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Title was VERY misleading. And that whole earning to give notion is bull. You work at a non-profit or as a social worker and you have a DIRECT impact on people'
by Kurimo 10y ago
Title was VERY misleading. And that whole earning to give notion is bull. You work at a non-profit or as a social worker and you have a DIRECT impact on people's lives. You donate to a charity and you have no idea where that money goes. Many charities are corrupt and don't use your dollars at a positive rate to help others and even those that do often find their donations ending up being misused or apprehended by crooks and tyrants.
Earning to give is a way the wealthy ease their conscience (not unlike carbon offsets). It is not good advice to give people with the heart, courage, and strength to be one of those front line warriors at a non-profit or in social work and to claim otherwise is garbage.
Nobody makes a bigger difference to the children and families who experience birth defects or childhood illness than the nurse in the children's hospital. Certainly not the rich goon who contributed the most money and got it named after him/her. Without that rich goon, a need would still be fulfilled by people whose lives were effected by the lack of such a facility coming together and pooling their resources to make it happen (the whole point of government, taxes, and society in the first place).
Without that nurse, there's nobody to take care of those children post surgery and offer the love, support, and attentive care that only someone with that kind of courage and compassion can provide.
No one says your mind and talents must be constrained to your job forever, but if you can do it you should.
Superman DID run vaccines to people in ADDITION to saving the world from more petty (and also much more catastrophic) crime. So the example (which in the comic is hilarious and presented ironically) the article sets itself on is a false choice.
- cheetos 10y agoGood thing Bill Gates didn't follow this advice or he might be a nurse instead of starting the Gates Foundation!
- Kurimo 10y agoYeah, then he would've been a terrible nurse instead of standardizing the PC platform on a shoddy OS, creating the notion of "software that gets paid for forever", the windows xp hardware lockout, and ruining the educational system by promoting vouchers to private schools. Yay for Bill Gates! What a great guy!
- BenjaminTodd 10y agoWe agree many charities aren't effective, so you can't just earn to give to random organisations. You need to spend time working out where the donations can be most effective. I think GiveWell is a good starting point: http://www.givewell.org/giving101 http://www.givewell.org/giving101 Though there's a lot more to say: https://80000hours.org/2015/12/where-should-you-donate-to-have-the-most-impact-in-giving-season-2015/ https://80000hours.org/2015/12/where-should-you-donate-to-ha...
- blablablame 10y agoI sorta agree with you, and have been cutting back on where I give (and now only work with places I trust and visit personally). But coming back to the nurse example, I could volunteer my time to be with the kids, use my very basic carpentry skills to do maybe a bed or two OR, I can do contract work for a few days and give enough that it pays for that nurse's salary. What do you think is best? Me spend 5 days doing 2-3 beds/playing with the kids or me working 5 days and with that money be able to pay for 10 beds + a nurse's salary at a worthwhile charity??
- Kurimo 10y agoIt very much depends on where your talents lie certainly. I could not be a nurse, I am squeamish and cannot interact with strangers positively. And so giving is better than doing. But the article expressly recommends people who CAN be nurses, doctors, surgeons, social workers, etc. instead pursue the most profitable jobs they can do instead. That is my disagreement with it. Using the superman example: despite Superman's obvious aptitude and passion for fighting crime the author would prefer he spend his time turning a crank to make more money to donate to crime fighting efforts. I think that is terrible advice. Further, while SMBC is trying to be satirical (and succeeding I think), the author of the article crops the comic hiding the personal cost to Superman the comic expresses in later panels. And then to get REALLY nerdy with it, if Superman isn't fighting crime in the DC universe, no amount of free energy would matter because Darkseid or Lex Luthor or somebody else only Superman could stop would probably have either conquered or destroyed the earth. My life has recently been impacted multiple times by talented doctors and nurses who could certainly have done something more profitable with their skills and so I am perhaps reacting more emotionally to this article than is necessary. But telling people not to be doctors and nurses and instead pursue something more profitable because "Money is better than doing good things yourself!" Sounds like the kind of bullshit Lex Luthor tells himself as he vaporizes a small city to ransom Superman into letting him be President.
- BenjaminTodd 10y agoWe don't recommend that - the article covers 4 paths to doing good including "direct work" as well as earning to give. Choose between those two options based on which you'd be best at and the needs of the problems you want to focus on.