The Greatest Good: What is the best charitable cause in the world?
1–10 of 151 posts
Re: The Greatest Good: What is the best charitable cause in the world?
#2This resonates with me. I remember reading of a Stanford graduate who was delivering meals to indigents in San Francisco and the Bay Area. I immediately thought: how selfish. To give up a possibly lucrative employment in finance, so she could personally experience charitable work, was a net loss to that organization. Why not work on Wall Street and donate 90% of her income instead?
This is a real choice. Joining the Peace Corp or helping rebuild levys after a flood is humbling, giving and selfish, all at once. Instead work at what you can do best; then donate so others can do the real work. This is practical selflessness.
Re: The Greatest Good: What is the best charitable cause in the world?
#3This resonates with me. I remember reading of a Stanford graduate who was delivering meals to indigents in San Francisco and the Bay Area. I immediately thought: how selfish. To give up a possibly lucrative employment in finance, so she could personally experience charitable work, was a net loss to that organization. Why not work on Wall Street and donate 90% of her income instead? This is a real choice. Joining the…
Joe, this is Derek, the author of the piece linked above. I think you make a good point. When I first heard Will explain "earning to give," a part of me considered it off-putting and radical, but I've come to see it as an expansive view of doing good, because I think there are a lot of people who (a) wouldn't be good at charitable work or (b) would be good at charitable work but are better at - and enjoy! - other work. For these people, it's inspiring to think they can make a huge difference, too.
There is always the question: What happens if you discourage too many wonderful, smart people from working at charities? And here, Will's answer would be, I think, that if that starts happening, then we should reevaluate the advice. But for now, I think, the earning to give philosophy carries tremendous upside for getting more people to think of themselves as essential contributors to charitable causes, no matter where they work.
Re: The Greatest Good: What is the best charitable cause in the world?
#4While not directly related to the article's line of reasoning, an honourable mention goes to the Gates foundation - they're willing to take on some of the more "risky" high risk high reward projects that other charities that are accountable to the public can't risk.
Re: The Greatest Good: What is the best charitable cause in the world?
#5This resonates with me. I remember reading of a Stanford graduate who was delivering meals to indigents in San Francisco and the Bay Area. I immediately thought: how selfish. To give up a possibly lucrative employment in finance, so she could personally experience charitable work, was a net loss to that organization. Why not work on Wall Street and donate 90% of her income instead? This is a real choice. Joining the…
This depends on your skill set. What job is a civil engineer going to take where she could earn enough surplus income to be more effectively altruistic than the direct impact or their work?
On a different scale, could Toyota have done more good in a neighborhood by donating the money equivalent of its staff's pay here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/27/nyregion/in-lieu-of-money-...
Re: The Greatest Good: What is the best charitable cause in the world?
#6This resonates with me. I remember reading of a Stanford graduate who was delivering meals to indigents in San Francisco and the Bay Area. I immediately thought: how selfish. To give up a possibly lucrative employment in finance, so she could personally experience charitable work, was a net loss to that organization. Why not work on Wall Street and donate 90% of her income instead? This is a real choice. Joining the…
While you are correct, speaking negatively towards direct service probably isn't the best choice either. If everybody just donated cash instead of doing the work directly, there would be nobody to do the work. And if we start categorizing people by who is should make money vs. who should do the work, we are heading down a path of strengthening an unfair class system.
There are enough people who do nothing at all that when people want to offer service to others of any kind, I'd just say thank you for their service, no matter what it is or whether it is truly efficient.
Re: The Greatest Good: What is the best charitable cause in the world?
#7Clearly the SENS Research Foundation, as a 501c3 charity that gives you the 80/20 win for a good expectation value for your dollars to do the most good in speeding up progress towards ending age-related disease. If you want to do better than the SRF at assigning dollars to speeding up progress towards ending age-related disease, you're going to have to spend some years reading research and making connections. (I wish more people would, actually, no such thing as too much help here).
Age-related disease kills ~100,000 people every day, and causes horrible day to day suffering for hundreds of millions of others. Nothing else comes even close as a single presently addressable cause of terrible things in the world, and lack of money is the greatest obstacle to progress towards meaningful treatments that address the root causes of aging and thus all age-related disease.
Re: The Greatest Good: What is the best charitable cause in the world?
#8This resonates with me. I remember reading of a Stanford graduate who was delivering meals to indigents in San Francisco and the Bay Area. I immediately thought: how selfish. To give up a possibly lucrative employment in finance, so she could personally experience charitable work, was a net loss to that organization. Why not work on Wall Street and donate 90% of her income instead? This is a real choice. Joining the…
I have found this slightly related:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_work
Re: The Greatest Good: What is the best charitable cause in the world?
#9This resonates with me. I remember reading of a Stanford graduate who was delivering meals to indigents in San Francisco and the Bay Area. I immediately thought: how selfish. To give up a possibly lucrative employment in finance, so she could personally experience charitable work, was a net loss to that organization. Why not work on Wall Street and donate 90% of her income instead? This is a real choice. Joining the…
You've redefined a word. There's nothing selfish about doing something selfless because it's not being done in the 'optimum' way (as defined by you). It might be inefficient, but it's not selfish.
Regardless of your linguistic tricks, would they even have the motivation to make money on wall street? Would your 'optimum' plan even work with their personality? Is it actually optimal or merely fantasy?
You'd be better off thinking "how generous of them to be doing something" instead of having your intellectually questionable revelation.
On the subject of the long history of humans arguing over the meaning of words, this pg essay tackles the subject well:
Re: The Greatest Good: What is the best charitable cause in the world?
#10[deleted]