Bill Gates Says Snowden is No Hero

http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/14/bill-gates-says-snowden-is-no-hero/?ncid=rss

by nherbold • 12 years ago

30 26 12 years ago

bediger40002• 12 years ago

Wow, that really gives me pause! A multi-billionaire says Snowden is no hero. Don't know about you, but I often let Gates, Trump, Buffett, the Walton heirs and the Koch Brothers dictate my opinions for me! Just because they're rolling in it!

But really, Gates isn't a philosopher, isn't a lawyer, isn't a politician, and arguably represents the very worst that the stale status quo has to offer. Why should we let him assure us that upsetting the system that gave Gates billions of dollars is bad, bad, very bad? It would be news if he said something opposite to "Snowden is no hero", if he advocated some very serious changes, and put his money where his mouth is. As it stands, this is non-news, it's predictable.

gamblor956• 12 years ago

Believing that Snowden isn't a hero doesn't make Bill Gates worse than the others. It simply means that Gates doesn't think Snowden is a hero. He doesn't say whether he considers Snowden to be a villain, which is entirely separate from not being an hero.

if he advocated some very serious changes, and put his money where his mouth is

You must be unfamiliar with the billions he's spending on medical research, education, and various other nonprofit causes. He's the single largest charitable donor in history (excepting Nobel, who has the advantage of a century's headstart on inflation).

Moreover, you bring up Trump, the Waltons, and the Kochs and then call Bill Gates the worst of the bunch?

bediger40002• 12 years ago

Context is everything dude. "Serious changes" with respect to the topic under consideration, NSA overreach and mass, probably unconstitutional surveillance. Why try to broaden the context to include Gates' philanthropic work? It's not relevant.

But given your fondness for irrelevancy, I can see why you would ignore mockery of Arguments from Authority. Such mockery eats at the foundation of a worldview and theology that puts Very Rich People at the summit of humanity.

Good day, Sir.

pg• 12 years ago

"I think he broke the law, so I certainly wouldn’t characterize him as a hero."

That seems strange reasoning. Many heroes break laws.

Plus the NSA broke the law worse.

mathattack2• 12 years ago

Non-violent resistance (civil disobedience) is all about willfully breaking the law. His reasoning would also exclude Martin Luther King and Gandhi from his pantheon of heroes.

tptacek2• 12 years ago

Three possibilities:

1. Bill Gates does not know that Martin Luther King broke the law.

2. Bill Gates does not consider Martin Luther King a hero.

3. Bill Gates means something different, when he points out that Snowden broke the law, than simply that there was a statute forbidding Snowden's actions.

1-2 seem unlikely.

noblethrasher3• 12 years ago

It also means submitting to the authorities when you break the law; MLK spent a lot of time in jail. In fact, he often pointed out that the segragationist, who were also breaking many laws, were cowards because they wouldn’t risk jail time.

aric4• 12 years ago

I wish it were strange reasoning.

It's utterly normal. It's the common reasoning of a vast body of people who are completely divorced from conscience; and/or who have ulterior motives; and/or who are apathetic or ignorant to the ramifications of a total surveillance state because they don't personally feel its weight; and/or who suffer a deep cognitive dissonance that generally stems from nationalism and allegiance to political sports teams under a shared umbrella.

staunch• 12 years ago

I read the rest of the quote as correcting that statement. He seems to be objecting to the way Snowden went about breaking the law, not breaking the law itself.

"If he wanted to raise the issues and stay in the country and engage in civil disobedience..."

wise_young_man• 12 years ago

Didn't the founding fathers of the United States break some laws when they were under British rule?

"If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so." - Thomas Jefferson

theonemind• 12 years ago

Gates is worried about law breaking now? I guess this law breaking won't make him any money.

He's too smart and rebellious to actually care about the law. He's not stupid enough to believe what he's saying about lawbreaking and herohood. He means he likes the system the way it is because he's on top, and he has no motivation to rock the boat or have the establishment against him

Which is a shame, because he has the money and power to defend himself and say what he really thinks and stand up for real justice.

He lost some of the respect I had for him because of his philanthropy when I read this.

orlandob• 12 years ago

He is explicitly anti-Snowden and agnostic on Government surveillance (love the "we need more debate" trope). Bill Gates knows who butters his toast.

tptacek2• 12 years ago

Yes. Big Polio.

joezydeco• 12 years ago

" If he wanted to raise the issues and stay in the country and engage in civil disobedience..."

Kind of hard to do that when you're sitting in 24 hour solitary confinement in Guantanamo, Mr Gates.

dpweb• 12 years ago

Gates is right to be moderate on the question. Expecting him to come out and call Snowden a hero is ludicrous. Even asking the question "Is Snowden a hero" is bullshit. It's a oversimplification designed to generate a good headline. Hence this story's headline..

The country is incredibly polarized and its a negative thing for the USA. As a world leader and he is one, the responsible thing would be for him to be (at least publicly) moderate on the topic, and he happens to be right, we need the debate to figure out several very important issues about our democracy and what are the real threats to it.

As far as tactics, civil disobedience (ala MLK or Gandhi) is definitely the way to go. As a tactic, it let's you get the moral high-ground. That is incredibly powerful. Throwing a brick through a window (or releasing state secrets), doesn't get you that, even if its justified. So I would agree with Gates, Snowden could have used a better tactic. Although, how do you get attention to the issue through the noise and lies of the media without doing something drastic. I don't know. It's a tough issue.

bsder• 12 years ago

The country is incredibly polarized and its a negative thing for the USA. As a world leader and he is one, the responsible thing would be for him to be (at least publicly) moderate on the topic, and he happens to be right, we need the debate to figure out several very important issues about our democracy and what are the real threats to it.

If you consider him to be a world leader it is also his responsibility to be a leader on topics that matter to things like the future of governance.

subsection1h• 12 years ago

So I would agree with Gates, Snowden could have used a better tactic.

Which tactics would have been better?

And since it's been 10 full months since Snowden released the documents, you and Gates are in a much better position than Snowden had been to make an informed decision regarding which tactics would have been better.

So I repeat, which tactics would have been better?

AutoCorrect• 12 years ago

Gates is towing the party line, he just wants to keep status quo. All the companies suing the government are doing it for the theatre "oh please Mr Government, you REALLY REALLY shouldn't take this data and use it", meanwhile they're salivating at the thought of actually collecting this for the government and tying it up with a nice neat bow.

What civil disobedience could Snowden have done? Nothing that would have caused a discussion of this magnitude. And even with all that he's revealed, the government is still going on with business as usual. There will be no substantive change. It's really disgusting how few people care about this - "if you're doing nothing wrong then you have nothing to hide" - if I hear this one more time I'm going to puke on someone's shoes.

To summarize: Gates is a government suckup and Snowden IS a hero.

thinkpad20• 12 years ago

People criticizing Bill Gates' opinion is fine, but doing so on the basis of the fact that he is very rich is silly. I don't think Snowden is a hero either, and I'm just a working shlub. Obviously, I think there are perfectly legitimate reasons to not think he's a hero that have nothing to do with whether or not you run a multibillion dollar corporation. I wouldn't say the reason for my opinion is that he broke the law, but I don't think that's what Gates meant by saying that either; I think that what he meant was that the law that Snowden broke exists for a good reason, and that the manner in which he broke it was bad.

futurist• 12 years ago

Bill Gates is an old fuddyduddy with too many friends in high places to ever side with Snowden. His answer isn't the least surprising.

Bill Gates Says Snowden is No Hero

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