souliisoul

Originally Posted by Prof. Peabody


I strongly disagree with this.



Philanthropy through guilt (what you are talking about here) isn't philanthropy, even if it ends up having the desired goal of getting a bit of money for whatever cause. And Bill Gates is the last person you should be admiring if you admire philanthropy or the idea of same.



The lesson from Bill Gates' life is that you can be a rapacious asshole and lie and steal and destroy the livelihood of thousands of companies and people, treating them like dirt for the majority of your life, as long as you then turn around and donate a bunch of your useless money when you get old enough, and comfortable enough, and have run out of stuff to do with yourself.



The lesson from a philanthropic "challenge" as he proposed is that you can't even get filthy rich people to behave with some kind of a conscience, even if you publicly shame them into it. It's a negative lesson, not a positive one.