There is a reason that I probably should have made more clear in the article. I’ll go back and fix it.
The reasoning assumes that your donation is small compared to the size of the charity. For example, donating $1,000 a year to a charity that spends $10,000,000 a year.
Keeping money for yourself can be thought of as a charity. Even if you’re partially selfish and you value yourself as a thousand strangers, the basic reasoning still works the same. The reason you keep some for yourself is that it’s a small charity. The amount you donate makes up 100% of its budget. As a result, it cannot be approximated as a linear function. A log function seems to work better.
I should add that there is still something about that that’s often overlooked. If you’re spending money on yourself because you value your happiness more than others, the proper way to donate is to work out how much money you have to have before the marginal benefit to your happiness is less than the amount of happiness that would be created by donating to others, and donating everything after that.
There are other reasons to keep money for yourself. Keeping yourself happy can improve your ability to work and by extension make money. The thought of having more money can be incentive to work. Nonetheless, I don’t think you should be donating anywhere near a fixed fraction of your income. I mean, it’s not going to hurt much if you decide to only donate 90% no matter how rich you get, but if you don’t feel like you can spare more than 10% now, and you become as rich as Bill Gates, you shouldn’t be spending 90% of your money on yourself.
Keeping money for yourself can be thought of as a [small] charity
Oh, interesting. I assumed the reason I keep anything beyond the bare minimum to myself is that I’m irrationally keeping my own happiness and the well-being of strangers as two separate, incomparable things. I probably prefer to see myself as irrational compared to seeing myself as selfish.
There is a reason that I probably should have made more clear in the article. I’ll go back and fix it.
The reasoning assumes that your donation is small compared to the size of the charity. For example, donating $1,000 a year to a charity that spends $10,000,000 a year.
Keeping money for yourself can be thought of as a charity. Even if you’re partially selfish and you value yourself as a thousand strangers, the basic reasoning still works the same. The reason you keep some for yourself is that it’s a small charity. The amount you donate makes up 100% of its budget. As a result, it cannot be approximated as a linear function. A log function seems to work better.
I should add that there is still something about that that’s often overlooked. If you’re spending money on yourself because you value your happiness more than others, the proper way to donate is to work out how much money you have to have before the marginal benefit to your happiness is less than the amount of happiness that would be created by donating to others, and donating everything after that.
There are other reasons to keep money for yourself. Keeping yourself happy can improve your ability to work and by extension make money. The thought of having more money can be incentive to work. Nonetheless, I don’t think you should be donating anywhere near a fixed fraction of your income. I mean, it’s not going to hurt much if you decide to only donate 90% no matter how rich you get, but if you don’t feel like you can spare more than 10% now, and you become as rich as Bill Gates, you shouldn’t be spending 90% of your money on yourself.
Oh, interesting. I assumed the reason I keep anything beyond the bare minimum to myself is that I’m irrationally keeping my own happiness and the well-being of strangers as two separate, incomparable things. I probably prefer to see myself as irrational compared to seeing myself as selfish.
The concept I was thinking of (but didn’t quite remember) when I wrote the comment was Purchase Fuzzies and Utilons Separately.