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Not OP but I'll answer for myself: The short answer here is because people need money/help now. People in crisis can't wait 10/20/30/50 years for you to donat

by sbarre 6y ago

Not OP but I'll answer for myself: The short answer here is because people need money/help now. People in crisis can't wait 10/20/30/50 years for you to donate. This is not a judgment, I respect your choices, but many of us donate out of a sense of urgency, and we understand the tradeoffs and the sacrifices involved. I'd rather give now and help now, even if that means I don't come out as far ahead in the end, than wait to see if I can give (and/or keep) more later. That said, what you propose certainly works too, and every effort to help is a good effort, but it has it's own drawbacks.

yboris 6y ago
The biggest drawback is that you may have the intention of giving money in the future, but you end up never doing it. Unless you put it into some guaranteed-for-charity vehicle like a Donor Advised Fund. Giving now, even if you are also putting some off to give later, is the better course of action. A good read: https://concepts.effectivealtruism.org/concepts/timing-of-philanthropy/ https://concepts.effectivealtruism.org/concepts/timing-of-ph... > giving now creates a habit of giving, and removes the temptation to spend savings which were originally intended to be donations.
- sbarre 6y ago
  I completely agree with you.. Your point in the other thread about the compound benefits of giving now articulated much better what I was also trying to say :-)
- silicon2401 6y ago
  > giving now creates a habit of giving, and removes the temptation to spend savings which were originally intended to be donations. I've donated money, it didn't become a habit > The biggest drawback is that you may have the intention of giving money in the future, but you end up never doing it. Unless you put it into some guaranteed-for-charity vehicle like a Donor Advised Fund. This is a personal point whereas I was coming at it from just a numerical point. > Unless you put it into some guaranteed-for-charity vehicle like a Donor Advised Fund. Not familiar with this, but if it's a way to invest money while forcing the money to only be used for charity, then yes I'd consider that the optimal choice for anyone who for some reason is charitable but wouldn't want to give charity down the road
silicon2401 6y ago
I respect your choice as well, thanks for the civility. Maybe it's just a personal difference. My view is, there will always be people in crisis. Why are the ones suffering today more important than the ones suffering in 50 or 100 years? To me that's basically telling a suffering person "sorry, I could've saved and invested to give you $1,000 today, but the other guy beat you by 50 years so I gave him the $10 I had at the time."
- sbarre 6y ago
  All I can say to that is I can't predict the future, so I choose to act today. The "ones suffering in 50 years" are theoretical, the ones suffering today are real people. Also, perhaps the people I help today will go on to ensure that we don't need to help as many people in 50 years. As others have said, and perhaps in terms that will resonate with you, investing today provides compounding returns in the future. And that applies to aid just as much as it does to money. Let's take your example to a bit of an extreme, for argument's sake: I make regular charitable donations, and plan to continue to do so for X years (X being decades), therefore helping any number of people for those X years, potentially saving many lives. I am now standing in front of a burning building, and I see a person through the window unconscious on the floor. I can: (A) Put my life potentially at risk and go into the burning building to drag that one person out and save their life. If I die while trying to save that person, then that means my charitable giving stops. Or I can (B) definitely not risk my life to save that person, therefore guaranteeing - at least for now - that I can continue to make charitable donations into the future, possibly saving a much larger number of lives. If you take a detached/theoretical view of this situation, then (B) seems like the better choice in the long run. I will benefit more people. But it also means I make the choice to stand there and watch that real person die when I could have done something about it. And I wouldn't be able to do that.
  - silicon2401 6y ago
    > The "ones suffering in 50 years" are theoretical, the ones suffering today are real people. Not sure what you mean by this. Are you actually suggesting that you think nobody will be in need or crisis in 50 years? What exactly is theoretical about that? I would say compounding from helping someone today is theoretical: it takes no effort at all to find examples of someone being helped just to throw it away, self-sabotage, refuse to participate. If you like charity just for the idea of helping, then I can understand that. But the claim that aid will always be effective, let alone compound, is imo much more of a stretch than claiming that there will still be people needing help in 50 or 100 years (I'd wager for as long as humans exist)

by sbarre 6y ago

yboris 6y ago

The biggest drawback is that you may have the intention of giving money in the future, but you end up never doing it. Unless you put it into some guaranteed-for-charity vehicle like a Donor Advised Fund. Giving now, even if you are also putting some off to give later, is the better course of action. A good read: https://concepts.effectivealtruism.org/concepts/timing-of-philanthropy/ https://concepts.effectivealtruism.org/concepts/timing-of-ph... > giving now creates a habit of giving, and removes the temptation to spend savings which were originally intended to be donations.

sbarre 6y ago
I completely agree with you.. Your point in the other thread about the compound benefits of giving now articulated much better what I was also trying to say :-)
silicon2401 6y ago
> giving now creates a habit of giving, and removes the temptation to spend savings which were originally intended to be donations. I've donated money, it didn't become a habit > The biggest drawback is that you may have the intention of giving money in the future, but you end up never doing it. Unless you put it into some guaranteed-for-charity vehicle like a Donor Advised Fund. This is a personal point whereas I was coming at it from just a numerical point. > Unless you put it into some guaranteed-for-charity vehicle like a Donor Advised Fund. Not familiar with this, but if it's a way to invest money while forcing the money to only be used for charity, then yes I'd consider that the optimal choice for anyone who for some reason is charitable but wouldn't want to give charity down the road

silicon2401 6y ago

I respect your choice as well, thanks for the civility. Maybe it's just a personal difference. My view is, there will always be people in crisis. Why are the ones suffering today more important than the ones suffering in 50 or 100 years? To me that's basically telling a suffering person "sorry, I could've saved and invested to give you $1,000 today, but the other guy beat you by 50 years so I gave him the $10 I had at the time."

sbarre 6y ago
All I can say to that is I can't predict the future, so I choose to act today. The "ones suffering in 50 years" are theoretical, the ones suffering today are real people. Also, perhaps the people I help today will go on to ensure that we don't need to help as many people in 50 years. As others have said, and perhaps in terms that will resonate with you, investing today provides compounding returns in the future. And that applies to aid just as much as it does to money. Let's take your example to a bit of an extreme, for argument's sake: I make regular charitable donations, and plan to continue to do so for X years (X being decades), therefore helping any number of people for those X years, potentially saving many lives. I am now standing in front of a burning building, and I see a person through the window unconscious on the floor. I can: (A) Put my life potentially at risk and go into the burning building to drag that one person out and save their life. If I die while trying to save that person, then that means my charitable giving stops. Or I can (B) definitely not risk my life to save that person, therefore guaranteeing - at least for now - that I can continue to make charitable donations into the future, possibly saving a much larger number of lives. If you take a detached/theoretical view of this situation, then (B) seems like the better choice in the long run. I will benefit more people. But it also means I make the choice to stand there and watch that real person die when I could have done something about it. And I wouldn't be able to do that.
- silicon2401 6y ago
  > The "ones suffering in 50 years" are theoretical, the ones suffering today are real people. Not sure what you mean by this. Are you actually suggesting that you think nobody will be in need or crisis in 50 years? What exactly is theoretical about that? I would say compounding from helping someone today is theoretical: it takes no effort at all to find examples of someone being helped just to throw it away, self-sabotage, refuse to participate. If you like charity just for the idea of helping, then I can understand that. But the claim that aid will always be effective, let alone compound, is imo much more of a stretch than claiming that there will still be people needing help in 50 or 100 years (I'd wager for as long as humans exist)