They're also usually relying on secrecy and speed. The way they quietly stopped and surrounded that innocent grad student, masked up, and kidnapped her so smoothly was terrifying.
Initiateofthevoid
joined 3 months ago
Really? Show me where.
It claims that he bragged about doing so, and links to another article.
But that other article doesn't support that claim with any evidence that he pressured them to keep their patent, that he bragged about it, or had any say in the final decision.
We went to Oxford and said, Hey, you’re doing brilliant work,” Bill Gates told reporters on June 3, a transcript shows. “But … you really need to team up.” The comments were first reported by Bloomberg.
AstraZeneca, one of the U.K.’s two major pharma companies, may have demanded an exclusive license in return for doing a deal, said Ken Shadlen, a professor at the London School of Economics and an authority on pharma patents—a theory supported by comments from CEO Soriot.
"We simply don’t know what’s in these deals,” he said. “The biopharma industry is applying old rules of commercial confidentiality in a situation that is unprecedented.”
A lot of people didn’t see a problem with segregating water fountains by race, either.
also i’m not sure if slavery and lynching are the same as being denied a bathroom.
Seems to be only in the US and biased articles. I can’t anything about other countries.
Where exactly did you think we were talking about? What kind of bad faith shit is this?
And biased articles? My god. Biased against what? Transphobia? What about the edu articles? The research papers? Do you need assistance operating the search engine?
I'm sorry, could you explain the irony? Do you think oppressed minorities can't also be oppressors? That they can't be misogynists, homophobes, transphobes, or just good-old-fashioned racists themselves?
tho, I am curious, why not just use unisex bathrooms? Wouldn’t that be a solution everyone can get behind
Unisex bathrooms are a solution that almost everyone transgender or ally gets behind. But they don't currently exist in most places that need more than two toilets in the building. I should clarify, because apparently I need to - we're talking about the United States.
And, by the way, "maybe they should just have a separate place to go to the bathroom"?
Sound familiar? Does it sound like segregation? Because it is. They should be able to use the bathroom for their gender without being fucking harassed, or worrying about being harassed. End of story.
He probably also fired the people who know how to make the budget in the first place.
I mean you’re kinda making a blanket statement, I can’t really work with ‘countless stories’ – can ya specify?
I never made the comparison, perhaps you should tell the above user
No, you made the contrast. You were the one that suggested that one situation is oppression and the other is not.
And also, I’m not a majority. I’m a minority as well.
If you're cisgender, you're the majority to their minority. You are a majority to them, playing the "who has it worse" game, where again, everyone loses.
Cool story bro.
Base what on? The countless stories of transgender (and cis misgendered) people being harassed in and around bathrooms?
The understanding based on real world experience that many transgender people pass as their gender, and therefore are clearly out of place in bathrooms meant for the gender that was assigned to them at birth?
The executive orders attempting to erase the recognition of transgender people entirely and require them to have the same gender listed on their passport as they did on their birth certificate? The State Department not returning or renewing passports for transgender people?
also i’m not sure if slavery and lynching are the same as being denied a bathroom.
How many times does this need to be said? How many times do majorities need to fucking hear this about minorities?
We’re not playing the “who has it worse” game because everyone loses.
This isn't Bill's action, it's Bill's inaction. As per those articles, all he did was not support the waiver of patents, which ultimately wasn't his decision anyway? He claimed that it would not significantly change production, or at least not quickly enough to matter.
It still seems shitty, but comparing to Elon? Who is actively cutting off the flow of medication that has already been manufactured and paid for - to dying children?
Allowing tuberculosis patients to lapse partway through treatment, thereby allowing drug resistant TB to skyrocket in impoverished communities and by extension the entite world?
Effectively guaranteeing a death sentence for infected children, who will experience a relapse of a horrifying but completely curable disease? Children who will not be able to afford the diagnostics and treatments for a second round because they are orders of magnitude more expensive for drug-resistant TB?
Do you have a source? The only thing I can see is much more recent, and isn't philanthropy, but lobbying.
He's apparently reduced his climate change related lobbying under the new administration... which sounds like a rational response, because this administration is actively hostile to any and all climate change initiatives.
What's the point in donating to lobby for windmills when Don ~~Quixote~~ Cheeto is in charge?
Can't use public bathroom for their gender even if they look like any other member of their gender.
Can't use public bathroom for their assigned-at-birth gender because they don't look like that gender anymore and it will feel - and be - unsafe.
Can't enter their country of origin because their passport does not match their gender
Frequently harassed and ostracized, increasingly likely they will be denied healthcare that helps keep them alive
We're not playing the "who had it worse" game because everyone loses.
But they are absolutely fucking oppressed.
how does one view these people as anything other than cruel, profoundly fucking stupid hypocrites?
Unfortunately, by also viewing them as victims. Humanity was not ready for the internet or multi-billion dollar media conglomerates, horizontally integrating across almost all sources of information in an endless stream of emotionally manipulative and intellectually degrading "content".
Many of these people are profoundly fucking stupid hypocrites, but they weren't born that way, they were made. Either as byproducts of greed seeking "engagement" and attention, and/or direct products of a deliberate decades-long effort to push society to the tipping point that it is facing right now.
A handful of powerful individuals and faceless corporations have manufactured the consent of the masses by dismantling and weaponizing education and communication.
They are responsible for taking fringe, outdated elements of society - people that are usually ignored, shunned, or left behind in times of progress - and instead gave them a platform, legitimacy, power, and a sense of community.
People like this were always a part of humanity, but it isn't natural for there to be so fucking many of them all at once, all in one place. It usually requires incredible societal upheaval, like the aftermath of a "war to end all wars".
But in the modern day? All it took was a steady influx of fear and hatred, experimentally perfected over the lifetime of radio, TV, and finally the internet.
All delivered by Murdoch, Koch, Zuck et al through the mouthpieces of complicit bastards like Limbaugh, Hannity, and Tate.
Always remember who the real problems are.
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It doesn't quote him, though. It just links to an article. Of which I provided the only seemingly relevant quotes.
Does "we told them... you really need to team up." count as bragging?
That's the only relevant quote I can see, and it amounts to him getting them to partner with AstraZeneca. It's hard to tell if the chicken comes before the egg - does AstraZeneca insist on patents, or does he?
Was it the only way to get a massive pharmaceutical partner like AstraZeneca to agree to a deal with Oxford? Or was it something he personally wanted?
Either way would appear the same - if he was directly involved in the deal, he'd be obligated to publically support it, patent restrictions and all.
The article is intentionally disingenous, as well. It claims:
Even though as you can see from - again - the same article it linked to before:
Which is - admittedly, temporarily - low prices and an extraordinarily reduced opportunity for profit. Especially given how significantly vaccination rate fell over time.
And:
There's no such thing as a good billionaire, but there is such a thing as worse billionaires. It seems like Bill Gates spent $750 million to fund vaccine development - including 1.5 million that happened to go to pre-pandemic funding of the decade-old research that made the mRNA technology even possible - and over a billion dollars on support for the WHO.
It also seems like he encouraged Oxford to partner with a giant pharmaeceutical company. This lead to them deciding not to open-source their vaccine.
It is a terrible thing to do, but it is also tough to say if they could have ever managed the immediately required production without a giant pharmaceutical partner like AstraZeneca. The first months of mass vaccination were by far the most critical.
Compared to Musk? Who took medication that was already manufactured, already bought and paid for, already in warehouses and ships and planes ready to help impoverished communities?
Who bought an election and leveraged that to suddenly and illegally cut off international aid out of spite and greed, allowing drug-resistant TB to flourish?
Who has the most money out of fucking all of them and doesn't spend a dime for anyone but himself?
That's the worst billionaire.