Bill Gates Is More Admired Than the Pope

walterbyrd writes "Americans admire Bill Gates more than the Pope, the Dalai Lama and even Glenn Beck. The Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist was named the fifth most admired man of 2010, according to the latest USA Today/Gallup poll."

Glenn Beck, the Pope?

[CosaNostra Pizza Inc]

What can possibly be admired by the Pope, or Glenn Beck and his straw-man arguments

I admire Jay Miner and Jack Tramiel more

[commodore64_love]

Also Nolan Bushnell. Most people have never heard of these guys, due to MS and Apple becoming dominant and rewriting history, but these guys were the True pioneers. Nolan Bushnell created the first successful videogames company. Atari was dominant from circa 1972 to 1984.

Commodore's Jack Tramiel had a "business is war" philosophy that put 30 million ~$200 computers in people's homes, and forced the competitors to drop their prices too (from the previous ~$3000 standard).

And Jay Miner practically invented the multimedia computer. First with the 128 color Atari video chip, then the more-advanced 128 color ANTIC used in the 400/800 computers, and eventually the 4000+ color GPU inside the Amiga. He also pioneered music-quality sound with his Paula device, and multitaking for home computers. It took the Mac/PC world ten years to catch-up.

He is the lesser of two evils

[smartin]

Some one had to say it.

Re:Duh

[dkleinsc]

Thing is, when they really started adding new features in earnest during the Renaissance, some guys (like Martin Luther and Henry VIII) started getting so pissed off about that they forked the project. This led to a highly fragmented market and conflicts almost as bad as the Unix Wars.

Take a look at the list and judge the voters

[Opportunist]

Most admired men, Top 3: Obama, Bush, Clinton.
Most admired women, Top 3: Clinton, Palin, Oprah.

So the top 3 admired men are the 3 most recent presidents (in order of forgetting). The top 3 women are two loudmouths and a dimwit. Pick yourself who is what.

I refuse to believe that this survey is representative for the US population. I know too many US people to simply assume that this is what Americans admire.

I'd rather have the gut feeling that this is what could be reached at home during daytime, i.e. when people who have a job go to work...

Re:ADMIRED???

[peragrin]

I don't like Catholics, however even I know John Paul II was a much better person than Gates. The Current Pope just seems like he doesn't care.

So we do need to quantify which Pope. The Pope that is or the one that was while Bill Gates was in office.

Re:He only donated enormous amounts of money...

[puto]

Bill Gates and Pablo Escobar are a pretty poor comparison. Gates never put bounties on the heads of policeman as far as I can recall. And running a software company is not the same as slinging dope. Your comparison is just absurd. Pablo was adored by the poor of Medellin because he actually did something for community that the government would not. His legacy lived on because he was actually behind Alvaro Uribe(funded the majority of public works in Medellin that the former president got credit for and which later enabled him to become president). He also offered to quit the business and pay the national debt of the country for amnesty. He was a murderer but he did care about his home town. However, I do not recall much adoration for him throughout the country during his reign, except in the super poor barrios of Medallo. And I was living here during those dark days. Our civil was with Farc and other paramilitary groups has always been facilitated by the United Fruit Company(Chiquita) to keep Colombians down on the farm. All for fucking bananas. The Cali cartel(Guiterrez brothers) took over and were much more ruthless, and that is why Cali today is one of the most dangerous cities in Latin America. Medellin, on the other hand has become absolutely amazing. Textile factories, tourism, an average temp around 70 year around, not to mention prettier girls than most places in the world. No one here really admires any drug lord. However, when you are living hard scrabble poverty, and your only way out to a decent life is to get into the business, You do what you have to do.

Why should the pope be admired?

[jjohnson]

Outside of Catholic bashing by competing denominations, why should someone admire the Pope, either the office itself or Benedict personally? Aside from the extremely mixed record of the Catholic Church, Benedict was personally involved in covering up sex abuse scandals in Europe. When he wasn't doing that, he was pushing a conservative brand of Catholicism that rejected both abortion and birth control, and is rigidly anti-gay. He's not a moral exemplar, he hasn't accomplished great works of charity or mercy, and he's generally a force for nothing but the preservation of a worldwide institution's survival and autonomy.