Is altruism entirely about self interest?

I'm not saying that to take away from it, but people do things to feel good, or because they get something out of it. Either way you are being rewarded.

This explains plenty of bizarre outcomes. I was speaking to a guy who worked at a food bank. They would take cash donations, buy food at full price at the supermarket, then have volunteers (in a paid for space) pack up boxes.

A more sensible route would be food vouchers. People can buy what they want, no money spent on rent, so more goes to those in need.

But donators want to feel they are donating food and volunteers, probably mainly the higher ups feel that all this unneeded machinery is 'productive' therefore more meaningful / they are in charge of actual people and a physical location which makes them feel important. Thus the inefficiency continues.

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nradov 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The majority of food banks get discounted supplies. They seldom pay full retail price. In some cases I know about, distributors and retailers will sell older perishable stock to food banks when they don't think they can move it quickly enough.

The trouble with food vouchers is that junkies trade them for drugs. Vouchers are more "liquid" than physical food.

	▲	benj111 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		No. They were paying full price, I specifically checked. I mean the junkies could just use the money they didn't spend buying food to buy drugs. I'm not entirely sure this isn't just an extension of people feeling like they're doing a good thing rather than actually doing a good thing. And that's assuming a meaningful proportion of food bank users are actually junkies.