slave labor and sweatshop work, but please don't try to claim I am somehow endorsing that.
Wait, you actually think one man is responsible for computers? Hmm....
So you agree Bill Gates didn't earn his fortune? So do you disagree with @dullhawk? If we take back what is rightfully ours, is that "thievery"? If someone steals my watch, and I take it back, am I a thief?
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If someone steals your watch and you take it back, you are not a thief.
If you imagine someone stole your watch, but you sold your watch to them, and you "take it back" you're the thief.
I'm under the impression that Bill Gates used politics to get his money, and if so, he is guilty of receiving stolen goods from the primary thief: government. Go after the real problem first, then you don't need to worry about the little guys (and yes, Bill Gates is small potatoes compared to the State).
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So would you say that a takeover of the state and using that takeover to tax Bill Gates' stolen money would be in order?
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No. To take over a criminal gang is to become the criminal gang.
The State never limits its acts to the guilty. To support the State is to advocate harming everyone just to get back at some who are guilty.
If YOU feel Bill Gates has stolen from or defrauded YOU, personally, I would support your right to go to his house (or hire someone to do so on your behalf, at your own expense) and take back the dollar amount he has taken (and possibly even a small amount of interest). Don't expect others to pay to help you if they don't believe your claims or if they don't want to. And be prepared to defend your actions in arbitration.
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Lol, so how do you expect to implement your ideology? Playing Minecraft and larping online is fun and all, but let's get serious. How do you move forward?
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I'm not going to implement anything. I won't violate people for their own good. Sorry. Becoming what I hate would be pointless.
And while your attempts at insults are kinda cute and all, they are so far off the mark they fall flat.
How I move forward is by living by the Zero Archation Principle-- it's apromise from me to you, and doesn't obligate you to do anything. You accept it or not. Not really my concern. It doesn't place any obligation on you, it just lets you know what to expect from me.
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So what you're saying is that you don't care about anyone else but only yourself and if your actions have unintended consequences that hurt others you don't care about that because you didn't mean it?
Interesting!
I, on the other hand, want to help people avoid having members of their family die of preventable illnesses in the USA and will do my best to ensure (as well as insure) that it won't happen going forward.
Have fun living alone and writing weird blogs online, though!
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Nope. Once again you've managed to come to the backward conclusion. Are you trying to get the wrong idea, or are you not as smart as I had originally assumed?
Leaving people to live their own lives as they see fit is the most humane, compassionate, and caring way to live among others. Without contest. If I didn't care about anyone but myself, I would advocate stealing their property and violating them in other ways as long as I thought it would get me ahead. As you can see, that's not what I advocate.
And I do mean what I say. Do you believe I should kill people who have done nothing but reject my offer to not violate them? Seems kind of violent to me. But that's the nature of government, isn't it.
You would "help" people not die of preventable diseases by sending armed employees of the state to murder them in their homes if they don't want your help? Because that is what you're advocating. Maybe when you grow up you'll learn to live peaceably with the rest of your species. I certainly hope so.
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I'm saying in the case of Bill Gates and other industrialists, it's a messy situation full of nuance. I didn't say he was responsible for computers. He was the one whose software business did the most to make the PC as we know it into a household object, though. But his case is a blend of market entrepreneurship and political plunder. To say it was solely one or the other is absurdly simplistic. Government likes to blend its misdeeds with market action to gain an aura of legitimacy, and corporatists like to claim to be free market advocates while they feed off the subsidies and protectionism of government. That is why the word "capitalism" is such a source of fallacious equivocation in colloquial English.
"Taking back what is rightfully yours" becomes difficult with fungible cash. A realistic solution is to fight the thievery at its source in government and end the crony capital game instead of trying to trace the thread of finance. We may not be able to undo all political injustice, but at the very least, I think we can agree that stopping its continuation should be a first step no matter what.
And no, I am not saying Bill Gates was a Great Man whose vision was necessary to make the personal computer possible. The market was there. The technology was there. Had he not done it, someone else may have. Maybe Apple, Xerox, Tandy, Commodore, Atari, Amstrad or Sinclair would have become what Microsoft is now. Perhaps even IBM despite their bureaucratic bloat, although I doubt that.
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So, can you say with certainty that if Bill Gates, the man, didn't exist that we wouldn't have gone along this path at all? That's what I'm asking.
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