I remember when I was growing up, tech industry has so many people that were admirable, and you wanted to aspire to be in life. Bill Gates, founders of Google Larry Page, Sergey brin, Steve Jobs (wasn’t perfect but on a surface level, he was still at least a pretty decent guy), basically everyone involved in gaming from Xbox to PlayStation and so on, Tom from MySpace… So many admirable people who were actually really great…

Now, people are just trash. Look at Mark Zuckerberg who leads Facebook. Dude is a lizard man, anytime you think he has shown some character growth he does something truly horrible and illegal that he should be thrown in prison for. For example, he’s been buying up properties in Hawaii and basically stealing them from the locals. He’s basically committing human rights violations by violating the culture of Hawaiian natives and their land deeds that are passed down from generation to generation. He has been systematically stealing them and building a wall on Hawaii, basically a f*cking colonizer. That’s what the guy is. I thought he was a good upstanding person until I learned all these things about him

Current CEO of Google is peak dirtbag. Dude has no interest in the company or it’s success at all, his only concern is patting his pockets while he is there as CEO, and appeasing the shareholders. He has zero interest in helping or making anyone’s life pleasant at the company. Truly a dirtbag in every way.

Current CEO of Home Depot, which I now consider a tech company because they have moved out of retail and into the online space and they are rapidly restructuring their entire business around online sales, that dude is a total piece of work conservative racist. I remember working for this company, This dude’s entire focus is eliminating as many people as feasibly possible from working in the store, making their life living heck, does not see people as human beings at all. Just wants to eliminate anyone and everyone they possibly can, think they are a slave labor force

Elon musk, we all know about him, don’t need to really say much. Every time you think he’s doing something good for society, he proves you wrong And does the worst thing he can possibly do in that situation. It’s like he’s specifically trying to make the world the worst place possible everyday

Like, damn. What the heck happened to the world? You know? I thought the tech industry was supposed to be filled with these brilliant genius people who are really good for the world…

@ArtVandelay@lemmy.world
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Steve Jobs (wasn’t perfect but on a surface level, he was still at least a pretty decent guy),

Very very incorrect. He was a complete garbage pail of a human being from the very beginning.

Behind the Bastards: Part One: The Terrible Secret of Steve Jobs https://omny.fm/shows/behind-the-bastards/part-one-the-terrible-secret-of-steve-jobs

You haven’t named a decent person in your post.

The Google founders are simply more secretive in their lifestyles compared to Musk. They dropped the “Don’t Be Evil” motto a long time ago.

@erwan@lemmy.ml
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Honestly, Google back in the day was a great company. They were focused on putting the best product for consumer, supported open standards, kept ads at a minimum… A bit like Valve today. They really were “good guys”.

Then I’m not sure what happened, they stopped caring and left the MBAs in charge maybe.

@Womble@lemmy.world
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They went public, simple as that.

@SoJB@lemmy.ml
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Bill Gates, a decent person? LMAO is OP literally a kid or something.

Americans are the most propagandized people in the world and simultaneously genuinely believe they are not propagandized, it’s incredible.

@ZeroHora@lemmy.ml
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But you see he invest 0.1% of their money to save some people in the world, sometimes. He is so generous.

I agree. Someone already put links showing how bad Jobs and Gates were earlier in this thread.

It’s not just tech, but leadership positions in general.

Short answer is that the traits you need to climb the ladder have significant overlap with the traits of legit psychopathy.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/mind-of-the-manager/201304/the-disturbing-link-between-psychopathy-and-leadership

@Bacano@lemmy.world
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To add to this, there’s been evidence that as an individual accrues more wealth, their empathy response lessens over time.

My arm chair psychologist hypothesis is that: as the individual sees their quality of life increase, they look at other human beings in deplorable conditions, and their empathy response atrophies in order to avoid cognitive dissonance.

There’s a concept in the study of wealthy individuals which goes over their desire to hide impoverishment from their view.

@Tehdastehdas@lemmy.world
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Big money / venture capitalists prefer to fund people of their kind: the ruthless. They also accept the spineless they can boss around. That’s gone on for centuries, so the good funders have been trampled and gone extinct.

@untorquer@lemmy.world
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They all have a story like this. They are all terrible.

I think Gareth Reynolds said it or was it Jordan from knowledge fight? But once you reach a billion you should get a medal saying you won capitalism then be 100% taxed the rest of your life.

@TBi@lemmy.world
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Everything over a certain amount should be taxed 100%. Not everything. But also there should be a substantial house tax on mansions. And a higher house tax if you own more than one property.

@untorquer@lemmy.world
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Yeah, you don’t need to have a billion to exclude people from shelter and exceed complicity in their suffering or death. Anyways, yeah short of abolishing property and landlords a significant tax, property hoarding deterrance, and rent control would make so much sense. It would take an severe naivete or true sociopathy not to support it.

It would take an severe naivete or true sociopathy not to support it.

… or seeing how those things affected a few rent-strained places not in the USA where you are apparently from.

Property taxes are fine and all. But renting out has a place in economics. It should be profitable and encouraged, it does benefit people who can’t buy real estate.

Of course when huge realty companies rent out, and there’s not much other choice, you are going to have problems. But that’s work for anti-monopoly laws.

But where I live, for example, it’s usually individuals who rent out and they don’t own dozens of apartments.

Landlords do spend their money and time on maintaining their property, buying furniture, appliances, keeping it in good state, insured and all that, so that someone without time and energy to do a hundred things would be able to rent that property and live there without too much bother.

They provide a useful service. Hating them all is stupid.

@untorquer@lemmy.world
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Sitting in the “shelter is not a right” space:

They withold houses from the market, thereby driving cost up. In turn that drives mortgage down payments up. The credit system and bank hurdles to securing a mortgage are also a big part of that issue but another conversation.

The generalization that the individual landlord does the maintenance and tasks that the tenants don’t want to is hard bs. Considering that rent is based on a profit, and any landlord I’ve had has hired out labor, the tenants functionally already pay for all of that maintenance and upkeep. Many would love to DIY but others could afford to hire the labor and save money with a mortgage vs rent. That’s not to mention it’s basically 50/50 on whether the landlord actually maintains a property or sits in the area of, “tenants aren’t going to report me cause i have all the power and they need shelter”.

Now owning a home i can easily say, you don’t really have much to do for maintenance. I guess i mow the lawn every few weeks and otherwise do basic cleaning? Even my old car only takes a few hours of labor every few months and it has moving parts. I guess i also cleaned the gutters back in spring. Took an hour and a buddy to hold the ladder. Oh i also have savings put away for larger infrequent maintenance which i can just hire out(if i wanted) at a tiny fraction of what i used to pay in rent.

Anyways, to the part where i can agree in some sense is short term housing. That’s a real need. That’s where rent really makes sense. Still, rent control based on simple percent profit and tax. Limits on unused properties. So on. Housing capacity should grow but housing cost should not drive cost of living nor exceed inflation.

They withold houses from the market, thereby driving cost up. In turn that drives mortgage down payments up. The credit system and bank hurdles to securing a mortgage are also a big part of that issue but another conversation.

Wouldn’t that stimulate more construction?

Now owning a home i can easily say, you don’t really have much to do for maintenance. I guess i mow the lawn every few weeks and otherwise do basic cleaning?

OK, where I live people usually don’t own houses, they own apartments, and maintenance minimally involves ensuring that your apartment is not a cockroach breeding ground and your piping doesn’t make your neighbors below feel too wet.

In a separate house yeah, you can more or less just shrug because liquids go into the ground anyway, and there are no central heating pipes that may rupture, and so on.

Limits on unused properties.

That’d be fine. Maybe if you own 5+ apartments, or by living space, because otherwise you’d, say, hurt people who have one apartment they are slowly restoring to livable condition to maybe rent out later and one they themselves live in.

@untorquer@lemmy.world
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Wouldn’t that stimulate more construction?

New construction isn’t always an option in dense urban areas. It’s also possible that new development is simply purchased by investors and put on the rental market (with or without tenants) and you’re back at square 1.

OK, where I live people usually don’t own houses, they own apartments, and maintenance minimally involves ensuring that your apartment is not a cockroach breeding ground and your piping doesn’t make your neighbors below feel too wet.

As much as I loathe HOA’s, and I’ve heard of bad condo association drama, multi-unit housing can be run under alternative, collective schemas. If you are renting there’s a lot of value in considering a renter’s union in such scenario. Tenants have banded together to buy out their own building collectively before. But also I’m talking outside my experience here and shouldn’t prescribe a solution for ultra-dense housing when I’ve only lived in a 30 unit building in a medium sized city and not new york or whatever.

That’d be fine. Maybe if you own 5+ apartments, or by living space, because otherwise you’d, say, hurt people who have one apartment they are slowly restoring to livable condition to maybe rent out later and one they themselves live in.

Look, no one is saying do this overnight. There is shitloads of nuance to it which needs to be addressed but it is east to get voiced down in. But people shouldn’t be on the street when they can’t afford rent. That’s the quickest way to losing your job, your belongings, a permanent address, and even your personal documentation. Without those you can’t get a job, or housing, or any public benefits. We have to stop putting people out for the mere act of attempting to survive and making one mistake or missing one bus.

@rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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We have to stop putting people out for the mere act of attempting to survive and making one mistake or missing one bus.

I’m actually fine with pretty communist futuristic solutions here, as long as they are very clearly defined to prevent slippery slopes.

As in - state-provided place to bunk for those who have problems.

Sort of a capsule, behind one sliding door there’s a toilet, behind another there’s a shower and a water tap and a mirror, behind the third one there’s a space to sleep horizontally, and a space to store your stuff under it. A retractable table and a seat. Obviously electricity. Something like that, taking minimal space, allowing modular maintenance and repair. One of the walls has a window, that can be opened. The space shouldn’t be too small either - if people get too claustrophobic, they might prefer grass or subway stations.

Of course, if we think about this seriously, multiple such capsules’ inhabitants can all queue for shower and even to use toilets and even to cook. A washing machine for laundry in every capsule seems inefficient, so common laundromats it is. A place to sleep and keep possessions is the most important thing.

Such apartment buildings should have sufficiently passable corridors and sufficiently spacious common areas.

With those requirements in mind - it takes a standard design and a program of construction of such housing. Apartments won’t be property of their inhabitants, just something provided by the state as long as it’s needed.

But a program of construction of such things, only with selling to end inhabitants by subsidized price, is too a possibility. Only I’d separate them - a building is either inhabited by owners\renters\guests, or by people needing temporary housing, not both at once.

What did I write …

@alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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I don’t know much about the other guys you named, but close friend of Jeffry Epstein, Bill Gates is a demon with good PR. A lot of his outreach consists of privatizing schools in Africa and America, testing vaccines on tribal girls in India without consent, and demanding Oxford sell their covid vaccine instead of releasing it free..

But if you google anything about Bill Gates medical activities, they get drowned out by puff pieces and fact checks about microchips in vaccines instead of the.

superterran
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Oh summer child

@AshMan85@lemmy.world
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Because tech is capitalism, and it goes hand in hand with fascism

ValorieAF [she/her]
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Because money

@Doolbs@lemmy.world
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OK. Listen. These people are damn smart at what they do. Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos.

I have to deal with people every day that cannot do anything other than watch Fox News, News Max, and News Nation.

The above named people are taking advantage of people like that.

That’s all i have to say.

Resources and influence will always drunkard’s-walk into the hands of the unscrupulous and manipulative, pretty much by definition.

They’re going to be drawn to it, they’ll fight dirtier for it, and they’ll use the power it gives them to prevent anyone else from taking it away.

Big Tech is a huge source of both, so it would be amazing if the people on top of the heap weren’t massive piles of shit.

It’s better to assume good humans don’t exist, they just haven’t shown (to you) their bad side yet

@Tire@lemmy.ml
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Normal well adjusted people get a few million dollars and call it a day. Only people with a mental problem get billions and keep trying to get more.

@JackDark@lemmy.world
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when I was growing up

This is really the key. We’re all stupid and unaware of how things work and the particular goings-ons when we’re kids. There were plenty of shitty people running the tech giant companies back then, but we just didn’t realize the extent of what was happening.

Edit: The evolution of social media also adds a lot to this. We are both more connected to each other and society, and therefore more aware of BS think it’s pulled by corporations. Then, of course, you have folks like Elon Musk who seem to make a point of making sure everyone knows how big of a piece of shit they are, and how proud of it they are.

@Donkter@lemmy.world
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Yeah we’re baffled about how kids get sucked into worshipping Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, but I remember a brief time in my life when I thought Steve Jobs was the greatest and that he singlehandedly invented the iPhone with a rusty pair of pliers and gumption.

@Crashumbc@lemmy.world
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Bill Gates was an evil piece of shit, that did many illegal things to secure Microsoft’s software empire.

It was much easier to “hide” sit back then unless you were in the know in the industry.

That said I think because tech was such a young industry and innovating so quickly. Many geeks got a chance to run companies that took off. Nowadays it’s Like every other industry with sociopaths in charge.

Bill Gates was an evil piece of shit, that did many illegal things to secure Microsoft’s software empire.

Yup. And his wife left him because of his association with Epstein.

Melinda Gates Says Bill Gates’s Work with “Abhorrent” Jeffrey Epstein Led to Divorce

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