The November election between Trump and Biden does not leave me with much enthusiasm to vote for anyone. I will vote, though. We need better candidates and ones that are not close to 80. I am worried about Biden's age and how that will play out over his term. With the exception of the current POTUS, most Presidents look much older after they get out of office compared to when they enter office. Biden needs to select a running mate who can take over if can no longer serve as POTUS. It seems almost like a done deal that he will pick a female, which is fine, as there are many who would be qualified to be President.
I was more enthusiastic about voting when Bloomberg was running, although he is also quite old. He offered a nice combination of business and government experience. As we have all learned, government experience is not a requirement to become POTUS. With that said, I would be much more enthusiastic about voting if a guy like Bill gates were on the ticket. He is very smart, extremely accomplished and highly philanthropic. He might not be the most charismatic guy out there but at least he seems to be able to communicate well with others. I have no idea what his political affiliation is and nor do I care. In 2020, it would be great to have a President with a technology background who is also very interested in education
Any thoughts?
I would vote for Bills Gates. Not sure many others would though.
I don’t believe anyone can articulate why they’d vote for Biden other than to ensure Trump doesn’t win. Bill Gates sounds like an outstanding choice, he just seems to understand things better.
But I don’t think many people would support him because he doesn’t act like the typical American. We get the President we deserve. Most Americans can’t focus on anything except their reality TV, news that really is more like gossip, and over the top one-liner headlines where they can proclaim to be an expert at something because they’ve never accomplished a damn thing in their life. Look who we have for President, the human embodiment of the American psyche. An egotistical, sociopathic, lying attention whore who only cares about his ratings on TV. Trump gets it. He doesn’t need to be good, he just needs to get people’s attention and he will win.
I would like to be proven wrong though.
I totally agree. Out of the 20+ dems who ran for POTUS, I would have preferred most of them over Biden Are you Malta Monkey?
Yes. Changed my name
I would also vote for Bill Gates. Agree with the above though - not sure he would have a chance.
Gates has been villified by the low-income class & younger folks for his excessive wealth. This large section of the American public also happens to skew heavily towards the left. Additonally, Gates seems to certainly have a liberal ideology, which means he wont get much support from the right either.
I am not so sure that low income people would have an issue with his wealth because he is doing some great things with his money such as giving it to causes like world hunger and poverty.
Idk about low-income ppl but definitely a significant portion of the Bernie bros hate Gates. I've talk to couple who believes Gates is a pedophile and good friends with Epstein... What the literal Fuck... Same people also believe that all billionaires are all evil, because they're billionaires. I guess the countless philanthropic things that give underprivileged parts of the world a chance to get back on their feet and thrive are pretty evil...
Funny that the same people also wouldn't shut up about saving the environment and forget to recycle... If you ask me, they're also egotistical, sociopathic, lying attention whores paramount to the current POTUS. Two sides of a same coin... And to think that those people have the right to vote...
I would welcome being microchipped by the Gates administration!
It would make it so much easier for me to keep up to date with my adult vaccination schedule, my digital currency numbers, and my social credit score. Besides, I feel that I've been exercising entirely too much autonomy of late.
Jump into the race, Bill! Our nation turns its infected eyes to you!
I gave up on the idea of having smart science and tech people be the ones running our government when I found out that 99.9% of them are just simps and actually very stupid when it comes to any kind of decision making. Bill Gates may be the exception to this as he is not of the traditional background of castrate yourself in college and then go work at Google but he still does not impress me as someone who could stomach the position.
Yeah unfortunately nobody is interested in voting for a data driven leader. They prefer to decide with emotions...
I would love Bill Gates, Oprah, Ray Dahlio, God Emperor Howard Marks or Steve Schwartzman as president.
https://www.vladi-private-islands.de/en/islands-for-sale/usa/new-york-s…
Not sure how you could vote for Bill Gates i.e. the AntiChrist because according to my family Bill Gates not only created Covid-19 but weaponized it in order to bring the globalists/Dr. Fauci into power as well as microchip everybody with the vaccine aka the mark of the beast 666. I wish I was kidding
On second thought, humanity was a bad decision
The rise of AI could fix it
Gates is a Democrat. I agree with him on virtually no public policy (at least among the ones he's expressed), but I'd consider voting for him in a generic election. I thnk he'd be good for the Democratic Party, which has been constantly flirting with Marxism since the 1890s. The Dems have been helped in the past by getting pulled back from the brink by figures like JFK and Bill Clinton.
I do not think he is a democrat or a republican, as I was not able to verify any formal party affiliation. He has donated to dems and repubs. Your arguments about his type of philanthropy not being efficient reminds me of a thread about Warren Buffett. I happen to think pledging half of your net worth is good for society. This guy said he was not impressed because did not pledge 90%. You have critiqued his generosity and said that he can do it more efficiently by establishing banking system (capital) and something about the rule of law.
Sorry, hopefully I can edit this later as I do not have much time now to read all the comments. I am far from an expert of his philanthropy projects and as a result, I not going to comment qualitatively about his efforts. I trust that his affluence and intellect are leading to some good accomplishments.
I would imagine that it might be a little more difficult to implement a banking system in a foreign country than feeding the poor. I am a confused about the rule of law comment. It is not like he can change the laws in a foreign country nor can he replace a government.
He definitely leans left politically. He is constantly featured on the left-leaning science programs I watch, he has contributed to both parties but leans Democrat in his giving, and much of his public policy pronouncements are left politically. He's a Democrat, he's just not in your face about it because it's bad business ("Republicans buy shoes, too" Michael Jordan).
Yes, I reject philanthropy when compared to capital investment for third world countries. Pretty much any logically reasoning adult would reach that same conclusion based on literally all the evidence ever in the history of mankind. I don't need to apologize to you for my correct position.
Regarding banking institutions, it would be way easier to establish banking institutions in foreign countries than to feed the poor. An order of magnitude easier. The poor have to eat every single day.
You don't understand my rule of law comment because you're a 21-year-old college student who thinks rich nations became rich because "colonialism or something." Rich nations become rich in almost every case because the rule of law encourages private investment. When you have $100 billion of carrots, you can affect the rule of law in a country.
I don't think he'd want the job. He gets more done at the Gates Foundation in a day than the POTUS could get done in a year. Want to end malaria? Throw money at it. Make it rain! Want to end climate change and develop pollution-free energy? Start a company called TerraPower and work across borders to make it happen. Not satisfied with K-12 education? Build a whole organization of educators and experts to redesign the system with new curricula and technology. Want to really galvanize capital, knowhow and power? Build a coalition of billionaires to fund a foundation that employs experts and do-ers, and has a system in place to deliver solutions where they are needed most. Why be POTUS? You'll never get anything done. Committees, trying to wrangle bi-partisan support, dealing with proceedure and interest groups. F- that. Want something done? Do it yourself and fund it yourself.
Honest question since I can't really find the answer. Has he made material progress on any of these goals? Terrapower, for example, is definitely innovating with technology, but nuclear power is miles behind politically and could really use an elected advocate, especially within the Democratic Party. The issue with nuclear isn't technology, which Gates is tackling, but it's politics.
Even if he were succeeding in his K-12 strategy in some individual cases, I see no evidence of material progress in America. And that's if you accept his premises that we need more people to go to college, a premise that I think is fundamentally flawed.
Anyway, I think the Gates Foundation is largely bogus. I argued on WSO a few years (with a very angry response given to me) that Gates would do more for Africa if he invested billions into economic development in the pursuit of profit, but he feels like he can't because of how it will make him look to the ignorant Western public that thinks capitalism is bad and charity is good.
I think I also argued that Gates is the classic case of a highly intelligent individual who is wrong about virtually every piece of public policy.
Do you have a link to your past argument? Would very much like to read and bring up the discussion (if that's okay with you) again.
I'd also like to see some more evidence whether his education efforts have been successful. From what I know, I think the Foundation tried, which didn't work out to well so they ended up re-evaluating their approach.
For nuclear power, I believe he's just investing in companies/people he sees potentials in. Of course. Those efforts probably haven't gained much momentum yet.
But I don't think the Gates Foundation is a bogus. They do a lot. They succeed a lot and they fail a lot. But failing isn't necessarily bad, it teaches future groups what not to do. They've done a particularly good job helping to control HIV in Africa. He did literally pour money to help develop medical infrastructure in places without even the bare-minimum. From what I know, establishing basic medical infrastructure isn't rocket science and very well-understood . Of course, on the sustainability of those infrastructure, I have no idea about (whether the infrastructure would maintained especially when the Gates Foundation is no longer around to help them). But that's a different conversation altogether.
Is the Gates foundation a bogus? NO. Did they fail a lot? YES. Did they success in anything? YES. Could they be doing better (a lot)? YES.
Are you familiar with the "crabs in a bucket" metaphor?
In any case,yes the Gates Foundation has made massive impact on numerous areas. These are huge problems, and it takes a long, long time and extensive investment to solve them, so don't expect something like cheap, pollution-free energy to be available overnight. Respect the progress and the process. That said, their impact has been world-changing already.
Diseases: almost eliminated cholera, vastly reducing malaria, and making a massive reductions in HIV in Africa. Developed vaccine storage and transport technologies. Distributed more than ~$8 billion for disease treatment, including $2bn HIV, tuberculosis and malaria and $2 bn more for immunizations.
TerraEnergy (not actually invested in from the Foundation but rather out of his personal coffers): It's an ambitious project, but it works very well in computer models. Gates had a deal to build a reactor in China with sites and funding allocated, but this got postponed indefinitely due to the US-China trade war, so TBD how long it will take.
Sanitation: the 'hack the toilet' competition has generated several innovations that are already helping move the conversation forward on sanitation. Sanitation, and moving sewage away from human populations, has been cited by public health professionals as the single most important innovation in keeping humans healthy in over 200 years. But the vast population and water shortages calls for renewed solutions.
So yes, he's made an impact already. But as importantly he's built a lean and efficient institution that is going to keep making impact for decades to come, and has filled that gas tank up with capital to let it accomplish the goal.
Respect the hustle.
I'd say that any extremely successful self-made person (or persons) running any sorts of massive "private" enterprise can achieve more than (and really should) the POTUS, or any governmetns really.
People forget that GOVERNMENT IS A NECESSARY EVIL that is incredibly horrible at virtually everything except national defense, collecting taxes, and ruining nations. If the government hasn't gone bad yet, it's only a matter of time. And remember, you only get one...
one thing I know for sure is that if trump is still in the house then the us is definitely going backward compared with our Asian friends on the other side of the planet :)
Gates at least think normally:)
Would be very interesting. Gates is almost robotic in his approach to efficiency. My favourite quote from his new Netflix documentary is when someone asks if he think's hes inspiring others to provide more medical care for the third world, and Gates replies, "I don't care about inspiration, I only care about optimization". I do respect him for his level of accomplishment, philanthrophy, and willingness to take on extremely complicated, un-glamorous problems.
If he ran for President, I would likely vote for him, because of 1) his intelligence, drive, and grasp of technology would likely be good for the US, and 2) there's no way he'd be more unqualified for the job than the guy sitting in the Oval Office right now.
Are you from Canada?
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