Have you considered that some of us might have utility functions that do have terms for socially distant people? Thus the charity can give direct utility to us, which seems ignored by the analysis.
Second, end points rarely are optimal. E.g. eating only tuna and nothing else could be unhealthy and weird, but that does not imply that eating some tuna is unhealthy or weird. Thus your analysis seems to miss the obvious answer.
“The correct reason to spend most of your meager and hard-earned cash on efficient charity is because you already want to do good. But that is not an extra reason. ”
Have you considered that some of us might have utility functions that do have terms for socially distant people? Thus the charity can give direct utility to us, which seems ignored by the analysis.
Second, end points rarely are optimal. E.g. eating only tuna and nothing else could be unhealthy and weird, but that does not imply that eating some tuna is unhealthy or weird. Thus your analysis seems to miss the obvious answer.
read the post:
“The correct reason to spend most of your meager and hard-earned cash on efficient charity is because you already want to do good. But that is not an extra reason. ”