Leave aside that I don't think the analogy to African aid is quite relevant here, I agree with you. Charity alone isn't necessarily helpful nor does it define the good a person has done. But the lack of philanthropy in SV is indicative of the attitude and culture I'm trying to describe: individualistic, not integrated into a diverse community, divorced from a sense of civic responsibility.
Does it have to be indicative of those things? To me, it indicates a data driven personality instead of an emotionally or socially driven one. Are they really divorced from a sense of civic responsibility? Don't they pay taxes and serve on juries? And, at the risk of placing data above my easily manipulated emotional state, where's your data?
