I think one of the most important reasons to learn economics is that if it is done properly, it can help you extend your empathy. Also knowledge of economics, specifically that other’s gain is not your loss, consistently helps me curb my natural feelings of resentment.
I was standing in line to pay for my insulin, usually the lines are short because I could just pay at endocrinology, but policy change due to new ownership (PLA) everyone now had to stand in line together. I had debated bringing my cane as for me standing in line is… unpleasant and now faced with a snaking line I regretted being cane-less. About half way through, after putting in 15 or so minutes of grinding my teeth, suddenly there was a flurry of movement. A new line had opened up, but I had missed my chance. Surveying the victors of this sudden disequilibrium event, I noticed that a lot of the people now well ahead of me in line used to be behind me. My first instinct was to be upset at the perceived unfairness, but then I snapped myself out it, and realized that, those people who now have to wait less don’t make me have to wait more and in fact, the line in front of me had also appreciably shortened in the melee, besides how would a fairer way even work? The new line was actually beneficial for everyone, it would be silly to be mad about it. With this realization I felt better, thanking economic insights that make it easier to carry less resentment I slowly worked my way through the line, really regretting the absence of my cane.
After another 15 minutes of waiting in line, my legs nearing their threshold of endurance, it was my turn in line and… a Chinese man from far away came charging at me in the cashier booth, I am, I should mention the only foreigner that was at the hospital. My Chinese is far from perfect, very far in fact, but in this instance it proved ample enough to understand what he was saying. He was Chinese, he had been waiting in line, his legs hurt, and they were going to serve a foreigner before him? It was an uncomfortable situation for all involved, while at first the lady at the register tried her best to just ignore him, his mounting anger, his shrill piercing screaming were too much, she took his documents and started to process him. Anger was my first response, I had waited in line just like everyone else after all, my legs didn’t feel great either, and his characterization of me wasn’t overly kind. But soon the anger turned to pity: what must it be like to be such a man, so filled with resentment, lashing out, not even thinking of the discomfort of all of his fellow citizens whom he had just cut in line in front of. Even though he got his way, I couldn’t help imagine just how painful such an existence must be.
And once again I thanked economics.
Author: Titus Alexander
Cowboy Dan
Tourists taking photos next to a picture of a kitschy cardboard cowboy… Dan pats his pocket, takes out a cigarette and lights it, inhaling deeply, the smoke mixing with the dry desert air filling his lungs and unceremoniously exiting through his nostrils with a huff. He stood there soaking in the artificiality of it all. A man, younger than he appeared with a face battered by the elements, tanned by the sun, and covered in coarse dark stubble from neglect. A lean man, a hard looking man, he always wore his dusty old tattered cowboy hat, an anchor to who he was. He had moved away from people into the vast expanses of the wild west, but the people found him all the same. What once was a harsh unforgiving land, a land that tested him amongst his solitude, now boasted three Starbucks per square mile. Stomach churning with disgust he enters his pickup and speeds back to the only place in the area he could not feel like an alien, or worse, a relic.
The humble shack that he had built himself, considered an eyesore by the “locals” had to be grandfathered in. What had once stood as a proud testament to man’s resilience in the vast desert, now only served to disharmoniously interrupt the endless rows of cookie cutter houses. Inside, he lights another cigarette, empties another bottle into a chipped glass and throws it down into the pile of bottles and cigarette butts strewn about the floor. God damn that freeway, god damn the people, and god damn this town. At a little past midday in a drunken stupor Dan closes his eyes and passes into unconsciousness.
Awaking at midnight he hears the distant howls of coyotes, he staggers out of bed and realizes the only reason he isn’t hung over yet is because he is still drunk. No matter how much he drank, sleep wouldn’t stick, how he yearned to just have some way of making today into tomorrow, tomorrow into the next day, and so on and so forth.
Grabbing his keys and throwing on his cowboy hat despite the noted lack of sunlight, he once again enters his truck, putting the pedal to the floor heading for the nearby reservation. There is a bar there filled with members of the local tribe. The people that would be there at this time of night would be just as resentful, just as full of hate, just as lacking in purpose, just as clinging to romantic images long since faded as Dan was. He was a regular at the bar, but not a well-liked one. Truth be told, if the community was not in such dire straits he would have been banned long ago, but it was, and his money was still green.
He came there to soak in the bleak atmosphere, to feel a kinship in suffering, to escape the saccharine sterilized modern world that had no place for a man such as Dan. And maybe, just maybe to make a connection with someone, anyone, a reason he would never admit, not even to himself.
There he drank and smoked, his pathology oozing out of him, daring anyone to so much give him a sideways glance. Until someone did, another regular, just as drunk and just as resentful. A gruff exchange took place; “this is a place for members of the tribe, I told you before we don’t need the presence of you drunk thieving white men here.” Dan swung his fist and connected it with the speaker’s jaw, only to be jumped by the remainder of the patrons. He hit his shoulder hard on the ground as he was tossed out of the bar. His face was bloodied, he for an instant reflected on his life, he was overcome with the desire to sob, to cry, to breakdown there laying on the cold hard earth. But he was a man, a real man. Screw them, screw them all, he doesn’t need anyone, he hasn’t ever needed anyone, he is fine alone, he is better alone.
He lights another cigarette and drives into desert, the empty desert.
There Dan looks up the stars
Cowboy Dan fires his rifle into the sky
God if I have to die, you will have to die
Impotent undirected rage, boundless hidden sorrow, a veneer of pride and self importance that he could not ever dare to try to look under.
Cowboy Dan was a major player in the cowboy scene.
He didn’t move to the city, the city moved to him.
Based on the song found here
A Happy Ending for Gordon
Weeks had passed. Gordon’s self loathing from his failure in the river was a crushing weight that visibly sank his shoulders. He had started consuming more and more, trying but failing to sleep more and more, just wishing for the days to pass. Drinking from a standing pool Gordon looked at himself, looked into his own eyes, the self loathing made him recoil but he forced himself to stare at the bear like creature gazing back at him. He headed back through the glade, back for the river. This time he stayed in the water longer, this time he almost caught a fish. But eventually, despite the screaming in his head to tough it out born from the hard won knowledge of the horrors of quitting, he did not persevere, he had failed again. But the next morning when he awoke surrounded by snack wrappers and bottles he thought to himself, I might not be good at being a bear, but I am better at being a bear than I was the day before. With renewed vigor he once again trekked to the river, and he did so almost every day until he became proficient at catching fish, and hardened against the cold. In the glade he caught a deer, in the forest he ate from bushes. He still slipped from the path occasionally, raiding the humans and drinking their fiery water. But he did not fill himself with loathing when he did so anymore, he knew nothing good lay down that path. Instead, Gordon focused on being a little better, a little more of a bear every day, tolerating his mistakes without justifying or excusing them. He would no longer let himself be miserable, or at least stay that way. Gordon was a bear and it was early April, mating season would be soon.
Maybe Not Meddle with Meddling Externalities
To begin, a meddling externality is where others would be willing to pay in order to change or outlaw the behavior of others, essentially people are willing to pay in order to meddle in the lives of others. In practice this kind of externality is no different than being willing to pay for breathing less polluted air. You might say, yes but that is just in your head, but isn’t all value? What is the difference between being willing to pay $20 dollars for cleaner air, for coffee, for making is so others don’t watch pornagraphy, or that people can’t date outside a narrow set of criteria. These are all psychic harms and benefits when you get down to it. While I accepted this logically, in my heart I was never able to care about them the same as a regular externality.
I finally put my finger on why I tend to think differently about meddling externalities than other externalities. In economics we take preferences as a given, but in actuality they can change and be influenced in fairly predictable ways. I really doubt that in 50 years there will still be a lot of people upset by gay marriage. For civil rights at one point in time there were very large meddling externalities by bigoted whites about people of color being in their “proper place”, but even in the areas where such bigotry used to thrive, such meddling externalities have probably if anything reversed direction. I think if marijuana became legal in 50 years people would largely stop caring about others using it, indeed we are already seeing this. Allowing people freedom tends to result in meddlers changing their preferences, since often these preferences are not founded on anything aside from feelings about outgroups. And since this is the case, I would probably often permit behaviors that at the time might be inefficient due to factors of current taste if such tastes are likely to change due to ingroup outgroup dynamics.
On Bears and the Perils of Modern Life
Economics is a powerful tool, but it does possess its blind spots. We assume that the choices people make are rational ones, and to a large degree this is likely true. But I fear that the modern world often lays before us an easy path, a path that our instincts compel us to follow and yet if we heed their call, we will find ourselves living an empty existence. The following is the tale of an anthropomorphized bear named Gordon that encapsulates the treachery of following the easy path. A similar situation has been observed in nature with baboon colonies near eco tourism resorts, the baboons breaking apart their social structures maladaptivly clinging to the easy nourishment found in bounty of human refuse.
Gordon awoke in his cave, hangover piecing his skull. He shuddered as he became filled with self loathing. Instinctively he reaches his paw to the bottles laying next to him to numb the aching chasm, but finds them woefully empty. Licking at an empty bottle he is forced into an uncomfortable clarity, at this point all he is empty, living each day as pointless as the last. He thinks back to his childhood as a young bear. Hunting, fishing for salmon, foraging for berries with his mother, playing with his brother. Those difficult times, those happy times.
Life had changed ever since the humans had built a campsite near him. He had discovered at first by accident what a simple thing it was, walking into an occupied campsite, watching as the humans fled before him, leaving behind their camping provisions. No chase, no frigid water, no gnawing at bushes, just food. He ate until sated reveling in the ease of acquiring the bounty before him. It was later that he would discover the fiery water they so often brought with them. That was the beginning of the end he reflected, that is what had transformed him from a noble beast into what he was now, alive, fat, miserable.
He reflected, he knew. He vowed, he vowed he would go back on the path, the path bears should follow. Rising from his cave to drink from a nearby stream he planned it all out, he would no longer take from the humans, he would once again hunt, once again fish, once again forage. As he thought this, he plucked up his massive shoulders and headed to a nearby river that he recalled from his youth. It had been a long time since he had walked this far, he could feel his limited endurance, but determined he pressed on. There were voices he heard, in the strange high pitch tone of man. He disregarded them and walked on, his legs growing ever more tired supporting his girth. “I must press on!” Gordon the bear vowed to himself.
A vow which started to decrease and decrease in volume, as it was drowned out by all of the justifications that began to flood his mind. It was okay he told himself, just once more, tomorrow would be another day. He turned around and headed for the voices.
He woke up, this time instead of childhood he thought of Guindalin.
She was a female, she was his mate, they had gotten along, but who would want what he had become? His heart surged, beating uncontrollably, he tried his best to suppress it, managing to do so only for a few scant minutes at a time. Today is his day to reform, he can’t give in, he lay there like that for an hour or two and then Gordon the bear could bear it no more.
Reaching for the bottles next to him he found there were a few left from yesterdays raid, he bit their tops off, desperately consuming them. It is okay he said, tomorrow will be a another day.
Another morning another drunken haze, what is the point of this life? To follow the easy path was spiritual suicide. Today is the day, Gordon steeled his resolve. He headed for the stream again. This time, undeterred by the voices coming from the forest. He arrived at the glade on the way to the fishing spot, it was just as beautiful just as pristine as ever, but was it always so hot, where there always so many flies and mosquitoes? Pausing he listened for deer, remembering they were once prevalent there, but his dulled senses picked up nothing. He carried onward to the river and waded in, he did it, he made it, he was going to be a real bear once again. The water robbed him of his warmth more rapidly than he remembered, the fish moved faster than he remembered, his paws responded slower than he remembered. He decided to take a break from the cold water, just a break. He heard those familiar voices in the distance.
Tomorrow is another day.
continued here
How to be a Happy Sisyphus
This story is old enough that I finally feel comfortable enough sharing it.
Sometimes it feels like I am cursed. I have a disease known as Ehlers Danlos III which affects connective tissue, making it weaker. It isn’t all downsides as my extremely elastic nature has likely saved me from broken bones on more than one occasion, from crashing my bike several times going over 30 miles an hour, to being hit by a bus etc. Something like that happens, usually a few things will be thrown out of joint, I pop them back into place and walk (well limp) home. So why wouldn’t everyone have this quasi super power? Well the flip side of so much flexibility, is that this condition, is to put it mildly, extremely painful with many dislocations and sublexations every day. Normal things like standing can cause me so much pain that I can become drenched in sweat. When I stand, I picture my knees as two ropes slowly tearing strand by strand under the load.
I tried everything to deal with it, and everything to hide it. I have obviously become more open with it over time especially after I needed to start walking with a cane (which I no longer need! But that is a subject for another post concerning scientism) and outgrew some of my youthful pride. I started using knee brace at one point, which failed so catastrophically in class one day that they forced my knee out of socket while I was trying to explain international trade, which didn’t go particularly well for my composure.
So I stopped using them, only to find that the problem had gotten much worse. I remember to this day I was feigning my way through a conversation while walking to the dining hall in so much pain I thought I might faint. With almost every step separating my lower leg from my upper leg only for me to strategically put my foot down to force it back so I wouldn’t topple over. I remember this because lots of people with the condition end up on heavy doses of opioids, on disability, in wheelchairs, at that moment I vowed to myself that wasn’t going to be me. I vowed I would embrace any pain that would make me better, and I did. In particular I found biking to be a great way to both strengthen my knees and improve my mood by randomly exploring Beijing and the areas around it. I put a lot of love and care into that bike, it had an internal gear hub so you can change gears even when stopped, important for me because trying to start at a high gear really damages my knees. Walking was still not easy, I certainly couldn’t run, and taking the subway was far too painful, I came to see my bike kind of like a wheelchair.
Things were getting better, and after watching Jiro Dreams of Sushi I decided to treat myself to a tour of Japan including even a reservation at the place itself.
Then I started going blind. I had very good vision, but suddenly everything became blurry beyond measure where I could barely make out text or recognize faces. At the same time I was always hungry, always thirsty, and yet I lost thirty pounds in a month, my hair was falling out. I tried to stay in denial for as long as possible, I just started figuring out how to solve one problem certainly I didn’t need to develop a new one. But I did, my immune system at 26 had decided to declare war on my pancreas, and by god it won. Googling type 1 diabetes the first paper I came across discussed the lifespan decrease, which was… significant. I had to get used to giving myself constant injections, to constantly pricking my finger, to almost losing consciousness when I made an overestimate. My girlfriend at the time broke up with me for strictly eugenic reasons. I cancelled my trip, I didn’t want to be too adventurous when I was just learning to use my body whose transmission I had suddenly found changed from an automatic to a manual. Historically I have been very prone to depression, and it certainly didn’t help matters, I started to feel like Sisyphus when it looks like the bolder is about to reach its point of stability, it instead falls.
At some point I forced myself out of it, deciding to instead do a bike sushi tour of Beijing. That winter break I rode for many hundreds of miles, and befriended the head sushi chef at the place that turned out to be my favorite of the ten or so I tried. There I did it, that bolder is just about…
And then on one fateful trip to the grocery store my bike was stolen and it rolled right back down.
I had put so much work into it, even changed out the ball bearings in the wheels. After a few days when I realized the chance of its recovery was about zero, I went to the store where I bought it, they no longer sold internal gear hub bikes though… No one did, I checked, and I checked, and I checked. After about another month of wallowing in misery, both of my conditions were deteriorating. Eventually I broke down and bought a cheap $40 bike to take me to and from work, but it couldn’t exactly take me around the city at any reasonable speed. I tried normal bikes, but every unexpected stop or slowdown tore up my knees, not exactly a great thing in a city of 22 million.
My teaching assistant at the time, a caring girl called all over Beijing looking for a place that sold bikes with internal gear hubs. She finally found one! I had purchased the hub assembly earlier from the internet so all I needed was someone who could work with them.
What preceded was what I vividly recall as one of the worst days of my life.
I took some time off to leave work early that Friday, their website said it is located in Sanlitun, just about the busiest place in Beijing, especially on a Friday. I get there and… nothing no store. I called them in my less than perfect Chinese and found out that the previous week they moved 12 km south and didn’t update any of their information yet.
Getting a taxi those days could be really hard as the price of taxis was set too low. So I stood there holding my box with the hub in it trying my best to get a taxi for over thirty minutes. All this time a motorized rickshaw driver was hassling me, I kept telling him it was too far, he kept insisting otherwise. Exhausted from pain I called them and had them give him the directions, he says he knows where it is and quotes me about 15 dollars. Da Peng was his name, chain smoking Da Peng making off color comments about women, well I wasn’t paying him for the company.
He changed the price to 25 shortly after we started going, rickshaw drivers are not prized for their honesty so I half way expected it and simply acquiesced.
He had no idea where it was. Checking my app I saw he wasn’t even going in the right direction, pointing to the actual location he in shock told me, that is too far! Sigh. I negotiated with him to at least take me to a nearby subway station… which he couldn’t manage either. In frustration I just told him to stop, having made no appreciable advance towards my destination. He wanted to add my wechat (Chinese social media platform) which I grudgingly did, he then pressured me for all the money, even though he didn’t really make any of the trip, and so once again I grudgingly acquiesced, I am not one to fight. A general policy of mine is not to fight over surplus, if someone exploits me I find it cheaper to just let them and stop dealing with them in the future. Though I admit this particular instance still kinda bugs me, I never did accept his repeated friend requests, I think some people must be truly atrocious at reading a situation, I really do.
Eventually hours after my original departure I am finally in a taxi heading to the location, it would be worth it once I had a new bike. But as fate would have it, they had no idea how to work with the internal gear hub I brought, and only would work with a $5000 dollar model, attached with a $5000 bike for… $10000. Now I really wanted a new bike, with an internal gear hub, but my old bike was $130 and it got stolen… After about an hour discussion, I realized there was no way to convince myself to spend that much. I thanked them, picked up my box and found a taxi to take me to my favorite bar (now closed) which was on the way home, a bar I had discovered on a random bike ride during that winter break. I had a drink and talked with the bartender who was at that point a good friend of mine, but realized I had forgotten my insulin and blood sugar tester at home. So I left after one drink, outside the rain was pouring. Trying to get a taxi in Beijing when it was raining was like chasing after wild rabbits, just because you see them doesn’t mean you can catch them.
I was soaked, I had been cheated, I had spent so much money and got nowhere, it was hopeless, and all the standing put me in excruciating pain. There I stood in the middle of a thunderstorm without an umbrella holding onto my box. I reflected on how unfair life was waiting for a taxi that would never come. After 30 minutes I realized it was late, no taxi would come, and I should make it to the subway before it closes, maybe on the accursed day I will at least get a seat.
I walk into the station, it is practically empty, I spot an ice cream machine, one of those automated deals where you can watch it prepare a cone for you. I hadn’t tasted ice cream since diagnosis, I missed ice cream, they had rum raisin, I hadn’t had that flavor in years. I shouldn’t, I don’t have my insulin, for all I know the stress and pain has already made me a treat for sweet toothed vampires, but you know what? Screw it, just screw everything. I bought the ice cream and walked to the platform. There wallowing in my misery I saw a couple, the man was obviously blind, he was holding a trash bag, the woman was digging through the trash for recyclables, at 10:30 at night. My self pity immediately changed from feeling like a righteous response against an unjust world to overly indulgent petulance. I looked at the still unopened ice cream in my hand and thought, when was the last time they got to taste ice cream? I walked over and awkwardly gave it to them, she took a bite and visually sank into the flavor, then gave her husband a bite and I watched as his hardened continence transformed into a mask of youthful joy that only such simple pleasures as rum raisin can provide. I thought to myself, how much happier was it for me to give them the ice cream than I would have been after angrily consuming it for a minute and then subsequently basting in blood sugar for the hour ride home. Then I thought some more, I opened up my wallet to see what was left, about 300 yuan (45 dollars), I hand it to them, at first the lady gives a meek protest but then gladly accepts the money. The last train had arrived, and hey I got a seat. I sat and thought about things, I had gone from being at my most miserable, to in a state that was almost serene. Was there any use of that money that would have made me, in the very selfish and narrow meaning of that word happier or better off? No.
The next day I decided to be more positive and once again thought about how I can be less miserable. Though my cheap bike couldn’t go fast I could try to explore the local area some more: I always went right or left at the subway line, but never straight, that is something to try, going straight. So I went straight and I passed by this little hole in the wall(literally) bike shop, just for fun I thought I would check it out. Turns out, the guy who ran it was deeply passionate about bikes, building custom bikes, and yes as unbelievable as it sounds, internal gear hubs. I commissioned two bikes from him and they are still the bikes I use today. To think what I needed had always been a scarce two miles away. So there, a happy ending. A weirdly almost scripted sounding happy ending. Well if we leave it exactly there anyway, but it is a lesson and a story that forms one of the core stories I tell myself to keep me moving forward, not that I don’t stumble still, it is natural to stumble but I always manage to pick myself up(so far).
Realize that we all suffer, realize we suffer unequally, realize life is unfair, but realize that there are those whose lives you would be horrified to switch with, that go about life, contently as they can, making the most of what they can. Don’t wallow in your own misery, even if it seems deserved, it doesn’t even help you, sometimes the best way to help yourself is to move your focus away from yourself, to others, to the world around you, to see what you can do to help. When bad things happen to me and I notice I have been focusing too much on my own narrow interests, I try to remember the story, snap myself out and open up rather than close down. I have found helping others to be the only sustainable way to improve my mood and outlook.
I still remember the line I had from my elementary school production of Shakespeare which seems apt (I still remember because hammed it up so hard while delivering the lines)
Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy:
For in this wide and global theatre
Surely there is a tale more woeful than thee
(While double checking I found that this is actually a bastardization of the original quote, but I like the bastardization better so tough)
What is a Moral Requirement?
You are walking home, in your pocket is the new iPhone XIII plus which cost you $2000, but it will be so worth it when everyone sees how cool you are. I mean the new phone is a bit big, and it is stuck in your pocket currently, but just wait until you get a pair of iPants! You are staying with a relative who lives in a rural area and on your way you come across a child drowning, you are a good swimmer and you could save them, but you can’t get your iPhone out of your pocket and you don’t have enough time to take your pants off to save the child. Would you save the child knowing it would destroy your shiny new phone? How would you feel about others facing the same situation who refuses to save the child?
For that same money you can actually save a child right now as philosopher Peter Singer is quick to point out, so in reality everyday of your life you are making this decision over and over and over. If you are morally obligated to save the child drowning, why would you not be obligated save the child you will never meet in some far flung country? You can try to create all the justifications you want, but at the end of the day, it is hard to say that a life is anything other than a life, be they right in front of you or thousands of miles away. Singer’s answer is that since it is a moral obligation to save the drowning child, you must also save the children far away if you want to live a moral life.
I agree that the moral logic of the one case must be the same as the moral logic of the other, but my answer is that in neither case are you obligated to save the child. His case is that intuitively you must save the child in front of you, and logically far away children are an extension of this intuition. If you take the logic of moral obligation to its logical conclusions there isn’t a single human existing who would not be immoral. Plugging my income into his website thelifeyoucansave (a great website BTW) I am told I should donate only about 1,200 dollars a year, though of course it is relatively easy for me to save and donate significantly more than that. So how then would the $1,200 fulfill my moral obligation? Following the logic, I am obligated instead to give as much as possible, indeed I should also try to earn as much as possible to give. Imagine we take it a step further and say I am morally culpable for the deaths that I could have prevented, in that case by choosing to be a teacher instead of working in finance I am likely responsible for more deaths than a serial killer who likely has a much lower earning potential and so the difference between the lives I am responsible for are greater, even though he actually killed someone and I probably save a few.
Most people are not even weak forms of effective altruists, but do their lives make the world a better or worse place? If the typical person living their typical life has worth and makes the world better, why would it be immoral?
I think the solution lies in this; each person is worth one person and them going about living their lives is morally neutral, unless they take some position of obligation for others, they are not obligated towards the welfare of others. However, with this logic since each person matters, how you affect other people also matters, not because of you, but because of them. We can see someone who saves millions of people and to a degree they matter more, not because they matter more, but because the people they help do. So certainly a life where you help others is morally better, and one where you hurt others is morally worse.
The difference between the two cases though is real, but it is one of moral judgment, not morality. It is perfectly normal to ignore the suffering of those we do not see, but ignoring suffering that we do see is a good indicator that we are callous and cold. As in the previous essay I argued that moral judgments primarily exist to judge others utility equation in order to assess how they will behave with regards to yourself (functionally this is how it works, obviously you are not thinking hey that guy is nice to his dog, if we had children he would likely treat them well, you think aww that guy is nice to his dog and feel a little more attracted). A person not saving a child in front of them gives you information that they are likely less compassionate and cooperative, a person not giving away all their money is perfectly normal so doesn’t tell us anything about the person. Imagine a world where every day you went to work or school you and everyone else passed by dozens of children you knew could be saved for $2000 dollars, how quickly would you and those around you become numb to it?
So it is good to do good for others, and better to do more good than less, but I think it is a mistake to make it a moral imperative as Singer does. But many things in the world are logarithmic, with quality on the Y axis and price on the X axis, simply avoiding money traps and being more conscious of how you spend money it is easy to save more and of those savings you can do some serious good. Imagine a video game with a quest that allows you to protect thousands of people from a deadly disease, in real life that is a quest most of us privileged enough to be born into affluent nations can complete.
I don’t think we should try to convince people out of guilt or obligation. Tying things to negative emotions I don’t believe is even likely to lead to the most people, giving the most the most effectively. Giving should be a positive thing if it is to be sustained. Instead I want to focus on empathy, and the benefits to the giver themselves, which will be the topic of my next post.
