Bill Gates: The next Emperor?

[Praxius]

I was thinking of something last night, and I came to the conclusion that Democracy will in the end change to an Imperial rule or Dictatorship and this is how:

• Democracy is basically fueled to survive on Currency and current laws.
• Canada and the US are basically buit in a way where people can start a business or career, earn as much money as they want, the more money you have, the more freedom you can buy, the more you can do with your life, the more control you seem to have.

Now, let's put this into perspective:

• Bill Gates.... the guy we all know as the person who created the Window Operating System, and we all know him for being filthy rich for it too.

• He has always had a hate on for piracy and the sort, because it looses him money for every pirated OS being used by persons around the world.

• It is very easy to access files, download them and use them without having to pay for them, via P2P and Torrent sites.

• Torrent files link people together with the paticular file that they are sharing with one another, which results in fast downloading of a paticular file you know will work. The more people connected, the more resources available for download of that paticular file.

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Now let's put into theory that Bill Gates got a little fed up and figured he's gonna get his money from these people. He hires a guy to check out all the Torrents relating to Microsoft programs and resources.... he makes a program for the guy to check and record all IP addresses that are linked in the torrents, and allows this to buildup. (Or he finds some way to track who is connected to them.)

He then records the information of the paticular programs being transferred and then sends everything to the proper authorities of this matter. They make a big sting operation of all these people on the other end of these IP addresses, confiscate their computers, find the programs installed on their systems via same registry information, etc. that he uses to detect each one, and proves they stole the program.

He then takes the millions of people around the world to courtand tries to suck every penny he can from anybody he can, gaining a lot more money, and putting those who pirated in a bigger hole, which by the laws, he could do to a degree, depending on international and national laws.

Now due to this and him possibly winning a lot of money (Let's just go with the flow here, besides just saying it wouldn't happen) I imagine a lot of individuals and companies would probably go under due to financial difficulties and now having to purchase ligit operating systems for their companies and the down time involved in installing and networking, etc.

A lot of companies and people would go bankrupt, then a chain reaction of these companies going under would affect other companies and loose further money, so what might be done to stop this, is Bill Gates then uses some of this new won money, and even some of his already acumulated fortune, buys out these companies and then become his property.

He then earns more income from these newly aquired assests and gains further control and power over most corporations and the sort. Then over time as he takes over one company after the next, Until he has his hands into almost every aspect of our lives.... ie: a monoploy.

Since then he now owns a majority of companies around the world, esspecially in the Americas, and most, if not all, of these companies are now privatly owned, he can choose and decide what can and will be done. Eventually he would have more power and controll over citizens lives then the government. If they give him crap, he shuts all the companies down, collects all his money and watch society collapse. Since nobody would want this to happen, he would remain in power with this advantage. Before you know it, Bill Gates buys out the US and Canada (For example) and basically has all controll over them financially, which pretty much means absolute power.

Meanwhile, Macintosh would be wanting to stay as a competitor, so they may begin to try something similar, and buy out a few small countries.... so that countries are now owned by corporations and the will of what is done by each country is based on the desires of those who have money and power over those who don't....

It's already the way today, why wouldn't it become worse later down the road? Then you got corporations fighting for terroitory and resources to keep themselves strong against the other mega corps, and then wars break out, and people will fight for them, so they have some way of living.... people would go to the highest bidder basically.

And then in another few hundred years, with corporations having the end all say in almost everything, could bypass current safety laws and regulations, via owning lawyers, judges, police, etc.... that they can increase their development of new technologies without having to worry about human rights, possibly developing space exploration much quicker then todays standards, and then begin to claim and colonize other planets.

Just think about it..... Our Sun could be called "The Big Mac" in a few years.

Now of course this is certainly way out there, and probably would never happen... but as a brain storming topic, a theory exercise, how would you feel about the planet turning into something like this?
Would this be a better form of government then what we have now?
Would there be further oppression?
Could you see Corp Wars in the near distant future?
If you didn't like this outcome, how would you prevent it?
How would you fight it?
Would you begin to feel Currency would be the destruction of society?
Do you really trust your Democracy?

And please don't respond with "This is impossible to happen" or something like that, because I know.... there is no need to state the obvious. If you don't want to contribute to the topic in a brain storming way, then don't bother to post, because you'll just be wasting space and our time.

I am reffering to this topic as a "What If" ~ A "What if.... for some remote, freak accident this happened" ~ What would you do?

[phoenix_fire]

Don't worry. The Illuminati will stop him.

[Slevin57]

I think a corporation run country is fairly likely. I mean if you think about it large corporations really do get what they need.

Fast Food resturants wanted to be able to use credit card payments, Visa wanted them to do so as well. But, they knew it would be a problem for customers to sign the receipt and hand it back and an accounting nightmare to figure it all out (think of all the lost pens!).

So, Visa proposed that for purchases under $25 no signature was required. Wouldn't it be nice if you got a speeding ticket, to be able to change the speed limit on that road?

As normal citizens we do not wield that power. We try to keep corporate money out of the pockets of our politicians, but we know it still finds its way there (TYVM Jack Abramoff).

Be Vigiliant.

Also, I'm a conservative, so for me to get to the point where I think the corporations might be taking over, it might be a legitimate threat now

[RickSp]

LOL. Bill Gates controls vast corporate resources but no armies. At their most aggressive, Microsoft never held a gun to anyone's head, never called in an airstrike, never invaded anyone. Bill Gates understands, if anyone understands, how uneconomical dictarship would be.

Gates controls a few billion dollars, whereas Bush is spending nine billion per month of other peoples money in Iraq alone. We have a president who has surrounded himself by lawyers and academics who claim that his powers are effectively unlimited. He and his ilk are the ones to worry about, not Gates who is spending his billions trying to cure disease and improve education worldwide.

[CoffeeSaint]

Actually, my longstanding theory about Gates is that he has arranged for all the makers of his computers to include a very small, very well-disguised but very powerful explosive in each one. When he has total world-wide saturation, having wiped out Mac and all other computer manufacturers, he will put together the largest concert, with the biggest and best names from all genres of music, and he will simulcast it live over the Internet worldwide for free. Then, when everyone with a computer is watching the concert at the same time, the signal goes out, the explosives go off -- and Bill Gates, and perhaps some chosen few cronies, are the only ones left alive who can manage computers and thus run the world's operating systems. Everyone else would become a peasant under a sort of Cargo-Cult religion, with Bill Gates as the God-Emperor.


As for the world being run by corporations, I thought it already was, and that was in essence why we are in Iraq: for Halliburton, and Bechtel, and GE, and so on and so forth.

[Jack]

Odd that after 43 presidents, the U.S. hasn't considered a highly successful businessman worthy of that position. Wouldn't someone who has (ethically, of course ) managed to direct and inspire a large corporation and lead them to success be a good choice for running the biggest business on the planet? Capitalism and democracy are of pretty much equal value in America. Why don't we elect uber-capitalists to manage our international affairs?

Ross Perot came closest, something that seemed to shock him as much as it did the public.

On a side-note: Hey, all you gay-female-Black-atheistic-green-liberal-business leaders planning on returning to college and becoming poli-sci majors with an eye on someday becoming president...forget it. Too soon.