That's all well and good, but one day such a person will make a request and you will have to decide whether to now forgo their money, money that may now be supporting your good works. Imho if you are going to take money from such people you shouldn't do anything substantial with it. Buy everyone fancy hats. Get new furniture in all the student lounges. Don't spend it on anything that you will miss, anything that will cloud your judgement when the inevitable request comes.
but one day such a person will make a request and you will have to decide whether to now forgo their money, money that may now be supporting your good works
Look no further than George Mason University. It used to be an also-ran commuter college, now with a steady stream of income from the Koch family it's actually fairly respectable. You have to watch what you say, though, when you are on the faculty.
Epstein's influence was fairly confined, but the Koch sponsorship of unfettered capitalism and global warming denial continues to affect the planet. They are ultimately the greater evil.
I think you should actually look at what the Koch's actually believe and what they fund. They've been on the right side of history for a long time, and in fact the much hated David Koch took a stand and ran as VP of the libertarian party in the early 80s with key planks of his platform being drug legalization and the legalization of gay marriage.
The Kochs also recently funded with Soros a think tank in washington dc to help promote the idea of peace and stop the endless wars the US is involved in.
As far as I know David Koch didn't deny global warming, but strongly disagreed with the conventional ideas of how to combat it and the risks that it poses. There are many people who think that there are better ways to address it. For instance, addressing 3rd world poverty and increases the wealth of the world will increase the rate of climate change, but it will also benefit those suffering substantially and enable thier children (who are richer) to better handle it. I don't necessarily endorse or agree with his views, but I feel they're often mistated for political reasons.
That's a bad comparison to make. Epstein, by all accounts, actually hurt, abused, and enslaved real people. That is always worse than political activism, even if you find the politics highly objectionable, and even if the activism reached very far due to money.
