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Get on the 'Gates for President' Bandwagon
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Nov 30, 2006 04:24 PM
from the jobs-for-vice-president dept.
from the jobs-for-vice-president dept.
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.
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Scott Adams Suggests Bill Gates For President 1224 comments
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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'Gates for President' Group Gives Up 274 comments
netbuzz writes "Dilbert creator Scott Adams had done his best to make this fantasy (or nightmare, depending on your point of view) a viable notion, but after three months of trying the group's leader has acknowledged that it's unlikely Gates will give up his current gig. They've tossed in the towel." Here is our original coverage of this ill-conceived plan.
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Bill DID say he was leaving microsoft... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmm...I seem to remember that Bill say that he was going to be stepping down as Microsoft CEO in a couple of years...right about when the 2008 Presidential campaign would be heating up.
Microsoft decided to get into the console gaming arena without any prior experience. Perhaps Bill is thinking this same thing with politics. After all, Arnold Schwatzenegger and Jesse Ventura both won state governorships primarily on name recognition. And as much as I despise is company's tactics, he is quite intelligent and has real management skills.
Re:Bill DID say he was leaving microsoft... (Score:5, Funny)
You must have heard that a couple of years ago.
Re:Bill DID say he was leaving microsoft... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Bill DID say he was leaving microsoft... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bill DID say he was leaving microsoft... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bill DID say he was leaving microsoft... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Bill DID say he was leaving microsoft... (Score:5, Funny)
I'd rather vote for Jack Thomps... wait, what the fuck am I saying?!! *shoots self*
Re:Bill DID say he was leaving microsoft... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bill DID say he was leaving microsoft... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bill DID say he was leaving microsoft... (Score:5, Insightful)
I was thinking this too. How sad that one of the most reviled of businessmen is actually attractive compared to so much of the other options when it comes to President.
Re:Bill DID say he was leaving microsoft... (Score:5, Insightful)
reviled by the Geek, perhaps. but not by TIME magazine. and not by the population generally. which has never shared the Geek's hatred of Microsoft.
a poster the other day had the right idea when he wrote that the Borg icon for Gates was a desperately lame and tired old joke that has no resonance beyond Slashdot.
Re:Bill DID say he was leaving microsoft... (Score:5, Insightful)
All that shows is Gates' ability to retain a competent PR firm to groom his image in such a way that his misanthropic tendencies, dubious business practices, and outdated technical expertise are hidden behind the gloss of a $50 billion net worth. In a land of "Who wants to be a millionaire", most of the shallow end of the gene pool can't be bothered with actually analyzing the skills and merits (or lack thereof) of their political candidates.
This story is one of the biggest meta-trolls posted in Slashdot history. Honestly, what qualifies a newspaper cartoonist to advocate the political candidacy of one of the least qualified personalities imaginable other than the possible humor value when he laughs about it with friends a year from now?
Re:Uh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Is Bill smart? Certainly. Probably not that much technically (as is often said, what has he done himself since the Altair days?), but businesswise he's probably better than the very best Mafia dons in being able to barely skirt the law and use every dirty trick he can invent in making his business more successful, no matter who it hurts.
But the question is, do you really want someone smart, in a criminal way, to run the country? I certainly don't.
However, it seems we keep electing criminals to office anyway (Bush, Delay, etc.), and our current criminal president is utterly incompetent, so maybe we'd do better with a smart criminal like Bill...
Re:Uh... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Uh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Bill is a shark. If he took his business abilities, which are somewhat fearsome, and turned them to politics, then interesting things could result. Look what happened when he turned to Charity, the biggest infusion of private funds into charitable works *in* *history*.
However, is that really what America needs? I don't think so, not right now. Incidentally England was run by businessmen in the 18th and 19th century. The empire wasn't about glory, it was about profit. We did rather well out of it, even though people try and pretend that england was some kind of holy democracy. Remember the Suiz Canal Crisis? Think the motivation was political? Hell no, it was pure business reasoning. Ok it went badly for us, but that was because the climate had changed. The same reasoning had made us the most powerful nation on the planet, but its time had passed.
The fact is that at certain points in history, businessmen have been the right people to run things.
Remember that War of independence you had? Who were the initial group that started it all. Politicians? Nope, Businessmen....
Who were the people who did the most to ensure America's technological dominance and ultimate victory in WWII? Businessmen. When politicians make war armaments decisions entirely you get bad decisions, History showed this clearly. For example, the UK's war spending and research was almost entirely government controlled. That's why we rejected the Jet until the war was almost over. Would a businessman have done that? Oh hell no.
Re:Uh... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Uh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bill DID say he was leaving microsoft... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The very same things which make us hate M$... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The very same things which make us hate M$... (Score:5, Insightful)
Gates would make a horrible president because the country is not run like a dictatorship like all companies are. At MS he was the dictator, what he said went and anybody who questioned him could be canned. As a president you have to work with the congress. Bush had a compliant congress who were sycophantic to an obscene degree but even then he failed miserably in just about everything he tried.
Gates is not used to compromising, he is not used to being disagreed with. He would make a horrible president.
Imagine if ... (Score:5, Funny)
Pres Gates Day 1: The U.S. needs to become the most innovative country in the world, so I have decided in interest of attaining this goal we will rebuild Washington D.C.
Pres Gates Day 365: The Capital 2.0 is running ahead of schedule, I know it's been tough living and working out of trailers, but we should be finished within a year
Pres Gates Day 700: Due to the new competition from Tokyo's rebuilding operations, we have decided to restart our Capitol 2.0 project, but the delay will be worth it since our new Capitol will be even better than the original one planned
Pres Gates Day 1000: We have found that the Capitol 2.0 subway system was incompatible with the Capitol 2.0 sewage system, so we will rebuild DC's old subway system and try to make it work within the Capitol 2.0 structure
Pres Gates on his last day: On my final day in office, I am proud to unveil Capitol 2.0
Re:Imagine if ... (Score:5, Funny)
Everyone will forget Cheney once vice president Ballmer is in office. He breaks tie votes in the senate... with a chair!
BSoD (Score:5, Funny)
Re:BSoD (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry.
shock! (Score:5, Funny)
Have things really got that bad?
Remember (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Remember (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Remember (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Remember (Score:5, Insightful)
A point he made once that was worth remembering (paraphrasing a bit)...
Imagine that you're still unborn, in the womb, and are given the opportunity to choose the kind of world in which you'll be living after you're born. The only catch is that you can't know the circumstances of your birth - rich/poor, black/white, European/Somalian, healthy/sick, etc. Now, what kind of world do you choose when you have no idea where you'll fit into it? Buffett said that's the world you should be striving for.
Re:Remember (Score:5, Informative)
Expect a ban on open source.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Expect a ban on open source.. (Score:5, Funny)
Is it April Fools Day already? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, wait... is he running as a Republican?
Top Ten Reasons Bill Gates Would Run for President (Score:5, Funny)
2. He heard that some government agencies were using UNIX.
3. He wants to get that illegal sports car in SF Bay into the US.
4. He just thinks it would be neat to be president of two big thingies.
5. He's hot for Janet Reno.
6. His ego needs to be inflated.
7. He lost the key to his mansion, so he needs a new place to live.
8. He thinks that he can use MS Money to balance the budget.
9. He feels that Perot just didn't throw enough money at it.
10. He wants to make Windows '95 the official operating system of the USA.
Ok, those look kind of dated...but still funny
On the serious side, I wonder how many people with the power to see into the mysterious future, were tempted to e-mail the editor about a SERIOUS problem with this story!
Transporter_ii
Qualifications? (Score:5, Funny)
Careful what ya wish for, I suppose.
Prepare (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's forget open-source software for any public activities.
Er...uh...*cowers*
On the flip side, special interest groups declare bankruptancy. Groups claim they became ineffective because when ever they tried to buy Bill Gates he declined expressing that he already had enough headaches trying to spend the billions he already has.
I wouldn't vote for Gates... (Score:5, Interesting)
a waste of materiel (Score:5, Interesting)
The ultimate application of the Dilbert Principle (Score:5, Funny)
The IRONY (Score:4, Funny)
This is what I get:
"Error establishing a database connection"
How ironic. Bill Gates' presidential bid stymied by technical difficulties.
And by "ironic" I mean "totally expected and predictable."
Finally! (Score:4, Funny)
Crow T. Trollbot
Just one question (Score:5, Funny)
Except, of course (Score:5, Funny)
Except, of course, the security and stability of its most popular computer operating system.
I solemnly swear to embrace the Constitution... (Score:5, Funny)
Only 4 jobs prepare someone to be President (Score:5, Interesting)
1. State Governors
2. Vice-Presidents
3. U.S. Congressional Representatives
4. Generals
5 (almost never, but once in a century or so) a U.S. Senator
This means that the following people will NOT be elected President in 2008:
Bill Gates
Condoleeza Rice
Rudy Guliani
and the following people have a real chance only if their opponent is also a U.S. Senator:
John Kerry
Hillary Clinton
John McCain
John Edwards
Re:Worst idea I've ever heard. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you let it be too efficient, then they do things like round up all the gays, communists, jews, and anyone else they dislike and throw them in jail.
One of the major reasons the US is so sucessfull is that it created multiple layers of bureaucracy (Senate, House, Executive Branch, Legal system, State governments, etc.) instead of making one thing that just works well.
Fast governments do things without thinking, ignoring the wisdom of "hey, maybe we ought to stop and think about it before we make abortion illegal", and just go ahead and passes laws that people think they want when they are scared and terrified, instead of thinking long and hard about the long term consequences of it.
Re:Worst idea I've ever heard. (Score:5, Insightful)
No.
Good government is reasonable and thinks and debates until it's time to do something, then goes out and does it. "Inefficiency" and "Debate" are two completely different things, and equating them is like equating "debating the war in Iraq" with "not supporting our troops..." They are two completely different things that look somewhat alike to the unaware observer. I guess the real problem with our government is the people it has come to represent. Let me put it this way:
The seventh most visited site in the US is run by less than 50 people.
If that isn't a small number of people doing something beneficial for an extremely large number, I don't know what is. That's what I want out of government - run the water, run the electricity, run the courts system so it's fair, provide a social safety net, create an armed force that can defend our interests at home as effectively as necessary as cheaply as possible, push the economy to a high rate of growth, etc. And do it with as small a portion of the population and the population's resources as possible. The way our government is run now is completely purpose-less and the majority of it is done out of either sheer habit or the self-interest of politicians.
Re:Worst idea I've ever heard. (Score:5, Insightful)
You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.
An economically-efficient government could provide the same social services while charging less tax.
I think an ideal government would be slow to change laws and efficient with spending.
Re:First day on the Job (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why not? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why not? Well, Billg is a very smart guy, he's extremely intense, extremely intelligent - can pick out and remember the smallest details from specs that are hundreds of pages long - and has generally been a pretty good leader for Microsoft. Not many people can make the transition from running a small business with 3 employees to having that business become the biggest software company in the world, with over 60,000 employees. He did, and he did it well. He's got real talent.
However, Microsoft is also a frigging bureaucratic mess of unbelievable proportions. A lot of you have probalby read that Joel on Software article about the shutdown menu in Vista, and the dev's response to it in which he describes a year-long process of weekly meetings mostly spent arguing over design features. The thing is, the whole company is like that. While I'm pretty sure Billg is a nice guy (I don't know him pesonally, but it's my impression) and he's very smart and I'm sure he has far more integrity than most politicians, I don't really want to put anyone who oversaw the creation of such a bureaucracy in charge of the government. After all, it took government far longer to evolve such a horrid bureacracy, Microsoft did it in only 30 years, and most of that happened in the last 20.
So, while I have tremendous respect for Billg for his accomplishments at Microsoft, and also for Linus Torvalds and Steve Jobs for their accomplishments, I wouldn't like to see any of them become president of the United States, thank you very much (not that Linus could, because of the stricture on being a citizen by birth, of course).