Probably not for useful definitions of "generous," which should take into account the actual utility (in money or time), given away. Someone who donates half of their life savings of 50k is (I would say, at least) more generous than someone who donates 90% of 1 billion.
Would you define someone who gave away until they only had 100million remaining as more or less generous than someone who gave away until they only had 25k remaining?
How about if the person with 50k gave away 25k, but the billionaire gave away double that? Who is more generousness in that case?
It seems fairly plain to me that utility of what was given away is by far the most important factor in determining generosity.
I see your point, but I simply disagree. The utility to the person is much different, but after that, money is money and 900m provides much more utility to starving kids, etc than 25k does, no matter how you slice it.
I know the comment you're responding to wasn't that great, but this really isn't "objectively true." He's done a lot of good for sure, but to simply accept his contributions as "the most generous and influential" because of his fame and the money behind it, is to discredit lots of other brilliant philanthropists.
For example, wasn't there just an article on HN within the past week about Norman Borlaug, whose agricultural techniques helped prevent hundreds of millions of people from starving? That doesn't seem less significant.
Norman Borlaug is probably a greater humanitarian than Bill Gates, but I'm not aware of him doing any philanthropy. Now, you probably come up with metric of philanthropy where, say, Rockefeller beat him (Percentage of then existing human wealth donated?). But most of the measures that come to mind put Bill Gates on top, so while "clearly objectively true" would be going too far, "probably objectively true" is quite reasonable.
What's the difference between philanthropy and humanitarianism? Just donating wealth vs developing it? Is that really a significant thing to distinguish?
A philanthropist is someone who gives a lot of money to charitable causes, with a connotation of noble motives. A humanitarian is someone who acts on their strong desire to help their fellow humans, with a connotation of successfully helping many people. These have a broad area of overlap, but a person can be one without being the other.
One can be a philanthropist without being a humanitarian by, for example, donating large amounts of money to creating wildlife refuges. Charitable giving, but not to humans.
From the other direction, people like Norman Borlaug who devote their careers to helping other people are excellent examples of people who are humanitarians without necessarily being philanthropists.
Yeah, my point is there's a technical difference, but if the end effect is simply creating a benefit to humanity, it doesn't really seem important to distinguish between "philanthropist" and "humanitarian".
So saying Gates is the biggest philanthropist, I guess, is "objectively true" if you're being pedantic, and using philanthropist in the technical sense. My point was that it's not "objectively true" that he's the biggest benefactor of humanity, which is the more general-use term for "philanthropist."
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This is probably objectively true.
Probably not for useful definitions of "generous," which should take into account the actual utility (in money or time), given away. Someone who donates half of their life savings of 50k is (I would say, at least) more generous than someone who donates 90% of 1 billion.
I would not define someone who gave 25k as more generous than someone who gave 900million, no.
Would you define someone who gave away until they only had 100million remaining as more or less generous than someone who gave away until they only had 25k remaining?
How about if the person with 50k gave away 25k, but the billionaire gave away double that? Who is more generousness in that case?
It seems fairly plain to me that utility of what was given away is by far the most important factor in determining generosity.
I see your point, but I simply disagree. The utility to the person is much different, but after that, money is money and 900m provides much more utility to starving kids, etc than 25k does, no matter how you slice it.
I would say the person with 50k is making a larger personal sacrifice, but is not being "more generous" objectively.
I know the comment you're responding to wasn't that great, but this really isn't "objectively true." He's done a lot of good for sure, but to simply accept his contributions as "the most generous and influential" because of his fame and the money behind it, is to discredit lots of other brilliant philanthropists.
For example, wasn't there just an article on HN within the past week about Norman Borlaug, whose agricultural techniques helped prevent hundreds of millions of people from starving? That doesn't seem less significant.
Norman Borlaug is probably a greater humanitarian than Bill Gates, but I'm not aware of him doing any philanthropy. Now, you probably come up with metric of philanthropy where, say, Rockefeller beat him (Percentage of then existing human wealth donated?). But most of the measures that come to mind put Bill Gates on top, so while "clearly objectively true" would be going too far, "probably objectively true" is quite reasonable.
What's the difference between philanthropy and humanitarianism? Just donating wealth vs developing it? Is that really a significant thing to distinguish?
A philanthropist is someone who gives a lot of money to charitable causes, with a connotation of noble motives. A humanitarian is someone who acts on their strong desire to help their fellow humans, with a connotation of successfully helping many people. These have a broad area of overlap, but a person can be one without being the other.
One can be a philanthropist without being a humanitarian by, for example, donating large amounts of money to creating wildlife refuges. Charitable giving, but not to humans.
From the other direction, people like Norman Borlaug who devote their careers to helping other people are excellent examples of people who are humanitarians without necessarily being philanthropists.
Yeah, my point is there's a technical difference, but if the end effect is simply creating a benefit to humanity, it doesn't really seem important to distinguish between "philanthropist" and "humanitarian".
So saying Gates is the biggest philanthropist, I guess, is "objectively true" if you're being pedantic, and using philanthropist in the technical sense. My point was that it's not "objectively true" that he's the biggest benefactor of humanity, which is the more general-use term for "philanthropist."