[BSOhealth]

My guess would be, actually a very small number of people think he’s the antichrist. Why would anyone other than someone with decades of operating system passion even care who this guy is? They know he’s a rich guy. Big deal. I’d guess most people just live their lives and don’t care about Microsoft monopoly or FOSS or anything. The same can probably be said for his altruism—most people probably have no idea.

[swiftcoder]

The antivax movement has been demonising the medical side of his foundation for decades at this point - I'd wager the folks who weren't born in the 90s are more likely to have heard about that than about the genesis of Windows

[SoftTalker]

The antivax movement is a tiny number of fringe wackos. Normal people are not against normal vaccines, even if some of them had concerns about one recent one in particular.

[kridsdale1]

Tiny fringe whackos yes.

But they were a significant force in electing the current president and his health secretary who is currently endangering whether we all get a flu and Covid booster this autumn.

[jonas21]

16% of American adults believe that vaccines are unsafe [1]. That's 40 million people, which is not exactly a tiny number.

While concerns about the Covid-19 vaccine are highest (24%), significant numbers of people still feel that "normal" vaccines are unsafe, like MMR (9%) and flu (11%).

[1] https://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/vaccine-confiden...

[SoftTalker]

9% (if accurate) is pretty fringe in my view. Nobody wins anything or has a mandate for changing anything with 9% support.

[swiftcoder]

They are a fringe movement that landed on the incredible PR machine that was "mommy bloggers", parlayed that over into wellness influencers on tiktok/instagram, and figured out how to tie themselves into the web of other conspiracy theories that all fringe wackos believe...

Ever met a flat earther, a Qanon, or a chemtrails guy? I'll put good money they also believe that vaccines cause autism

[Azkron]

For many people "wealthy = evil". And "poor = good". It is easier to demonize someone that is doing better than you than to admit that maybe he is just making better choices.

[keybored]

The poor can be anything. A wealthy person could have worked hard for it. A wealthy person could have also exploited others in order to get wealthy.

Virtually all (meaning systemically) very wealthy people had to exploit others to get to their very wealthy state.

[SwamyM]

Yea, his involvement with the Covid vaccine research seems to have made him a target for a large portion of the GOP/MAGA contingent. They are convinced that he wants to use the vaccine to implant a microchip in everyone and control them.

[wincy]

Huh? You must not hang around middle America, out here people act like Bill Gates wants to vaccinate all of Africa in order to sterilize them and also put microchips in your brain. I guarantee if I asked five random people on the street in Kansas about what they think of Bill Gates, half of them would say “oh right he’s like doing bad stuff with the Illuminati?” or something similar.

[nicce]

But that is not Bill Gates' fault because he hasn't been doing it in reality. I think the difference still matters. Only the restricted set of conspiracy theorists and their audience thinks otherwise.

[macintux]

That ‘restricted set’ is incredibly powerful politically at the moment.

[adamc]

This is true, because Trump caters to them. It isn't clear that their numbers drove this -- I think rather it is a function of their willingness to be completely loyal to him, which is what he craves.

[keybored]

Let’s not Trumpwash history. There are critiques of Bill Gates philanthropy which have no link to anything Trump or his supporters have ever said.