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True. One can make nuanced arguments around #1 as well. What if we were talking about saving kids from preventable fatal diseases by donating vaccines (or donat
by zhyder 8y ago
True. One can make nuanced arguments around #1 as well. What if we were talking about saving kids from preventable fatal diseases by donating vaccines (or donating to research efforts that are developing non-profitable vaccines); those kids won't even be alive in 50 years. Or what if it was something that'd make kids more literate; in 50 years (hopefully!) literacy won't be a problem anymore, and higher education might be massively disrupted by MOOCs, etc.
- hundt 8y agoI also think that, when I think of the beneficiaries of the giving as real people and not abstract "lives improved/saved," then "donate now" seems more compelling. Certainly I could not tell a potential beneficiary to their face that I'm saving the money for the unlikely possibility that I need it myself, but it's fine because if it is too late for them by the time I donate I will probably be able to help someone else just as much or more at that time. Along that same line of thinking: if my siblings desperately needed financial help and I could afford to give it to them, I would surely not keep the money out of a desire to have more later that I could give to my nieces and nephews.