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Comment by taurath | Hacker News Reader

> especially when wealthy individuals or corporations engage in altruistic acts

I've found that rather than status envy, its cynicism towards the intentions of the person. If they believe the purpose of the altruism is to gain social standing rather than an actual belief in solving the problem they're likely to disparage them. For example - when a company spends $50k to send a sick child on a vacation and then puts down a $50 million marketing spend to show off what they did. It feels like 99% of politics in the US has the same problem.

That sort of leads to the question - what is an effective way to communicate that you want to be an effective do-gooder, without triggering the cynicism? Is attention truly orthogonal to people believing that you have good intentions? I'd argue not, but its been lost. It seems like we don't have many cultural heroes anymore. Einstein comes to mind - Bill Gates perhaps (though certainly not in the 90s)..

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The cynicism is a mechanism for those who cannot do anything to relieve themselves of the guilt for not doing as much as those who can and do do things. Let it be. There is no value in winning over these people. They cannot contribute anyway.

Publicly pledging and giving away money is a good thing. The anonymous quiet giving misses out on the huge contribution of bringing attention to the cause. The cause always escapes the cynicism. You may not, but that’s okay. The end goal is achieved.

> what is an effective way to communicate that you want to be an effective do-gooder, without triggering the cynicism?

A more important question, I believe is: is there a way for such method to not be immediately perverted by those seeking to exploit the status bonus? I can't imagine there is; it seems to me that every honest signal that brings goodwill is soon coopted by scammers and marketers.

I think communicating your do-gooder status in a hyper connected society is highly over rated. Its like trying to figure out who is the best ant in the ant-hill. Not because there is some value to it to the ant hill, but because the data allows us to count and rank things.

We have all this data pouring in and so have ant rankings. But if Bill Gates gets hit by a bus tomorrow world history isn't going to change much. Wasn't the case in a less connected world in the past.

> what is an effective way to communicate that you want to be an effective do-gooder, without triggering the cynicism?

Communicating that you want to be one and being one is different. I'd like to think that the people who do great things will be eventually noticed whether they publicize it or not. Certainly if you communicate it then it may get noticed sooner, but having others notice shows a sense of being humble in addition to doing good things.

Certainly - actions must come before words.

Consider a billionaire who has steadily been giving millions away per year anonymously to a good chartable cause, but realizes the end goal can only be completed with more people. If at any point, the billionaire says hello - I have been donating to this cause for a while, and need help to eradicate it for all time, what happens? I'd guess that people think the billionaire never intended to keep donating in secret and it was generally a ruse. The second you go public, you already need to have a very large amount of "well-thought-of" supporters who are will back you to combat natural cynicism.

Another solution is to frame the problem as a common enemy one - thats what I think they tried with the "war on ___".

Here's an example from Old Krakow: https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/71893/jewish/...

Start a foundation and just don't put your name on it.

"what is an effective way to communicate that you want to be an effective do-gooder, without triggering the cynicism? "

Be one and don't worry about telling people.

Anonymity means you can do good without any risk of questioning intent.

It's certainly possible to questioning anonymous' intent. For example who bought the weapons, not to metions all those Toyota Hilux trucks, for ISIS, and why?

Matthew 6:3 comes to mind:

>But when thou givest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth

I subscribe to the idea that if you proclaim your good deeds then they are no longer good; i.e., you are doing them for selfish reasons rather than out of a true sense of charity.

> I subscribe to the idea that if you proclaim your good deeds then they are no longer good

Why? And why is this important? What is good and what is the purpose of good?

I'd challenge you to deeper consider the value, and the implication, of "doing" or "being good", and try to not end up on selfish preference of cooperation somehow.

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