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Comment by apeace | Hacker News Reader

Charged at $200/hr, $20k = 100 hours.

Keep the money for yourself, and spend 100 hours of your time talking to a poor person. Help them find a better job, or make a better financial plan, or eat healthier, or just listen to what they have to say and tell them they can call you if they need someone.

This is by far the biggest impact a person like Paul Buchheit could make on the world. Even if his $20k could go 100% to a better water bottle in Africa, or a more efficient hybrid, or whatever, it will pale in comparison to how he could personally change someone's life if he walked up to them and took the time to try.

So go blow $20k at the club or on a cool car, after you've earned it by hitting the streets and solving your neighbor's problems for 100 hours. Someday your neighbors might do the same ;)

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"Keep the money for yourself, and spend 100 hours of your time talking to a poor person."

The rich have been telling the poor what to do since bibibical times, and before."

I don't think I have ever heard much value in any of their quips? Sure, they offer advice, but it's always advice that helped them in their unique situation.

They always leave out the important stuff; like just how much help, support(including emotional) they received from family. The school tuition, business advice, the garage in order to tinker in, money, attorneys that don't advertise , trust funds, good medical care when needed, the rehab, the pat on the back when the world decides to treat them like the poor, etc.)

I was in Barnes & Noble the other night(my exciting Friday nights). There was a guy who obviously had a lot of problems(from the looks of it--a mental disorder, and a lack of money) from my twisted perspective. A lady decided she was going to help him. Help him loudly--so everyone sipping their $4 drinks, and coffee cake--could hear her "helpful" sentiments. She loudly offered him $10, but "only use it for food?" She then asked him "What's the problem?"

He walked away in embarrassment. I will never forget the pain on his face.

So give money without strings. Give advice if the poor person asks for it. In my county(Marin County); I can honestly say that if not from the early support these rich kids received, many would be homeless, or stuck in nowhere jobs.

I'm sorry, if you're serious, this is the most entitled and egotistical suggestion I've ever read in my life, it's kind of shocking. The best way to spend $20K charitably is to bill oneself $200/hr and spend 100 hours sharing one's massive brain with homeless people by giving them... a talking? (While, again, billing $200/hour for it.)

Then spend that well-earned money on hookers and blow? You've made a difference?

Honestly... words fail me.

You miss the point :)

I don't think it's helpful to others to go clubbing, in fact it's not an activity I'd do myself if I had that much money (nor would I waste money on a car).

My point is that the $20k can't help someone as much as you can personally.

all right, I've deleted that part. We'll just have to disagree.

So someone who is homeless and forced to beg or commit petty theft in order to eat would appreciate a chat more than $20k? You should try that and mention you're paying yourself $200 an hour because you think that's better for them.

It's not a given that the best use of "$20k worth of time/effort" is in the kinds of labor that you, personally, can produce. Nor is it a given that, even if you make $200 an hour, that you'd be worth $200 an hour on the talking-to-a-poor-person market. For that much you could likely pay for five times as many person-hours from trained social workers! (Which is a fairly good use of the money, come to think of it- a very practical form of education.) Likewise, if you consider you're taking the role of a social worker yourself (and likely without even a degree in said work,) it's only fair to "pay" yourself what real social workers make.

But I mean, if you really want to talk yourself into buying that car, go for it I guess. :)

Point taken, but I could make the reverse point: "if you really want to talk yourself out of speaking to that scary-looking man on your block, spend some money with the Gates Foundation instead!"

I think it's fine to spend money on charities and other social causes, but my point is that many don't have the courage to face the problems they can solve without money. I think that's the best answer to Paul Buchheit's original question.

I think it's sad that the author of this blog post, and other commenters here, truly believe that by running some numbers they can prove how much their money is changing the world.

Changing the life of one person in a community can change that whole community. The world is not made of numbers, it's made of people. You have the best chance of making a big change in the world, if you focus on helping the people who live right next to you.

> Changing the life of one person in a community can change that whole community. The world is not made of numbers, it's made of people. You have the best chance of making a big change in the world, if you focus on helping the people who live right next to you.

This sounds like unsupported platitude. What about helping someone local will help the overall world more than malaria nets or vaccinations? It gives you good feelings, but it's not actually BETTER.

There may be an argument that pulling someone out of poverty in the US makes them more likely to create change in the world themselves than pulling someone out of poverty abroad, but I'd find that to be tenuous.

What? How is that better than saving 10 lives from malaria or curing 100s of people of blindness who suffer from trachoma?

It's not and entirely falls into the "noble poor" fallacy.

Though I disagree with some of the logistics of this comment (like paying yourself or 'earning' a car), I agree that sometimes what people need are more people, not money or handouts or programs. There are some problems that can't be solved just by throwing money at them. Time and commitment are valuable resources as well. There are lots of people willing to donate money towards a cause. But how many would, say, foster a kid? That's a huge time commitment and an emotional commitment as well. It's also riskier on your end because you open yourself up to all the heartache that human relationships can bring.

It's weird how so many commenters here seem obsessed with this utilitarian "greatest good for the greatest amount of people" approach to charity. Option A gives clean drinking water to 1000 people. Option B adds a drop in the bucket of funding for breast cancer research. Option C helps one child escape a life of violence on the streets. Who are you to look at these and try to quantity which has done the greatest good? It's one thing to compare the effectiveness of programs in achieving their own goals, it's another thing to try and rank totally different humanitarian efforts. These types of things can't be quantified.

I was focusing on what to do with money in the article. I agree that sometimes time is needed instead.

It's definitely hard to compare the effects of different humanitarian efforts. The problem is that you have to choose something. Whenever you spend money to you're acting based on an implicit ranking. Rather than throw up our hands with "this can't be quantified" and give randomly, or give according to your whims, I think we should try to make the best decisions we can.

The original commenter made a suggestion to exchange money for time on the giver's end and I think that's valid suggestion. I don't remember suggesting one to throw up his hands and give out money randomly. I was only arguing against the purely utilitarian approach that some HN commenters seem to have in selecting where to spend one's money.

Wait, so just walk up to a poor person and say "hey, I'm going to rescue you?" Then give them all your "advice" they probably don't care to hear?

I have a lot of very poor family that make a lot of very poor financial choices. Unless they ask for my advice, I won't say a word - its very rude otherwise.

This doesn't do much for the common good though. Let's dive into Bentham and see how good this is. Obviously the hedonistic calculus is not completely numeric, but we can do some work here. Let's compare malaria nets with getting a poor person a job.

Intensity: How strong is the pleasure? -- Well, many "common good" philanthropic causes deal with terrible diseases. That said, getting a job probably is better than not getting malaria. Passive vs active.

Duration: How long will the pleasure last? -- Here, not getting malaria is obviously longer lasting than a job. Jobs go away. Malaria nets when properly utilized are pretty solid for the long term.

Certainty or uncertainty: How likely or unlikely is it that the pleasure will occur? -- Probably equal here.

Propinquity or remoteness: How soon will the pleasure occur? -- Probably equal here.

Fecundity: The probability that the action will be followed by sensations of the same kind. -- This one is hardest to quantify. There's obviously a ratchet quality to someone experiencing success.

Purity: The probability that it will not be followed by sensations of the opposite kind. --- Malaria nets DEFINITELY can win out here. See above notes re: firing.

Extent: How many people will be affected? -- And here malaria nets take the cake and win the entire calculus. 20k invested in malaria nets will affect MANY more people than your hundred hours.

100 hours is nowhere near enough time to meaningfully change someone's life. You'll spend that long just gaining their trust -- and why should they follow your advice, anyway?

This doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, but it's a much bigger investment than 100 hours.

100% agree.

It's nowhere near enough time in most cases. If you're justifying this volunteer work based on billing yourself, what are you going to say to the person with which you've made a relationship? "Sorry, your hundred hours are up, I gotta get back to my routine now."

You're only helping a few by doing that. Tell me why is that efficient?

Is helping people always about efficiency? It comes back to the give a man a fish vs. teach a man to fish concept.

That concept is about efficiency.

You could teach way more people to fish in the third world than you could by helping homeless people here.

Thank you for that. That's the stance that I naturally gravitate to, but one I have been doubting lately. Your comment is encouraging.

This might not be the most effective way to steer your resources towards common good, but there's this persnickety failure scenario where a man in need may receive material support but still lack a human connection and a sense of belonging.

Of course, you're still literally trading off human lives for a warm fuzzy feeling of personal involvement.

I'm looking forward to Peter Singer's upcoming Coursera lectures on effective altruism, I want to see him develop this position with rigor. Meanwhile http://www.givewell.org/ has a good analysis.

I want to give a signal boost to this Coursera. I didn't know Singer was going to be teaching this class, and it's going to be great.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/altruism

Imagine a person working a minimum wage job with $10k in credit card debt due to a family member's unplanned medical expenses. Now imagine which would help them more: 100 hours of you telling that they need to increase their earning power to pay off their credit card debt? Or $20k to immediately pay off their credit card debt and build a rainy day fund? I don't think poor people are so ignorant that 100 hours of your advice is going to be worth $20k to them, no offense.

Honestly, your answer just seems like a shield for selfishness. $20k is a significant sum of money that would make a significant difference in other people's lives.

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