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Scott Adams Suggests Bill Gates For President

Posted by kdawson on Mon Nov 20, 2006 06:38 AM
from the not-in-it-for-the-money dept.
Government It's funny. Laugh. Politics
gerrysteele writes to point out a recent post to the Dilbert blog, in which Scott Adams discusses the atheist ascendancy in America and rationalizes the need for an atheist leader. From the article: "Ask a deeply religious Christian if he'd rather live next to a bearded Muslim that may or may not be plotting a terror attack, or an atheist that may or may not show him how to set up a wireless network in his house. On the scale of prejudice, atheists don't seem so bad lately. I think that in an election cycle or two you will see an atheist business leader emerge as a legitimate candidate for president. And his name will be Bill Gates."
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[+] Get on the 'Gates for President' Bandwagon 654 comments
netbuzz writes "Dilbert's Scott Adams kicked off the idea in his November 19th blog post, saying there isn't anything wrong with this country that President Bill Gates couldn't cure in less time than it takes to get a new operating system out the door. Today, the idea is moving forward with a brand-new 'Bill Gates for President' Web site. Adams is also back on the campaign trail, flogging the site and Gates' candidacy." A blog post at Network World includes a lot of eye-rolling about this idea, but neither Adams nor the folks at the 'Gates for President' website seem to be taking this lightly.
[+] News: The Fall Geek TV Lineup 318 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Wired has an article looking at this Fall's bumper crop of geek TV. McG, who directed the pilot for the show Chuck, opines that the appearance of nerd culture on network television is a long-overdue reflection of real life. From the article: 'Hollywood, he said, is playing catch-up with IT culture. "The classic shape of the computer geek is over when Bill Gates became the (richest), most aspirational, coolest guy in the world," he said. "He is the original thick-glasses, pocket-protector guy. Now who doesn't want to be like Bill Gates?"' They have reviews of the lengthy list of shows, for clues as to what to watch and what to miss."
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  • God (Score:5, Funny)

    by Wooky_linuxer (685371) on Monday November 20 2006, @06:41AM (#16912216)
    help us.

  • Oh, the humanity! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bromskloss (750445) on Monday November 20 2006, @06:42AM (#16912220)
    Something tells me that government wouldn't switch over to free software too soon.

  • Of course! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Esteanil (710082) on Monday November 20 2006, @06:51AM (#16912264) Homepage Journal
    I believe him.

    But as to timing, I think it will happen a short while after Microsoft wins the nationwide bid on supplying software for the next generation election machines... ;-)

  • I can see it now.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 20 2006, @06:52AM (#16912272)
    "Your country has performed an illegal operation."

    Oh, wait............ it already has. Nevermind.
  • My Oval Office
    My Little Puppy British Prime Minister
    My Electronic Voting Machine - press the button, the screen changes, but nothing else does.
    UN.dll has caused a fatal error.
    Foreign Country Explorer - where do you want to invade today?

  • Why? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by techmuse (160085) on Monday November 20 2006, @07:18AM (#16912432)
    Why would Gates want to give up so much power to become president? Wouldn't that be a step down?

  • End of faith (Score:5, Interesting)

    by clickclickdrone (964164) on Monday November 20 2006, @07:26AM (#16912496) Homepage
    Anyone interested in the possibilities of a world without faith could so worse than read the book "End of Faith" by Sam Harris. This book puts forward a powerful argument against all religions whilst putting forward insightful ideas for an alternative way to add value to our lives. It also has interesting views on radicalism within religion, primarily that the only true believers of any religion are the fanatics as they take the entire bible/koran/whatever at face value and live it whereas more moderates cherry pick the bits they like and ignore the bits they don't (stoning the neighbour for eating fish on a tuesday, nah, ignore that one. Hate gays? yup, tick) resulting in the vast majority of any given religions followers as basically failing that religons requirements.

        • Re:End of faith (Score:5, Informative)

          by MartinB (51897) on Monday November 20 2006, @08:56AM (#16913072) Homepage
          One could get in to a discussion about OT versus NT but a quick look at e.g. Leviticus will reveal a whole bunch of 'laws' which most modern Christians choose to ignore yet others which they hold to be absolute truths to live their lives by.
          The thing is, that the OT/NT discussion is the key here. The NT thing is that loving God, and loving other people fulfils the entire OT law, without the specific list of items.

          Now many evangelicals like to pick and choose from the specific list according to their own tastes/prejudices, but you're right, to be consistent, one should go the whole hog, as Christianity doesn't actually have a concept of big sins/little sins - a sin is a sin is a sin (pace Catholicism). But they don't like it when you point this out, as much of it is clearly absurd to western society. As are the bits they like to pick out. One good exposition of this is the one from the The West Wing [bewarne.com]:

          "I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleaned the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be?"

                  "My chief of staff, Leo McGarry, insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it okay to call the police?"

                  "Here's one that's really important cause we've got a lot of sports fans in this town: touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7 If they promise to wear gloves can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point?"

                  "Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother, John, for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads?"


          But just because some people like to pick specifics from a menu doesn't mean that this is at all an accurate, authentic description of Christianity.
  • I can see this happening.
    - Finland added to list of rogue states.
    - Bin laden looses first place to Torvalds
    - US army invades China in the War Against Piracy.
    - European parliament get accidentaly carpet bombed. Suriving senator drops MS fines.
    - Microsoft tax becomes official and mandatory for everyone.
    - Making MS jokes becomes capital crime. Death sentence reintroduced in all states.
    - Gate-ology becomes state religion. Defines witches as people who use different OS.
    - enviromentalists complain on enviromental effects of witch burnings.
    - Enviromentalists proven to be very flameble.

  • The need for an _intelligent_ leader (Score:5, Interesting)

    by darekana (205478) on Monday November 20 2006, @08:15AM (#16912780) Homepage
    We don't need an atheist leader...

    We need an INTELLIGENT leader.

    I propose a community service requirement, simple speech writing, debate, basic geography and IQ tests for potential presidents.

    If we have tests for becoming a lawyer or doctor why isn't there a fricking test to become president.

    Why do applicants to med school need 100 hours of community service and impeccable marks while Bush don't need shit.

    We can't continue having senile or stupid people running America.

    • Re:neighbors (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Das Modell (969371) on Monday November 20 2006, @06:52AM (#16912274)
      Atheism does not make you predisposed to any particular behavior, or increase your likelihood of doing or not doing something. The same cannot be said of Islam.

    • Re:neighbors (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ContractualObligatio (850987) on Monday November 20 2006, @07:27AM (#16912502)
      On the child molestor odds:
      Have you heard the stories about some Catholic priests? Or the activities of some cults? Or Michael Jackson? Hardly a scientific study, but arguably in the public mind child abuse is more likely with those who have a strong belief (however bizarre in Jackson's case...).

      Irrespective of whether Adams is right or not:
      Suggesting that the US electorate is more willing to vote for an atheist than a member of a religion that is (however unfairly) associated with the current war in Iraq, 9/11, etc, seems to me an entirely reasonable thing to suggest.

      Why is suggesting an atheist president so stupid? Have I missed something? It seems to me Adams is simply hopeful that there might be a president who bases his decisions on facts and thinking, rather than an unaccountable belief system within a framework no one can quite agree on anyway. And again, it seems a reasonable proposition for a debate that the electorate might go for a well respected (outside of the tech community!), successful, famously philanthropic atheist before a Muslim, even if it is only for all the wrong reasons.

    • Re:How is this news? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jugalator (259273) on Monday November 20 2006, @07:09AM (#16912374) Journal
      And I fail to see your sense of humor.

      • Re:How is this news? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by kripkenstein (913150) on Monday November 20 2006, @08:49AM (#16913004)
        Yes, TFA was in humor. But is there no basis in fact? In the US, only the ultra-rich run for (and win) the presidency. Bill Gates in the richest man in the US. Now, it's true not every rich candidate can get elected (as nicely pointed out in the book Freakonomics), but still, the possibility can't be discounted. Like Scott Adams says, give Bill a decade or so of charity work, and his popular image will look pretty voteworthy. A chilling thought.

        • Re:How is this news? (Score:5, Informative)

          by diegocgteleline.es (653730) on Monday November 20 2006, @07:50AM (#16912630)
          You don't read Scott Adam's blog a lot, do you? Scott Adams is all about parodies and is always laughing about something, specially about the people who takes seriously what he says. His proposal of Bill Gates as president is just yet another funny post of crazy ways to be president of the united states. Just a small example:

          "As a political candidate, I would advocate some sort of tax rebate to subsidize Internet porn and Kleenex for single men between the ages of 18 and 35. That way all the potential rapists can more easily afford to exhaust themselves at home. I'd have graphs and charts to make my argument that no other policy would be as effective. My slogan would be "Deal with the root cause." I would call it my Yankee Doodle plan.

    • Re:The more I see Microsoft Products like Zune pop (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pubjames (468013) on Monday November 20 2006, @07:24AM (#16912482)
      Yes, he knows some tech, but does he get it?

      This is the great misunderstanding about Bill Gates. Many people think of him as a brilliant technologist, but he is actually a brilliant businessman with a good understanding of computer technology. Unfortunately I expect he will go into the history books as a brilliant technologist.

    • Re:WTF is this intolerant bullshit? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MichaelSmith (789609) on Monday November 20 2006, @07:31AM (#16912518) Homepage Journal
      It is interesting to me that the USA is one of the worlds most influential christian nations, and one of the few countries on earth with a constitutional separation between church and state.

      By comparison my own country (Australia) is almost athiestic, yet our constitution bars anybody who is not a member of the church of england becoming head of state.

      Is it possible that this is a passing phase for the USA? Is the religious right being supported by people who will be dead in 10 years? Or does this run right down through the younger generations?

      I get the impression that religion, like support for guns, is just one of the symbolic markers which politicians use to stake their territory. Perhaps because the language of economics is too complex for most people so they have to base their campaigns on simple things.

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