There is no such thing as a selfless good deed, and a lot of philanthropists want people to know how good they are. But when selfless and selfish ambition align, as in the case of charity, society itself benefits. That's a good thing.
If a charity is legitimately disinterested in being recognized you never would have heard of it. This getting popular could help the concept spread.
> Second, the article seems to reinforce the condescending/patronizing attitude Americans often have toward immigrants when they're not busy hating them. The attitude consists in thinking that immigrants come from backward, horrible, uncivilized places and that the American is the noble, better educated, civilized, great benefactor.
Which exact text in the article gave you that impression? I feel like I am pretty sensitive to such tones but I didn't pick up any of that.
> Third, if you're paying $60 for a laptop, just pay for it yourself. Getting people to chip in for a 10 year old, $60 brick just looks really cheap. It's not much of a sacrifice, guy.
You too could chip in. As you yourself said, it isn't much of a sacrifice, so why don't you?
This really, really depends on how much you make. Maybe it wouldn't be a problem for us, but I know many people who can't afford to drop $60 on something like that out of the blue.
Edited to add:
> the point of helping others which is not self-glorification, but the death of ego
Is it? I thought the point of helping others was to help, rather than to polish one's own Zen. More fool I, no doubt.
This makes me think you haven't traveled all that much. Places like this actually exist.
First, the article is rather vacuous and chaotic in content, and so the motive for writing the article shifts toward drawing attention to oneself ("Oh, look how charitable I am!"). Charity doesn't do that. Second, the article seems to reinforce the condescending/patronizing attitude Americans often have toward immigrants when they're not busy hating them. The attitude consists in thinking that immigrants come from backward, horrible, uncivilized places and that the American is the noble, better educated, civilized, great benefactor. There is pleasure in the delusional superiority. (White upper middle class college students also have a rite of passage known as peace corp or a semester abroad in Africa, but I digress.) Third, if you're paying $60 for a laptop, just pay for it yourself. Getting people to chip in for a 10 year old, $60 brick just looks really cheap. It's not much of a sacrifice, guy. If you're going to have people chip in, at least have the courtesy to buy them a more recent piece of technology. There are better ways of integrating the family into the community. Fourth, and perhaps the most minor of my points, there is a waft of Linux ideology in the air (this related to first point).