ALS Topic
17 -
What is the best
way to give stuff away?
Focus questions for Adelaide Lunchtime
Seminar, 16 September 2018
Venue: · Adelaide
(https://www.meetup.com/AdelaideLunchtimeSeminar/ )
Note: The
questions below are not supposed to suggest biased answers. You
really can adopt any point of view your can suggest evidence for. Do
be prepared for others suggesting counter-evidence! Note: clearly
not all of these questions can be properly covered in a meetup, but
they give us a conscious choice about what to talk about while
making the background context clearer. It is up to the people who
come on the day to choose what aspects they would like to deal with.
Focus questions -
1. So you have a billion dollars, or several
billion dollars to give away. How will you go about doing that -
specifically and seriously?
2. The love of money has been
cited for centuries as 'the root of all evil'. Well, maybe. The flip
side of that money has been the most successful invention ever in
inducing people to get off their backsides, strive for some
achievement, and have them cooperate with people they don't even
like towards mutually beneficial goals. The hard question: how can
philanthropy be used to enhance the good effects of money and
diminish the bad effects?
3. The favourite way for the very
rich to give money away is to donate it for 'medical research'. Why
do you think they do that? Is it a good choice? What are the upsides
and downsides of giving money for medical research?
4.
Another big way for the very rich to give money away is to offer it
to a university for a research chair or a building (usually named
after them). What are the upsides and downsides of this approach?
5. The very rich are complaining that they can't give money away
fast enough. Their wealth just keeps increasing. On the other hand
there are officially 65 million displaced people in the world,
refugees, and heaven knows how many unofficially displaced. How
could the philanthropy of the very rich be most productively used to
diminish the wasted lives of refugees?
6. Regardless of your
monetary fortune, you have something even more valuable than money
to give away: time. Time is irreplaceable. How much time are you
prepared to 'give away', and for what? What will you trade time for
when there is no monetary reward?
7. Religions have
traditionally tithed their congregations as a sort of 'charity tax'
to help the poor. What has been the actual history of tithing? What
has been its effect on the givers and receivers of charity? Are
those who give in this way really blessed? How often have tithes
been misused?
8. How are social security payments, tax
stamps, medicare benefits etc understood by those who receive them
and those who benefit? Are they seen as a charity giveaway, or a
fair resdistribution of wealth, or an emergency stopgap, or a way of
buying off violent resistance from those less privileged? How can
opposing views on this be reconciled?
9. From the time of
British settlement in Australia, most of Australia was 'given away'
free or for a nominal charge to people from England. Labour was to
come from slaves, a.k.a. British convicts. The richest and most
influential were given the biggest land grants without embarrassment
because that was the class system England's most powerful thought
was moral. Of course, the first dwellers of Australia, Aborigines,
were not asked. How well did this grand giveaway work? What modified
it over time? [Adelaide, only, was different and seen from the
outset as a sub-division real estate project for bringing
'respectable' middle class citizens to Australia and makeing some
London brokers rich. Has the Adelaide outcome been substantially
different from the rest of Australia?]
10. There is an
idiom, 'you can't take it with you (when you die)'. Cultures vary in
their enthusiasm for the meaning behind that idiom. In China when I
lived there, there were shops selling printed images of iPads for
the dead to take on their journey to the underground, along with
large denominations of fake money. In some other cultures you are
thought morally reprehensible if your possessions and savings are
not shared without restriction amongst members of you family or
social group. In your view, when ought we give stuff away, and when
should we keep it for personal benefit? On the larger canvas of
whole cultures, what is the best balance between personal hoarding
and common sharing?
Extra Reading
Lindy Alexander (May 2 2017) "Meet the
'effective altruists' who earn to give" Sydney Morning Herald @
https://www.smh.com.au/money/planning-and-budgeting/meet-the-effective-altruists-who-earn-to-give-20170501-gvw5z9.html
Tom Metcalf (31 August 2018) "The world's richest people
can't give away their money fast enough". Brisbane Times @
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/the-economy/the-world-s-richest-people-can-t-give-away-their-money-fast-enough-20180831-p500vm.html
Jon Henley (Fri 9 Feb 2018) "George Soros: financier,
philanthropist – and hate figure for the far right - The Jewish
billionaire’s backing for a pro-EU group has breathed new life into
populist conspiracy theories". The Guardian @
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/feb/08/george-soros-demonised-by-populists-nationalists-and-right-wing-press
Samuel Hammond (March 31 2017) "Social insurance is not the
same thing as charity". Niskanen Center website @
https://niskanencenter.org/blog/social-insurance-not-charity/
Religions generally revolve around tracts which claim to
give moral guidance. If history is any guide, we can see that such
moral tracts are always interpreted according to the personal
agendas of whoever is doing the interpreting. Thus controversies
(sometimes violent) arise about interpretation in every religion and
ideology. The Christian Bible makes a good source of case studies
for this kind of thing: Brad Littlejohn (March 27, 2013) "Private
Property in the Bible". Political Theology Network @
https://politicaltheology.com/private-property-in-the-bible/
Courtney Carver (n.d.) "Why You Should Give Away 50% of Your
Stuff". bemorewithless blog @
https://bemorewithless.com/50/
Yannick Khayati (n.d.)
"Why you must give your best stuff away - for free" [Marketing
advice] GrowthRevolution blog @
https://thegrowthrevolution.com/blog/why-you-must-give-your-best-stuff-away-for-free/
Fergus Koochew (June 21st, 2017) "Giving Stuff Away Makes
You Money, According to Science". [Marketing advice] Edge Insights
website @
http://blog.edgepri.com/giving-stuff-away-makes-money-according-science/
Matthew Lynn (12/08/2018) "The business of giving stuff
away" [Free sharemarket investment portfolios] Money Week website @
https://moneyweek.com/493131/city-view-the-business-of-giving-stuff-away/
Wikipedia: "Reciprocity (social psychology)" - "In social
psychology, reciprocity is a social norm of responding to a positive
action with another positive action, rewarding kind actions. As a
social construct, reciprocity means that in response to friendly
actions, people are frequently much nicer and much more cooperative
than predicted by the self-interest model; conversely, in response
to hostile actions they are frequently much more nasty and even
brutal." @
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocity_ (social_psychology)
Some professions, such as teaching and nursing, live by the
narrative that they are dedicated to giving freely. However, the
receiving of 'gifts' creates obligation, and obligation is ambiguous
in human psychology. A sense of overwhelming obligation can create
resistance. For this reason, one of the strong conclusions from my
own PhD research on teaching productivity was that people like
teachers (nurses, doctors ... etc) need to not only give, but to
receive graciously. The technique of reciprocal teaching is
extremely powerful. This BBC article briefly explains it:
"Reciprocal Teaching: A Classroom Strategy that Promotes Interactive
Learning" @
http://www.bbcactive.com/BBCActiveIdeasandResources/ReciprocalTeachingPromoteInteractiveLearning.aspx
Thor's own websites:
1. articles at http://independent.academia.edu/ThorMay ;
2. legacy site: http://thormay.net .