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Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

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Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#111

Post by exlexer »

wolverine876 wrote: post #24
lmm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The ends they want" - as opposed to the ends the recipients want (as expressed through an admittedly imperfect democratic system) - is exactly what I object to. Most "donations" are made to advance a personal agenda at least in part; even when the donor sincerely believes they're doing what's best for people, that's usually a reflection of their personal politics and you'll often find other people believing the exac…

> even when the donor sincerely believes they're doing what's best for people ... They are wealthy people who have no experience or knowledge of what people without wealth need.

To be fair, that also describes a large portion of politicians.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#112

Post by barry-cotter »

headsoup wrote: post #84
kortilla wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should rethink this stance. Do you want competent people running the organization or the cheapest possible? A charity that just passes money straight through by sending envelopes full of cash to a war torn country is much worse than one that spends a ton of money on analyzing first what the most effective way to help is.

By that logic open source software should be mostly crap... High pay bringing high competence and passion seems a rather poor assumption.

> By that logic open source software should be mostly crap...

And it is. Most free software projects never go anywhere. Those that do commonly have UI/UX that is far inferior to most consumer software produced for people willing to pay for it. The extreme right tail of open source software is great and most people who work on it are paid to do so. If you want reliability and quality paying for it works a lot better than hoping for people to do so uncompensated.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#113

Post by krzysiek »

croon wrote: post #95
krzysiek wrote: post #78

> In the contemporary world, philanthropy is distinctively American. We give about four hundred and seventy billion dollars a year—more if you count donations of time, physical labor, and material. America’s total is ahead of any other country’s, even as a percentage of G.D.P. Well, this is just not true. Americans give 2.1% of GDP to charity [1] while the whole world gives just under 3% [2]. Also when you take a loo…

What would be more interesting would be comparing it after including welfare/public education/healthcare/poverty rates etc. Best case scenario would be where no charity is needed, am I wrong?

Honestly I believe that the other way around would be way better. There is a lot of inefficiencies in the way governments work, plus they operate like monopolies.

On the other hand there is competition between nonprofits, plus they are often multinational.

I find it interesting that some of the most efficient government organizations (like World Food Programme) actually operate as charities (in the sense that everyone can donate to them).

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#114

Post by barry-cotter »

concordDance wrote: post #94
beefield wrote: post #85

Okay, I think I have some weird blind spot here. I have really hard time understanding the reasoning behind philanthropy being a societal good that should be subsidized by taxpayers. Let's take econ 101 and revealed preferences. It is obvious that if you give 100 bucks to a charity you get utility worth more than that 100 bucks. Otherwise you would not do that . And there is zero difference on the mechanics there if…

Subsidize things with positive externalities (e.g. territorial defence) and tax things with negative ones (e.g. industrial processes that pollute the air). In this case the donor gets his entertainment and good feelings and as a positive externality a child doesn't get malaria.

> tax things with negative ones

Graduate degrees, pollution, loud cars/motorcycles, ugly buildings, mountain climbing, alcohol, marijuana, fashion magazines. So many possibilities.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#115

Post by barry-cotter »

lmm wrote: post #48
cherrycherry98 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to assume that the government is benevolent, whereas private actors are not. I have come to view government programs with the perspective that they are intended primarily to benefit the politicians efforts to become reelected. They can claim to be saving the world, but with other people's money. Some good may come of these efforts but I don't view them as inherently virtuous. You argue that private actors…

> This seems to assume that the government is benevolent, whereas private actors are not. Not so much benevolent as accountable. The government, for all its faults, has a huge edifice of checks and balances, and while the gears grind slowly they do limit how far astray things can go. A private 503c is a real wild west in comparison.

> Not so much benevolent as accountable.

Remind me. Who was fired for Waco? Who at the CDC was fired for stopping the Seattle Flu Study from testing for COVID, or for banning commercial labs from testing for it while their own lab reported all samples as positive because of contamination?

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#117

Post by mschuster91 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #107
nicoburns wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Publicly funded institutions such as libraries and community centres can also offer this. There’s no reason other than political ideology why welfare cannot fund these things too. Which isn’t to say there isn’t a place for charity.

But of course there is a reason. A government-funded institution has no one with a stake in its long-term success. Its only goal is preserving itself and capturing more resources from the government. Small-scale philanthropy thus has a key role to play here. Funding for basic educational standards and a minimal social safety net is already a huge spending commitment for even the most successful governments, and it's…

> A government-funded institution has no one with a stake in its long-term success.

Of course it has: pissed-off voters. Mismanaged government-funded institutions such as DMVs or social security systems are a regular troublemaker for politicians.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#118

Post by _dain_ »

christophilus wrote: post #108
xnorswap wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you give 100 bucks to a charity you get utility worth more than that 100 bucks I find that a very odd statement to make. It is a statement that actually denies that people can act charitably at all. It comes across to me as a statement routed in a complete lack of empathy. I'm not disagreeing with your overall point that actually less reliance on philanthropy and more tax funding of welfare and initiatives would…

I was going to say the same thing, and yet… Let’s say that you give someone $100 so that they can feed their family. The good feeling you get, and the sense of justice, etc is worth $100 or more to you. Therefore, you got at least $100 utility out of it. Maybe? That’s what I’m guessing the OP meant.

You don't do it for a good feeling, you do it so they can feed their family.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#119

Post by exdsq »

anonymous_sorry wrote: post #98
krageon wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what organisations, pray tell, actually need the money and would be visible to a normal human being in a country that isn't shattered by war? Most of the large charities have disgustingly paid CEO's and I can't be the only one that gets a sour taste in their mouth when I give an amount of money to them and realise this CEO receives 100k-1m in compensation while actual human beings starve in the streets or freeze…

I guess what I really care about is "how much good does my donated dollar do?". Compare a dollar donated to expensive cancer research in the west with a dollar spent on cheap treatments which we already know to work in a developing country. How much of my dollar goes to CEO and staff pay is part of the calculation, but not the only part. The Effective Altruism movement aims to direct money towards these activities wi…

My issue with EA is similar to the posts point - it seems to be a lot of money being moved around between EA organizations finding their own blue sky philosophy research. For example the Future of Humanities Institute is funded by Giving What We Can, which passes funds to some AI orgs in SF, that the guys at FHI collaborate with, etc… I agree with their points but the actual funding of EA infrastructure appears to be a huge circle jerk.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#120

Post by exdsq »

_dain_ wrote: post #118
christophilus wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to say the same thing, and yet… Let’s say that you give someone $100 so that they can feed their family. The good feeling you get, and the sense of justice, etc is worth $100 or more to you. Therefore, you got at least $100 utility out of it. Maybe? That’s what I’m guessing the OP meant.

You don't do it for a good feeling, you do it so they can feed their family.

It’s okay if altruism is inherently selfish and for a warm fuzzy feeling or social media points as long as the altruism takes place
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