You did a good deed you thought. Donated a few bucks to some foundation. Cancer research, ending hunger, promoting peace on earth. Was supposed to be a noble cause. Hopefully the funds went to the needy and not some 501(c)(3) admin’s slush fund.
Few months pass, the emails and letters being rolling in asking for more money. Human suffering is endless, of course they need some more help. Holidays approaching, the spam floods in with courteous solicitations for another contribution.
“Is there a box to check where I can donate extra for them to just stop harassing me?”
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Such is a typical experience donating to a charity organization. It seems like a nice thing to do, but somehow it can wind up leaving a bad taste in your mouth. There’s always a lingering suspicion that you just set your money on fire and into a black hole. The more I’m confronted with charities, the more cynical I get about the whole nature of their operations.
In previous employment, HR at the small company I was working at sent out an email to all the managers soliciting for a $100 Christmas gift to the owner’s foundation. Of course I obliged. Have to play ball with the guy signing the checks, keep up good standing in the organization. But, it seemed emblematic of the performative nature that surrounds much of philanthropy.
I kick a few dollars to Roger’s wife’s passion project, he sees I donated, they’re pleased to boast a larger donor base, I pray bossman will look kindly on me when it comes for a promotion. Did the small contribution net anything of value for the greater good? Well who cares, that wasn’t really the point.
Perhaps I’ve been poisoned by cynicism. Maybe I shouldn’t be reflexively chimping about the futility of large hurricane relief orgs anytime a storm hits. (Red Cross bureaucrat cash grab, FEMA is going to authorize billions anyways!)
I’m not alone in my skepticism though. Public trust in charities in general has cratered to new lows recently. The initial decline in donations began during the 2008 economic crisis, and has only continued as people become more jaded about charity.
The internet has fueled more awareness of the endless fraud committed by non-profits. Nobody has the time to audit the practices of all the organizations. Eventually you just throw your hands up and say “enough” instead of trying to vet for the honest ones.
“Non-Profit Organizations”
“To give away money is an easy matter and in any man's power. But to decide to whom to give it and how large and when, and for what purpose and how, is neither in every man's power nor an easy matter.” - Aristotle
The “non-profit” designation once may have indicated an institution which is dedicated to selfless chartable works. In current day it has lost a bit of its luster.
Rolex is a non-profit. IKEA is a non-profit. The NFL was masquerading as a non-profit until 2015.
It’s a tax distinction that morphed into a marketing tool. A hollow badge of honor to claim benevolence.
In theory, there’s a certain level of oversight attempting to keep the non-profits from turning into gravy trains. The private inurement clause in the U.S. exempts members from being paid “excessive salaries” or netting personal gain from the venture. In practice, there’s a lot of wiggle room for misappropriation of resources.
Where to spend to do good? What is actually the most good? How do you prevent corruption from hijacking real philanthropy? Age old questions, we still haven’t really figured out.
The whole Effective Altruism wave was supposed to be the great secular solution to this eternal conundrum. Focus on making as much money as possible so you can give it away was the pitch. “Ethical rationalism to save the world”.
Eccentric Autism
Let’s check in with Peter Singer, a founding father in the Effective Altruism movement…
The ethical case for f*cking animals?? These are our titans of moralism and charity? This doesn’t sound right.
Such alarming quirks from the self-professed “altruists” are less surprising these days as more within the movement have been exposed for being quite amoral in their actions. Sam-Bankman Fried was a great tipping point. Post-FTX collapse, Effective Altruism now sounds like nice euphemism for multi-billion dollar theft and swinger polycules in the Bahamas.
There’s a sci-fi fear occasionally thrown around that one day some uber-rational AI with no heart would recommend crazy things like killing people in the name of environmental protection. We really need not wait for the machines to do this work though. Effective Altruism encompasses a lot of the autistic spirit of “do most good” even if you have to do a lot of bad. Young tech nerds liberated from strict dogmas and constructing a moral frameworks via logic puzzles. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is not ideal, but may be fine in certain cases as long as Paul really needs the money.
I’m sure there are tons of well-intentioned people within the group. But it’s quite curious how many deplorable sociopaths it has attracted. It’s an ideology for cold rationalists. People who can intellectualize the idea of loving “mankind as a whole”, but simultaneously loathe many individuals. The man who feels better funding a food bank than interacting with a street beggar. Internally conflicted between brain and soul.
It’s hard to envision a rationalist movement truly being a “pro-human” movement. Pure rationalism leads to an empty and sterile existence. To really embrace humanity is to love beautiful irrationality. To let passions fly to highs and lows instead of suppressing them in favor of calculation. Welcoming the great creative life-force of contradiction.
I suppose therein lies my hang-up with Charity™ on the large scale. Sending money to some distant organization is very detached and layered in abstraction. Supporting friends, loving thy neighbor, volunteering one’s time and effort, local donations to trusted people, these are all quite easy ideas to get behind. They feel inherently more humane. In tune with whatever hardwired spirit of giving that is natural to a person of decency.
