[A4ET8a8uTh0]

I personally found 0 to 1 illuminating, but it is harder for me to comment on whether it is part of a larger consciously chosen narrative or some interesting byproduct.

I do find it odd lately that we are experiencing a weird anti-cult of personality writings lately ( anti-Musk, anti-Thiel, anti-Zuckerberg ). Odd because I would normally expect articles and other propaganda glorifying their achievements ala Gates. I am not sure what to attribute this to.

[bsder]

How about the fact that we currently have a global pandemic and most of the rich did ...

Absolutely nothing.

The fact that Dolly Parton actually threw money around is part of the spotlight that demonstrates that these are not good people in spite of their positive PR.

People are just finally realizing that emperor has no clothes.

[CRConrad]

For the last few years one has seen articles about the good stuff Dolly does, and AFAICR most of it goes back much further in time than when the writings about it began to become common. Seems she, as opposed to most billionaires who look ever more the congenital arseholes, is good people for real.

On Gates, I suppose the jury will be out until well after his death? Personally, I'm totally split on him: Yes, he seems to be doing a real lot of actual good shit with his billions nowadays. But he did amass them by being perhaps the biggest robber baron of the 20th century. (And certainly the biggest -- so far! -- in the IT / "tech" [whatever that means] industry; I guess we'll have to wait until Thiel, Musk, Zuck & al are gone too, before we can assess if any of them surpassed him.)

[analognoise]

Maybe people are starting to wise up to that bullshit, the same way the native of the web died.