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This really is a story for our age: Rather than giving money to organisations and charities that can distribute donations cheaply and fairly to those that need

This really is a story for our age: Rather than giving money to organisations and charities that can distribute donations cheaply and fairly to those that need it, people give direct to the prettiest/most entertaining/most harrowing channel on a social media app and even then most of the donation ends up in the pockets of middlemen and for profit corporations.

hello_friendos 4y ago
roywiggins 4y ago
> people give direct to the prettiest/most entertaining/most harrowing channel Donors have always liked this sort of thing, that's why organizations invented "sponsor a child" to give people the experience of direct giving to particular recipients. Mediating it through an organization is probably fairer than this totally disintermediated giving (especially if, in reality, the money is pooled and spent on needy communities), but the impulse has always been there.
- hackerlight 4y ago
  It's because our compassion evolved to respond to visual stimuli, not facts about sufferring. We should be cautiously skeptical and analytical about these things. Otherwise we get paradoxes like the monstrosity of factory farms, the produce of which we use to feed our pets that we love. The end result is mass scale harm and suffering if we rely on gut moral instincts and don't use reason.
jkeat 4y ago
Adding to the spectacle, we have westerners displeased with a Chinese platform siphoning off too much of their direct aid, which is being sent to displaced Syrians who likely wouldn't be in this situation were it not for the US.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore
- floor2 4y ago
  That's one heck of a stretch, essentially anti-American propaganda. The US was one of a dozen countries which supported Syrian citizens standing up for human rights against a murderous dictator's violent suppression of the Arab Spring. The pro-freedom Syrians would likely have been successful with less violence if not for Russian backing of the Assad regime. Granted, without US support the rebels would have just been rounded up and killed by Assad without the conflict really reaching the point of civil war, so if you squint at it enough, ya you can kinda see that technically some of the displaced people wouldn't be displaced, they'd just still be living a terrible oppressed life under Assad.
russdill 4y ago
There's a great book discussion this problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Empathy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Empathy
makeitdouble 4y ago
Stepping one step behind, rather than financing government initiatives to improve/maintain vital infrastructure that will directly affect whole populations' lives, people will donate to private organizations and charities with shiny goals but way lower impact at scale, if the money ever gets used toward the described goal in the first place. There's of course many reasons people make these choices, and I think that's where the interesting discussion lies and what we could focus on improving.
csours 4y ago
Attention Economy
dartharva 4y ago
Many high-profile charity organizations have also resorted to such tactics for donations. There are so many banner ads on mainstream websites with close-ups of miserably crying children and poor parents to guilt-trip unassuming viewers.

hello_friendos 4y ago

roywiggins 4y ago

> people give direct to the prettiest/most entertaining/most harrowing channel Donors have always liked this sort of thing, that's why organizations invented "sponsor a child" to give people the experience of direct giving to particular recipients. Mediating it through an organization is probably fairer than this totally disintermediated giving (especially if, in reality, the money is pooled and spent on needy communities), but the impulse has always been there.

hackerlight 4y ago
It's because our compassion evolved to respond to visual stimuli, not facts about sufferring. We should be cautiously skeptical and analytical about these things. Otherwise we get paradoxes like the monstrosity of factory farms, the produce of which we use to feed our pets that we love. The end result is mass scale harm and suffering if we rely on gut moral instincts and don't use reason.

jkeat 4y ago

Adding to the spectacle, we have westerners displeased with a Chinese platform siphoning off too much of their direct aid, which is being sent to displaced Syrians who likely wouldn't be in this situation were it not for the US.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore

floor2 4y ago
That's one heck of a stretch, essentially anti-American propaganda. The US was one of a dozen countries which supported Syrian citizens standing up for human rights against a murderous dictator's violent suppression of the Arab Spring. The pro-freedom Syrians would likely have been successful with less violence if not for Russian backing of the Assad regime. Granted, without US support the rebels would have just been rounded up and killed by Assad without the conflict really reaching the point of civil war, so if you squint at it enough, ya you can kinda see that technically some of the displaced people wouldn't be displaced, they'd just still be living a terrible oppressed life under Assad.

russdill 4y ago

There's a great book discussion this problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Empathy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Empathy

makeitdouble 4y ago

Stepping one step behind, rather than financing government initiatives to improve/maintain vital infrastructure that will directly affect whole populations' lives, people will donate to private organizations and charities with shiny goals but way lower impact at scale, if the money ever gets used toward the described goal in the first place. There's of course many reasons people make these choices, and I think that's where the interesting discussion lies and what we could focus on improving.

csours 4y ago

Attention Economy

dartharva 4y ago

Many high-profile charity organizations have also resorted to such tactics for donations. There are so many banner ads on mainstream websites with close-ups of miserably crying children and poor parents to guilt-trip unassuming viewers.