Charity is no substitute for humanity | Hacker News Reader

Charity is no substitute for humanity

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104 pointssmacktoward51 comments

I think another thing to think about with charity is control and agency. Charity is, I'd argue inherently extremely undemocratic. Most people will never be able to afford philanthropy in any meaningful way, so Charity means subjugating yourself to the control and decisions of richer and more powerful people. There are more and less extreme cases of this, of course. I vaguely remember a eugenics charity in the US that paid "lesser" people to sterilize themselves or perform abortions. However, even in less extreme cases, the top down control of charity is inherently oppressive. It allows rich people to "vote with their wallets" on the lives of the general population. Sure, everyone can technically vote, but some people have a million times more votes than others.

Does this mean we should outlaw charities? I don't think so. This only becomes a problem in a country where there is extreme wealth inequality and the rights of the general populace are not guaranteed. Charity seems like a good way to stuff small holes in a general welfare system, but it shouldn't be the welfare system.

Can you answer why this is a problem in terms of costs and benefits presupposing that there is no inherent value to human life? If you argue with certain moral beliefs at your core your probably only reaching deaf ears from key figures that could help change things. Appealing to someone's self-interest is more efficient.

> presupposing that there is no inherent value to human life

I mean, you can argue anything if you make your assumptions ridiculous enough.

If your approach is to let other people die because that's more efficient then sorry, I'm not very open to your arguments about self-interest.

(I don't want to engage in too much character assassination but: There's this joke that within the first few pages of the comments of any Libertarian account, you will find them defending pedophilia in some way. I'm pleased to say that this rule still applies)

Your problem seems to be, that you need arguments to convince someone to do something that you want him to do. I don't care if you're not convinced. I don't need you doing something for my benefit.

As a former bell-ringer for the SalArmy across two time zones, the people who give the most are always the ones who look like they need it the most. No different from how the biggest tippers always themselves work in the service industry. The lower class isn't surviving because of WIC or unemployment insurance, or from the .ooooo9% billionaires part with in exchange for additional tax breaks, but from others out here in the streets.

People should not have to live or die depending repeated random acts of kindness from strangers.

So many American feel-good news stories are utterly dystopian, where some person completely fucked dry by the government or corporate interests have disaster temporarily staved off by friends or colleagues desperately sacrificing their time or money. Either that, or it's about some billionaire dropping pocket lint on a good cause.

Sites like https://www.sunnyskyz.com/good-news just make me depressed:

https://www.sunnyskyz.com/good-news/3283/Man-Shares-Chick-Fi... - man starving on the streets gets one meal our of sheer luck

https://www.sunnyskyz.com/good-news/3279/7-Eleven-Owner-Catc... - starving children win the getting-fucked-for-life vs eating-a-meal lottery one single time. Thoughts and prayers go to their next 1000 times they need to play.

https://www.sunnyskyz.com/good-news/3270/Unused-Cafeteria-Fo... - starving children (Why is this even a thing anywhere?) are allowed to eat leftovers.

> People should not have to live or die depending repeated random acts of kindness from strangers.

That is true, but the flip side is that people should not have to live or die depending on compelled acts of strangers either.

No ideological purity survives the myriad of real world circumstances; but the normal case should be that people don't need charity because when life hits them hard there are avenues where they can live a dignified life through their own hard work.

If all it took was hard work to live a dignified life there would already be plenty of dignity. The fact of the matter is the world doesn't work on dreams, hopes, and hard work. Silicon Valley had plenty of failed companies to prove this. It works on the fact that bad things happen to good people, good things happen to bad people and the vast majority of your ability to deal with that comes from how much money your parents had, something over which you have no control. The fact that you have to pay dues in the form of taxes to be part of something like the United States shouldn't be a hard choice to make. We're all willing to pay for corporate welfare, military excess, public land give aways to private entities, but heaven forbid we give up a little bit of cash in the form of taxes to help our fellow citizen. If you look at the outrage on taxes it's always when it comes to helping other people. Access to healthcare shouldn't be a political issue. There is no liberty in a life where one must make the choice between certain death and loss of freedom. As a citizen you're also not compelled to stay in the United States. You can gain all the benefits of citizenship and live in another country. You can even choose to become a citizen of another country. This idea that you're forced to help your fellow citizens is plainly a falsehood. As soon as you become an adult you're free to leave the country. Compulsion is an illusion.

No, you are not free to leave because the supposed other country might not take you in and even if they do it is a big process, nor are the costs of travel negligible.

I think every country offers an immigration program of some kind. To get super pedantic you can show up in Svalbard and live there forever with no immigration process - you just get off the plane and tell the Norwegian governor you live there now. So there is always somewhere you can go. I think the travel costs are the smallest part of immigrating somewhere new (especially since most immigration programs are employment sponsored). That’s not to understate the scope of what you’re doing, it’s a big decision, though it definitely is an option. I guess I’m saying “yes and no.”

What you’re describing is what we call “society.” In a society we compel acts from others as they compel ours and in exchange we’re all better off for it. The whole “you can’t make me” argument in the face of death and suffering evokes a screaming match between a 10 year old and their parent over cleaning their room. It’s not a good look.

The fact is an individual in America who “made it all by themselves” was the beneficiary of myriad social service: public education, roads, water, rail, police, fire, the courts, the army, the regulators and the agencies like the EPA. Drawing the line at healthcare, sick time, and paid leave rules is just a truly arbitrary line in the face of all this.

> No ideological purity survives the myriad of real world circumstances...

Well said. In my opinion the default should be that you can live a comfortable life, and if you are successful you should be rewarded with outsize returns. In part because we as a society can afford to treat everyone well, and also because a baseline of comfort frees you to take risks. It’s how people who do well at a startup suddenly have money, and many more of them on average go on to start their own.

>> No ideological purity survives the myriad of real world circumstances

Just wanted to praise the way you've been able to summarise something I find so true.

What a ridiculous website. Never thought I’d see a front page with more clickbait than BuzzFeed. Out of all the stories of perseverance you could find, why did you link 4 articles from this website? Are you trying to help them with SEO?

None of the articles are sourced and it even looks like they’re taking videos from other news publications like ABC and playing their own 15 second ads over them.

I for one didn't click on any of the links, why would I.. and even if all of the 3 stories were fake, it wouldn't change the point -- which, as I see it, is about such things being considered "feel good" stories, as if we already accepted the background of suffering that makes them stand out. I know I see that stuff in the wild all the time. But I don't bookmark that stuff, and if I searched for, it I would probably end up on a "farm" for it, too.

This is possibly my favourite ever HN comment. When people talk about how terrible social media echo chambers are they're often overlooking the fact that they're living in one of a much larger scale. I find it utterly baffling that the people of the United States aren't at the gates of the Whitehouse with pitchforks over even just the healthcare issue.

You ruled out everything we know/have tried, though. What is your idea?

IMHO we should improve technology in such ways to replace social security.

> You ruled out everything we know/have tried, though. What is your idea?

I am not sure I understand. I ruled out only desperate random acts of charity. Surely other tried-and-tested working alternatives are well-known?

In other developed countries we do not consider starving children normal because we have a stronger and enforced minimum wage and people out of work get dependable welfare. We do not have thousands people dying from disease because they can't afford treatment, because it's handled by the government.

> fucked dry by the government

Do you expect that same government to help or what other option is there?

The question is who owns the technology we are improving. For whose financial interests does that technology work?

Open source?

Variant of charity. Or company sponsored. Also has a sustainability crisis where maintainers burn out left and right.

This article decries people the necessity of people banding together in tough times and want's more "humanity" meaning that expenses are automatically taken care of in bad times. The author knows nothing about humanity and what it entails. Humanity is not a robotic system where ants are ordered.

Societies are built by people interacting and building trust and taking care of each other in bad times for their own self interest. Not by forcing people to act against their own judgment.

The problem is that without the greed of a few most of these charity acts wouldn't need to exist. Healthcare is extremely expansive and inefficient in the US because of the greed of a few. This false dichotomy between a freedom crunching social regime against the freedom saving forces of market is a lie. Social democratic countries exist, the populus are not subjugadeted to an opressing regime nor are they left for the mercy of strangers for basic survival. On top of that, most systems there, even governmental ones are much more efficient than in the US. And still, there's a free economy, with plenty of chances for a decent life.

On the other hand the US is controlled by the greed of a few huge corporation, the people are much less free. As I see it, human society tends to create hubs of power. The civilian powers are not less prone to oppression than the power of the state. In a democracy you at least have the moral grounds to fight corruption. But in a society obsessed with free markets and small government this power still ends up concentrated in places. But now you as opressed don't have a moral ground to fight abuses of power. This false dichotomy of freedom vs welfare means that standing up against the opressors is considerred bad morally, because it means you are against freedome. Anyway, because it seems that power have a tendency to concentrate. I'de rather have a moral system where abuses of power of any kind can be considered morally wrong.

I have always been told that I should save my money and build a nest egg. That I should not stop until I have 6 months to a year of runway, and that once I get there, treat that money as if I don’t even have it. I have lived by this advice and I am grateful for receiving it early.

I believe (from reading this article) that the people in it would not have been helped by having a 6 month or one year, or more of saving, because without the provision of sick leave they would have lost their health insurance and with it the ability to pay for the care of their baby.

So the state would cast them into destitution and kill their baby.

Also, imagine a situation where you suffer a misfortune and lose your nest egg. Perhaps an official, relative or adviser steals it from you, they are prosecuted and condemned but have spent the money on drugs - it's gone. Then you suffer another misfortune - you lose your job, or you suffer a non life threatening injury that prevents you from working. Now you are screwed.

This clearly isn't your fault. You saved, you worked, you are a victim. Now you are on the street.

Is this right?

What happens when you find you need 2 years of runway?

Or 5, or 10, or 20?

And, mind, you may not know the duration going in.

And how does one accumulate a nest egg when every employer I have ever dealt with cannot afford (or outright refuses) to do better than paying late and/or less than agreed, if at all? Believe it or not, not everyone can live off their parents as adults.

I am also wondering why I have to subsidize everyone else's kids while not being able to afford my own, since I have relatively high standards for what a stable financial situation should be before I have them. Charity is voluntary while taxation is not.

Consider, you have a job, an apartment, dignity.

Without taxation you would have none of these. You would be a surf or servant, or simply dead. Statistically it would be astonishingly unlikely you would be in the ruling class, and given that you are posting on HN you probably aren't a candidate.

You have standards, I respect that, but your community disagrees with you. Children are our future, they are ours - all of them - and we need to look after them. They should have food, shelter, healthcare and education. We should all give them that. If we do we can look each other in the eye and demand respect, dignity and community. If you are robbed or shamed they you have a right to be offended and outraged.

If we don't then you and I are wolves in the forest, with everyone else.

> Consider, you have a job, an apartment, dignity.

> Without taxation you would have none of these. You would be a surf or servant, or simply dead.

I do not agree with this premise, especially since you have provided no proof that it is based in reality. If you were to guess, what was the income tax in the US in 1900 and were everyone there a surf [sic], servant or dead?

It's quite possible that other people are subsidizing your children more than you are theirs.

I have yet to see the numbers that support this position.

As you can't seem to afford your own children, presumably you are making less money than those who can. Thus, you pay less in taxes than they do, which means they're paying for your children rather than the other way around.

> presumably you are making less money than those who can.

That’s a bit of a stretch, especially considering that I have specifically mentioned the fact that a lot of people don’t seem to care about their financial situation when having children. And then apparently it is “humane” to take other peoples resources by force through government to pay for their expenses. Who need these barbaric consensual charities anyway.

simplistic

Why aren't you also wondering why you have to subsidize everyone else's police, firefighting, army, food and drug safety, environmental protections, transport safety, public education, libraries, ...

Edit:

Also, the reason you can't afford kids is precisely due to the US having the same mentality as yours. Because you have to worry about healthcare, or college, or not having enough vacations and sick days. Instead of, you know, not worrying about that.

Because most of those things scale very well for the amount of people that use them. Medical care on the other hand does not scale at all.

Actually, medical care does scale a lot: many conditions are much easier and less expensive to treat if found early. An expensive system brings lots of people to postpone care and screening.

And yet in most of the world it does scale and US has one of the worst health systems in the world. Easily the worst in “The West”

What is that headline that The Onion likes to use? “Nothing we can do about this, says only country in the world where this regularly happens”. Applies to healthcare too.

Everyone else has solved this. Americans don’t want to. That’s an okay and fine choice just don’t pretend it’s unsolvable. I live here in the US with a 6 figure salary and my greatest fear is ever needing a doctor for anything.

Back home it wasn’t even a consideration. Need doctor? Just go without a second thought.

And my income was a fraction of what it is now.

How do public education or libraries scale well and medical care for all doesn't?

Also, of course medical care for all scales extremely well. You remove financial burden from people. You encourage them to start their own jobs, or switch to different/better jobs. You remove the burden of long untreated diseases. You get a happier more productive population.

For me having a huge amount of charitable organizations mean that governments have failed. As a world.

Not to mention a lot of charitable organizations are created as a mean to evade taxes.

> The IRS estimates that the charitable sector controls approximately USD 3 trillion (€2.36 trillion) in assets.

https://www.oecd.org/tax/exchange-of-tax-information/4223203...

I highly recommend Citations Needed's episode on Perseverance Porn. If you have ever been uneasy with stories about people walking 10+ miles to work or relying on charity just to survive a common misfortune, this will open your eyes to just how prevalent it is. https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-23-the-medias-gri...

Beware, you'll see it everywhere after this.

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