Over the weekend on FriendFeed, Paul Buchheit posed an interesting question:
Assume that I'm going to get rid of $20,000 and my only concern is the "common good". Which of these is the best use of the money: give it to the Gates foundation, buy a hybrid car, invest it in a promising startup, invest it in the S&P500, give it to the US government, give it to a school, other?
A lot of the discussion consists of tedious (and non-specific) banging on about the wonders of start-ups, but there's some good stuff in there if you have the patience to read through it.
Buried in there with everything else is an attempt to compile a list of charities that would be attractive to rationalists. The response might charitably be described as "tepid," which isn't surprising, because I've heard this song before.
This is one of the things I've found really frustrating about ScienceBlogs. We've got a huge audience (in absolute terms, if not relative to the Gawker empire), and it's remarkably easy to get a hundred-odd people to bitch about something (on any given day, take your pick of the "Most Active" links in the right sidebar), but it's very difficult to convert that into any sort of positive action. Attempts to raise money for worthy causes, in particular, draw almost as many pissy comments about charity being inefficient/stupid/evil as donations.
The dynamic in the FriendFeed and Less Wrong threads seems to be pretty similar. I don't know if that's a relief, or just depressing. It may just be an indication of the difficulty of monetizing anything on the Internet (as any number of media company executives could tell you).
I'm not sure if there's anything to be done about this (especially in the current economic climate). I've kind of become resigned to it, myself. Two years ago, during the DonorsChoose fundraiser, I was really annoyed at the whole business; this past year, I managed to keep my expectations lower, and wound up being more successful (though offering to dance like a monkey had a lot to do with that).
I'd be happy to hear other people's thoughts on the matter, though.
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Perhaps those of us inclined to contribute to charities already do so, and at least for some on a pre-planned level budgeted along with incidentals like food. Which means that impulse giving isn't going to be a big factor.
At the other extreme, there are a lot of people who have invested in rationalizing not giving. Which just might trigger a response when someone suggests that they make a contribution.
Offhand, I can't think of a protocol to test the hypothesis but then my daughter is the social psychologist in the family.
Based on the discussion, I'd say no one in Buchheit's audience acually knows the answer, resulting in an unproductive thread where people just throw in plausible guesses. A lot of that on the internet.
Personally, I doubt the question has an answer as posed. The "common good" is not well defined.
Actions Are Less Fun Than Words
That depends entirely on context.
Would you rather talk about good food, fine wine, hot sex...?
Giving away money, now, we could discuss that for hours!
Beginning with President Johnson's "Great Society," Washington applied jackbooted State compassion to forcibly income redistribute some $8 trillion in aggregate constant dollars to the Officially Sad. Said Officially Sad are now 20% of the US population, and growing. Bad idea for more charity (or any charity at all). Charity was likewise dumped into sub-Saharan Africa, increasing its population from a historic ~150 million to 900+ million today. Bill Gates is dumping another $20 billion in there to end disease and poverty. Riiight.
The United Fund is utterly corrupt, as are all Korporate Kulture charities. The Church of Rome, Los Angeles franchise, disgorged nearly $1 billion to a remarkably large number of adults who were homosexually raped as children by priests. The LA archdiocese sold a couple of properties. Fill those collection plates to buy a stairway to heaven.
Give it to Wikipedia. It will do no harm and nourish no evil.
D.C. Sessions -- My father and co-workers are currently trying to get a foundation to underwrite research into what makes people give. Traditionally it has been association with organized religion that has been found to make people give to all types of charities, but since connections to organized religion are less and less likely that doesn't seem to hold true anymore. One idea in the running is private colleges.
I think it's also that the idea of "common good" is not well defined. What is the unit of measure? How do you decide if my polluting less (ie getting a hybrid) is worth more than preventing someone of dying of malaria? Economists can try and put numbers on that but they are pretty subjective.
For those people who budget to give there is an element of some attempt define the common could but its pretty instinctual. IE I give more to organizations that help meet invidudal basic needs like shelter, food, health care and a job than I do to my absurdly expensive undergrad alma mater that I love dearly. I think meeting people's basic needs is more important, plus, I have classmates who went into things like investment banking whose primary charitiable giving is directed there. However, you could make an arguement that the return on investment might be better at my alma mater. A "brand name" degree can open doors. Or maybe I'd help pay the tutition for the kid that goes on to find an AIDS vaccine or finds a way to break the link between family income and academic achievement. The social benefits of that would be pretty big.
" They cannot multiply wealth by dividing it ". What will happen t tomorrow if President Obama signs the Kyoto protocol? What says silence? Worldwide refund?
"On ne peut pas multiplier la richesse en la divisant". Qu'arrivera t il demain si le President Obama signe le protocole de Kyoto ? Que dit le silence ? Remboursement mondial ?
When I am concerned about the common good I usually donate to progressive politicians. My experience is that collective action works, but that private authoritarian collectives can look out for themselves. It's the public democratic collective that need the most help, generally in fighting off the influence of the private collectives. Of course, this isn't a political blog, so feel free to delete this message if you wish.
I don't think it is that actions are less fun than words, necessarily. Speaking for myself, every dime I make is already spoken for, what with car payments, mortgage payments, grocery bills, taxes, etc. In contrast, I have an endless supply of words to share.