Talk:Bill Gates
All roads lead to population reduction
In the book "Why stock markets crash by Sornette D. (z-lib.org).pdf" the author (last chapter) takes on the subject of population growth (which is indeed of concern to me, too). He cites paleontologists from Cornell who's hypotheses turn out to be related to many projects Bill Gates has initiated. It is clamed, that
- global cooling lead to population reduction in ancient times ("paleoclimatic data");
- when water supplies became scarce ("multicentury-length droughts", "too many people and too little fresh water") this lead to population reduction;
- reduced soil quality (read: need for furtilizers) lead to population reduction;
- epidemics where factors resulting from the above ("a consequence, the civilization became vulnerable to environmental stress");
Furthermore, he thinks, that increasing complexity leads to a special vulnerability to even minor changes in temperature and rainfall: "A disruption that is particularly predicted is that future climatic change will involve both natural and anthropogenic forces and will be increasingly dominated by the latter."
What we are seeing, IMHO, is to bring about all these changes, i.e. vulnerabilities of people to stress, drought, cooling and epidemics in a controlled and most of all deceptive fashion. I think the data as well as the hypotheses are highly unreliable and speculative. The obvious proportionality of population growth and income inequality is particularly denied.
And, BTW, the proposed solution is also known: AI.
- human interactions with computers
- entities with greater than human intelligence before 2030... [called "superhumans"]
- and: executing simulations.
And these scientists press for fast solutions, they claim special urgency, a dead-line in 2050. Sounds familiar? Urban (talk) 08:29, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
DOS source code
From the current version of the article:
"He started Microsoft, after reportedly cutting open source code from UNIX down to a basic Disk Output System (DOS) and making it proprietary.[citation needed] MS-DOS."
I think that is, or was, matter of (specialized) debate. Some analysis showed that it is not a copy over. Can't think of the article that I was reading but if I remember correct the person that looked at it made some effort to get the source code for evaluation and those parts that are identical to some degree, are above suspicion. Any ideas? - Sunvalley (talk) 21:26, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
- "PC DOS version 1.0, which supported only floppy disks, was shipped when IBM first released their PC in August 1981. Microsoft then substantially rewrote the software to support subdirectories and hard disks; version 2.0 was released with the IBM PC-XT" in March of 1983." source; https://computerhistory.org/blog/microsoft-ms-dos-early-source-code/
- http://www.patersontech.com/dos/softalk.aspx < this page notes 300 change requests they made, but I can't find a live copy. Maybe this helps you? Jun (talk) 05:24, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks. The article I was thinking of is this one (Was DOS copied from CP/M?). So the discussion as far as I understand (and the technical details in programming are way above my head .. but anyway) is, if he copied from CP/M for what would become PC-DOS. Wikipedia notes that: "IBM PC DOS (and the separately sold MS-DOS) and its predecessor, 86-DOS, was based on Digital Research's CP/M—the dominant disk operating system for 8-bit Intel 8080 and Zilog Z80 microcomputers—but instead ran on Intel 8086 16-bit processors."
- the author of the first article, Bob Zeidman, says from his analysis this is not the case (at one point he was retained by Microsoft as an expert witness in Motorola Mobility v. Microsoft). Unix is for the most part not mentioned in those discussions. Can't make much of it but search results for PC-DOS+Unix shows next to nothing. So is: "reportedly cutting open source code from UNIX down to a basic Disk Output System (DOS) and making it proprietary" valid? I think maybe not, but I am not the expert.
- My guess is then, that the question is, if he had taken source code from CP/M - not Unix. "Kildall's claims that the API and look and feel of 86-DOS had been copied from CP/M." / but source code claims seem to be wrong. As easy solution I would remove that sentence, maybe later write something about Kildall's claims. --Sunvalley (talk) 02:55, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
Sounds fine for now, go for it. Jun (talk)
It was "86-DOS" that MS purchased and modified. -- "Microsoft started in 1975 as a producer of programming languages for the MIPS Altair 7500. In 1981, Microsoft bought an operating system for the Intel based 8086 chip from a small company called Seattle Computer Products and redesigned its product to license it to IBM for its new personal computer. This was released as MS DOS 1.0. (Microsoft Timeline) IBM, "[1] -- "Originally 86-DOS, written by Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products, DOS was a rough clone of CP/M for 8086 based hardware. Microsoft purchased it and licensed it to IBM for use with Microsoft's IBM PC language products. In 1982, Microsoft began licensing DOS to other OEMs that ported it to their custom x86 hardware and IBM PC clones."[2] -- Sunvalley (talk) 00:08, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
- What hackers disliked, was this new licensing model. As it was understood at the time that every programmer builds on the code and work of others and that this learning from each other was free and a collaborative effort, they argued that renting out an operating system (the work of many authors) stinks - even if Gates "bought" it beforehand. The word was out, that he was "stealing" by patenting free code from others and selling it. The GNU public license was later invented to prevent this from happening again. Many (free) UNIX internal commands are found in DOS and CP/M. "Stealing" may be not the technically correct term and BTW others did similar things. Code was not protected then. But what he did was unethical. Like nearly everything he did since. Thats moral insanity. Urban (talk) 19:13, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
Current version of the article:
There is a logical fallacy here: In the above quote, Gates promotes population reduction through vaccination ("perhaps, 10 or 15 percent") and "reproductive health" (ie abortions) - at the same time he pretends to help people live longer by developing "medicine" for them (which his foundation has patented beforehand).
This was entered by Urban, not sure if he is/was aware that - as the theory goes - Gates assumes that when living conditions improve the urge to have many children goes down in a generation or so .. when the pressure of rough living conditions is taken away, births will go down -> Overpopulation – The Human Explosion Explained + this. So Gates is consistent within his own argument. (also: "reproductive health" is not just abortions, but also means to decide on the time of pregnancy) Any idea how to enter that, to reflect what Urban was not aware of at the time? -- Sunvalley (talk) 23:02, 13 May 2023 (UTC)
- What about explaining the ambiguity of the statement. Something like:
- Gates' statement is ambiguous. On the surface, he is consistent within his own argument, and assumes that when living conditions improve thanks to his "health solutions" the urge to have many children goes down in a generation. On the other hand, given his extensive ties to eugenicists and funding for mass sterilization methods, the statement clearly reveals that the overriding goal is a large population reduction."
Terje (talk) 01:12, 14 May 2023 (UTC)
