5 ms·

This sounds nice but whenever I hear something like this or any kind of philanthropy, I always think of all the people who missed out because of some technicali

This sounds nice but whenever I hear something like this or any kind of philanthropy, I always think of all the people who missed out because of some technicality. What about people who were in the final stages of studying to be a nurse and were waiting for the government to send back some paperwork to begin work on the front line and they missed out on the citizenship by a few weeks... Or people who lost their job through no fault of their own and were sent back to their country just before the pandemic. I don't like philanthropy because it creates more cracks for people to fall through and more inequality based on luck. Citizenship is a very big gift. Kind of like a lottery. It's a huge deal for many people. I hope it went to very deserving people.

mtarasevicius 6y ago
perfect is the enemy of good...
- cryptica 6y ago
  What's good for some people is often bad for some other people. Win-win scenarios are very rare. As a thought experiment, if you gave half the population 1 million dollars, then that would drive house prices through the roof and the unlucky half of the population would be enslaved to the lucky half paying high rents. The lives of the unlucky half would be absolutely ruined. There is no good there. It's zero-sum but in a way it's worse because it was 100% luck and those who worked hard were punished. To have real equality, you need equality of opportunity. Equality of outcomes is not equality; otherwise it's not equal if someone sacrifices less and gets more rewards; they are privileged, they are fortunate.
- trextrex 6y ago
  Random acts of philanthropy like this are just that -- random and benefiting a very small number of random people. While there is no problem with that per se, people should have access to a decent life through fair, well defined systems rather than having to depend on some arbitrary system of lottery.
mikelward 6y ago
This kind of public relations improves support for immigration, so the net effect on potential immigrants could still be positive.

mtarasevicius 6y ago

perfect is the enemy of good...

cryptica 6y ago
What's good for some people is often bad for some other people. Win-win scenarios are very rare. As a thought experiment, if you gave half the population 1 million dollars, then that would drive house prices through the roof and the unlucky half of the population would be enslaved to the lucky half paying high rents. The lives of the unlucky half would be absolutely ruined. There is no good there. It's zero-sum but in a way it's worse because it was 100% luck and those who worked hard were punished. To have real equality, you need equality of opportunity. Equality of outcomes is not equality; otherwise it's not equal if someone sacrifices less and gets more rewards; they are privileged, they are fortunate.
trextrex 6y ago
Random acts of philanthropy like this are just that -- random and benefiting a very small number of random people. While there is no problem with that per se, people should have access to a decent life through fair, well defined systems rather than having to depend on some arbitrary system of lottery.

mikelward 6y ago

This kind of public relations improves support for immigration, so the net effect on potential immigrants could still be positive.