Evil isn't really a word I'd use, but Bill has done some pretty damaging stuff. He, Allen, and Verhoeven helped create the patent regime that's now a huge bully tool in the hands of the megacorps. It's hard to put a nice face on Intellectual Ventures, a business whose model only works if independent rediscovery of a patent is common.

He was really nasty on a personal level too. Allen only saved his stake in the company because he happened to walk through the office late one night and heard Bill gloating with someone else about how they were going to screw him out of his shares.

I'm glad Bill has turned into the philanthropic leader he is now, but there was more ugly to his career than just some anticompetitive behavior.

> Allen only saved his stake in the company because he happened to walk through the office late one night and heard Bill gloating with someone else about how they were going to screw him out of his shares.

Sounds like a fun story, do you know if it's online somewhere?

Soros is famous for shorting the pound. Actively screwing a whole nation for profit is probably worth describing as “evil”. Gates’s anticompetitive behaviour is dickish but calling it evil is a step too far IMO

It was convenient for the people who caused Black Wednesday to pin the blame on George Soros. That this would later lead to thinly-veiled anti-semetic conspiracy theories didn't matter.

Anti-semitism exists and is reprehensible. That having been said, using it hand-wave away what could be legitimate examination and discussion of a person whose behavior may be controversial is dangerous- and could encourage true anti-semitism. Over-use of accusations of anti-semitism in such a way that discourages discussion encourages bigots to say "All <insert a people> are <insert a pejorative>", particulary if the discussion topic is a figure whose actions may be controversial at times, such as Soros. I'm focused on Soros here because he came up in discussion; this is but one example of over-use of claims of racism, anti-semitism, etc. being used to stifle legitimate discussion.

I can remember 4 controversies surrounding Soros off the top of my head. There is (or there should be) room to discuss the statements below without redirecting off-topic by raising a curtain around the subject through claims of anti-semitism:

* In the late eighties Soros was convicted of insider trading by some French regulatory authority. If memory serves, his appeals of these convictions failed. Some people claim the conviction and fine was politically motivated, some claim the conviction was true as written.

* In 2009 a Hungarian agency fined Soros Fund Management LLC for manipulating values of Hungarian OTP bank stocks. The same arguments were made for/against the justice of the conviction.

* There are claims that Soros took advantage of the British screwing up when they pegged the Pound against the Deutschmark under the Exchange Rate Mechanism, and that he gamed a lot of value from the British economy as a result. I probably don't have the details right, I've heard people say that he sucker-punched the British, and others say that it actually helped the Brits in the long run.

* There are claims that in the 90's Soros manipulated the Maylaysion economy, society and currency for his profit, and that many suffered as a result. Some believe Soros had nothing to do with the Malaysion troubles and call this a conspiracy theory- it's still worth discussing.

My point is that the use of labels that identify real problems to distract from or avoid altogether a potentially controversial discussion has the potential to make [real] racism, [real] anti-semitism, etc. much worse, and should be avoided.

EDIT: spelling / grammar

I disagree.

You're conflating two posts- each is taking a different position.

The OP mentions "...the league of superwealthy philanthropists like Bill Gates and George Soros who leave their lengthy, extraordinarily and unforgivably damaging lives of evil...". He was referring to his belief that there is an evil group of wealthy people- and that this group includes Soros as well as Gates. My post gave examples of controversy surrounding Soros, with the admonition that these should be discussed instead of being labeled then memory-holed because of the man's ancestry.

In the OP's post, Soros was included as a member of a group- without mention or implication of any member's ancestry or race. The accusation of anti-semitism regarding the post, based only on Soros having been included in a list of "bad" superwealthy people, lacks any support other than Soros's inclusion in the list- which itself is not even "thinly veiled" evidence of anti-semitism.

The application of the label "anti-semitic" to either post is an over-reaching use of the term, and this over-reach very likely contributes to an increase in real anti-semitism.

I think you are ignoring the very real fact that there are very few people in the world who’d describe Soros in that manner and don’t subscribe in anti-semitic conspiracy theories.

The inclusion of Bill Gates further supports this view, most of the people who’d describe him that way believe in weird right wing conspiracy theories about microchips and 5G.

Just finished reading Soros' The New Paradigm for Financial Markets, and also listened to a Vox podcast episode on him https://podcasts.apple.com/al/podcast/who-is-the-real-george...

He seems like a pretty reasonable and interesting guy. The Vox episode sounded like a balanced take on his legacy: mixed but generally positive impact. The biggest argument against him that resonates with me is the same that applies to all the mega-wealthy: a handful of rich individuals should not have ultimate power to craft policy decisions, rather the world would benefit from a more balanced democratic process.

I guess, if you subscribe to the weird belief that shorting is evil. Or are you referring to something else entirely?

This isn’t an especially helpful comment considering some people believe he’s trying to use the vaccine to microchip all of us or something like that