Comment by vinceguidry | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vinceguidry | Hacker News Reader

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10% towards charity is a bit much. One should absolutely donate 10% of their income, but charities are inefficient vehicles for change. There are political causes that, should we get better people in office, will direct the massive resources of government to either stop doing bad things or start doing better things.

For those that were around for it, there was a big huge discussion here awhile back about Blue Tribe vs Grey Tribe mentality and this is just more Grey Tribe quibbling. Scale happens best not at the level of the firm / charity, but at the realm of the state. It's possible to participate meaningfully in politics just by making your voice heard, this is why the Blue Tribe is so powerful. Grey Tribe is fundamentally libertarian, and libertarians fundamentally just wanna be free to go their own way. But there's power in numbers.

My recommendation is 2.5% politics donations, 2.5% personal cause donations (I like the FSF), 5% towards local organizations doing community stuff. Adjust as you see fit.

I don't like giving to political causes because I see it as an escalatory War that can consume all of the inputs. People have conflicting opinions on how government money should be spent for good . If half the population gives 10% of their income to one political Theory and the other half gives 10% to the other, they spend it all competing and zero gets to the people that need it.

I think it is far better give money to a Cause that I know works today then gamble on long-term political Roi. I can still politically influence those around me with my time as I see fit.

Another thing, that some people are underestimating is that people can have way, way more impact by switching careers than just donating money. Knowledge, expertise and dedication is worth millions when it comes to finding solutions to pressing problems.

I like https://80000hours.org/ They go over this topic way more in depth and also have a job board of most impactful jobs.

I think even giving 2.5% to politics is too much. The amount of impact your money will have in influencing public policy is minuscule. Even if you donated 90% it would make almost no difference in a state-level political campaigns chance of success. And even assuming your preferred candidate did win, their ability to redirect the “massive resources” of government to a good causes is very small. However small amounts donated to the right charities (vaccines, mosquito nets, eye surgery, etc) can completely change peoples lives.

Donate as much as you feel comfortable to whatever cause you feel good contributing. But it's just wrong that political donations don't do anything. True, it's a drop in a very large bucket. But it's a bucket that has been heavily refined and engineered to have as large an electoral impact as possible by very seasoned professionals.

There's another reason to donate to political campaigns. Much of the money in politics comes from corporate PACs. This money often comes with weird strings attached and doesn't really serve the public interest. Grassroots donations (to the Blue Tribe, in the Red it's likely to just go in someone's pocket) provides a counterweight to this massive influence and is very important in prioritizing politicians' platforms and agenda. If they can rely on public donations, then they can spend less time satisfying corporate donors.

> In an election year estimated to cost around $14 billion, money from small donors makes up 22 percent of 2020 fundraising — up from 15 percent at this point in 2016.

> In what Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has called “the most important election of our lifetime,” small donor donations already total $2.8 billion — an unprecedented high considering the impact of COVID-19 on the American wallet.

> Biden has seen a high tally of these small donations from a dollars-only standpoint. At around $368 million, money from small donors makes up about 38 percent of Biden’s total. But President Donald Trump has seen a higher proportion of money raised from small donors, with 45 percent, or $268 million, of his total coming from contributions of $200 or less.

From https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/10/small-donors-give-b...

Seems like every donation, even those under $200, counts. In a proportion and as part of helping win races.

I had a visualization in mind that showed size of donations per district among other stats but I can't find it now. There are rough estimates for the "cost per vote" based on donations divided by number of votes achieved but obviously there are a number of confounding factors with analyses starting from numbers like those.

As far as redirecting funds to things you believe in, I don't imagine some of the recent changes enacted by recent bills would have taken effect in any way other than getting folks to vote for someone who would help push them through, and donating money for political ads and other kinds of campaigning can often make or break a campaign (I can't think of a better recent example than how JD Vance was just given $28M for the Ohio race that ostensibly favors Republicans).

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