Evil Gates?
Although I am not a huge user of Twitter I do like to throw out some tweets that are political or that may bait some of the extremists out there. There is a lot of crap expressed online and you have to realise that what you see is not representative of the views of most people. Extreme opinions are amplified online as people cluster around them. I think it is partly a power thing as they like to think that they have the special knowledge that the 'sheeple' lack.
I posted this yesterday about the strange theories that Bill Gates wants to implant us all with tracking devices.
https://twitter.com/steevc/status/1308435237987332098
That got a response from @alanfreestone, who I met at Steemfest 2. Alan is a homeopath, so has a certain view on health issues, including a distrust of vaccines. Vaccines date back about 200 years to when Edward Jenner came up with one against smallpox, a disease that has been effectively eradicated. They have also been successful against polio, measles, influenza and other disease that affected millions.
I am no medical expert, so I cannot speak much about the science of vaccination, but it seems there are many different ways of achieving it. We now seem to have an large movement that seems to be against it in general, including any possible vaccine for COVID-19. Some of this is rooted in the discredited work of Andrew Wakefield that linked some vaccines to autism. It seems he was paid by solicitors who were trying to sue vaccine manufacturers.
Alan recommended I watch this video from the Corbett Report on Bill Gates. I am not too familiar with their work, but this assessment did not inspire much confidence.
I told him I did not really want to spend 2 hours if he could give me the main points, but he declined to do that. Youtube lets you speed up videos, so let us see what they say.
Bill is a geek, not a medical expert
I was not a great fan of Microsoft for various reasons. They were anti-competitive and stole a lot of ideas from other companies. That made him a controversial figures. This was not helped by him being socially awkward. The 'documentary' makes much of this. Someone putting a pie in his face is not too relevant.
40+ years on from his geek roots Bill is one of the richest peopel on the planet, but he is intent on giving most of it away through the foundation he founded with his wife Melinda. It could be that her influence has changed him. That is an impression I got from this documentaty, which is obviously authorised and complimentary. He is a very smart guy who is very well read. He does seem to love his Diet Coke.
Bill has lots of influence on world health
He is giving away billions to lots of projects. Is that a bad thing? It may be considered a threat by others who want to control that agenda. There are some massive medical companies out there as well as government projects. There is a lot of mention of the 'tentacles' of the foundation. That is loaded language.
They are a major contributor to the WHO who are losing US funding thanks to Trump and his insular policies. Any large organisation will have faults, but we need coordinated research across the world to fight global issues.
Of course there can be conflicts between science and business. Bill is a businessman, so his actions will be influenced by that.
He talks about a 'final solution'
An unfortunate slip. I have heard others use that term and Trump has re-tweeted some who do.
He is all about vaccines
Well, they are a proven method of dealing with diseases. But it is a trigger word for the 'anti-vax' brigade.
Companies that develop vaccines will profit from this, but they profit from lots of other things too. Big companies lobby governments all the time and this is not all public. A lot of that is for exploiting natural resources or selling weapons which I would be more worried about than curing diseases.
Any medical treatment involves risk as biological processes are incredibly complex. The rushed effort to combat COVID-19 does bring risks and the scientists are well aware of this. The desire for results by politicians and profits by companies could increase the risks. Dealing with this pandemic is inevitably political and commercial. 'Big pharma' is a powerful force and profit may override morals in some cases.
BTW The gimick of showing videos on an old IBM monitor seems a bit pointless once you get past talk of the early days of Microsoft.
Vaccines can have adverse effects
They claim that polio vaccines are actually causing the disease. The CDC lists side effects from various vaccines and mentions that polio vaccine can mutate into a harmful virus.
Gates foundation is at the 'heart of the web'
Well they have a lot of money. In some projects they contribute just a fraqction of the funds.
Bill is getting richer
He has a lot of investments and not just in medicine. Is that bad if he still gives it away?
Bill wants to slow population growth
Is that a bad aim? Current growth is not sustainable if everyone wants even a quality of life much lower than the average European or American. Reducing the pressure to have lots of children due to high infant mortality would help. This was mis-reported as using vaccines to directly reduce population.
Bill wants to track us
There are concerns about Bill wanting to track people, but it seems more about knowing the medical history to efficiently apply treatments. I would worry more about governments who want to track citizens. China is big on this.
There is a leap in the video from applying a 'bar code' to show vaccination has taken place to 'implantable microchips'. Identity is imporant for bankng (unless we go 100% crypto), medicine, voting and other fields, but we have to wary of abuse of systems by goverments.
Maybe Bill gets to excited by the technology. Ethics has to be considered too. Data has to be protected.
Bill is not such a great businessman
It is well known that he did not develop the original DOS and Microsoft stole ideas frmo Xerox. He did exploit those well to build a very profitable company. His parents were well off, but he went well beyond that. He has been ruthless, but so have most seriously rich people.
Back to population control
Here we go on eugenics, which has been pushed by various people and was part of Nazi policy. Their attempt to link Gates with eugenics gives no real evidence. Maybe a member of his family was involved with a eugenics organisation before he was born, but so were lots of prominent people when it was a popular movement. Their tagging of Bill as a eugenicist is tenuous.
Bill and Epstein
Jeffrey Epstein seems to have been successful at associating with influential people and he did have dealings with Bill. Jeffrey does seems to have been a very dodgy character, but no evidence is presented of any mis-deeds by Bill.
My conclusions
Apparently I am now one of the 'most informed people in the world' on these topics. Bill is no saint, but I get the impression he wants to use his wealth for good. I see no real evidence of a dangerous agenda to control the world population. The video picks and chooses which quotes to use to suit their own agenda. Of course someone who is 'anti-vax' will not like how Bill is spending his money.
I do accept that a lot of shady deals go on between businesses and politicians. They want to retain the power they have. Some may want to extend that and apply unethical policies to the greater population. We need people who watch out for that. There are some in the 'mainstream media' that is reviled by many online pundits, but who has the resources to actually investigate such issues properly? From what I have seen Jamers Corbett is not the man for the job. His obvious biases and dubious evidence do not serve him well even if he can make flashy videos. It is a case of style over substance.
https://twitter.com/steevc/status/1308721040072339456
Well put.
I do not claim to be an expert on everything, but I can assess the case they put. I find it lacking.
Agreed.
The only reason these Bill Gates conspiracies exist is because of that Ted Talk he should never have done. He basically says that with vaccines they can put a ceiling on the total human population and even reduce it.
Bam 10 years of conspiracies involving the WHO, the UN and Agenda 21 bs.
Reducing the total population does not have to mean killing people or even involuntary sterilisation. Growth has already slowed or even reversed in some countries, but in Africa it is going to go much higher. Some people seem to think we cannot talk about population, but it is a major factor in whether we can survive. David Attenborough has talked about it too.
Gates is a convenient whipping boy for the conspiracy crowd. There are much more dangerous people out there. Gates is smart, but he is no Lex Luthor.
I really don't like eugenics and I'm immediately suspicious of anyone who is, that's the bias I look through when I regard this topic.
Anyone who thinks they have the prescription for how the entire human race should exist and progress is someone I wouldn't want around at my place for dinner. Anyone who is deluded enough to hold such a recipe is a fool and power monger, in my opinion.
This just seems like another implementation of central planning theory, which doesn't work when applied to emerging systems like an economy. I can only imagine it'll fail just as badly with an emerging system like human population.
Any prescription will be subverted the moment it is written, and our attempts to keep it valid take the form of encroaching totalitarianism
Anyways, I don't trust humans to create plans this vast especially when it regards other people.
I'd like to see an AI give their opinion - one not programmed by Microsoft, ideally.
Eugenics was really big for a while and people even named their kids after it. I can see why it appealed, but that sort of control is not ethical.
People have often failed at grand plans to improve things, but we can still aim to be better. Just have to be really careful about implementing anything radical. It's a fact that billions of people have pretty shit lives whilst we live in relative luxury. If everyone had a big house, car, gadgets etc we would soon run out of resources. We need to live simpler lives whilst helping those at the bottom of the ladder, but that is easier said than done.
I know Bill also has projects around sanitation and energy. Those are also lacking in much of the world.
Humans are great, but greed is a powerful force. Have to have hope we can find ways to be viable for a lot longer.
I feel like this story has been told dozens of times before and we're ignoring the lessons learned for some reason. In my opinion there is far too much precedent out there to not approach this with skepticism. Irresponsible to not, even.
Eugenics is always justified as a means of protecting a demographic in order to secure their future, but in the end, without fail, it becomes just a way for the ultra powerful to cement that power for all time.
They use virtue filters and leverage people's emotions in to prevent dissent and to get a blank-check of approval from the population.
In Australia they convinced the population that the Aboriginals would all die if they weren't rounded up and put into paternalistic style reservations, in reality it was just to secure the colonial power.
It's not hard to think of an instance where this happened. History is filled with stories of the powerful deceiving the powerless in order to acquire more.
It's the 'for the greater good' mentality, weaponized to service the ultra powerful.
Quite frankly, i don't believe the theory is valid, therefore i immediately distrust any attempt to leverage it. Because of this I doubt their claims that extinction is coming and that the only way to prevent it is to see their agenda realized. Fear is a powerful tool, as are sympathy and kindness - all of which become weaponized.
Fear is powerful, but is sometimes justified. We are in unprecedented times and seem to be in a rush to trash things.
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ENGAGEtokens.I am probably not going to get the Covid Vaccine right away unless it is required for my job. I just think it is all too rushed and I would like to see what happens over time before I dive into that. It isn't that I don't believe in vaccines. I was talking to my wife a while ago about vaccines and I mentioned the whole autism thing. She is a licensed master social worker so I would consider her an expert in her field when it comes to mental health and disabilities (the courts do too, she had to testify once or twice). Anyway, she pointed out that the tests for things like autism aren't typically administered until a certain age. It is usually after they have received their vaccines, so the idea that the one is tied to the other is a bit flawed. It could have been there before the vaccine, they just don't test for it.
The vaccine should be prioritised for those who need it most, but the results will be carefully watched I am sure. There are issues with some vaccines, but to condemn them all seems crazy. We rely on all sorts of medicines to keep us healthy and some carry risks as our bodies are so complex.
I only use Twitter to Copy and Paste the link of the posts I make on the blockchain
Good move, but it may be worth joining the #HiveChat discussion that happens each week there. Most of my engagement is on Hive.
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As for Bill Gates I just don't know what to think
Well it is up to you to decide who to trust for news. It's hard to imagine how life is for a multi-billionaire, but he is still human.
My wife has obtained a large amount of emails through a PRR between the Gates Foundation and the State of Washington. The state listened to Gates more than the government and the CDC. The insane lock downs that have done nothing but harm in the States are directly linked to the Foundation for which Fauci has been connected for years. Washington Gov Inslee, whose daughter works for the foundation as well, is one of the despot governors of the west coast that are allowing rioting and wanton destruction to happen.
The word of the 2000s is OBFUSCATION. Every bit of the truth is being hidden from the world. That is how ALL governments and corporations work.
I don't believe in absolutes. Some truths are being hidden by some governments and corporations. It is all people and they are not all the same.
I never liked him and still don't, but that doesn't mean I buy into all the conspiracy-rubbish. He is a corrupt man that has far too much power. That was true even when he headed Microsoft. I am not a believer in heroes and villains, and prefer a civil society to take the decisions and lead the moneyflow to worthwhile solutions.
The system as it stands allows for vast accumulation of wealth and it seems to accelerate as they get richer. They need to pay a fair share of tax. It is good that he wants to give his money away, but people will worry about his methods and motives. I just feel that there is a lot of mis-information being spread and some are happy to lap that up as it feeds into their general distrust of the powerful. I do not believe that every rich and powerful person is inherently bad. People are so variable.
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ENGAGEtokens.