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Comment by _bin_ | Hacker News Reader

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> I am within mine to remind everyone to please help your friend, your neighbor, your town, state, and country before you look further afield.

Nah. We have memberships in families, neighborhoods, friend groups, local areas, cultural groups, nations, and the whole world. And problems at any of these levels can grow to the point where they affect us, too. And places where the needs are most acute and broad stand the greatest chances of developing to not be as acute of problems anymore and indeed to offer value to the overall world community through trade.

Indeed, the extreme version of what you're saying is why so many only give to their church communities which are insular and isolated. Or to just retain everything.

70% of my giving is domestic, but I think it's nuts to ignore the rest of the world. Yes, things improved in distant lands maybe are harder for me to see and have less of a direct impact on those around me; so discount their benefit some, but that marginal benefit is so much larger...

You have to weigh that against the fact that you are much more able to figure out how to actually do what's needed at levels where you see things firsthand. At least, that's been my experience; it's much more realistic to start a nonprofit that can make a real difference locally, then perhaps scale with time, than it is to found something with a global mission, lacking global context on how things manifest around the world.

More importantly, I'm not a utilitarian, and do not subscribe to "effective altruism" or other utilitarian philosophies. At the end of the day it's Gates' money to do with as he wishes and it's my internet account to argue against that as I wish.

Sure, but even when you apply discount rates due to uncertainty of efficacy and distance of effects, the numbers can still be big.

At this point, I spend substantially my entire life in local service (I am a schoolteacher and I give away 6 figures locally annually). I still don't think it would maximize my effective impact to ignore the rest of my country or the rest of the world.

As someone who grew up in a Christian faith tradition that said Jesus Christ died for the sins of all of us and that we are all made in God's image, I find this position so bizarre. If we are all children of God, why should I prioritize the well being of a single stranger in Ohio over twenty strangers in Kenya? I can understand an argument for prioritizing one's family, especially if you are a parent, or even one's immediate community, but while I personally love America, the vast majority of Americans are as distant from me as anyone else in the globe.

This is a pretty common question that's raised: how can we square this with loving our fellow man?

The short answer is Christianity isn't a utilitarian belief system. While God loves everyone equally, he puts some of us closer together in love: family, friends, neighbors, countrymen. This incurs a greater obligation, plus we ought to love more those who are closer to us.

Sadly, a lot of Christian faiths teach dogma before the underlying reasoning or take a Bible-only approach which I find to be incredibly incomplete. In case your upbringing didn't include much theological reading, I would strongly recommend Civitas Dei and Summa Theologiae; the latter is less explicitly relevant to its definition but probably a better book overall.

I think you are going too far in telling other people that their religious beliefs are wrong, and that you know better (unless you are God yourself).

I really don't see how anything I wrote was that controversial; he's free to disagree and pursue his own beliefs, obviously. Everything someone says that's not wrapped up in formal logic or statistics is implicitly opinion; the fact that I find repeatedly saying so tedious and ridiculous doesn't mean I'm asserting I am somehow an arbiter of the One True Faith.

We all act as we think best. I can try to change how others think. That's about the start and end of it.

> The short answer is Christianity isn't a utilitarian belief system. While God loves everyone equally, he puts some of us closer together in love: family, friends, neighbors, countrymen. This incurs a greater obligation, plus we ought to love more those who are closer to us.

This is very directly contradicted in the parable of the Good Samaritan, though. When Jesus said to love your neighbor as yourself, and Peter asked “but who is my neighbor”, Jesus pulled up the Samaritans - a group that the Jews had ethnic and religious conflicts with. (A modern equivalent for modern Jews might be the Palestinians). And he pointed and told a whole story that basically said “these guys. Love these enemies as if they were your family”.

So, yeah, I’m gonna hard disagree that Christianity supports treating your own townspeople as more worthy of help, versus helping the poorer people in other countries.

I find your picture of a god as you describe it, as something i would not want to have.

This interpretation sounds like a great excuse to stop helping others and spending your time behind a computer instead of actually being out there and helping.

If you would really believe, do you think Jesus would sit at home and comment instead of helping others?

And lets talk about helping. Who needs help? Your neighbour who has food, electricity, heating or a human child somewere else dying because of food? The same food which you probably throw away every day?

Nonetheless, while we are at it: What is your excuse that you believe in a god who is almighty but creates humas who then starve? Doesn't that sound more like a shitty god? Or if we play devils advocate: The Devil does the killing and god would actually like to see you and everyone else to help that human?

A dollar will help someone abroad much more than the same dollar will in the US though.

A single cent? I think you vastly underestimate how little a dollar does in the US, and how much it does outside.

Moreover, insisting on going all-in on medical research before doing any immediate lifesaving sounds to me like a gross perversion of what should be, in its most simple case, an urging to make sure your kids are clothed and fed before donating to the food bank. Surely ordo does not make it unvirtuous to save a drowning foreigner even if your kids would miss a meal for it.

I’m under the impression that Aquinas says outright that it makes sense to make exceptions to the general ordering to aid those in grave need that are “low” in the order, and stuff like mosquito nets are a prototypical example of this imo. Lives saved, families preserved, terribly unjust suffering averted, etc for literal pennies on the dollar.

I don't think any individual should have the power to unilaterally choose where to deploy billions of dollars, but your vision is equally myopic. Nothing about being a US citizen gives you any moral priority over any other person.

> help your friend, your neighbor, your town, state, and country before you look further afield

Many of my friends and family don't live on my neighborhood, town, state or country. They live in the world. Consider broadening up your social circle a little bit. Our lives don't have to be limited to where a horse can travel to any more.

Sure, the world has changed. But rightly-ordered love isn't about geographical layout, it's about the natural order of community and social structure. That has changed but "mosquito nets in zimbabwe" being on the way outer end of a right ordering of love hasn't.

I think the world has changed more than you think.

You are assuming that I don't have friends or family in Zimbabwe. Which is true in this particular case. But it might as well not. As I said I have friends and family in several countries.

> I am an ordo amoris enjoyer

You seem to think this phrase implies a prescription that people ought to donate first to their adjacents (unambiguously enough to be worth including without a definition).

I'll note that, given how many sources seem to contravene that interpretation, the probability that your use of this term did not come downstream from Vice President Vance has dropped precipitously. Which might be useful information for anyone looking to diversify their information diet.

Not physical adjacents, no. If your brother lives two thousand miles away you should still focus on him more than your neighbor.

I'm unsure what Vance has to do with this. My belief comes from my religious upbringing and (in this case) Saints Augustine and Aquinas. Vance is not a spiritual leader or theologian of any sort.

I think I absorbed much of this when I was pretty young - I had sort of settled on this way of thinking before ever picking up Civitas Dei - but reading and writing on it during my schooling helped me understand why.

It's his money. He can give it to North Korea or China if he wants. Entitled and selfish.

Actually, no he can't. OFAC will absolutely destroy him if he does. I have a remote job and I am even explicitly banned from doing any work for my company while I am in China or a bunch of other countries.

Giving it to North Korea used to be associated with risks, but things are changing fast these days.

Oh it's you again, you're the guy echoing specific contemporary political figures, and dressing up American isolationism in rhetoric. In the other thread you were claiming that America subsidises Europe's healthcare by paying for its defence.

Funny how when I specifically share opinions that you specifically dislike, you sling mud about "echoing". Of course, everyone else's opinions are well-founded and of their own mind. Mine, on the other hand, are downloaded straight into my head from a daily Fox News broadcast. You can tell by how my opinions aren't your opinions, and therefore must be those of some Bad Guy or not Real Opinions.

Get a life dawg.

> opinions that you specifically dislike

You’re only sharing one opinion (America should isolate), and you’re presenting it as a fact (you refer to being „correct”).

I think you’re projecting the dislike towards your opinion. If I see American electoral politics seep into HN, I’ll call it out, as dictated by my intellectual curiosity.

Ahh there it is. I figured you weren't American. Look man, politics sometimes comes up on here. I don't see you materializing whenever that happens to pitch a fit. Since America is the most significant nation, and where most of this site's users live, we can expect that when politics-adjacent topics are posted, American politics will always be at the forefront. You're going to have to get over that. If you have a counterargument, I suggest you present it.

Why should some arbitrary border be drawn? And if we don't take care of the world, who will? I think that's an abdication of the most serious responsibilities.

I actually have the opposite position on this. 1st world countries already have the funds and economy to pursue exactly what you describe. Just they lack the political will. I don’t care to subsidise that intentional lack of investment.

I would much rather give to charities focusing on countries that don’t have the economy/ability to fix their basic issues.

If you were to live very close to the border of, say, Canada or Mexico, would you support giving financial support to alleviate suffering in those countries?

That depends. Generally nation is a big part of how one defines rightly-ordered love. But if, say, I lived near the border, regularly went down to Mexico, had friends or colleagues there, then probably so. but more focused on alleviating their suffering than that of the country or state.

I think he wants Gates to focus his philanthropy on the Seattle region before expanding the scope of his giving to all of Washington. That could probably consume Gates' entire fortune, so the question of what to do next is irrelevant.

Sooo you use a christian word to describe your strategy?

Fine but do you know what it actually means to be poor? Its not the american neighbour who has a house, heat, electricity and food who can't afford a holiday.

Its the human beings living day by day trying to feed themselves.

Or are you from a super crazy poor country? Might be, but you have clearly internet (which means, access to knowledge, and richnes in comparision to the kid dying of hunger somewere else)

And now lets really talk about your "Ordo Amoris": If you do live in the USA, do you actually understand HOW MUCH everyone of us destroys countries around the globe? Climate Change? Resource Import? Cheap Labor?

We are all rich because WE exploit every other country around us in way or the other. The least thing we can do, is helping. And theglobal agreement to actually help is just a drop on a hot stone. Even that gets critizied.

Do you just use this ordo amoris because you are a christian? If so, i don't think you will go to heaven with your live philosophy.

You clearly have never actually looked at effective altruism and what it tries to be. You would otherwise know that your values are diametrically opposed to the values of that movement and said values are neither right nor wrong, they're personal.

Of course I have. I am well aware that my values are diametrically opposed to it at a first-principles level; I find utilitarianism to be an incredibly hollow worldview that fails on many grounds, not least of which are the teleological (disordered love is no virtue.)

I don't have to argue from the first principles of the EA crowd. Everyone believes in something and I believe they are wrong; your epistemic relativism makes no sense to me. Borderline absurdist.

fwiw I'm not an EA and I generally agree with you. It's fine to believe they're wrong, but it's an entirely different thing to tell other people they should think they're wrong.

Isn't that how most disagreements shake out at one level or another, once you strip away enough of the garnish? I am by nature either blunt or an asshole, depending on whom you ask, and may have come across more as the latter here, but the core message is about the same as most disagreements: "I believe my position is right because ABC, your position is wrong because DEF, you should believe mine instead."

did you even read the article? He talks about how he has/will continue to invest significant resources into alzheimers research.

Sure I did. I'm aware his giving isn't just mosquito nets. That doesn't mean I believe the money is being directed correctly.

If your position is "it's his money so none of us should comment", I'd expect equal pushback on people saying "wow I really agree with how he's spending it."

This is just cruel nativism, a rejection of humanity except for the in group you happened to be born in. I hope everyone rejects this sociopathic outlook on the world.

And Gates is investing in Alzheimer's research FYI.

Reducing rightly-ordered love to "cruel nativism" is an incredibly uncharitable representation. I'd urge you to do some reading in comparative religion. Although I'm a Christian, I've found it instructive to spend some time going through other religions' texts, other philosophies, because dismissing them as backward or wrong does nobody any good. Learning more makes my conversations more productive and helps me better understand my own beliefs.

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