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> I am within mine to remind everyone to please help your friend, your neighbor, your town, state, and country before you look further afield. Nah. We have me

by mlyle 1y ago

> I am within mine to remind everyone to please help your friend, your neighbor, your town, state, and country before you look further afield. Nah. We have memberships in families, neighborhoods, friend groups, local areas, cultural groups, nations, and the whole world. And problems at any of these levels can grow to the point where they affect us, too. And places where the needs are most acute and broad stand the greatest chances of developing to not be as acute of problems anymore and indeed to offer value to the overall world community through trade. Indeed, the extreme version of what you're saying is why so many only give to their church communities which are insular and isolated. Or to just retain everything. 70% of my giving is domestic, but I think it's nuts to ignore the rest of the world. Yes, things improved in distant lands maybe are harder for me to see and have less of a direct impact on those around me; so discount their benefit some, but that marginal benefit is so much larger...

_bin_ 1y ago
You have to weigh that against the fact that you are much more able to figure out how to actually do what's needed at levels where you see things firsthand. At least, that's been my experience; it's much more realistic to start a nonprofit that can make a real difference locally, then perhaps scale with time, than it is to found something with a global mission, lacking global context on how things manifest around the world. More importantly, I'm not a utilitarian, and do not subscribe to "effective altruism" or other utilitarian philosophies. At the end of the day it's Gates' money to do with as he wishes and it's my internet account to argue against that as I wish.
- mlyle 1y ago
  Sure, but even when you apply discount rates due to uncertainty of efficacy and distance of effects, the numbers can still be big. At this point, I spend substantially my entire life in local service (I am a schoolteacher and I give away 6 figures locally annually). I still don't think it would maximize my effective impact to ignore the rest of my country or the rest of the world.

by mlyle 1y ago

_bin_ 1y ago

You have to weigh that against the fact that you are much more able to figure out how to actually do what's needed at levels where you see things firsthand. At least, that's been my experience; it's much more realistic to start a nonprofit that can make a real difference locally, then perhaps scale with time, than it is to found something with a global mission, lacking global context on how things manifest around the world. More importantly, I'm not a utilitarian, and do not subscribe to "effective altruism" or other utilitarian philosophies. At the end of the day it's Gates' money to do with as he wishes and it's my internet account to argue against that as I wish.

mlyle 1y ago
Sure, but even when you apply discount rates due to uncertainty of efficacy and distance of effects, the numbers can still be big. At this point, I spend substantially my entire life in local service (I am a schoolteacher and I give away 6 figures locally annually). I still don't think it would maximize my effective impact to ignore the rest of my country or the rest of the world.