3 ms·

The thing that's always made me skeptical of Gates and any other enormous foundations is that they operate at such a high level and with such enormous budgets t

The thing that's always made me skeptical of Gates and any other enormous foundations is that they operate at such a high level and with such enormous budgets that they basically exist in the same "amoral" world of nation states and corporations, but yet they face none of the scrutiny or criticism that those entities face. How do you judge the actions of someone when those actions are powerful enough to move markets, take down regimes, and change people's lives for generations? We take them at their word and assume that everything they do is well-intentioned and good and has zero negative impact or secondary effects, but is that really the case? To me it seems like the only charity that can be trusted is a small-scale one that acts locally and with lots of transparency.

david-gpu 1y ago
Why would they have to be perfect to deserve donations? A "small-scale charity that acts locally with lots of transparency" may be great, or it may be terribly inefficient in their real-world ability to improve the well-being of the people they are supposed to benefit. And either choice would be better than not donating anything to anybody.
- yupitsme123 1y ago
  May be great or may be terrible applies to both the small and the the nation-state sized charity right? Maybe my judgement or efficiency is bad when I try to help my neighbor. Okay, whoopsie. Now apply that margin of error to a foundation whose decisions impact millions of people and possibly entire societies, possibly for generations. The unintended or possibly negative effects can be enormous and long-lasting.
cyberax 1y ago
Small-scale local charities are fine, but they are by definition _local_. And even the poorest parts of the US are doing much better than a lot of poor countries in Africa and Asia.
- yupitsme123 1y ago
  Yes they're local, but its not like there's a limit to how many local charities there can be in the world. Operating at a huge scale requires you to lump people together into groups and make assumptions about who they are and what they deserve, as you've done in your example. To me that sounds antithetical to the concept of charity. And even with the best intentions, if you mess up, you're messing up a huge scale.
  - cyberax 1y ago
    I can't reasonably be expected to assess which local charities in Chad are even real. I don't think there are _any_, in fact.
    - yupitsme123 1y ago
      Charity just means helping someone. Do you think no one in Chad needs or is offering help? And if you don't know anyone in Chad who's in need of charity then...why do you want to do charity in Chad? It seems that our notion of charity has been warped in such a way that it somehow doesn't count unless it's some enormous large-scale mission carried about by Charity, Inc for the benefit of some group of people far away. It's all very abstract, and that just creates room for fraud or exploitation. Paying off a local person's debts or putting their child through college will probably be far more impactful and meaningful than sending your money off to some giant organization.

david-gpu 1y ago

Why would they have to be perfect to deserve donations? A "small-scale charity that acts locally with lots of transparency" may be great, or it may be terribly inefficient in their real-world ability to improve the well-being of the people they are supposed to benefit. And either choice would be better than not donating anything to anybody.

yupitsme123 1y ago
May be great or may be terrible applies to both the small and the the nation-state sized charity right? Maybe my judgement or efficiency is bad when I try to help my neighbor. Okay, whoopsie. Now apply that margin of error to a foundation whose decisions impact millions of people and possibly entire societies, possibly for generations. The unintended or possibly negative effects can be enormous and long-lasting.

cyberax 1y ago

Small-scale local charities are fine, but they are by definition _local_. And even the poorest parts of the US are doing much better than a lot of poor countries in Africa and Asia.

yupitsme123 1y ago
Yes they're local, but its not like there's a limit to how many local charities there can be in the world. Operating at a huge scale requires you to lump people together into groups and make assumptions about who they are and what they deserve, as you've done in your example. To me that sounds antithetical to the concept of charity. And even with the best intentions, if you mess up, you're messing up a huge scale.
- cyberax 1y ago
  I can't reasonably be expected to assess which local charities in Chad are even real. I don't think there are _any_, in fact.
  - yupitsme123 1y ago
    Charity just means helping someone. Do you think no one in Chad needs or is offering help? And if you don't know anyone in Chad who's in need of charity then...why do you want to do charity in Chad? It seems that our notion of charity has been warped in such a way that it somehow doesn't count unless it's some enormous large-scale mission carried about by Charity, Inc for the benefit of some group of people far away. It's all very abstract, and that just creates room for fraud or exploitation. Paying off a local person's debts or putting their child through college will probably be far more impactful and meaningful than sending your money off to some giant organization.