EZRA KLEIN v MATT YGLESIAS

musk has already risen to power!

xpost - Right, I'll back out of my detour here and let this thread go back to EK and Matty Y, I really shouldn't try to jump in on these when I'm distracted by work, my point was mangled and lost.

i think real technocrats would see themselves as the good guys fighting against the overweening vanity and mercurial personal ambition of yr musks or gateses (or trumps) on behalf of a better-functioning establishment

lol np xpost

My point was more that I think there is a competing vision of what a "technocracy" would look like in the US and voodoo chili's definition is the one that Musk stans embrace. It's technically incorrect, but I think it's another term that is being bastardized.

aiui, technocracy was a movement in the 1930s when there was a lot of political ferment and people searching for remedies to the massive social crash of the Great Depression. Its appeal was based more on analogical thinking than anything else. It assumed that the increasing technological complexity of the world, as typified by radio, combustion engines, airplanes, urban electrification and such, meant that society needed to be fixed by putting it in the hands of scientists and technologists, who would neutrally and objectively find and fix whatever was wrong, like an auto mechanic working on a car or truck. Its program was never sophisticated and it had some affinities with fascism.

But let's rephrase - when you say you won't defend him personally but his organization has done 'a lot of good,' shouldn't we treat that good as a balance sheet with all the harm the acquisition of $80 billion caused in the first place?

― Joe Bombin (milo z), Tuesday, April 27, 2021 5:37 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Sure, I just don't know how it's possible to assess this in any kind of meaningful quantifiable way.

Also, I get that people want to trash Gates over COVID. I haven't had time to dig into that, so I can't really speak to it. But I think it is inarguable that the Gates Foundation has done a lot to support public-health initiatives in the developing world over the past 20 years, which has helped to reduce rates of infant and maternal mortality, stop the spread of infectious diseases like polio, HIV, and malaria, etc. Should a private foundation have as much power, money, and influence as the Gates Foundation has? Probably not! But its size also enables it to make a tangible impact and not just dole out a few small grants here and there for the sake of publicity.

gates is blatantly using his foundation to support and expand the systems that cause people to need his help

and is whitewashing his reputation in the process

I can't argue about this anymore.

ABAB

They also spend a lot of money on charter school shit

They spend a lot of money on a lot of things

hes also caused a lot of chaos in the public health world making people meet his wacky non expert ideas because he thinks hes the smartest person in the world because he has the most money

OK, fine, he sucks, I don't care

(although I would like a source for that)

one down, lag∞n

should also be noted he has more money now than when he pledged to give it all away (non binding) and that most of the money he has given away hes given to his own foundation which hes used to become the single most powerful person in public health, all completely accountable to no one but his beautiful self

one down, lag∞n

― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, April 27, 2021 7:37 PM (thirty-five seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

grimly draws a line on wall of cell

I'll quit my job tomorrow so I don't have to be associated in any capacity with such an awful man

hate to tell you its awful men all the way down

not trying to indict anyone who doesnt have the power to make governments do things fwiw

You're one of the good ones, though. I can tell.

this may be outdated info but wasn't he also a major shareholder in monsanto while trying to get african countries to implement agriculture programs that required them to buy monsanto seeds. like a one man IMF putting conditions on aid. he's bad. i don't care if people take money from him at their jobs though, whatever puts food on the table.

i at least have never blocked a temporary pause in patent enforcement on life saving drugs xp

harbl, what if I also find it motivating to believe that the organization I work for does good in the world? Should I just forget about that, or?

waaait do you work for the gates foundation

Man, you guys sure know a lot about Bill Gates! Must be hard to keep track of it all!

No, I work for an organization that works with them. (I do not personally work with them.)

ah ok i was gonna feel like i wouldve liked to know that before we started lol, anyway i dont know anything about your job but obvs its possible to do good things with gates money, its still green, i mean id take it if hes giving, but overall his track record/ideology pretty bad imho

i don't know, do you just believe it because it makes you feel good? i think that's what people are struggling with on various threads. they aren't pointing it out for the purpose of making you feel bad.

tbh if i had known i was shitting on both your favorite podcaster and your job i prob wouldve picked just one

It's fine, it's pretty tangential to my job, tbh, I just have to write/edit stuff sometimes that approvingly refers to the Foundation's work

ok i hope i have not caused you to feel bad about your job or listening habits, you have always seemed like a good decent person to me

But I do prefer to feel good about the work I do. I mean, in general, I prefer to feel good about the writers I read and the politicians I vote for and the podcasts I listen to. I don't like being bummed out all the time. Today was kind of a bummer for me, tbqh.

xp It's OK. I don't blame you.

yeah understandable re bummer shit, i would say we live in bummer times which is true, but i dont think that means we have to be bummers ourselves, at least not all the time, tho obvs its not easy

fwiw i just asked my dr. friend who has worked for the cdc and others in senegal/guinea/niger/nigeria/ghana/togo/south africa/indonesia/cambodia/etc what he thinks of the gates foundation

his response was 'big swinging dicks who do better than most'

jaymc nobody here wants to make you bummed out! but things like this:

Man, you guys sure know a lot about Bill Gates! Must be hard to keep track of it all!

― jaymc, Wednesday, April 28, 2021 9:46 AM (twenty-two minutes ago)

-- read a lot like "I am bummed out by facts, which I would rather avoid, so people who do not avoid them suck."

International development is a very treacherous field. Some shitty things happen due to aid organizations Implementing not well thought out ideas, but some have done a lot of good. The problem is that most of the good actors in these organizations are really held hostage by the donors desires

fwiw i just asked my dr. friend who has worked for the cdc and others in senegal/guinea/niger/nigeria/ghana/togo/south africa/indonesia/cambodia/etc what he thinks of the gates foundation

his response was 'big swinging dicks who do better than most'

― mookieproof, Wednesday, April 28, 2021 1:11 AM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i very much doubt the "big swinging" part of this is true.

Like, "I want to focus on good things done by (x) billionaire or interesting ideas introduced to me by (y) pundit" is a perfectly fine attitude to have. You seem to be having a problem with personally applying "...and I don't care / do compartmentalise about the bad stuff they also do or write," and blaming other people who do care, or who eyeroll, about it. You express that you actively want to believe in the overwhelming good intentions of these people, and of politicians, and seem opposed to compartmentalising their good actions ...perhaps because that inherently acknowledges the need to exclude other words and actions?

xp lol map

This Epstein case is horrific and the young women deserve justice. It is quite likely that some of our faves are implicated but we must follow the facts and let the chips fall where they may - whether on Republicans or Democrats. #WeSaidEnough #MeToo https://t.co/2mvskwQwW1

— Christine Pelosi (@sfpelosi) July 7, 2019

I remembered Pelosi’s wording as “problematic faves” the real thing isn’t quite as good.

Also Gates has totes skated on Epstein.

the phrase "some of our faves are implicated" has been stuck in my head forever, it's so perfect

Hasn't nearly everyone "skated on Epstein" because he and Maxwell cultivated connections for the sake of the size of the network, rather than direct influence, and there's not much evidence of most of the fame-os on his flight logs being implicated in anything more untoward than Matt Groening having gnarly feet?

i think that is plausible, not ready to conclude gates is a pedo yet based on what i've seen. bill clinton is another thing though.

xp lol that is completely incomprehensible to me

Gates laundered donation money for Epstein years after his conviction. His ties were a bit deeper than Chris Tucker.

I don’t think this pegs him as a pedo, just an amoral narcissist whose sole true passion is self-aggrandizement at any cost.

the phrase "some of our faves are implicated" has been stuck in my head forever, it's so perfect

― superdeep borehole (harbl), Tuesday, April 27, 2021 8:34 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

epic post for sure