Altruism as Atonement for Profit

I like the way you think, John. You’d make a great Gates.

Even though it know it surely unnecessary to repeat this, your scenario still leaves all those tens of billions of home property to leave to someone when he dies. The challenge, of course, is to get rid of all of it before you die, (this started with my friendly objection to Bill for his use of the phrase, paraphrasing: ‘spend it all entirely on oneself.’

My point all along, (and as I reread my posts to this thread so far and cannot think of new ways of stating it,) is that he has no choice but to leave vast wealth behind at death, or to commit all of it now to purposes he values, according to HIS values. Obviously, he can also spend huge daily sums, whatever he wants. But if he leaves most of the 35-90 billion, whatever it is, to heirs—these heirs or trustees may or may not spend and give away in ways as he would have it. So he can commit all of it now in tightly defined criteria to ensure he and only he controls the eventual disposition of all his wealth. Luke said it, best, this is the most egoistic path.

As Gates I would identify ten thousand of the finest people on the planet and give them all my wealth at death. Each would receive $5 million. (I’ve been assuming $50 billion current wealth.) I like that because it rings to me like the most egoistic and dramatic way to perpetually imprint myself on the world. With a big number such as ten thousand, I may even make a place for Luke, what with that good post and all.

Post 21

Saturday, June 30, 2007 - 2:52pm

Observe that the moral acclaim accorded Bill Gates comes not from his revolutionizing software technology and providing home computers to millions of people...

Bwah, haw, haw

Funny, please tell some more. ROFL!

Please:

1. I don't know of anything that Bill Gates or MicroSoft ever did past his initial introduction of MicroSoft BASIC that involved anything anywhere even close to "revolutionizing software technology." And, word is, that MicroSoft BASIC looks eerily similar to DEC BASIC, which they allegedly had intimate access to. And, there were many other BASICs and similar products that worked much, much better that came out in the months, years and decades following Gate's product.

Otherwise, the Mac was and is always better in software, especially the OS. The Atari ST OS was better than Microsoft DOS or Windows or the Mac OS of its time. The Amiga was a LOT better than either the Mac or PC in both hardware and software and its one MicroSoft product - Amiga BASIC - was one of the most buggy pieces of software available for the system. NEXT was better than all the above. BeOS was a LOT better than all the above. Linux and the Mac are better than anything MicroSoft has today.

2. When did Bill Gates provide "home computers to millions of people?" Somehow, in my 30 years of computer experience, I managed to miss that.

Post 22

Saturday, June 30, 2007 - 4:10pm

Gates saw early on that computer software would be more valuable than hardware. Even though MS-DOS and Windows were initially developed by other companies, Gates recognized their potential when IBM did not. He foresaw the importance of the information revolution and its tie to software systems, the internet and PC's. He revolutionized software technology, not in the sense of developing revolutionary software itself (except for his development of BASIC, which Altair hackers copied), but in the sense of revolutionizing its application to PC's and the internet. Gates was an innovator and a brilliant businessman.

See in this connection Edwin Locke's book, The Prime Movers, which is a discussion of the character traits of extraordinarily successful wealth creators. Locke describes Gates as "an information-gathering, information-integrating, superpowered vacuum. [Gates'] idea of a vacation is to study physics, history, literature, biology, and biotechnology. He also reads widely the field of software technology, goes through hundreds of e-mail messages daily, reads business magazines, talks with the best minds in his company and many outside it, and pushes Microsoft relentlessly to develop new products and to improve the ones it already has. (p. 54) . . . .

"No one doubts that Bill Gates has a brilliant mind. Ann Winblad describes him as a 'massively parallel thinker with extraordinary bandwidth.' Translated into English, this means that he can think along many tracks at the same time and integrate hundreds of facts in order to find the pattern behind them. Hidden behind all the whining of his competitors and their constant demands that he government protect them from Microsoft is the unacknowledged admission that Gate is simply smarter than they are. Like Morgan and Milken, he is exceptionally able in mathematics, but he first applied his expertise in the field of software programming. He began to develop this expertise in college (to the neglect of his courses). As his knowledge grew, his vision became progressively broader so that now he understands the whole industry and even sees its future. Unlike the CEOs of many companies, he thoroughly understands his own products and technology, which gives him a clear competitive advantage over those who do not." (p. 69)

In short, Bill Gates is a productive genius who deserves every penny of his massive fortune.

- Bill

Post 23

Saturday, June 30, 2007 - 4:38pm

Well as an employee of Intel, I love Microsoft because every time they come out with a new version of Windows, everyone has to go out and buy a new computer that will run it :-). We also put chips in Apple computers now so we pretty much don't care what computer you buy as long as it has one of our processors in it. I think we make pretty good money in hardware :-).

Jim

(Edited by James Heaps-Nelson on 6/30, 4:38pm)

(Edited by James Heaps-Nelson on 6/30, 4:41pm)

(Edited by James Heaps-Nelson on 6/30, 4:46pm)

Post 24

Saturday, June 30, 2007 - 5:57pm

John:

So for example "American society" means the total sum of individuals who reside in America.

I would think that would be a number, like 308,234,321.    How does one contribute to a number?

That innocent sum of all is a number. Not some singular animate thing that could 'see' or 'want' or have needs or in any meaningful way be 'contributed to.'    What does "American society" want? What does "American society" believe? What contributions does "American society" appreciate?    There are only answers to those questions, not an answer.

"Society as a whole" is a totally meaningless concept.   It is a carny word that religious hucksters(ie, individuals practicing politics)use when they want to be vague, when they want to leg-lift their arguments, when they want to leverage the weight of a higher authority bypretending to divine what 'it' wants, needs, or desires, as if it was an animate 'it'.   As Durkheim said, might as well be God.   In fac, as Durkheim wrote, for centuries, ancient man had it all wrong. What ancient Man mistakenly referred to as "God" was actually Society, the tribe was just mistaken in its religious affections.    Thank-Society that Social Scientologist Durkheim showed up with his slide rule and lab coat to roll his eyes into the back of his head and set us all striaght.

There is a separate similar concept, 'The nation", which is not what people mean when they refer to "S"ociety, but that can and is contributed to, by people who live in that nation.

We have been so inculcated by this religion -- our fathers, fathers long let it slip by the 1st AMendment -- that we see it is harmless as if it really was referring to a group of people that meet once a month to discuss bird migration. (ie, 'a' society, not 'the' "S"ociety.)

It is the carny huckster trick by which Marx's State asserts itself uber alles, "above and beyond all individual and local contingencies."

This isn't always a malevolent political/religious thing. Human beings have an apparently deeply entrenched need to attempt to render confusing and complex pluralities into reassuringly simple singularities, in order to make them more tractable as ideas.   It is why we refer to the economies as it they were an 'it.' By referring to them as an it, it is the beginning of fooling ourselves that we understand them and can control 'it'.   Calling them what they are just makes folks heads hurt, so we make sh*t up about some nonexisting or meaningless 'it' and plow on.   Why don't we do that with 'the' weather in the United States?   Is 'it' too hot? Is 'it' too cold? Is 'it' too wet? Is 'it' too dry?    That is patently nonsense, and ditto similar in refernece to 'the' Economy.

Ditto the wants, needs, and desires of 308,234,876 individuals. ("It" changed while you were readng this.)   By referring to "them" as if they really were an "it", it is the beginning of fooling ourselves into believing that the person referring to 'it' has the slightest idea what 'it' wants, needs, or desires.

OK, but why this 'it' nonsense will continue to live on: because if we all laughed at it, then what would the carny hucksters pretending to run 'it' for us do?

regards,
Fred

Post 25

Saturday, June 30, 2007 - 7:48pm

As an addendum to my above post, Microsh*t's products have gotten only enough better that I don't feel the need to choke Bill Gates in effigy anymore. With Windows 98, I remember suffering through 2 program crashes and 1 system crash every day at work for about a year :-).

Jim

Post 26

Saturday, June 30, 2007 - 10:50pm

I'm not a techie. I don't have an e-pod, a S-box, or a sell-fone. And until I got the PowerBook laptop I'm working on now, I just figured that clunky and impossible was how computers were nowadays.

I understand language and logic. I learned BASIC at age 12 in 1980 on a TRS80 from RadioShack. In '82 I wrote a BASIC program that would "translate" English into Japanese. It was simple, the number of letters in the English sentence generated a random concatenation of syllables compatible with the sound structure of Japanese, syllables beginning with a limited number of consonants and ending almost always in one of the five vowels: wa- be- no- shi- tsu- mik- ka- re- ta-, etc., In 1986 I started setting the college newspaper on an Apple. The word processing was easier, more simple, and more intuitive than MS ever was. The system NEVER crashed. I had various jobs that kept me away from the direct use of computers, although I did set type in old systems from the 1960's. Then in 1996 my sister finally convinced me that I had to get onto this new thing called the inter web so that I could get I-mail. I looked at the market, Apples were just under three grand, and IBM compatibles were just over one thousand for a reasonable desk-top.

Well, that piece of crap and the three PC's I got after were all disasters. You could never run anything that didn't come pre-installed - you could never figure out how to get the right whatever file associated with the right whatever file. Don't ask me. But I have an Apple now, I have not had a single problem installing or running any file. It does crash on occasion - when I'm running MS Word for Mac! The Mac vs MS commercial with the Gates-looking guy, waddling in, blown up like the girl who ate the blue-berry candy in Willie Wonka says it all.

Ted

Post 27

Saturday, June 30, 2007 - 11:04pm

I'm with you, Ted. As an engineer, I want stuff that works, period. No excuses, no patches, no bullshit. Gates couldn't help it, just like Orren Boyle.

Jim

(Edited by James Heaps-Nelson on 6/30, 11:09pm)

(Edited by James Heaps-Nelson on 6/30, 11:10pm)

Post 28

Sunday, July 1, 2007 - 10:24am

Oh for crying out loud Fred stop hijacking the thread

John:

So for example "American society" means the total sum of individuals who reside in America.

I would think that would be a number, like 308,234,321. How does one contribute to a number?

That innocent sum of all is a number. Not some singular animate thing that could 'see' or 'want' or have needs or in any meaningful way be 'contributed to.' What does "American society" want? What does "American society" believe? What contributions does "American society" appreciate? There are only answers to those questions, not an answer.

Fred, you are taking my comments out of context. I'm not suggesting one should contribute to society nor am I trying to say that there is any coherent meaning to the phrase to "contribute to society".

Seriously, I think you're making some kind of excuse to go off on a tangent about the meaning of the word "society" and using a straw man. I honestly could not give a shit.

Look, society means the total sum of individuals within a given population. I make no claims as to whether one can "contribute to society" or one "owes anything to society" nor am I saying "society is some kind of consciousness" with wants, desires or needs. I never said nor suggested any of those things.

So who are you trying to convince here?

Post 29

Sunday, July 1, 2007 - 12:57pm

From William Dwyer: "Gates saw early on that computer software would be more valuable than hardware. Even though MS-DOS and Windows were initially developed by other companies, Gates recognized their potential when IBM did not. He foresaw the importance of the information revolution and its tie to software systems, the internet and PC's. He revolutionized software technology, not in the sense of developing revolutionary software itself (except for his development of BASIC, which Altair hackers copied), but in the sense of revolutionizing its application to PC's and the internet. Gates was an innovator and a brilliant businessman."

Pardon? MS-DOS was developed initially by four Stanford grad students, I believe, and then taken over by some guy who did a little more development and sent a copy to MicroSoft, which Gates stuck on the shelf, as nobody expected anything from the junky little processor that Intel was making at the time, and this 16-bit unfinished upgrade to CP/M looked like a total loser.

Then IBM, in a panic because:
1> Motorola had just recalled its new, hot 68000 processor due to bugs, and that was what they had based the PC on.
2> Having switched to the Intel chip meant that the in-house OS no longer worked,
3> The roll-out date was already set, and if they missed it, then they would blow the one and only selling point that the PC had - the credibility that came with the IBM logo.

So, IBM approached CP/M to purchase it for the PC. However, the head of CP/M was on a well-deserved vacation a long ways away and unreachable, and his wife and co-developer was unwilling to sign the reams of non-disclosure and intellectual property agreements that the horde of attorneys who descended upon her from IBM now demanded, at least not until her husband was back.

So, Bill Gates' Mom was on the board of some charitable organization, along with a VP from IBM who complained to her about the ongoing panic at Big Blue. She calls Bill and suggests that he might want to talk to IBM. Bill remembers the disk on the shelf.

And that started the tragedy...

Gates, BTW, if you read Steven Levy's classic "Hackers," was the person who initiated the shrink-wrapped, marketing dominated software sales system with MicroSoft BASIC. Prior to that point, nobody was claiming intellectual property in personal computer software.

I'm not against intellectual property per se, but the way that Gates went about it set in stone a system in which absolute garbage dominated the software market for the following decades, and the creators of the software got a pittance compared to the marketing side. Note how relatively bug-free LINUX software is.

An alternate information centric as opposed to marketing centric commercial model could easilly have dominated, in which software was available very cheaply, but the money mostly went directly to the developers, with reviewers paid according to how well the actual users liked the reviews after trying the software, and bug reporters being paid cash bonuses. Under such as system, piracy would hardly be worth it, the developers would be much richer, bugs would be taken care of quickly, etc. We still might evolve such a system, but MicroSoft will predictably oppose it with all kinds of intellectual property traps.

Post 30

Sunday, July 1, 2007 - 2:31pm

So, Phil, your point about Bill's premise is what, exactly?

I'm impressed with your knowledge of the history, and the later speculation is truely interesting, but so what? It has nothing to do with Bill's premise. Nothing at all, unless you're trying to say that Gates ought to feel guilty about his wealth, and his atoning for that guilt in an altruistic way ain't a bad thing.

Post 31

Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - 4:43pm

Ah, memories.

DOS and CP/M were both lightweight ripoffs of concepts long in DEC's RT-11, right down to the IVT.

But, that gets the story back to DEC, and out of the garages and pizza boxes and dorm rooms, etc. Justice is, DC going on to develop NT for MS/Gates.

How did DEC manage to screw that pooch so badly?   Their LSI-11 stuff was mission critical long before CP/M and DOS showed up and kinda sorta worked.   They just had to retarget it on the next generation cheaper/faster hardware...and eat their own lunch, instead of hoping nobody else would.   They didn't, and died a slow giant carcass death. I think they suffered from being mere human beings.   While they were enjoying doing to mainframes with ther minis, they didn't take seriously that minis were about to be done to by micros, and did not want to eat their own lunch. The 'me too'/toolate RainbowPC was just...sad, a giant step backwards, in a kind of roomful of 80's MBAs with spreadsheetitis kind of way.   Somehow, Gates and his vision got lucky the way only smart people get lucky and skated through all those lumbering giants, IBM eyeing DEC eating at its mainframe/minis with DECs minis, then fooling around with that giant downshift to the PC almost as a joke, that only MS./Gates took seriously. Silly him.  Jesus, it was barely the 80s. The public perception of the combination of those three letters IBM and a nearly wide open standard, an open 3rd party policy, and the market created itself.   Irrational market exuberence? When were we ever not, about anything new? I used to call them 'bleeding hulks.'   A doctor/small business guy rolls into ComputerLand in the early 80s, shells out six grand, comes back to his office, and no little ducks magically lining up, like the commercials.    After a few days among the foamed boxes, a dazed look and little X's where his eyes used to be, as the realization sets in.

CP/M? DOS? RT-11 was better-squared, DEC could have retargeted their experience base with that onto new generation cheaper/faster platforms....which is essentially what happened when DC ended up at MS and architected NT.   I owe CP/M alot from my salad days. There were plenty of CPAs who bit in the early 80s and who had critical client data hosed up on those crappy toy file systems needing recovery.

The great irony is, all during this period of Gates making billions, folks are 'free' to avail themselves of 'free Linux' and even 'free BSD386Unix' before that.   This drives the True Believer religious freaks nuts.  (Sorry, not me. To me they're all just tools in the toolbox, not religious icons to rally around.) And, yet, all that time, and even now, Gates biggest competitor was not/is not 'free LINUX' or even Apple's vastly superior Motorola ...er, I mean Intel based boxes.    Gates/MS biggest competitor is Gates/MS.    When he looks at the world, the market is in three piles: buyers who aren't currently using anything, buyers who use his competitors products, and buyers who are using older versions of his products.   He could totally ignore the first two and still make billions.

Technology aside because it is irrelevant to the marketing, I love Apple's marketing genius, and the whole selling membership to a non-existing community.  Nerds just love that s**t.   Nerds all look like the fat ass PC guy, but secretly believe wearing an IPOD , buying an IPHONE, or using a MAC will instantly make them hip and get them laid.   That is Apple's marketing strategy cold, they are treating nerds with blatant contempt, and the nerds are loving it, eating it up, and asking for more. The real advertising genius is, the itch never gets scratched, got to buy more, must be the Nerd's fault...

But they screwed up early on with their developer and aftermarket policy, hung on too tight for too long early on, wised up too late, never recovered and never will catch up all that ground. Jesus, now its all bootcamp and we're intel too and we do Windows but oh, by the way, we're vastly superior... Too bad, because Apple makes great stuff, but pointless; might as well be talking about how superior DEC's products were 30 years ago.

Post 32

Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - 8:18pm

Teresa, sorry about wasting your time. I just hate it when people use totally false data to support their arguments, no matter how good the argument...

There were heros in the computer industry, a lot of them. When Bushnell was running things, Atari used to hold conferences where tens of thousands of fans would eagerly line up to get the software gurus to sign their game cartridges. They would hand on their every word as they described how they had figured out some clever hack to crank still more out of a 1Mhz, 8-bit processor. These guys lived their dream and it worked - until the bankers moved in, shunted Bushnell out, because, as a cerified genius and major innovator, he was dangerous. Read Steven Levy's "Hackers." It's a wonderful read and you really will know a whole lot more about why we are where we are in technology when you're finished.

And Atari was hardly alone, although they had the cream of the crop as far as developers. However, the bankers killed that off in short order, and the top Atari developers left and went to work for Amiga Inc., where they literally hocked their homes and spent every dime they had ever earned to produce the Amiga, which was two generations ahead of its time. Talk about heros. These guys had the kind of total passion for creation that reminds me of Rand's description of Hank Reardon, staying up all hours of the night working on Reardon Metal.

So, the problem is that these great creators end up frequently with nothing, or watching their baby - like the low-income housing project that Roark was conned into doing - being used to promote evil.

Post 33

Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - 9:34pm

I'm not against intellectual property per se, but the way that Gates went about it set in stone a system in which absolute garbage dominated the software market for the following decades, and the creators of the software got a pittance compared to the marketing side. Note how relatively bug-free LINUX software is.

So, who's to blame for this? I guess it's those clueless consumers who just can't see technological value when it's staring them in the face. Or maybe it's Bill Gates for catering to their ignorance. If LINUX is so great with its bug-free performance, why aren't consumers buying it in preference to the PC? Evidently, the PC is a better deal, warts and all.

What a pity that the "creators" got a pittance compared to "the marketing side"! What would the creators have gotten without the marketing side? The answer is: less than a pittance, because their creation would not have been marketed.

Do you think consumers buy products without any marketing -- without any advertising or promotion? If you do, try selling them that way. If you think Gates is giving consumers a raw deal, nothing is stopping you from competing with him, and offering them a better deal. So why don't you and those poor, exploited "creators" do it?

I think I know the answer.

- Bill

Post 34

Wednesday, July 4, 2007 - 3:29am

John:

That would be a far better contribution to society than some worthless charity

Fred, you are taking my comments out of context. I'm not suggesting one should contribute to society nor am I trying to say that there is any coherent meaning to the phrase to "contribute to society".

OK.

But, it's my job in life to meaninglessy spank people who casually refer to society, as we've long been inculcated to do as part of our deep religious instruction.

On the jarring topic of Bill Gates spending Bill Gates' money, I'm perfectly happy if Bill Gates staples Benjamins to his a$$ and rolls in a sandbox filled with glue covered Sakajewia dollars to see how many he can pick up, if that is what makes Bill Gates happy and that is what Bill Gates wants to do with Bill Gates money, and am amazed that 'objectivists' think it is even a reasonable topic for review by anyone other than "Bill Gates," because objectively, "Bill Gates" money is "Bill Gates" money.

Dont take my In-ter-net gibberish so deadly seriously, please. It is just my cheap substitute for much needed therapy. My words serve their purpose the millisecond my fingers leave the keyboard, complete. Feel free to scroll on, I promise neither of us will be obliterated from existence as a result.

Enjoy the 4th!

regards,
Fred

Post 35

Wednesday, July 4, 2007 - 3:39am

Bill:

If LINUX is so great with its bug-free performance, why aren't consumers buying it in preference to the PC? Evidently, the PC is a better deal, warts and all.

Oooh! Ooooh! I know the answer to this one. It is because everyone else is stupid.

Just ask any "DoomWiz382" when he is not at his dayjob at the video store.

I mean, the cool guy in the Apple commercial.

regards,
Fred

Post 36

Wednesday, July 4, 2007 - 1:53pm

Fred, do you really find the guy in the Apple ad "cool" and sexy?

Ted

Post 37

Thursday, July 5, 2007 - 1:23am

Could you imagine being a realtor and trying to put a value on Bill's house. I guess it would be great if you got the listing, but if the 113 million dollar value is what he paid for it, there's been quite a bit of appreciation since then. And where on Earth are you going to find a comparable house?

But seriously, regarding the main point. I think charity is often a self-serving thing to do. Boiled down, everything we do is because we want to do it for one reason or another. Whether that be because we want to make more money or we don't want to get shot by the guy who's taking our money or whatever. But, at least for me, there's something very satisfying about giving with out expecting anything in return. I want them to be worthy causes I believe in. Either causes that help people who for one reason or another can't help themselves. Examples being disaster relief or medical research. Or things that help people get started; such as education or micro finance. I don't think this makes me noble or heroic, nor would I condemn those who don't give. It's cheesy, but giving simply makes me happy.

Post 38

Thursday, July 5, 2007 - 1:35pm

Ted:

Fred, do you really find the guy in the Apple ad "cool" and sexy?

1] There are two cool guys; which one could you possibly mean?

2] Where did I refer to either of them as "sexy?"

For the sake of argument, let's say Chubber gives me wood. Where is that going?

regards,
Fred

Post 39

Thursday, July 5, 2007 - 2:08pm