DigitalDilemma

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  • 411 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 22nd, 2023

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  • This is exactly why hes done it.

    Why would he give a shit what people think about him? Others rich people don’t because when you’ve got enough money you can insulate yourself entirely from what the world thinks.

    You don’t know what hes actually responsible for

    Nor do the people judging him so harshly.

    You don’t see the pharmaceutical investments hes made

    The fuck? Why would he donate money and save countless lives just to benefit from it via some claimed business link?

    What a ridiculous argument you’ve made here.


  • Brave of you to hold a nuanced opinion! So many people have a very binary view of others, and Lemmy’s the same, as the downvoting shows.

    And yes, totally, he was a typical morally corrupt businessman and one of the first tech bros in a time before most of Lemmy was even born. But he’s also done a lot of good in the second half of his life. People are dismissive of that but they bloody well shouldn’t be.

    Who else has contributed $2bn specifically to fight malaria? Nobody. There’s quite a few now who could have helped but nobody else has. The Gates Foundation has also contributed that much again towards fighting Tuberculosis and AIDs. These are big numbers and they’ve had a real effect. Those of us who live comfortable lives are fortunate where these diseases aren’t everyday killers of friends and family and we cannot fully appreciate the benefit this work has done.

    Does this offset his earlier negative behaviour? I honestly think it might do.


  • I actually hold the opposite opinion; that most people are generally good, or at the least, focused on their own problems most of the time.

    This isn’t just personal experience (I’m old so have a bunch) but one example is that I watch a lot of travelling vlogs, mostly motorbikes. Whenever a rider has a breakdown, even in the middle of nowhere, someone will be along and will help. Even allowing for a general positive bias of the media, those who would take advantage of that situation are a tiny percentage.

    What does happen though, is that those who aren’t good can abuse the goodness of others to gain power and influence, so are statistically more noticable.





  • Good article and a reminder that all might not be as it seems, and I’m glad they’re reporting this to the French Police as well as raising awareness. The language used in the emails do suggest it could be a single zealot rather than a professional body. It also highlights how often “but what about the children?” is used to enact censorship. (Not least by my own government in the UK with the OSA)

    I have one issue though;

    The complaints against the site look extremely suspicious. In our case, they came from an organization that was only recently registered that seems deliberately set up to hide the identities of those behind it.

    Surely anyone registering any online organisation today would want to take reasonable steps to protect their real identity, especially one dealing with such sensitive matters? Anyone thwarted would want that information for malicious ends.











  • “That’s a great question!” </ai>

    The truth is, we don’t need AI to have misinformation, and AI is not the biggest problem in the current post-truth society. There has been a war going on globally in undermining truth for a long time. The old saying, “The first casualty in war is truth” is invalid now, because truth is no longer relevant and lies are weaponised like never before in history. People don’t want to be certain of something, their first reaction to news is to react at a deep and emotional level and the science of misinformation is highly refined and successful in making most people react in a certain way. It takes effort and training not to do that, and most of us can’t.

    Journalists have been warning us about this for decades but integrity costs money, and that funding has been under attack too. It’s pretty depressing whichever way you look at it.