which ones do you think I missed?

image transcription:

big collage of people captioned, “the only people I wouldn’t have minded being billionaires”
names(and a bit of info, which is not included in the collage) of people in collage(from top left, row-wise):

  • Alexandra Elbakyan, creator of Sci-Hub. perhaps the single-most important person in the scientific community regarding access to research papers.
  • Linus Torvalds, creator of linux kernel and git, courtesy of which we have GNU/Linux.
  • David Revoy, french artist famous for his pepper&carrot, a libre webcomic. inspiration for artists who are into free software movement
  • Richard Stallman, arch-hacker who started it all. founded the GNU project, free software movement, Emacs, GCC, GPL, concept of copyleft, among many other things. champions for free software to this day(is undergoing treatment for cancer at the moment).
  • Jean-Baptiste Kempf, president of VLC media player for 2 decades now
  • Ian Murdock, founder of Debian GNU/Linux and Debian manifesto. died too soon.
  • Alexis Kauffmann, creator of framasoft, a French nonprofit organisation that champions free software. known for providing alternatives to centralised services, notable one being framapad and peertube.
  • Aaron Swartz, a brilliant programmer who created RSS, markdown, creative commons, and is known for his involvement in creation of reddit. he also died too soon.
  • Bram Moolenaar, creator of vim, a charityware.

on the bottom right is the text reading, “plus the thousands of free software enthusiasts working tirelessly.”

m13,

None of these people could ever be billionaires. Only a sociopathic, narcissistic mind could ever do what it takes to hoard a billion dollars. Capitalism rewards having a lack of empathy for other people.

ultra,

Cory Doctorow

solrize,

on the bottom right is the text reading, “plus the thousands of free software enthusiasts working tirelessly.”

We don’t work tirelessly. We get tired all the time, but keep at it as well as we can.

Cannacheques,

Rip Swartz man, the idea of all human knowledge from how to change your tire to how to put out a fire being monetised is legitimately scary

krimsonbun,

yeah, no

intensely_human,

i.pinimg.com/…/15f43de9c186ea8d1f9f6c4b5b8c49a7.j…

jol,

I would be OK if the guy that made Stardew Valley became a billionaire.

tastysnacks,

If we’re putting developers on the list, it should be Fabrics Bellard or Graydon Hoare.

riodoro1,

Richard Stallman

Are you sure about that one?

archonet,

yeah, that would arguably be even more awful than Elon, Stallman has been a known asshole for many years

lolcatnip,

If you’re talking about what he’s accused of saying, he did not say that. People kept repeating a badly garbled version of what he said that makes him sound awful, even though his actual words are easy to find and completely disprove the accusations.

topinambour_rex,
@topinambour_rex@lemmy.world avatar

So what he been accused of saying that he didn’t said ?

misophist,

Some examples are mentioned in this article

topinambour_rex,
@topinambour_rex@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah I read this article, or his comment about how it’s only natural for adult to be attracted to adolescents. I was more interested by @lolcatnip answer. But as a billionaire, he could buy tons of feet cheese.

TheGrandNagus,

Sure. Here are some of his words:

“The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, ‘prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia’ also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally–but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.”

RMS on June 28th, 2003

"I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren’t voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing. "

RMS on June 5th, 2006

"There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.

Granted, children may not dare say no to an older relative, or may not realize they could say no; in that case, even if they do not overtly object, the relationship may still feel imposed to them. That’s not willing participation, it’s imposed participation, a different issue. "

RMS on Jan 4th, 2013

kilgore_trout,

Yes.

curiousaur,

RIP Aaron Swartz.

4lan,

the US government has blood on their hands for this one…

EmergMemeHologram,

Can we throw Steve Irwin in here. I bet that dude could have saved the Great Barrier Reef and a whole lot of wildlife if he had more means.

camelbeard,

This is exactly why those people never become billionaires. You can’t make billions without screwing over people and the environment.

possiblylinux127,

I think you need to make money to be a billionaire.

g33z,

Image of me is missing but I still agree.

Cannacheques,

Haha love your humour dude

Omega_Jimes,

I have a standing theory that once a person is no longer concerned about their welfare or the welfare of their descendants, they go crazy.

Like, once you reach a point where survival is no longer a problem, that part of your brain goes nuts. It’s not a flawless theory, since philanthropy is a thing and people like Dean Kamen exist, but it’s a thing that seems to happen an awful lot.

EmergMemeHologram, (edited )

I think it’s more that billionaires have very few people to surround themselves with except for sycophants and other billionaires.

Nobody says no to them, everything they’ve ever done was the right thing according to everyone around them, so why should the next thing they do or say be wrong?

Covid really really accelerated the craziness among them.

Sagifurius,

Survival no longer is a problem to literally everyone in north america. yeah people die, but, when was the last time you have heard of anyone who is not anorexic starving to death? People still talk like survival is an issue, but that’s because they actually mean not being comfortable.

planetaryprotection,

This is simply not true. Starvation isn’t the only thing that kills people - they die of easily treatable medical issues all the time because of lack of health insurance. Unhoused people die of exposure every summer and winter.

Sagifurius,

I mean i tried to make it painfully obvious I wasn’t talking about medical conditions, car accidents, or crackheads being stupid, but i guess i had to come back and spell it out.

SpongyAneurism,

You’re missing the point. The risk might not be very high on average, but if you don’t want to end up on the streets, regular people still have to kind of function inside the system somehow and continuously work for regular income. The will to survive is part of what drives them to do so.

Billionaires on the other hand, wouldn’t even have to lift a finger to be able to live comfortably for the rest of their lives. On the contrary, they’d have to try really hard to get rid of all that wealth. Major fuck-ps and intentional money burning excluded, the chance that they end up having trouble getting their basic needs fulfilled is miniscule. THAT is the difference.

Sagifurius, (edited )

and there it is. I feel so sorry for you.

semnosao,

you are the stupidiest person I’ve met in this site. Congratulations.

TacoNissan,

You know, you’re a real piece of work.

outcide,
@outcide@lemmy.world avatar

I’ve worked for several very, very rich men. The pattern I notice is that they always get surrounded by people who make sure that they never, ever hear “no”.

Imagine living in a world where every inane thing that comes out of your mouth, somebody immediately makes it their mission to try and make it happen. You no longer get any kind of useful feedback from the world and your opportunities to learn from feedback are greatly reduced.

I agree, I think in the end, it does make them crazy.

qjkxbmwvz,

Patrick Volkerding could use a shout-out — founder, maintainer, and benevolent dictator-for-life of Slackware.

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