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A comment on Amazon Closing AmazonSmile. Parent comment

Re:Amazon Closing AmazonSmile by thwayunion on Wednesday January 18, 2023 @09:25PM (#34436009)
I volunteer for a charity where each and every $500 donation supports a kid going through a program. That program regularly changes kids' life trajectories in a way that has a difficult to quantify multiplier effect throughout the community.

I am highly skeptical of wisdom of utilitarianism in charitable giving. No one has non-toy models so the math is all made up nonsense. More importantly, proximity between the giver and the recipient has profound agency effects that are completely ignored by most utilitarians. You tend to get better outcomes when you allow agents to center their personal projects, even if resources aren't optimally allocated when ignoring this "agent centering effect".

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Re:Amazon Closing AmazonSmile by tacotacotaco on Wednesday January 18, 2023 @10:41PM (#34436450)
This. I am not a demographic utilitarians usually target. Despite that my family received support from government and charitable programs when I was a child. Without them I doubt I would have been able perform in school and ultimately get the job that I have today. Now I make enough money that I donate to charities.
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