5 ms·

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I've always felt it selfish when people of means partake in 'aid trips' over sending money to an appropriate organization.

by jrlocke 12y ago

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I've always felt it selfish when people of means partake in 'aid trips' over sending money to an appropriate organization. If you care to help, leverage your abilities efficiently; make the money doing what you're best at, and let others administer the aid.

vinay427 12y ago
That's certainly a logical opinion, and I agree that efficiency is key. However, I think it's also important to keep in mind the personal value of traveling on aid trips, which allow for an improved understanding of the need that lies. Perhaps this encourages potential donors to increase the frequency and quantity of their contributions.
- Someone1234 12y ago
  I'd liken it to the classic criticism: "charities spend too much money on advertising!" But how do charities get donations without advertising? How do they let people know why they need the money and encourage them to donate? At some point, yes, a charity can spend too much of its donations on advertising, but advertising in general is a necessary evil. Same with this. The charities might take in less overall if they "saved" money by scrapping these types of programs.
  - Symmetry 12y ago
    One can criticizing people for taking the trips isn't the same as criticizing charities for offering them.
    - Someone1234 12y ago
      I suppose that is fair. But since I don't donate 1/1000th of what these people do even with the trip, I don't really think my grandstanding on how they spend their own money would really be justified. I will say that I took a holiday last year, and technically that is money I could have used to donate. So in that sense I am just as bad as they are.
    - chii 12y ago
      why not? it takes two to tango.
  - danielweber 12y ago
    Lots of charities are entirely advertising and exist entirely so that the charity can keep on employing the people it employs. This isn't 100% useless, as it causes economic activity, but it's done under the lie that non-profits are de facto good things. This is the challenging thing about charities. If I want to evaluate the person selling me socks or smart phones, I look at the good they offer and decide if it is worth $N. If it is, I make the trade. If not, I don't. But with charities, you have to figure out "is the marginal change the charity will do with $5 worth me having five dollars less?" And that's incredibly hard to figure out. Even the charity itself, assuming it even wants to know, can have a hard time figuring out the net difference of five dollars. Which is the whole point of effective altruism.
  - 33W 12y ago
    It is also similar to the criticism of CEO pay for nonprofits. If the CEO brings in additional donations and furthers the organization's mission, why wouldn't they have pay competitive to a for-profit org? Why should you be paid less to do good than evil? or non-good, marginal good, regular doings, etc.
- mrspeaker 12y ago
  Also, it maybe efficient in turning dollars to aid, but nobody at the "rich trader bar" wants to hear a story about someone donating money... that's just a way to reduce taxable income. An engaging personal story about travel and experiences is much more likely to have an impact on others.
  - sopooneo 12y ago
    From a purely financial, self-interested standpoint, how does a donation to charity which reduces taxable income actually help a person? If I reduce my income by $100, it's true I won't have to give the fraction of that to the government that I might have, but now rather than being out a fraction to the government, I'm out the entirety to the charity. Even in the case where the donation drop the payer to a lower tax bracket, I don't see how it helps. Any insight greatly appreciated.
iamfbpt 12y ago
I agree with this view.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
tomjen3 12y ago
I am not sure it is an unpopular opinion, but if they had instead spent the money on e.g a sports car wouldn't that have been more selfish?
psaintla 12y ago
You may find it selfish but I don't see why they shouldn't go to verify that the money their spending is being used appropriately.
Lawtonfogle 12y ago
It is less selfish that not helping at all. To criticize those who help inefficiently more than those who don't help at all enforces the notion that it is better to not help at all.
- JacobLBryan 12y ago
  I don't think of it as a criticism, moreso as an opportunity that people may not have fully considered. If you ask most people who do give to charity why they do it they'll usually say that they want to make a difference or alleviate suffering. As long as they aren't overly set in their ways they should be happy to hear about more effective giving opportunities, or maybe even to consider the entire question in a new framework that helps them better accomplish their stated goals.
bobcostas55 12y ago
Empirically speaking, aid is almost completely useless[0], no matter who administers it. So whether he gives it all to the "appropriate organization" or "wastes" some of it on an aid trip is ultimately irrelevant. [0] Easterly's book is great if you're interested in the stats: http://www.amazon.com/The-Elusive-Quest-Growth-Misadventures/dp/0262550423 http://www.amazon.com/The-Elusive-Quest-Growth-Misadventures...
- icebraining 12y ago
  As an introduction, here's an episode of Econtalk with the author: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2008/02/easterly_on_gro.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2008/02/easterly_on_gro.htm...
- willmacaskill 12y ago
  That's not true. There are hundreds of thousands of different aid project, it would be miraculous if all were entirely ineffective. E.g. you'd have to be crazily skeptical to suggest that the programs recommended by GiveWell aren't of positive expected value; there's just so much evidence to the contrary. In terms of the link between aid and economic growth - aid is just such a small part of developing countries' economies that you simply can't peer through the statistical fog; it's such a weak signal, and there are so few data points ,that it's not surprising that we can't detect a correlation. A nice even handed discussion is given by Owen Barder of the Centre for Global Development: http://cf.owen.org/wp-content/uploads/Can-Aid-Work-Owen-Barder.pdf http://cf.owen.org/wp-content/uploads/Can-Aid-Work-Owen-Bard...
  - tomjen3 12y ago
    >E.g. you'd have to be crazily skeptical to suggest that the programs recommended by GiveWell aren't of positive expected value; Their top charity for a long time was a mosquito net distribution agency. It turned out that the mosquito nets were used as fishing nets instead and, since they were treated with insecticide, polluted the local lakes.
    - 12y ago
willmacaskill 12y ago
What I find most amazing is when bright Ivy League graduates go and do manual labour, like building a school, in a poor country with massive unemployment. It's not exactly playing to comparative advantage.
- maaku 12y ago
  Human beings are not absolutely focused, money-seeking, rational economic actors.
  - Frondo 12y ago
    Thank the heavens for that.
- nashashmi 12y ago
  That's pretty much how they become brighter. These kinds of hands-on experience are far more transformative and contribute to higher efficiency than if they were to simply donate more money.
  - dublinben 12y ago
    At least they could acknowledge that they're going abroad to help themselves, rather than the beneficiaries of their "charity."
    - mod 12y ago
      Nothing is altruistic. I'm not sure why you're picking on these guys in particular.
      - dublinben 12y ago
        I'm not "picking on" anyone. I'm just reflecting that it would be refreshing if the subjects of this discussion would express some self-awareness. It's hardly surprising that they aren't.
amelius 12y ago
Since he's in the financial business, I'm wondering why he isn't leveraging the effect of "money makes more money" before donating. Isn't it better to invest that money first, before donating it? Take for example Bill Gates. If he had donated all his "surplus" money instead of building a business, he wouldn't have been able to donate the amount that he has; the amount wouldn't even be of the same order.
- willmacaskill 12y ago
  This is a really tricky issue; there are lots of competing considerations either way. (e.g. the return you get from your money; but your donated money also generates a 'social return', which can be much higher than what you get in a bank. And you'll learn more about how to do good later on; but the world is also getting richer so there might be fewer outstanding opportunities in the future. Etc etc.) There's a summary of blogposts on the topic here: http://www.effective-altruism.com/ea/4e/giving_now_vs_later_a_summary/ http://www.effective-altruism.com/ea/4e/giving_now_vs_later_...
- jkestner 12y ago
  Factor in the time-value of money, and the risk of investments. Is $100 going to be more useful to the EFF to stop bad law now, or is $200 in a couple years when they have to try to repeal bad law?
- cjbprime 12y ago
  There's the obvious counter-argument about not being able to guarantee that investments will increase in value, but I think the more compelling one is that it's an especially useful time to be donating. According to the UN: > in 2011, 17 percent of people in the developing world lived at or below $1.25 a day. That’s down from 43 percent in 1990. It seems worth pushing to nearly-eradicate this "extreme poverty" now, rather than waiting another 20 years and doing something that would likely have a lesser effect on suffering.
- driverdan 12y ago
  Is saving two lives in eight years worth more than saving one life today?
melling 12y ago
You certainly could have chosen a path in life where you made a lot of money then donated it more efficiently. I know lots of developers who put hours into whatever games they enjoy. Leveling up that WoW character to level 70. Most of us could be doing a lot more.
galfarragem 12y ago
There's even a name for that: voluntourism. "Voluntourism is ultimately about the fulfillment of the volunteers themselves, not necessarily what they bring to the communities they visit." [1] “Basically, we failed at the sole purpose of our being there. It would have been more cost effective, stimulative of the local economy, and efficient for the orphanage to take our money and hire locals to do the work, but there we were trying to build straight walls without a level.” [2] [1] http://www.psmag.com/business-economics/instagrammingafrica-narcissism-global-voluntourism-83838 http://www.psmag.com/business-economics/instagrammingafrica-... [2] http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/voluntourism-is-a-waste-of-time-and-money--and-gappers-are-better-off-working-in-britain-9816837.html http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/voluntou...
ics 12y ago
But then maybe wanting someone else to use their money efficiently is selfish of us when they might rather develop as people by observing and empathizing with the struggles of others.
- Mickydtron 12y ago
  If observing and empathizing are the goals of the trip, and everyone is clear about that, then all is fine and good. However, these sorts of trips are generally understood to have the goal of helping people directly, which they are not actually good at. Anecdotally, I find that these sorts of stories generally go "we helped them so much" rather than "I learned so much and will now donate more than I would have otherwise".
  - ics 12y ago
    > If observing and empathizing are the goals of the trip, and everyone is clear about that, then all is fine and good. Why does it have to be so explicit? My observations align with yours in regards to how these trips are marketed (if I can use the term) and how most people I know who have done them describe the experience. But I have another anecdote, one which describes why I don't want to hold my speculations or "understanding of the world" in too high esteem: I know at least one person who was so sheltered that the big realizations on her trip (a "mission" trip as it were so) were that: not all children are born in fancy suites with a host of doctors tending to every need; you can't get processed American lunches out in the middle of the desert; "kids are literally hungry because they don't have enough food". Hearing this was equal parts astonishing and enraging and yet it made me check my own entitlement as well. Why should I want to attack her motivations? Why should I challenge her because the "result" wasn't "good enough", i.e. she didn't suddenly become enlightened as to what it was like to live in such a situation, instead she merely realized that she had a desire to care about the issue and support others who care as well (see: cash donations)? Any minute I could have said obviously, there are people in terrible situations all over the world and it would have done nothing because I already thought it. There will always be "those kinds" of people; we don't want to be them, but they also don't want to be us. The truth is that even if her interests end up being entirely selfish, she'll probably have more of an impact on those things than I ever will. I can appreciate that, even if it's not efficient, altruistic, or whatever. It's frustrating, but not terrible.
mikemajzoub 12y ago
I used to agree with this view, until I participated in an aid trip in college. When I personally saw what extreme poverty was, it changed the course of my life and future career decisions. So, the $1000 plane ticket and 10 days in a rural, high-need area allowed me to look outside the bubble of American extravagance I had grown up in. It is one thing to rationally know that people are without food and basic medicine through the reading I did or videos I watched. It is another to be in a high-need community and find myself trying to explain to a father that I just ran out of the antibiotics he needed to help his sick child fight an infection. Of course it would have been more effective to not buy the plane ticket and ship $1000 more of antibiotics to the community, but that is the cost we (myself and the community) paid to change a lifetime of decisions I would make as a privileged American. The cost sickens me, but it is the reality I have come to understand. Emotional connections are powerful, but they are difficult to form without the personal connection. My hope is that as technology improves, we will be able to build empathy more effectively even without the aforementioned expensive plane ticket. Perhaps then we will be more hesitant about war and more vigorous in helping refugees, victims of natural disasters, and others.
- JacobLBryan 12y ago
  It's about recognizing that you aren't a perfectly rational person, and then taking steps to maximize your altruism in ways that may not have been strictly optimal if you hadn't taken that into account. If seeing poverty firsthand is going to give you the motivation to do something about it when you return, then that's the action you should take, as long as you're being honest with yourself.
- Mickydtron 12y ago
  That's an interesting perspective, and I'd be interested in seeing whether people who go on these sorts of trips end up giving more on average to charity across their lives than people who don't. If so, then the trips could be worth encouraging as a societal norm, not for the good that they do directly, but for the impact that they have on later donations. If the trips don't have much of an impact, then it would be better to discourage people from doing this, and societally encourage donations instead.
mark_l_watson 12y ago
I had a hiking friend who used to charter jets, collect farm equipment and food, and fly into areas of the world that he thought needed aid. My friend died two years ago in a car accident so I can't ask him, but I think he did that to be more efficient.
lkbm 12y ago
One thing that was pointed out to me once was that a normal person on a vacation will spend more money in the local economy than they would otherwise donate. Spending $500 on a plane ticket and then spend $500 at local restaurants, vendors, and accommodations won't do as much good as the $1000 would straight-up donated, but it's better than the $100 I would _actually_ donate. Don't make perfect the enemy of good. And ultimately, it will make me care more about wherever I visited, and prompt further donations in the future.

by jrlocke 12y ago

vinay427 12y ago

That's certainly a logical opinion, and I agree that efficiency is key. However, I think it's also important to keep in mind the personal value of traveling on aid trips, which allow for an improved understanding of the need that lies. Perhaps this encourages potential donors to increase the frequency and quantity of their contributions.

Someone1234 12y ago
I'd liken it to the classic criticism: "charities spend too much money on advertising!" But how do charities get donations without advertising? How do they let people know why they need the money and encourage them to donate? At some point, yes, a charity can spend too much of its donations on advertising, but advertising in general is a necessary evil. Same with this. The charities might take in less overall if they "saved" money by scrapping these types of programs.
- Symmetry 12y ago
  One can criticizing people for taking the trips isn't the same as criticizing charities for offering them.
  - Someone1234 12y ago
    I suppose that is fair. But since I don't donate 1/1000th of what these people do even with the trip, I don't really think my grandstanding on how they spend their own money would really be justified. I will say that I took a holiday last year, and technically that is money I could have used to donate. So in that sense I am just as bad as they are.
  - chii 12y ago
    why not? it takes two to tango.
- danielweber 12y ago
  Lots of charities are entirely advertising and exist entirely so that the charity can keep on employing the people it employs. This isn't 100% useless, as it causes economic activity, but it's done under the lie that non-profits are de facto good things. This is the challenging thing about charities. If I want to evaluate the person selling me socks or smart phones, I look at the good they offer and decide if it is worth $N. If it is, I make the trade. If not, I don't. But with charities, you have to figure out "is the marginal change the charity will do with $5 worth me having five dollars less?" And that's incredibly hard to figure out. Even the charity itself, assuming it even wants to know, can have a hard time figuring out the net difference of five dollars. Which is the whole point of effective altruism.
- 33W 12y ago
  It is also similar to the criticism of CEO pay for nonprofits. If the CEO brings in additional donations and furthers the organization's mission, why wouldn't they have pay competitive to a for-profit org? Why should you be paid less to do good than evil? or non-good, marginal good, regular doings, etc.
mrspeaker 12y ago
Also, it maybe efficient in turning dollars to aid, but nobody at the "rich trader bar" wants to hear a story about someone donating money... that's just a way to reduce taxable income. An engaging personal story about travel and experiences is much more likely to have an impact on others.
- sopooneo 12y ago
  From a purely financial, self-interested standpoint, how does a donation to charity which reduces taxable income actually help a person? If I reduce my income by $100, it's true I won't have to give the fraction of that to the government that I might have, but now rather than being out a fraction to the government, I'm out the entirety to the charity. Even in the case where the donation drop the payer to a lower tax bracket, I don't see how it helps. Any insight greatly appreciated.

iamfbpt 12y ago

I agree with this view.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

tomjen3 12y ago

I am not sure it is an unpopular opinion, but if they had instead spent the money on e.g a sports car wouldn't that have been more selfish?

psaintla 12y ago

You may find it selfish but I don't see why they shouldn't go to verify that the money their spending is being used appropriately.

Lawtonfogle 12y ago

It is less selfish that not helping at all. To criticize those who help inefficiently more than those who don't help at all enforces the notion that it is better to not help at all.

JacobLBryan 12y ago
I don't think of it as a criticism, moreso as an opportunity that people may not have fully considered. If you ask most people who do give to charity why they do it they'll usually say that they want to make a difference or alleviate suffering. As long as they aren't overly set in their ways they should be happy to hear about more effective giving opportunities, or maybe even to consider the entire question in a new framework that helps them better accomplish their stated goals.

bobcostas55 12y ago

Empirically speaking, aid is almost completely useless[0], no matter who administers it. So whether he gives it all to the "appropriate organization" or "wastes" some of it on an aid trip is ultimately irrelevant. [0] Easterly's book is great if you're interested in the stats: http://www.amazon.com/The-Elusive-Quest-Growth-Misadventures/dp/0262550423 http://www.amazon.com/The-Elusive-Quest-Growth-Misadventures...

icebraining 12y ago
As an introduction, here's an episode of Econtalk with the author: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2008/02/easterly_on_gro.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2008/02/easterly_on_gro.htm...
willmacaskill 12y ago
That's not true. There are hundreds of thousands of different aid project, it would be miraculous if all were entirely ineffective. E.g. you'd have to be crazily skeptical to suggest that the programs recommended by GiveWell aren't of positive expected value; there's just so much evidence to the contrary. In terms of the link between aid and economic growth - aid is just such a small part of developing countries' economies that you simply can't peer through the statistical fog; it's such a weak signal, and there are so few data points ,that it's not surprising that we can't detect a correlation. A nice even handed discussion is given by Owen Barder of the Centre for Global Development: http://cf.owen.org/wp-content/uploads/Can-Aid-Work-Owen-Barder.pdf http://cf.owen.org/wp-content/uploads/Can-Aid-Work-Owen-Bard...
- tomjen3 12y ago
  >E.g. you'd have to be crazily skeptical to suggest that the programs recommended by GiveWell aren't of positive expected value; Their top charity for a long time was a mosquito net distribution agency. It turned out that the mosquito nets were used as fishing nets instead and, since they were treated with insecticide, polluted the local lakes.
  - 12y ago

willmacaskill 12y ago

What I find most amazing is when bright Ivy League graduates go and do manual labour, like building a school, in a poor country with massive unemployment. It's not exactly playing to comparative advantage.

maaku 12y ago
Human beings are not absolutely focused, money-seeking, rational economic actors.
- Frondo 12y ago
  Thank the heavens for that.
nashashmi 12y ago
That's pretty much how they become brighter. These kinds of hands-on experience are far more transformative and contribute to higher efficiency than if they were to simply donate more money.
- dublinben 12y ago
  At least they could acknowledge that they're going abroad to help themselves, rather than the beneficiaries of their "charity."
  - mod 12y ago
    Nothing is altruistic. I'm not sure why you're picking on these guys in particular.
    - dublinben 12y ago
      I'm not "picking on" anyone. I'm just reflecting that it would be refreshing if the subjects of this discussion would express some self-awareness. It's hardly surprising that they aren't.

amelius 12y ago

Since he's in the financial business, I'm wondering why he isn't leveraging the effect of "money makes more money" before donating. Isn't it better to invest that money first, before donating it? Take for example Bill Gates. If he had donated all his "surplus" money instead of building a business, he wouldn't have been able to donate the amount that he has; the amount wouldn't even be of the same order.

willmacaskill 12y ago
This is a really tricky issue; there are lots of competing considerations either way. (e.g. the return you get from your money; but your donated money also generates a 'social return', which can be much higher than what you get in a bank. And you'll learn more about how to do good later on; but the world is also getting richer so there might be fewer outstanding opportunities in the future. Etc etc.) There's a summary of blogposts on the topic here: http://www.effective-altruism.com/ea/4e/giving_now_vs_later_a_summary/ http://www.effective-altruism.com/ea/4e/giving_now_vs_later_...
jkestner 12y ago
Factor in the time-value of money, and the risk of investments. Is $100 going to be more useful to the EFF to stop bad law now, or is $200 in a couple years when they have to try to repeal bad law?
cjbprime 12y ago
There's the obvious counter-argument about not being able to guarantee that investments will increase in value, but I think the more compelling one is that it's an especially useful time to be donating. According to the UN: > in 2011, 17 percent of people in the developing world lived at or below $1.25 a day. That’s down from 43 percent in 1990. It seems worth pushing to nearly-eradicate this "extreme poverty" now, rather than waiting another 20 years and doing something that would likely have a lesser effect on suffering.
driverdan 12y ago
Is saving two lives in eight years worth more than saving one life today?

melling 12y ago

You certainly could have chosen a path in life where you made a lot of money then donated it more efficiently. I know lots of developers who put hours into whatever games they enjoy. Leveling up that WoW character to level 70. Most of us could be doing a lot more.

galfarragem 12y ago

There's even a name for that: voluntourism. "Voluntourism is ultimately about the fulfillment of the volunteers themselves, not necessarily what they bring to the communities they visit." [1] “Basically, we failed at the sole purpose of our being there. It would have been more cost effective, stimulative of the local economy, and efficient for the orphanage to take our money and hire locals to do the work, but there we were trying to build straight walls without a level.” [2] [1] http://www.psmag.com/business-economics/instagrammingafrica-narcissism-global-voluntourism-83838 http://www.psmag.com/business-economics/instagrammingafrica-... [2] http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/voluntourism-is-a-waste-of-time-and-money--and-gappers-are-better-off-working-in-britain-9816837.html http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/voluntou...

ics 12y ago

But then maybe wanting someone else to use their money efficiently is selfish of us when they might rather develop as people by observing and empathizing with the struggles of others.

Mickydtron 12y ago
If observing and empathizing are the goals of the trip, and everyone is clear about that, then all is fine and good. However, these sorts of trips are generally understood to have the goal of helping people directly, which they are not actually good at. Anecdotally, I find that these sorts of stories generally go "we helped them so much" rather than "I learned so much and will now donate more than I would have otherwise".
- ics 12y ago
  > If observing and empathizing are the goals of the trip, and everyone is clear about that, then all is fine and good. Why does it have to be so explicit? My observations align with yours in regards to how these trips are marketed (if I can use the term) and how most people I know who have done them describe the experience. But I have another anecdote, one which describes why I don't want to hold my speculations or "understanding of the world" in too high esteem: I know at least one person who was so sheltered that the big realizations on her trip (a "mission" trip as it were so) were that: not all children are born in fancy suites with a host of doctors tending to every need; you can't get processed American lunches out in the middle of the desert; "kids are literally hungry because they don't have enough food". Hearing this was equal parts astonishing and enraging and yet it made me check my own entitlement as well. Why should I want to attack her motivations? Why should I challenge her because the "result" wasn't "good enough", i.e. she didn't suddenly become enlightened as to what it was like to live in such a situation, instead she merely realized that she had a desire to care about the issue and support others who care as well (see: cash donations)? Any minute I could have said obviously, there are people in terrible situations all over the world and it would have done nothing because I already thought it. There will always be "those kinds" of people; we don't want to be them, but they also don't want to be us. The truth is that even if her interests end up being entirely selfish, she'll probably have more of an impact on those things than I ever will. I can appreciate that, even if it's not efficient, altruistic, or whatever. It's frustrating, but not terrible.

mikemajzoub 12y ago

I used to agree with this view, until I participated in an aid trip in college. When I personally saw what extreme poverty was, it changed the course of my life and future career decisions. So, the $1000 plane ticket and 10 days in a rural, high-need area allowed me to look outside the bubble of American extravagance I had grown up in. It is one thing to rationally know that people are without food and basic medicine through the reading I did or videos I watched. It is another to be in a high-need community and find myself trying to explain to a father that I just ran out of the antibiotics he needed to help his sick child fight an infection. Of course it would have been more effective to not buy the plane ticket and ship $1000 more of antibiotics to the community, but that is the cost we (myself and the community) paid to change a lifetime of decisions I would make as a privileged American. The cost sickens me, but it is the reality I have come to understand. Emotional connections are powerful, but they are difficult to form without the personal connection. My hope is that as technology improves, we will be able to build empathy more effectively even without the aforementioned expensive plane ticket. Perhaps then we will be more hesitant about war and more vigorous in helping refugees, victims of natural disasters, and others.

JacobLBryan 12y ago
It's about recognizing that you aren't a perfectly rational person, and then taking steps to maximize your altruism in ways that may not have been strictly optimal if you hadn't taken that into account. If seeing poverty firsthand is going to give you the motivation to do something about it when you return, then that's the action you should take, as long as you're being honest with yourself.
Mickydtron 12y ago
That's an interesting perspective, and I'd be interested in seeing whether people who go on these sorts of trips end up giving more on average to charity across their lives than people who don't. If so, then the trips could be worth encouraging as a societal norm, not for the good that they do directly, but for the impact that they have on later donations. If the trips don't have much of an impact, then it would be better to discourage people from doing this, and societally encourage donations instead.

mark_l_watson 12y ago

I had a hiking friend who used to charter jets, collect farm equipment and food, and fly into areas of the world that he thought needed aid. My friend died two years ago in a car accident so I can't ask him, but I think he did that to be more efficient.

lkbm 12y ago

One thing that was pointed out to me once was that a normal person on a vacation will spend more money in the local economy than they would otherwise donate. Spending $500 on a plane ticket and then spend $500 at local restaurants, vendors, and accommodations won't do as much good as the $1000 would straight-up donated, but it's better than the $100 I would _actually_ donate. Don't make perfect the enemy of good. And ultimately, it will make me care more about wherever I visited, and prompt further donations in the future.