r/technology • u/DontFearTheCreaper • 2d ago

Social Media Tech CEOs who grinned behind Trump at inauguration lose billions in wake of tariffs

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-tariff-bezos-musk-zuckerberg-b2727147.html
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u/CornholioRex 2d ago

I know it’s fiction, but why can’t billionaires be more like Bruce Wayne?

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u/ShiraCheshire 2d ago

If you want an honest answer: It's because it's near impossible to become a billionaire without doing horrible things to obtain that money. That's not "work hard and get rewarded!" type money. Not even "Won the lottery" money. It's the kind of money you earn by stepping on everyone you work with and conning anyone who trusts you. It's the kind of money you earn though child labor, slave labor, human trafficking, and/or complete disregard for human life (the "it would cost us $5 more to make sure this mother of 4 gets her cancer treatment, so let her die" type disregard.)

There are no good billionaires because good people generally cannot become billionaires.

Imagine you live in a fantasy novel, and anyone can obtain magic powers if they just murder one thousand innocent babies. When someone asks "why are there no good wizards?" then there's your answer, a good person cannot do the things required to reach that level of power. Same thing with real life billionaires.

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u/composedmason 2d ago

I think about this a lot. If one of them solved world hunger, their workers would get mad they didn't get a raise. It they adopted every puppy about to be euthanized, their stock prices would decrease making their shareholders upset. Being evil has so far been the only rewarding part of being a billionaire. The only person I've seen do good is Bill Gates but look how history is treating him.

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u/Kwinten 2d ago

Bill Gates stopped the licensing or open sourcing of Covid mRNA vaccines, because it would mean that poorer nations would be able to produce the vaccines domestically for cheap rather than buying them from US pharma companies. Why? To protect international IP rights of course. Can't go around sharing life-saving medical advances for free with the rest of the world now. At the cost of potentially hundreds of thousands of people's lives.

Gates is as evil as the rest of time, he just has a fantastic PR team.

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u/thedude1179 2d ago

This is misleading. Bill Gates did initially oppose waiving IP protections for COVID-19 vaccines, arguing that the issue wasn’t patents but the complexity of manufacturing. He received a lot of criticism for this. However, the Gates Foundation later reversed its position and supported temporary waivers to improve vaccine access in poorer countries. So while his initial stance may have slowed efforts to expand global vaccine production, it’s not accurate to say he single-handedly blocked open-sourcing vaccines or that he did it to protect pharma profits.

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u/Kwinten 2d ago

“Complexity of manufacturing” was indeed the official line. It’s also complete, racially charged, bullshit. Especially if you know anything at all about Gates’ background and his stance on IP protectionism. No shot that they actually thought that the entire continent of Africa wasn’t able to produce those medicines. The damage that was caused by withholding those patents for so long is incredible. For months and months, Global South nations had to rely on vaccine donations from other countries and purchase them for massively inflated prices. All because benevolent powerful billionaires like Gates couldn’t imagine sharing that IP with countries who they saw as too undeveloped to manufacture those vaccines for their own people.

I’m not saying he was single handedly responsible. But the idea that he’s a good guy among evil psychopaths is an illusion. He’s just as much part of the club, and probably has a higher body count than most of them. Don’t do free PR for these freaks. At least get paid for it when you do.

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u/thedude1179 2d ago

I get where you’re coming from, and yeah, there’s plenty to criticize about how vaccine access was handled. But let’s be real—some of the stuff you’re saying is a stretch.

Gates did push back on waiving IP early on, and people rightfully called him out for it. But saying it was because he didn’t think Africans could handle manufacturing, or that it was racially motivated? That’s more speculation than fact. mRNA vaccines aren’t exactly easy to make—they require some serious infrastructure. That doesn’t mean those countries couldn’t do it, just that the systems weren’t already in place everywhere.

Also, the Gates Foundation eventually supported IP waivers later in 2021. Was that too late? Probably. But this whole “he’s got the highest body count” and “don’t do PR for these freaks” thing kind of derails the actual conversation.

We can call out real harm and bad decisions without turning it into a cartoon villain story. It just muddies the waters.

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u/Kwinten 1d ago

Kind of hard to not turn these people into cartoon villains when they do cartoon villain shit all the fucking time. I think there’s one thing billionaire defenders fail to understand here: they are not normal people with normal motivations like you and I. These people have more wealth than kings and emperors of the olden days. But in contrast to the past, they have instant global reach, and usually don’t need to start literal wars to expand their influence. They let their capital do all the load bearing for them. I cannot overstate enough just how much power a person who controls hundreds of billions of dollars in wealth is. They don’t even need to spend a dime of it to have massive influence everywhere and anywhere they want. Billionaires get to decide who lives and dies in the Global South. They get to decide who gets elected if they care enough to do so. They don’t even need to do anything themselves to further their interests, they can just dangle their massive wealth in front of anyone like a carrot and they’ll do it for them.

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u/thedude1179 8h ago

Look, I get being frustrated with how much influence billionaires can have. There’s real stuff to criticize—political donations, tax avoidance, media control, all of that. But the way you're talking about them like they're godlike figures who “decide who lives and dies” just veers into comic book territory. At that point, it's not really analysis—it's just catharsis.

And I think that’s part of the problem with a lot of online spaces lately. Outrage has become a kind of substitute for thinking. It feels good to be angry and to point to a villain, but it rarely leads anywhere useful. It’s just venting dressed up as moral clarity.

If we actually want to deal with inequality or systemic problems, we’ve got to move past the cartoon logic. Otherwise, we’re just shouting into the void and high-fiving each other for it.

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u/Kwinten 7h ago

But the way you're talking about them like they're godlike figures who “decide who lives and dies” just veers into comic book territory.

It's not comic book territory. It's real life. Just because they aren't wearing costumes doesn't mean they're not comically powerful. Just because their actions are veiled in a thin layer of free market liberalism doesn't mean that their actions are somehow less harmful than those of comic book villains. Not a single billionaire's existence is a benefit to society, and defending these leeches will earn you absolutely nothing. You are no more than an ant to them.

Outrage has become a kind of substitute for thinking. It feels good to be angry and to point to a villain, but it rarely leads anywhere useful.

Wait, hold up! Don't get too angry at the extremely-rich! Don't develop class consciousness! Vent your frustrations at your fellow peers instead of those who actually pull the strings!

Fuck yeah it's venting. But unlike those on the fascist side of history who vent their anger at everyone and the kitchen sink except those who are actually responsible for their suffering, this type of venting is actually going in the correct direction. Let people vent at those who lord over them rather than their peers or those who have less than them.

If we actually want to deal with inequality or systemic problems, we’ve got to move past the cartoon logic. Otherwise, we’re just shouting into the void and high-fiving each other for it.

Yes, like by telling people to temper their anger which for once in your lifetime is actually isolating the correct targets and sources of suffering. General class consciousness develops maybe once a century, and for all the rest of history, you can happily relish in the fact that people will worship their overlords. Centrists like you who tell everyone to just stfu and just allow the neoliberal status quo to continue dredging on in favor of those who create and control the system contribute nothing.

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u/thedude1179 4h ago

You keep describing billionaires like they’re comic book villains and then insisting it’s somehow more “real” that way. But I’m not defending them—I’m criticizing how this kind of rhetoric turns them into mythical overlords, which ironically gives them more power in your head than they probably have in reality. That doesn’t sound like class consciousness, it sounds like fatalism.

You’re clearly passionate, and yeah—some of that anger is justified. But when every disagreement gets reframed as “you’re just a neoliberal centrist defending your overlords,” you’ve already left the conversation behind. Not every attempt to bring nuance or strategy into a discussion is a call to “shut up and obey.”

There’s a difference between organizing for change and just spinning up rage to feel righteous online. You say “this kind of venting is actually pointed in the right direction”—cool, but where is it going? If all it does is burn bridges and call everyone who’s not screaming loud enough a traitor, how is that any better than the systems you’re trying to fight?

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