[counterpoint1]

Sadly, they probably did mean philanthropy. Many young Americans today have strongly embraced Authoritarian-Left political views and see any person who earns/saves/acquires enough money to give some of it away as a failure of the government to fully tax or control all resources inside the country.

Basically if you have a complete faith that the government always knows best, then anyone else (an individual, a charity, a business, a volunteer organization, etc) spending their time or money to solve a problem is a bad thing, because the money should have been controlled by the government so they could allocate it as they saw fit.

[Ericson2314]

I barely elected the government but I sure as hell didn't elect Bill Gates.

A pox upon both their houses

[counterpoint1]

You didn't elect Bill Gates... so he shouldn't spend his money to make the world better? I have no idea what point you're trying to make here.

Is there anything in my above comment you actually disagree with? It seems like you're just advocating for 100% socialism where individuals don't have private assets.

Suppose you have $100. You go to the grocery store and have lots of choices, you can buy basic groceries to feed yourself for the week for $50 and then give $50 to research to a rare disease which impacted a family member, or you can spend the full $100 at the grocery store buying brand name prepared foods. Are you saying people shouldn't be allowed to make the choice between those? Are you saying the first person is doing something bad by giving their money to medical research instead of spending it?

[Ericson2314]

You didn't elect Bill Gates... so he shouldn't spend his money to make the world better?

Exactly.

> Are you saying people shouldn't be allowed to make the choice between those?

No, but if they have "extra money", the most moral thing to do is not choose the good cause, but contribute it to the general charity fund to be democratically disbursed.

> Are you saying the first person is doing something bad by giving their money to medical research instead of spending it?

No, I'm not arguing the relative merits of mosquito nets vs Gucchi bags. If you think this is a such a 1 dimensional optimization problem with 0 externalities or higher order effects, we're not going to have a very productive conversation.

[counterpoint1]

I appreciate that you have positive intentions, but you seem to have a faith in the government controlling assets which is unsupported by the facts of every government in recorded history.

Look at the current covid stimulus bill in the US as an example of how money gets allocated under a "democratically disbursed" system. Depending on where and when in human history you go, the majority opinion might have been "kill all the X people" or "do Z because God commands it".

Basically, "the most moral thing to do" is completely unrelated to "what the government will do" even if that government is democratically elected.