Srini RamaKrishnan wrote, [on 8/17/2009 9:27 PM]: > It isn't that hard to donate for a worthy cause voluntarily. Yes, there are > some people who demand their pound of flesh even when helping someone in > need, I just don't respect them very much.
There are, however, no end of worthy causes - by whatever criteria you use to judge them so. Therefore, one needs criteria to pick from among worthy causes. If it then takes some party-oriented nudging to unlock peoples' purses, I don't see anything conceptually wrong. (i.e., this is not a design bug - notwithstanding the possible existence of implementation bugs) To quote Tim Rice, channeling Jesus Christ, the Superstar: <q> Surely you're not saying We have the resources To save the poor from their lot? There will be poor always Pathetically struggling Look at the good things you've got! </q> on a related note, I recommend this blogpost I found via a listmember: http://scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=418 Malthusianisms Why, in real life, do we ever encounter hard instances of NP-complete problems? Because if it’s too easy to find a 10,000-mile TSP tour, we ask for a 9,000-mile one. Why are even some affluent parts of the world running out of fresh water? Because if they weren’t, they’d keep watering their lawns until they were. Why don’t we live in the utopia dreamed of by sixties pacifists and their many predecessors? Because if we did, the first renegade to pick up a rock would become a Genghis Khan. Why can’t everyone just agree to a family-friendly, 40-hour workweek? Because then anyone who chose to work a 90-hour week would clean our clocks. Why do native speakers of the language you’re studying talk too fast for you to understand them? Because otherwise, they could talk faster and still understand each other. Why is science hard? Because so many of the easy problems have been solved already. Why do the people you want to date seem so cruel, or aloof, or insensitive? Maybe because, when they aren’t, you conclude you must be out of their league and lose your attraction for them. Why does it cost so much to buy something to wear to a wedding? Because if it didn’t, the fashion industry would invent more extravagant ‘requirements’ until it reached the limit of what people could afford. Why do you cut yourself while shaving? Because when you don’t, you conclude that you’re not shaving close enough. ______________________________________________________________ These Malthusianisms share the properties that (1) they seem so obvious, once stated, as not to be worth stating, yet (2) whole ideologies, personal philosophies, and lifelong habits have been founded on the refusal to understand them. Again and again, I’ve undergone the humbling experience of first lamenting how badly something sucks, then only much later having the crucial insight that its not sucking wouldn’t have been a Nash equilibrium. Clearly, then, I haven’t yet gotten good enough at Malthusianizing my daily life—have you? One might even go further, and speculate that human beings’ blind spot for this sort of explanation is why it took so long for Malthus himself (and his most famous disciple, Darwin) to come along. -- ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
