The Kickstarter Potato Salad Guy Should Probably Give the Money to Charity | Hacker News Reader

The Kickstarter Potato Salad Guy Should Probably Give the Money to Charity

slate.com

9 pointsnealabq15 comments

People sure are very good at telling others what they should do.

Would it be morally noble for him to give the money for charity? Sure. Should he "probably" give it to charity? Absolutely not.

Who knows how much this guy gives to charity. Who knows if he has medical bills to pay. Who knows if he's just coming out of a shitty year of unemployment.

I don't even get what the point of this article is. Inform? Nope. Give a valuable insight grounded in personal experience? Nope.

Maybe the author should give the money he gets from Slate writing this joke of an article to charity.

He can do whatever the hell he wants with the money (as long as he fulfills his Kickstarter rewards). He isn't some public figure where the stain of his potato salad money that he kept instead of giving to charity will follow him for the rest of his life. These are his 15 minutes of fame, after his Kickstarter ends he'll be collectively forgotten.

The fact that people are giving him a ton of money "ironically" doesn't create any new obligation for him. If he wants to keep the money, I say great. If he wants to give it to charity, fine.

Do we have any idea how much potato salad guy already gives to charity? It might be a little, it might be a lot, it might be nothing. How is what he does with his money anyone's business but his own?

He should do whatever he want with the money.Since people are willing to give him some for nothing.

It sure lessen the value of a Kickstarter,but who cares,free money and potato salad!

What's crazy is that on Sunday, he was at like $4K. Two days later he's at more than 10x that. Can't wait for VCs to start funding webscale potato salads.

What about the people funding this? After all, they are responsible for making this happen. Also, if we start thinking about all the money everyone could spend better, everyone's guilty of that.

People should give every penny above what is needed for the most basic essentials of life to charity.

(well intentioned bait)

Why donate to a only to a charity? Why focus on giving money?

-Some charities spend money on so much overhead, you're better off throwing money (or buying meals to throw) at the homeless yourself.

-If you pay taxes, countless government programs help the needy.

-If you are handy at computer repair, maybe you'll be more useful refurbishing computers to give to underprivileged people rather than giving money to them. This goes if you have any professional skill. Your effort might be more valuable than your money.

-Maybe you should invest some of that money now so you have even more money later to donate. Bonus if you invest in yourself becoming a social worker or some other professional in order to do pro bono work for those in need.

-Maybe you should invest in ideas that do more or something different than a charity can. If your money can fund the development of something that wipes out a disease, or transports food/medicine/electricity to remote areas, for example.

Some of this is long term vs short term stuff. But there's more to helping those in need than donating money to charity.

Do you do that? What percentage of your income do you donate to charity per year?

I don't. I give an embarrassingly small percentage of my income to charity each year. I am ashamed of this - I'm mostly living paycheck to paycheck, trying to raise a family, fund a retirement and save a good chunk of cash for emergencies - but would like to eventually be more generous.

I don't really think people should give every surplus penny to charity, but it's an interesting perspective. I don't know if there's really a "correct" amount people should give.

There is no 'should'. I'm not even sure he has to even try making potato salad at the end. There's just no real point in trying to be over serious and worthy about what is essentially a stupid joke that has got a bit out of hand.

I hope he spends the money on pasta salad personally. I hate potato salad.

There is a should: it's an editorial, so he can state his opinion. There is definitely a point in being serious, because it's a serious amount of money.

And I was giving my opinion of his opinion. And quantity of cash does not negate levity, as the KLF will tell you.

Given the context, it is a silly amount of money.

A lot of charities are scams, that would make a better slate article.

This is the kind of one-hit wonder that you simply can't imitate. It amuses due to its novelty. Repeat it, and it's gone.

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