My goal with this post was mainly to share a model of “it’s better to do little than nothing” in the hopes I’d help someone else give money when they were hesitating. To make that point, I used the retro of the project I happened to be in. This project happened to be a humanitarian one. That it’s about Ukraine is just a coincidence.
Talking about military interventions because of some theoretical higher impact, when in practice very few people will have means to help militarily, is exactly the kind of analysis paralysis that qualifies as “nothing” instead of “little”. So in addition to being about a different domain of help than the case study I was using, this also completely misses the point of the post.
I admit that the comment you’re responding to is fueled by my emotional hesitancy to fund military action, so I thank you for this somewhat charged observation to prompt me into examining myself. Wouldn’t have figured out my unease otherwise. So new stance: Give money to Ukraine’s armed forces if you think that’s a more effective way of helping, but don’t dive into military analysis instead of actually helping.
I’ll keep my current commenting guidelines though, since the ethical considerations of military distract from the points I want to discuss.
My goal with this post was mainly to share a model of “it’s better to do little than nothing” in the hopes I’d help someone else give money when they were hesitating. To make that point, I used the retro of the project I happened to be in. This project happened to be a humanitarian one. That it’s about Ukraine is just a coincidence.
Talking about military interventions because of some theoretical higher impact, when in practice very few people will have means to help militarily, is exactly the kind of analysis paralysis that qualifies as “nothing” instead of “little”. So in addition to being about a different domain of help than the case study I was using, this also completely misses the point of the post.
I admit that the comment you’re responding to is fueled by my emotional hesitancy to fund military action, so I thank you for this somewhat charged observation to prompt me into examining myself. Wouldn’t have figured out my unease otherwise. So new stance: Give money to Ukraine’s armed forces if you think that’s a more effective way of helping, but don’t dive into military analysis instead of actually helping.
I’ll keep my current commenting guidelines though, since the ethical considerations of military distract from the points I want to discuss.