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| ▲ | tyg13 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| I'd even argue that we should encourage _more_ of this behavior, if it leads to more charity. The idea that you have to do good deeds without expecting any kind of reward or recognition seems distinctly Christian to me. For Christians, the intent of this requirement is to ensure people remain humble (pride is a sin, of course) but this clearly contradicts the (imo much more relevant) principle of self interest. You can't really expect people to do something for other people without some kind of reward -- be it the promise of eternal salvation, some kind of social credit, or simply an internal sense of satisfaction. As long as people aren't merely simulating charity to receive it, I don't see any downside to allowing people a bit of social reward for their giving. |
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| ▲ | svnt an hour ago | parent [-] | | Altruism predates humans, but we are the best at it, and this behavior long predates Christianity. That you associate altruism distinctly with Christianity just discloses massive gaps in your experience and/or education. |
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| ▲ | svnt an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Who cares whether the people who control the majority of the planet’s capital actually care about other people or just the preservation of their image? I do. I will accept the donation either way, but in terms of so much else, I fucking do. |
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| ▲ | john_strinlai an hour ago | parent [-] | | the point of my comment is very specifically about not caring about motivation behind charitable actions, because regardless of motivation, the charitable action still occurs. if you want to be mad about other things, like how wasteful super yachts are or whatever, by all means go for it. but that is outside the scope of my comment. |
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| ▲ | janalsncm 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The corollary is also true: the starving kid does not care that you are seen as generous. They are hungry. We can argue all day about motives, but what really matters is action. |
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| ▲ | harimau777 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I think that the problem would be if the reputation washing prevents their victims from getting justice or if they leverage their reputation to victimize more people. |
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| ▲ | georgemcbay 34 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > there is a parable i cant quite remember, but something along the lines of "the starving kid does not care where the food comes from". A lot of the money never goes to the starving kid, it goes into foundations that act more as tax shelters than they do actual charitable organizations. > who cares whether the billionaire did it because they are truly generous or because they thought "this will look good in the news"? It matters when the scope of their giving doesn't match the PR-generating pledges they make, which is the real point of my post. If someone gives their money away to a good cause, I don't care what their real motivation is, but if they say they are going to give 50% of their wealth to charity to generate PR and then they never do that (true for the majority of Giving Pledge pledgers) that is behavior I think it contemptable and worthy of being called out. |
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| ▲ | john_strinlai 27 minutes ago | parent [-] | | >A lot of the money never goes to the starving kid, it goes into foundations that act more as tax shelters than they do actual charitable organizations. this is covered by the "actual, real charities/non-profits/good causes" caveat in my comment. |
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