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I confess that these eleven life rules seem a little too good to be true. They are attributed to Bill Gates; they were apparently delivered to a high school class a few years back. They feel utterly correct, and therefore, one does have a few doubts about them.
Which is less important than the fact that they offer such good ethical guidance to young people.
They are as clear a set of counters to the culture of self-esteem as I have ever seen. For students who are involved in the unreal world that academic institutions have created for them, the Gates Work Ethic stands as a powerful antidote.
Without further ado, and without further exegesis, here is a link.
You can tack them on the wall or send them along to the high school and college students you know.
Monday, September 6, 2010
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11 comments:
This didn't strike me as the tone in which Bill Gates usually writes or speaks..googling suggests that this list actually came from somebody else.
I have my doubts too, but still, it's a great piece of ethics and very good advice for students.
It's the anti-Gates speech.
I don't really care who wrote it, but the thoughts and ideas are profoundly at odds with Bill Gate's happy-horseshit "Gates Foundation" and bullshit speeches.
Gates' Real Work Ethic Rules:
1) Rip Off an obscure Operating System.
2) Be in the right place at the right time
3) Try to rip off Apple by unsuccessfully grafting Object Oriented programming onto an obscure operating system you ripped-off 'cuz you were in the right place at the right time.
4) Profit!
5) Create a happy-horseshit foundation to reward precisely the wrong people: use a snow shovel to throw money at "Africa" and "Native Americans".
6)Pull the ladder up after yourself, become a self-righteous twat 'cuz you ripped off an obscure operating system and were in the right place at the right time.
Other times had Carnegies, Morgans and Rockefellers. We have the misfortune of having Bill-fucking-Gates, George Soros and Oprah! I want better plutocrats!
We can't even get plutocracy right anymore.
--Gray
Thanks, Gray. That sounds right. Surely, it is a very clever rhetorical ploy to put such thoughts in the mind of someone who seems not to have heeded them.
Thanks for offering the true Gates work unethic.
According to Snopes, it's part of a list by Charles J. Sykes, called, "Dumbing Down Or Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves, But Can't Read, Write, Or Add".
http://www.snopes.com/language/document/liferule.asp
There are three more rules as well. Thought we should give credit where it's due, and I particularly enjoyed the couple backhands given to Baby Boomers that were omitted in the list you offered...no offense.
I am grateful that, through the efforts of Cane Cano, we now know the name of the author of these lines. Hats off to Charles Sykes.
Effectively, the version that Cane Cano links is more detailed than the one that I found (via Forbes, as it happens), and so, is well worth some attention.
Oops, I wrote my last comment too quickly and misspelled Cane Caldo's name. My apologies.
Relevant to the topic so I'm reposting here:
I'm so sick of Corporate Brainwashing that tries to convince ordinary people that working for "the man" is some sort of higher calling or "mission in life". They even conduct workshops and seminars, mass group therapy, to get workers all riled up into enthusiasm about "living life to the fullest" or "living abundantly" because they are trying to recreate the "feel good hormones" of what it would feel like if you were CREATING YOUR OWN BUSINESS, LIFE, MISSION, etc.
This is primarily why you will find that most people these days don't have the "work ethic" of previous generations. They're not buying into the hype. They're not drinking the cool aid.
There is no "work ethic". That is a brainwashing trigger word used to guilt people into feeling "good" about WORKING FOR UNKNOWN FACES THAT DON'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THEM.
Money is amoral. There is no "ethic" behind money. It is neutral. Our society is therefore not about any "ethic" or "morality" or "mission" - it's just about $$$.
Our government is conducting 2 wars right now for CORPORATE INTEREST only.
Unless you are a billion dollar player in the corporate world, what is there to feel "good" about?
People have woken up and will not buy into the hype of "work ethic" anymore.
To complain about the "materialism" of American culture, whether it be porn, or drug use, or low class behaviour in the media or Lady Gaga or Kei$ha is to actually complain about the very "ethic" this country was founded on: MONEY
All that matters is how to make it - at any cost. The cost of health, sanity, morality, goodness, exploitation.
Porn, media-whoredom, vulgar flash and trash is a MIRROR to the very system that created all of it.
There is NO ethic behind money.
Our country was founded and expanded on not an "honest day's labor". Not any "work ethic". Not on evern "cheap labor" but on SLAVERY:
If there was any "ethic" behind it, they would have HIRED workers instead of STEALING AND BUYING SLAVES.
The modern version of this is the CORPORATE WORLD, who, due to slavery being illegal, does the next best thing - OUTSOURCING to countries with few labor laws and rights, where they can get CHEAP LABOR in place of the FREE LABOR they really want.
Do you think they'd pay any of those people unless they absolutely had to?
Hells to the no!
"Work Ethic" is an oxymoron for these types. What they really want is slaves. In absence of that they try their hand at cheap labor and brainwashing people into thinking working for them has anything to do with "ethics".
Relevant to the topic so I'm reposting here:
I'm so sick of Corporate Brainwashing that tries to convince ordinary people that working for "the man" is some sort of higher calling or "mission in life". They even conduct workshops and seminars, mass group therapy, to get workers all riled up into enthusiasm about "living life to the fullest" or "living abundantly" because they are trying to recreate the "feel good hormones" of what it would feel like if you were CREATING YOUR OWN BUSINESS, LIFE, MISSION, etc.
This is primarily why you will find that most people these days don't have the "work ethic" of previous generations. They're not buying into the hype. They're not drinking the cool aid.
There is no "work ethic". That is a brainwashing trigger word used to guilt people into feeling "good" about WORKING FOR UNKNOWN FACES THAT DON'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THEM.
Money is amoral. There is no "ethic" behind money. It is neutral. Our society is therefore not about any "ethic" or "morality" or "mission" - it's just about $$$.
Our government is conducting 2 wars right now for CORPORATE INTEREST only.
Unless you are a billion dollar player in the corporate world, what is there to feel "good" about?
People have woken up and will not buy into the hype of "work ethic" anymore.
To complain about the "materialism" of American culture, whether it be porn, or drug use, or low class behaviour in the media or Lady Gaga or Kei$ha is to actually complain about the very "ethic" this country was founded on: MONEY
All that matters is how to make it - at any cost. The cost of health, sanity, morality, goodness, exploitation.
Porn, media-whoredom, vulgar flash and trash is a MIRROR to the very system that created all of it.
There is NO ethic behind money.
Our country was founded and expanded on not an "honest day's labor". Not any "work ethic". Not on evern "cheap labor" but on SLAVERY:
If there was any "ethic" behind it, they would have HIRED workers instead of STEALING AND BUYING SLAVES.
The modern version of this is the CORPORATE WORLD, who, due to slavery being illegal, does the next best thing - OUTSOURCING to countries with few labor laws and rights, where they can get CHEAP LABOR in place of the FREE LABOR they really want.
Do you think they'd pay any of those people unless they absolutely had to?
Hells to the no!
"Work Ethic" is an oxymoron for these types. What they really want is slaves. In absence of that they try their hand at cheap labor and brainwashing people into thinking working for them has anything to do with "ethics".
For my part one and all must browse on this.
Wow, there is a great deal of effective material above!
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