At the end of the day, it is up to you how you decide to give back. I, and I would hope a lot of HNers, give to charities. tl;dr: makes more sense for skilled

At the end of the day, it is up to you how you decide to give back. I, and I would hope a lot of HNers, give to charities. tl;dr: makes more sense for skilled people to make money and donate to charity than to actually focus on helping others. Money is a powerful force. I have accepted that its impossible for me to know what is best for the rest of the world. I have a vague idea of some of the general higher-level goals [like health care] but I profess ignorance to the micro-requirements. I could learn, but it would be less efficient for me to learn and spend time than it would for me to donate money to someone else who has already figured out how to most efficiently use time and money to help others. In my case, I donate enough money to subsidize at least two people's efforts overseas. Given my lack of experience, I know its more efficient than actually putting effort into figuring out what needs to be done. Where things fall apart is when people dont actually know how to use time and money to help others in the world. Surprisingly enough, this is fairly common.