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Professional INTP
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Charities
Does charity accomplish what it purports to do? For example, does a charity that "helps the poor", is it really helping the poor? Does Mother Theresas "hospitals" for the "sick and poor" actually help the sick? What about the Bill Gates foundation, he might be an INTP, is he actually helping third world children? First some preliminaries ...
All charities are organizations with people getting paid. They seem to be started by Liberal Arts majors who are making a job for themselves. As an aside, be wary of ex Liberal Arts majors as you grow up. They are all around you trying to create some program to teach your kids this or that, or give you some kind of 'education', whereas it's really their career in disguise. But a not insubstantial part of the revenue stream is used to pay for a bureaucratic organization. Usually well paid, and oftentimes you'll find corruption. Take that as a given and forget about it, as it's an aside to whether Charity is actually useful or not. A necessary evil.
Why do people give to charity? I believe in Heinlein's concept of "Enlightened self interest", which is that people give because it gives them something in return. I believe 99% (or some high number) of human behavior is motivated this way, and that "selfless giving" basically doesn't exist. In the case of charity people obviously get a self induced good feeling, and a nice tax write off (in the US at least).
So, the core question is that do charities actually accomplish what they intend? I think the answer is that no, they do not. I'd posit that they do accomplish something, but it's rarely what they mean.
Let's start with a famous example to give you some food for thought.
Mother Theresa
From a personal standpoint then I have two issues with charity. One is as I mention, which is that whether charity actually can accomplish what it tries to do. Can giving food to the poor, week after week, pull them out of poverty? Again it accomplishes something, the poor are getting fed, but will it fundamentally improve their condition?
Two, for me giving is too cheap. It's too easy, I throw some money at a charity, can get a buzz for being a good guy (assuaging my 1st world guilt), get a tax writeoff, and hand it off to somebody else to solve. I'd much rather give my personal time and effort - that is the real cost, and would be real and meaningful engagement, but the problem is I'm too poor. I can't afford to give my time, and it's not a good use of my value anyhow. I can give much more back to human kind by doing what I do, rather than helping people individually.
So personally, I don't give anything to charity, except personal possessions that we want to get rid of because it's convenient and we get a tax write off. I don't count it as charity, but it's that I'd rather do that then spend the time on eBay.
Does charity accomplish what it purports to do? For example, does a charity that "helps the poor", is it really helping the poor? Does Mother Theresas "hospitals" for the "sick and poor" actually help the sick? What about the Bill Gates foundation, he might be an INTP, is he actually helping third world children? First some preliminaries ...
All charities are organizations with people getting paid. They seem to be started by Liberal Arts majors who are making a job for themselves. As an aside, be wary of ex Liberal Arts majors as you grow up. They are all around you trying to create some program to teach your kids this or that, or give you some kind of 'education', whereas it's really their career in disguise. But a not insubstantial part of the revenue stream is used to pay for a bureaucratic organization. Usually well paid, and oftentimes you'll find corruption. Take that as a given and forget about it, as it's an aside to whether Charity is actually useful or not. A necessary evil.
Why do people give to charity? I believe in Heinlein's concept of "Enlightened self interest", which is that people give because it gives them something in return. I believe 99% (or some high number) of human behavior is motivated this way, and that "selfless giving" basically doesn't exist. In the case of charity people obviously get a self induced good feeling, and a nice tax write off (in the US at least).
So, the core question is that do charities actually accomplish what they intend? I think the answer is that no, they do not. I'd posit that they do accomplish something, but it's rarely what they mean.
Let's start with a famous example to give you some food for thought.
Mother Theresa
From a personal standpoint then I have two issues with charity. One is as I mention, which is that whether charity actually can accomplish what it tries to do. Can giving food to the poor, week after week, pull them out of poverty? Again it accomplishes something, the poor are getting fed, but will it fundamentally improve their condition?
Two, for me giving is too cheap. It's too easy, I throw some money at a charity, can get a buzz for being a good guy (assuaging my 1st world guilt), get a tax writeoff, and hand it off to somebody else to solve. I'd much rather give my personal time and effort - that is the real cost, and would be real and meaningful engagement, but the problem is I'm too poor. I can't afford to give my time, and it's not a good use of my value anyhow. I can give much more back to human kind by doing what I do, rather than helping people individually.
So personally, I don't give anything to charity, except personal possessions that we want to get rid of because it's convenient and we get a tax write off. I don't count it as charity, but it's that I'd rather do that then spend the time on eBay.
Just like with many things in life. Things become more effective and efficient if you get rid of the middleman.
