12 Charity
                    
                            
                                Note:12@@@@@@@@@@
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,436
        
            If you notice a boy drowning in a shallow pond right in front of you, you have a moral obligation to try to rescue him.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:L OBBLIGO DI SINGER
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,439
        
            you have the exact same moral obligation to rescue children in developing countries who are dying of starvation,
                
                    
                            
                                Note:LA PARTE COMTROVERSA DI SINGER
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,440
        
            The fact that they aren’t dying right in your backyard isn’t justification
                
                    
                            
                                Note:IRRILEVANTE
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,443
        
            every time we take a vacation, buy an expensive car, or remodel the house, it’s morally equivalent to letting people die right in front of us.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:IMPLICAZIONE
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,445
        
            through college in America, you could instead save the lives of more than 50 children
                
                    
                            
                                Note:EQUIVALENZA
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,447
        
            everyday human hypocrisy
                
                    
                            
                                Note:COSA EVIDENZIA
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,453
        
            EFFECTIVE ALTRUISM
                
        
                Note | Location: 3,453
        
            TTTTTTTTTTT
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,455
        
            In 2006, Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld
                
                    
                            
                                Note:INIZIATORI DEL MOVIMENTO
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,460
        
            In financial terms, they were looking to maximize their return on investment (ROI)
                
                    
                            
                                Note:ANCHE QUANDO SI DONA...ROD RETURN OF DONATION
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,463
        
            Some simply sent glossy brochures with photos of smiling children
                
                    
                            
                                Note:LA RISPOSTA DELLE ONLUS
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,464
        
            (Take a moment to consider why a philanthropist might want to keep a “trade secret.”)
                
                    
                            
                                Note:LA DOMANDA
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,469
        
            in 2007, they decided to leave their jobs and start GiveWell,
                
                    
                            
                                Note:ALLA FINE
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,478
        
            The Against Malaria Foundation,
                
                    
                            
                                Note:CLASSIFICA DI GIVE WELL...1
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,479
        
            GiveDirectly,
                
                    
                            
                                Note:2
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,480
        
            The Schistosomiasis Control Initiative,
                
                    
                            
                                Note:3
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,481
        
            These are hardly the most popular or paradigmatic charities.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:MARAVIGLIA!!!!!
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,482
        
            United Way, Salvation Army, or Make-A-Wish Foundation, for example.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:MOLTO PIÙ GETTONATE
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,487
        
            ignore charities that try to effect more nebulous (political or cultural) changes.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:LA CRITICA A GW
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,490
        
            when we start to look at real-world altruism, helping people efficiently doesn’t seem to be our top priority.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:AMARA CONSTATAZIONE
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,491
        
            REAL-WORLD ALTRUISM
                
                    
                            
                                Note:Tttttttttttttttt
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,492
        
            Nine out of 10 of us donate to charity every year.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:USA...UN POPOLO GENEROSO
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,493
        
            donations amounted to more than $359 billion—roughly 2 percent of the country’s GDP.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:NEL 2014
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,517
        
            The striking thing about real-world altruism is how sharply it deviates from effective altruism.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:IL FATTO
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,517
        
            The main recipients of American charity are religious groups and educational institutions.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:BENEFICIARI
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,520
        
            no more than 13 percent11 of private American charity goes to helping those who seem to need it most: the global poor.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:13
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,525
        
            only 35 percent do research on any charitable gift in the course of a calendar year.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:L EFFICIENZA CONTA MA NN VIENE CONTROLLATA
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,527
        
            •Only 3 percent of donors do comparative research
                
                    
                            
                                Note:Cccccccccccccc
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,530
        
            “British people had donated over £1 billion to the Princess of Wales charity, long before the newly established charity had any idea what the donations
                
                    
                            
                                Note:DOPO LA MORTE DI DIANA
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,533
        
            One study, for example, asked participants how much they would agree to pay for nets that prevent migratory bird deaths. Some participants were told that the nets would save 2,000 birds annually, others were told 20,000 birds, and a final group was told 200,000 birds. But despite the 10- and 100-fold differences in projected impact, people in all three groups were willing to contribute the same amount.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:TIPICO
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,537
        
            scope neglect or scope insensitivity,
                
                    
                            
                                Note:BATTESIMO DEL BIAS
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,540
        
            People also prefer to “diversify” their donations, making many small donations rather than a few strategic large ones to the most useful charities.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:ALTRA PREFERENZA
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,546
        
            Giving $3,500 to the Against Malaria Foundation will save a whole human life, while the same amount divided across 100 different charities might go entirely to waste,
                
        
                Note | Location: 3,547
        
            IRRAZIONALE MA ANCHE DANNJOSO
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,549
        
            wealthy people often perform unskilled volunteer work (and are celebrated for it), even when their time is worth vastly more on the open market.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:ALTRO MISPLACEMENT
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,558
        
            “WARM GLOW” THEORY
                
                    
                            
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                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,561
        
            Andreoni theorized, we do charity in part because of a selfish psychological motive: it makes us happy.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:TEORIE ALTERNATIVE
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,566
        
            Making automatic payments to a single charity may be more efficient at improving the lives of others, but the other strategy—giving more widely, opportunistically, and in smaller amounts—is more efficient at generating those warm fuzzy feelings.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:UN CONFRONTO...ARGOMENTO CHE SPIEGA LA DIVERSIFICAZIONE
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,570
        
            why it feels good when we donate to charity.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:RESTA UN GAP
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,573
        
            Visibility.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:FATTORI CHE INFLUENZANO LA NOSTRA INCLINAZIONE A DARE...1
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,574
        
            Peer pressure.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:2
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,575
        
            Proximity.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:3
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,576
        
            Relatability. We give more when the people we help are identifiable (via faces and/or stories)
                
                    
                            
                                Note:4
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,578
        
            Mating motive.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:5
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,580
        
            VISIBILITY
                
                    
                            
                                Note:Ttttttt
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,581
        
            we give more when we’re being watched.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:DI COSA PARLIAMO
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,583
        
            people donate significantly more when the solicitor makes eye contact
                
                    
                            
                                Note:SIAMO VISTI
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,584
        
            People also give more when the solicitor can see their donations,
                
                    
                            
                                Note:INOLTRE
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,588
        
            That’s why they commemorate donors with plaques,
                
                    
                            
                                Note:I FILANTROPI LO SANNO BENE
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,592
        
            Even blood donors typically walk away with a sticker that says, “I gave blood today.”
                
                    
                            
                                Note:ALTRO CASO
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,596
        
            Anonymous donation, for example, is extremely rare.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:L 1 PER CENTO
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,600
        
            “They were well known within their social circle . . . even though their names may not have been splashed across the newspapers.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:ANCHE GLI ANONIMI
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,606
        
            Not surprisingly, the vast majority of donations to such campaigns fall exactly at the lower end of each tier.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:DA 500 A 900 SOCIO... Da 1000 A 2000
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,608
        
            PEER PRESSURE
                
                    
                            
                                Note:TTttttttttttt
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,610
        
            First of all, solicitation works:
                
                    
                            
                                Note:ROMPERE LE BALLE
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,611
        
            up to 95 percent of all donations are given in response to a solicitation.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:Cccccccc
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,612
        
            In-person solicitations, like when someone comes to your door or passes the collection plate at church, work better than impersonal solicitations
                
                    
                            
                                Note:CONTATTO VISIVO
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,617
        
            Universities, for example, often solicit donations from alumni by having other alumni from the same class call them up.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:UN CASO
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,627
        
            PROXIMITY
                
        
                Note | Location: 3,627
        
            Ttttttttttttttttttt
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,629
        
            Remember the drowning boy in Peter Singer’s thought experiment?
                
                    
                            
                                Note:UN CLASSICO
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,631
        
            Jonathan Baron and Ewa Szymanska call this bias parochialism.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:STUDIOSI
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,635
        
            only an estimated 13 percent ($39 billion) went to help foreigners.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:DONAZIONO USA
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,638
        
            We treat close family better than friends, and friends better than strangers
                
                    
                            
                                Note:UN TRATTO INELIMINABILE
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,640
        
            RELATABILITY
                
                    
                            
                                Note:Tttttttttttttttt
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,641
        
            we’re much more likely to help someone we can identify—a specific individual with a name,
                
                    
                            
                                Note:IDENTIFICATI IDENTIFICATI I ROTAGONISTI...CON UNA STORIA ALLE SPALLE
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,644
        
            identifiable victim effect.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:BATTESIMO DEL FENOMENO
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,645
        
            “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.”
                
                    
                            
                                Note:PAROLA DI STALN
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,649
        
            Liz’s story, perched beneath her bright, beaming smile, is chock-full of personal details.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:ADOZIONE A DISTANZA
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,655
        
            Contrast this with the Against Malaria Foundation. Although it saves hundreds of lives every year, it can’t offer names or faces of the people it helps, because it saves only statistical lives.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:VITE STATISTICHE
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,658
        
            there’s no single individual a donor can point to and say, “I saved this man’s life.”
                
                    
                            
                                Note:Ccccccccccc
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,660
        
            MATING MOTIVE
                
                    
                            
                                Note:Tttttttttttt
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,660
        
            the opportunity to impress potential mates.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:ALTRO FATTORE
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,661
        
            more likely to give money when the solicitor is an attractive member of the opposite sex.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:SPECIE GLI UOMINI
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,664
        
            psychologist Vladas Griskevicius
                
                    
                            
                                Note:SPERIMENTATORE SUL CAMPO
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,674
        
            APPEARANCES MATTER
                
                    
                            
                                Note:Tttttttttt
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,676
        
            Griskevicius calls this phenomenon “blatant benevolence.” Patrick West calls it “conspicuous compassion.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:LA NS GENEROSITÀ
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,679
        
            charity is an advertisement, a way of showing off.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:IN ALTRE PAROLE
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,682
        
            “Take egotism out,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson, “and you would castrate the benefactors.”
                
                    
                            
                                Note:LA MASSIMA
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,685
        
            To donate with credit in mind hardly seems like charity at all.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:RIMOZINE
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,689
        
            one of our primary audiences is potential mates.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:MA CHI VOGLIAMO IMPRESSIONARE?
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,691
        
            Stinginess isn’t sexy.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:Cccccccccc
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,695
        
            Women actively celebrate the generosity of Princess Diana and Mother Teresa,
                
                    
                            
                                Note:OBIEZIONE
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,696
        
            women who have gone through menopause (and therefore have no mating incentive) are as generous as any other
                
                    
                            
                                Note:ALTRA OB
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,698
        
            even when they’re happily married with no chance of having further children.
                
        
                Note | Location: 3,698
        
            Ccccccccc
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,701
        
            charity serves to impress not just potential mates, but also social and political gatekeepers.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:INFATTI
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,707
        
            “Why does charity make us attractive to mates, teammates, and social gatekeepers?”
                
                    
                            
                                Note:ALTRA DOMANDA
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,709
        
            The most obvious thing we advertise is wealth, or in the case of volunteer work, spare time.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:COSA OSTENTIAMO?
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,714
        
            Those who are struggling to survive don’t make ideal allies.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:XCHÈ
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,715
        
            Charity also helps us advertise our prosocial orientation, that is, the degree to which we’re aligned with others.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:ALTRO BENE
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,719
        
            This helps explain why generosity is so important for those who aspire to leadership.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:Ccccccccc
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,721
        
            This is one of the reasons we’re biased toward local rather than global charities.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:POLITICA E POTERE
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,726
        
            advertise our prosocial orientation helps explain why, as a general rule, we do so little original research to determine where to donate.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:ALTRO MISTERO CHE CADE
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,728
        
            in order to signal how prosocial we are, we need to donate to charities that are publicly known to be worthy.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:COSA CI INTERESSA VERAMENTE
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,733
        
            There’s one final quality that charity allows us to advertise: the spontaneous, almost involuntary concern for the welfare of others.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:ALTRO PROSCIUTTO IN VETRINA
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,735
        
            “See how easily I’m moved to help others? When people near me are suffering, I can’t help wanting to make their situation better; it’s just who I am.”
                
                    
                            
                                Note:COSA STIAMO DICENDO
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,737
        
            it means you’ll make a great ally.
                
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,742
        
            spontaneous giving demonstrates how little choice we have in the matter, how it’s simply part of our character
                
                    
                            
                                Note:ESSENZIALE LA SPONTANEITÀ X PUBBLICIZZARE IL NS CARATTERE
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,743
        
            This also helps explain why we respond to individual faces and stories more than we respond to dry statistics,
                
                    
                            
                                Note:LA SPONTANEITÀ SPIEGA TANTO
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,744
        
            Paul Bloom,
                
                    
                            
                                Note:STUDIOSO DI EMPATIA
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,746
        
            “The mark of a civilized man is the capacity to read a column of numbers and weep,”
                
                    
                            
                                Note:BERTRAND RUSSELL
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,754
        
            MISSING FORMS OF CHARITY
                
                    
                            
                                Note:Tttttttttttt
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,758
        
            giving to people in the far future.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:ATTIVITÀ NEGLETTA
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,758
        
            Instead of donating money now, we might put it in a trust and let the magic of compound interest work for 50 or 500 years,
                
                    
                            
                                Note:CONTENUTO
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,759
        
            These have been called “Methuselah trusts,” the most famous of which were set up by Benjamin Franklin.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:BATTESIMO
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,760
        
            he gave two gifts of ₤1,000 each to the cities of Boston and Philadelphia, and he instructed the funds to be invested for 100 years before being used to sponsor apprenticeships for local children.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:BF
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,763
        
            helping people in the far future doesn’t showcase our empathy
                
                    
                            
                                Note:PURTROPPO
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,766
        
            “marginal charity.”65 Here the idea is to nudge our personal decisions just slightly (marginally) in the direction that’s beneficial to others.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:CARITÀ INVISIBILE
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,771
        
            if the developer built 11 stories instead of 10, it would reduce their profit by only a tiny amount, but it would add a bunch of new apartments to the neighborhood.
                
                    
                            
                                Note:ESEMPIO
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,774
        
            there’s no way to demonstrate to others that you’ve engaged in an act of marginal charity;
                
                    
                            
                                Note:L INCONVENIENTE IN QS CASI
                            
                    
                
            
        
                Yellow highlight | Location: 3,778
        
            WRAPPING UP
                
                    
                            
                                Ttttttttttt