boggling at money, and at altruism, and at the way the two interrelate
This would not be an incorrect summary of my confusion. The difference in realm between social and fiscal motivations is fairly well-studied, including some counter-intuitive things like taking payment for transgressions causing more incidence, as you’ve removed the unquantified guilt for it. And yet, we often exhort people to donate cash rather than time or changing behaviors in other ways.
And yet, we often exhort people to donate cash rather than time or changing behaviors in other ways.
It seems like you want some sort of general answer to this, when it seems to me it depends on a ton on the details.
Sometimes, you want to feed and cloth bunch of homeless people, and you don’t really need people to change their behavior or donate time – in fact, getting them to donate time is almost net-negative because then you have to figure out how to coordinate them. Meanwhile, it’s not that hard to give out clothes and food, you just need economy of scale.
Sometimes, you’re trying to change the underlying systems that give rise to homeless people, and… well, what comes next depends radically on what you think the problem is and how to solve it. Maybe it’s some kind of collective action (requires lots of people), maybe it’s passing a new law (requires dedicated lobbyists and people to figure out which law to write), maybe it’s building better mental hospitals or free therapy, maybe it’s making it easy for them to receive mail and get showers and nice clothes so they can get a job.
Almost whatever problem you’re focusing on requires people who can dedicate lots of time to thinking about it (whether or not the solution ends up involving collective action or distributed material goods or small-but-high-leverage-interactions), rather than volunteer hobbyists thinking about it occasionally. Which basically always requires some amount of money.
It sounds like there were some particular examples you had in mind where it didn’t seem like donating money would help, but it’s hard for me to figure out what to say given the current vague wording.
Do you have some behaviors that might be offered up as examples for this?
I am now thinking that is different than talking about behaviors of the recipients of charity so it’s more about paying up for transgressions being wrapped up in the charity plea for money.
Afterthought here too. Early 1900s I think you would find more request for donating time—more volunteer work, less “professionalization” of the industry of charity. I think a few studies (no cites or titles to offer though) have suggest that shift has introduces some negative impacts in terms of output.
This would not be an incorrect summary of my confusion. The difference in realm between social and fiscal motivations is fairly well-studied, including some counter-intuitive things like taking payment for transgressions causing more incidence, as you’ve removed the unquantified guilt for it. And yet, we often exhort people to donate cash rather than time or changing behaviors in other ways.
It seems like you want some sort of general answer to this, when it seems to me it depends on a ton on the details.
Sometimes, you want to feed and cloth bunch of homeless people, and you don’t really need people to change their behavior or donate time – in fact, getting them to donate time is almost net-negative because then you have to figure out how to coordinate them. Meanwhile, it’s not that hard to give out clothes and food, you just need economy of scale.
Sometimes, you’re trying to change the underlying systems that give rise to homeless people, and… well, what comes next depends radically on what you think the problem is and how to solve it. Maybe it’s some kind of collective action (requires lots of people), maybe it’s passing a new law (requires dedicated lobbyists and people to figure out which law to write), maybe it’s building better mental hospitals or free therapy, maybe it’s making it easy for them to receive mail and get showers and nice clothes so they can get a job.
Almost whatever problem you’re focusing on requires people who can dedicate lots of time to thinking about it (whether or not the solution ends up involving collective action or distributed material goods or small-but-high-leverage-interactions), rather than volunteer hobbyists thinking about it occasionally. Which basically always requires some amount of money.
It sounds like there were some particular examples you had in mind where it didn’t seem like donating money would help, but it’s hard for me to figure out what to say given the current vague wording.
Do you have some behaviors that might be offered up as examples for this?
I am now thinking that is different than talking about behaviors of the recipients of charity so it’s more about paying up for transgressions being wrapped up in the charity plea for money.
Afterthought here too. Early 1900s I think you would find more request for donating time—more volunteer work, less “professionalization” of the industry of charity. I think a few studies (no cites or titles to offer though) have suggest that shift has introduces some negative impacts in terms of output.