“When I was younger, I loved playing video games. [...] I just liked killing bad guys. Well, more than that, I hated not killing bad guys. When Heat Man killed my guy and stood around smugly, I wanted to throw the TV across the room, and I couldn’t stop until he was dead.
What sucked about this experience was that it was all fake, and in the back of my head I knew that. In the end I felt pretty empty and lame. Enter altruism – where the bad guys are ACTUALLY BAD GUYS. [...] it’s infinitely better because it’s real. I don’t care whether the kids are cute, or whether the organizations are nice to me, or whether my friends like my decisions. As with video games, I probably spend 99% of my time frustrated rather than happy. But … Malaria Man just pisses me off. It’s that simple.”
http://blog.givewell.org/2007/04/03/charity-the-video-game-thats-real/
I meant payments out of funds I provided, the idea being to maximize the fuzzies produced by a donation by increasing the effort expended to make it. But thanks for the link.
I’m reminded of this early GiveWell post :)
“When I was younger, I loved playing video games. [...] I just liked killing bad guys. Well, more than that, I hated not killing bad guys. When Heat Man killed my guy and stood around smugly, I wanted to throw the TV across the room, and I couldn’t stop until he was dead.
What sucked about this experience was that it was all fake, and in the back of my head I knew that. In the end I felt pretty empty and lame. Enter altruism – where the bad guys are ACTUALLY BAD GUYS. [...] it’s infinitely better because it’s real. I don’t care whether the kids are cute, or whether the organizations are nice to me, or whether my friends like my decisions. As with video games, I probably spend 99% of my time frustrated rather than happy. But … Malaria Man just pisses me off. It’s that simple.” http://blog.givewell.org/2007/04/03/charity-the-video-game-thats-real/
I’d play a game where scoring points or the equivalent wired tiny payments to a nonprofit of my choice.
You don’t get to pick the nonprofit, but there’s Free Rice.
I meant payments out of funds I provided, the idea being to maximize the fuzzies produced by a donation by increasing the effort expended to make it. But thanks for the link.