6 ms·

“But we all know the wag’s definition of a philanthropist: a man whose charity increases directly as the square of the distance.” ― George Eliot, Middlemarch

by leg100 6y ago

TeMPOraL 6y ago
Well, if the evil side can exploit this phenomenon to great success (e.g. drone strikes allowing to kill people halfway across the world, and making it feel like playing a video game from 1990s), why can't the good side? We can despair about the nature of man all we want, but if in the meantime, we can get rich people here to spend a lot of money on helping people far away, that's still a huge net benefit for the world.
- beervirus 6y ago
  Is it really evil to use drones to kill evil people?
  - __s 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_U.S._drone_strikes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_U.S._...
  - nonameiguess 6y ago
    I'm not personally against usage of drones in some totally general way, but we should keep in mind why the Bush to Obama shift was made. Aside from the technology simply maturing and growing more viable, we went away from having teams of special operators apprehend terrorism suspects in surgical snatch and grab operations and toward just murdering them with drones for two basic reasons. One, surgical snatch and grab operations sometimes result in high profile failures where US operators are themselves captured or die in the process, which becomes a huge local media sensation. Two, when you arrest people, you run into the issue of what to do with them. Hence, all of the continuing problems with Guantanamo. Do you give them rights? Transfer them to regular prisons? Release them? Hold an actual trial at some point? We still haven't figured it out, and the easiest answer is just stop arresting people and kill them instead. I leave it to you to decide which of the two options is more ethical, but the reasons we did it have nothing to do with ethics. And drones are inherently less precise and also kill whoever happens to be nearby a lot more often than Seal Team Six.
    - vmception 6y ago
      When another country or organization turns their drones on us because of our antiquated human rights ideas, inability to form consensus, and extreme ideologies - from their perspective - opinions will get much clearer. Best way to stop the drone wars at this point are for us to stop now.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    That's a specialized version of the question, is it really evil to kill evil people? But it's also a bit off-topic; the more important one is, are only evil people getting killed by drone strikes executed by people who (claim to) try to kill only evil people? The answer to that is a resounding no. We can debate the specifics of this, but it wasn't my point. My point was, the concept of layers of indirection making perpetrating evil/immoral acts easier is a well-recognized one[0], and drone strikes are the usual example - the killer has no personal risk, and the act itself involves operating video game controllers while watching a low-resolution image of distant events. And, for many practical reasons, this has been embraced by the military. Cheaper, less trauma for soldiers, less bad press, less likely the soldier will hesitate or spare the lives of their targets. And thus I'm asking: if that works so well for killing, and there isn't a big pushback against this[1], then why criticize the case where the similar levels of detachment are making people more likely to do good deeds? If people are more likely to donate to good causes further away than they are to those close to them, then why not be just happy that more people are donating to good causes? -- [0] - It most likely has a formal name in psychology, but I'm not aware of it. [1] - There is some pushback, but I don't see it rising to the level actually influencing any decision-making in the US.
    - s1artibartfast 6y ago
      >My point was, the concept of layers of indirection making perpetrating evil/immoral acts easier is a well-recognized one It seems that you are again assuming that drone strikes are evil immoral acts. Most people view civilian casualties in war as a trolley car problem, (e.g. a necessary evil in an overall moral action)
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - kaba0 6y ago
        Why is there war in the first place? Also, it is a created trolley car problem not the trolley car problem. And creating such a situation instead of coming across it is definitely morally evil.
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    Most Americans would say it isn't evil and are willing to accept the civilian casualties of doing so. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2015/05/28/public-continues-to-back-u-s-drone-attacks/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2015/05/28/public-conti...
  - jonathanstrange 6y ago
    Yes, because these are extrajudicial killings with high death tolls and serious injuries for bystanders. Suppose China, Russia, or the EU would conduct drone strikes on US soil but only target evil people such as Donald Rumsfeld, who is known to have ordered torture and initiated a war under false pretense. However, many bystanders including women and children would be killed as well. Would you be against it? I would be against that, no doubt about it.
  - mgerullis 6y ago
    It’s so funny for people to have this concept of "evil" as if that were axiomatic.
  - vmception 6y ago
    What's the difference between a Pakistanian wedding and a terror cell? Don't ask me I just fly the drone
  - ping_pong 6y ago
    Evil by whose definition? For every person that is labelled "evil" by the US, I'm sure there are thousands who would consider them "good". I would hazard to guess that there are more people who considered Osa Bin Laden "good" than consider you "good" and could make a case that you are "evil". Does that means that they have a right to kill you? Or does the US government only get the right to designate people Good or Evil?
- perl4ever 6y ago
  There may be a tradeoff between the distance of someone you want to help and effectiveness - how much do you really know about their problems or the solutions you are funding? Have you ever tried to figure out requirements for a project at work that depend on a group of co-workers on another continent in a different culture? There's also so many faraway causes, how do you prioritize? The people I know, and the problems that I or they have, are not necessarily the most important in the world. But I have a better chance of doing something appropriate about them, because I'm not limited to vague stereotypes. Trying to help with something that you know about firsthand also increases the odds that you will be addressing a problem which is common but overlooked by society because there isn't enough money, glamour, or self-actualization involved. I strongly believe that a personal connection is not just a gimmick for these reasons.
  - franga2000 6y ago
    The exact opposite argument can also be made here: they weren't remotely funding some specific measure that they think could solve the problem, which admittedly could be distorted by distance. They are funding an organization whose goal is solving that problem and has experts who are close to the issue. It's basically outsourcing.
    - perl4ever 6y ago
      >It's basically outsourcing It is basically outsourcing, yes. I'd think on HN of all places people would appreciate how wrong that can go. I recommend reading the Wikipedia page on Dian Fossey if you haven't.
      - franga2000 6y ago
        Interesting read, and I definitely wasn't trying to say that outsourcing was great. But if you do your due diligence, your chances of actually fixing the issue you care about are much higher if you pick a reputable organisation to donate to, rather than funding actions directly. Since philanthropy is usually fueled by emotions, you might be tempted to fuel actions to stop trophy hunting of endangered species, but according to many sources (see the wikipedia page and its references), that might actually be detrimental to the conservation efforts. Similarly, you might fund the planting of trees to restore forests, while those cutting existing forests down with no regard for the environment face no opposition (sound familiar?). There's a lot of harm possible if you outsource to the wrong people, but if you do your due dilligence, a dedicated group of experts will be able to use your money far more effectively than you could. As for "fixing the issues close to you" - you need to realise, that people who have money to throw around are rarely close to, let alone experts in, any such issues. They might want to help the homeless, for example, but if they just buy up a bunch of apartments and let them live there, they might not be solving much. Someone working with the homeless on a daily basis would know to put money towards rehabilitation, education and finding them employment first (from what I've heard - I, too, am not an expert).
jedimastert 6y ago
What in this article warrants a comment like this?
- tyrust 6y ago
  It's not even clear to me what the quote means out of context.
  - ip26 6y ago
    I hadn't seen it before, but I suspect it's a prod at wealthy Western philanthropists who spend a lot of money on children in Africa or Asia- meanwhile ignoring the homeless & starving in their own town.
    - tyrust 6y ago
      Ugh, those prods reek of Western superiority. If a dollar goes further in an impoverished place I don't see what's wrong with directing it accordingly. Moreover, taxes (in theory) should already be directed to help those locally. I haven't done too much research and I direct my donations both domestically and abroad.
scandox 6y ago
I think is a fair comment. The people involved probably wouldn't give the steam off their coffee to the someone struggling right in front of them.
- SyzygistSix 6y ago
  What you are missing is that this allows people who are otherwise unable to help to do so. Helping animals has always been somewhat more popular than helping people because people have more agency and also tend to suck. What do you suggest we do for the people struggling in front of us? Also that is a broad brush you are painting a lot of people with. It's likely that many /r/wallstreetbets users donate to other charities. Americans tend to be quite generous.
  - kaba0 6y ago
    I don’t have hard facts, but I believe I’ve read that basically the generosity of the American people is largely the same amount as the surplus taxes of Europeans. And in better functioning European countries that money will benefit people much more than animals — so in a way it helps explain the difference in the quality of social nets.
- habosa 6y ago
  Reddit has always been a place where you can find spontaneous generosity with a fun twist. Just one example: there was a popular sub many years ago called "randomactsofpizza" where Redditors would send pizza to other Redditors who were hungry or down on their luck. I don't know why we should assume Redditors are less charitable than people at large when if anything they've demonstrated otherwise.
  - SyzygistSix 6y ago
    On the gorilla front, the AR15 subreddit helped the anti-poaching squads with technical advice and parts to help protect gorillas. It's a good venue for charity and people helping others. No one who has spent much time with humans should be shocked that the same people are also sardonic assholes at times.

“But we all know the wag’s definition of a philanthropist: a man whose charity increases directly as the square of the distance.” ― George Eliot, Middlemarch

by leg100 6y ago

“But we all know the wag’s definition of a philanthropist: a man whose charity increases directly as the square of the distance.” ― George Eliot, Middlemarch

TeMPOraL 6y ago

Well, if the evil side can exploit this phenomenon to great success (e.g. drone strikes allowing to kill people halfway across the world, and making it feel like playing a video game from 1990s), why can't the good side? We can despair about the nature of man all we want, but if in the meantime, we can get rich people here to spend a lot of money on helping people far away, that's still a huge net benefit for the world.

beervirus 6y ago
Is it really evil to use drones to kill evil people?
- __s 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_U.S._drone_strikes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_U.S._...
- nonameiguess 6y ago
  I'm not personally against usage of drones in some totally general way, but we should keep in mind why the Bush to Obama shift was made. Aside from the technology simply maturing and growing more viable, we went away from having teams of special operators apprehend terrorism suspects in surgical snatch and grab operations and toward just murdering them with drones for two basic reasons. One, surgical snatch and grab operations sometimes result in high profile failures where US operators are themselves captured or die in the process, which becomes a huge local media sensation. Two, when you arrest people, you run into the issue of what to do with them. Hence, all of the continuing problems with Guantanamo. Do you give them rights? Transfer them to regular prisons? Release them? Hold an actual trial at some point? We still haven't figured it out, and the easiest answer is just stop arresting people and kill them instead. I leave it to you to decide which of the two options is more ethical, but the reasons we did it have nothing to do with ethics. And drones are inherently less precise and also kill whoever happens to be nearby a lot more often than Seal Team Six.
  - vmception 6y ago
    When another country or organization turns their drones on us because of our antiquated human rights ideas, inability to form consensus, and extreme ideologies - from their perspective - opinions will get much clearer. Best way to stop the drone wars at this point are for us to stop now.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  That's a specialized version of the question, is it really evil to kill evil people? But it's also a bit off-topic; the more important one is, are only evil people getting killed by drone strikes executed by people who (claim to) try to kill only evil people? The answer to that is a resounding no. We can debate the specifics of this, but it wasn't my point. My point was, the concept of layers of indirection making perpetrating evil/immoral acts easier is a well-recognized one[0], and drone strikes are the usual example - the killer has no personal risk, and the act itself involves operating video game controllers while watching a low-resolution image of distant events. And, for many practical reasons, this has been embraced by the military. Cheaper, less trauma for soldiers, less bad press, less likely the soldier will hesitate or spare the lives of their targets. And thus I'm asking: if that works so well for killing, and there isn't a big pushback against this[1], then why criticize the case where the similar levels of detachment are making people more likely to do good deeds? If people are more likely to donate to good causes further away than they are to those close to them, then why not be just happy that more people are donating to good causes? -- [0] - It most likely has a formal name in psychology, but I'm not aware of it. [1] - There is some pushback, but I don't see it rising to the level actually influencing any decision-making in the US.
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    >My point was, the concept of layers of indirection making perpetrating evil/immoral acts easier is a well-recognized one It seems that you are again assuming that drone strikes are evil immoral acts. Most people view civilian casualties in war as a trolley car problem, (e.g. a necessary evil in an overall moral action)
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - kaba0 6y ago
      Why is there war in the first place? Also, it is a created trolley car problem not the trolley car problem. And creating such a situation instead of coming across it is definitely morally evil.
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  Most Americans would say it isn't evil and are willing to accept the civilian casualties of doing so. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2015/05/28/public-continues-to-back-u-s-drone-attacks/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2015/05/28/public-conti...
- jonathanstrange 6y ago
  Yes, because these are extrajudicial killings with high death tolls and serious injuries for bystanders. Suppose China, Russia, or the EU would conduct drone strikes on US soil but only target evil people such as Donald Rumsfeld, who is known to have ordered torture and initiated a war under false pretense. However, many bystanders including women and children would be killed as well. Would you be against it? I would be against that, no doubt about it.
- mgerullis 6y ago
  It’s so funny for people to have this concept of "evil" as if that were axiomatic.
- vmception 6y ago
  What's the difference between a Pakistanian wedding and a terror cell? Don't ask me I just fly the drone
- ping_pong 6y ago
  Evil by whose definition? For every person that is labelled "evil" by the US, I'm sure there are thousands who would consider them "good". I would hazard to guess that there are more people who considered Osa Bin Laden "good" than consider you "good" and could make a case that you are "evil". Does that means that they have a right to kill you? Or does the US government only get the right to designate people Good or Evil?
perl4ever 6y ago
There may be a tradeoff between the distance of someone you want to help and effectiveness - how much do you really know about their problems or the solutions you are funding? Have you ever tried to figure out requirements for a project at work that depend on a group of co-workers on another continent in a different culture? There's also so many faraway causes, how do you prioritize? The people I know, and the problems that I or they have, are not necessarily the most important in the world. But I have a better chance of doing something appropriate about them, because I'm not limited to vague stereotypes. Trying to help with something that you know about firsthand also increases the odds that you will be addressing a problem which is common but overlooked by society because there isn't enough money, glamour, or self-actualization involved. I strongly believe that a personal connection is not just a gimmick for these reasons.
- franga2000 6y ago
  The exact opposite argument can also be made here: they weren't remotely funding some specific measure that they think could solve the problem, which admittedly could be distorted by distance. They are funding an organization whose goal is solving that problem and has experts who are close to the issue. It's basically outsourcing.
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    >It's basically outsourcing It is basically outsourcing, yes. I'd think on HN of all places people would appreciate how wrong that can go. I recommend reading the Wikipedia page on Dian Fossey if you haven't.
    - franga2000 6y ago
      Interesting read, and I definitely wasn't trying to say that outsourcing was great. But if you do your due diligence, your chances of actually fixing the issue you care about are much higher if you pick a reputable organisation to donate to, rather than funding actions directly. Since philanthropy is usually fueled by emotions, you might be tempted to fuel actions to stop trophy hunting of endangered species, but according to many sources (see the wikipedia page and its references), that might actually be detrimental to the conservation efforts. Similarly, you might fund the planting of trees to restore forests, while those cutting existing forests down with no regard for the environment face no opposition (sound familiar?). There's a lot of harm possible if you outsource to the wrong people, but if you do your due dilligence, a dedicated group of experts will be able to use your money far more effectively than you could. As for "fixing the issues close to you" - you need to realise, that people who have money to throw around are rarely close to, let alone experts in, any such issues. They might want to help the homeless, for example, but if they just buy up a bunch of apartments and let them live there, they might not be solving much. Someone working with the homeless on a daily basis would know to put money towards rehabilitation, education and finding them employment first (from what I've heard - I, too, am not an expert).

jedimastert 6y ago

What in this article warrants a comment like this?

tyrust 6y ago
It's not even clear to me what the quote means out of context.
- ip26 6y ago
  I hadn't seen it before, but I suspect it's a prod at wealthy Western philanthropists who spend a lot of money on children in Africa or Asia- meanwhile ignoring the homeless & starving in their own town.
  - tyrust 6y ago
    Ugh, those prods reek of Western superiority. If a dollar goes further in an impoverished place I don't see what's wrong with directing it accordingly. Moreover, taxes (in theory) should already be directed to help those locally. I haven't done too much research and I direct my donations both domestically and abroad.

scandox 6y ago

I think is a fair comment. The people involved probably wouldn't give the steam off their coffee to the someone struggling right in front of them.

SyzygistSix 6y ago
What you are missing is that this allows people who are otherwise unable to help to do so. Helping animals has always been somewhat more popular than helping people because people have more agency and also tend to suck. What do you suggest we do for the people struggling in front of us? Also that is a broad brush you are painting a lot of people with. It's likely that many /r/wallstreetbets users donate to other charities. Americans tend to be quite generous.
- kaba0 6y ago
  I don’t have hard facts, but I believe I’ve read that basically the generosity of the American people is largely the same amount as the surplus taxes of Europeans. And in better functioning European countries that money will benefit people much more than animals — so in a way it helps explain the difference in the quality of social nets.
habosa 6y ago
Reddit has always been a place where you can find spontaneous generosity with a fun twist. Just one example: there was a popular sub many years ago called "randomactsofpizza" where Redditors would send pizza to other Redditors who were hungry or down on their luck. I don't know why we should assume Redditors are less charitable than people at large when if anything they've demonstrated otherwise.
- SyzygistSix 6y ago
  On the gorilla front, the AR15 subreddit helped the anti-poaching squads with technical advice and parts to help protect gorillas. It's a good venue for charity and people helping others. No one who has spent much time with humans should be shocked that the same people are also sardonic assholes at times.