12 Charity

12 Charity
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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

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you have the exact same moral obligation to rescue children in developing countries who are dying of starvation,
Note:LA PARTE COMTROVERSA DI SINGER

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The fact that they aren’t dying right in your backyard isn’t justification
Note:IRRILEVANTE

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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

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through college in America, you could instead save the lives of more than 50 children
Note:EQUIVALENZA

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everyday human hypocrisy
Note:COSA EVIDENZIA

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EFFECTIVE ALTRUISM

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In 2006, Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld
Note:INIZIATORI DEL MOVIMENTO

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In financial terms, they were looking to maximize their return on investment (ROI)
Note:ANCHE QUANDO SI DONA...ROD RETURN OF DONATION

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Some simply sent glossy brochures with photos of smiling children
Note:LA RISPOSTA DELLE ONLUS

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(Take a moment to consider why a philanthropist might want to keep a “trade secret.”)
Note:LA DOMANDA

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in 2007, they decided to leave their jobs and start GiveWell,
Note:ALLA FINE

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The Against Malaria Foundation,
Note:CLASSIFICA DI GIVE WELL...1

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GiveDirectly,
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The Schistosomiasis Control Initiative,
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These are hardly the most popular or paradigmatic charities.
Note:MARAVIGLIA!!!!!

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United Way, Salvation Army, or Make-A-Wish Foundation, for example.
Note:MOLTO PIÙ GETTONATE

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ignore charities that try to effect more nebulous (political or cultural) changes.
Note:LA CRITICA A GW

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when we start to look at real-world altruism, helping people efficiently doesn’t seem to be our top priority.
Note:AMARA CONSTATAZIONE

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REAL-WORLD ALTRUISM
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Nine out of 10 of us donate to charity every year.
Note:USA...UN POPOLO GENEROSO

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donations amounted to more than $359 billion—roughly 2 percent of the country’s GDP.
Note:NEL 2014

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The striking thing about real-world altruism is how sharply it deviates from effective altruism.
Note:IL FATTO

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The main recipients of American charity are religious groups and educational institutions.
Note:BENEFICIARI

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no more than 13 percent11 of private American charity goes to helping those who seem to need it most: the global poor.
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only 35 percent do research on any charitable gift in the course of a calendar year.
Note:L EFFICIENZA CONTA MA NN VIENE CONTROLLATA

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•Only 3 percent of donors do comparative research
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“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

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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

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scope neglect or scope insensitivity,
Note:BATTESIMO DEL BIAS

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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

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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,

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IRRAZIONALE MA ANCHE DANNJOSO

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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

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“WARM GLOW” THEORY
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Andreoni theorized, we do charity in part because of a selfish psychological motive: it makes us happy.
Note:TEORIE ALTERNATIVE

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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

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why it feels good when we donate to charity.
Note:RESTA UN GAP

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Visibility.
Note:FATTORI CHE INFLUENZANO LA NOSTRA INCLINAZIONE A DARE...1

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Peer pressure.
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Proximity.
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Relatability. We give more when the people we help are identifiable (via faces and/or stories)
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Mating motive.
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VISIBILITY
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we give more when we’re being watched.
Note:DI COSA PARLIAMO

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people donate significantly more when the solicitor makes eye contact
Note:SIAMO VISTI

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People also give more when the solicitor can see their donations,
Note:INOLTRE

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That’s why they commemorate donors with plaques,
Note:I FILANTROPI LO SANNO BENE

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Even blood donors typically walk away with a sticker that says, “I gave blood today.”
Note:ALTRO CASO

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Anonymous donation, for example, is extremely rare.
Note:L 1 PER CENTO

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“They were well known within their social circle . . . even though their names may not have been splashed across the newspapers.
Note:ANCHE GLI ANONIMI

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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

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PEER PRESSURE
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First of all, solicitation works:
Note:ROMPERE LE BALLE

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up to 95 percent of all donations are given in response to a solicitation.
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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

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Universities, for example, often solicit donations from alumni by having other alumni from the same class call them up.
Note:UN CASO

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PROXIMITY

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Remember the drowning boy in Peter Singer’s thought experiment?
Note:UN CLASSICO

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Jonathan Baron and Ewa Szymanska call this bias parochialism.
Note:STUDIOSI

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only an estimated 13 percent ($39 billion) went to help foreigners.
Note:DONAZIONO USA

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We treat close family better than friends, and friends better than strangers
Note:UN TRATTO INELIMINABILE

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RELATABILITY
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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

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identifiable victim effect.
Note:BATTESIMO DEL FENOMENO

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“A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.”
Note:PAROLA DI STALN

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Liz’s story, perched beneath her bright, beaming smile, is chock-full of personal details.
Note:ADOZIONE A DISTANZA

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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

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there’s no single individual a donor can point to and say, “I saved this man’s life.”
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MATING MOTIVE
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the opportunity to impress potential mates.
Note:ALTRO FATTORE

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more likely to give money when the solicitor is an attractive member of the opposite sex.
Note:SPECIE GLI UOMINI

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psychologist Vladas Griskevicius
Note:SPERIMENTATORE SUL CAMPO

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APPEARANCES MATTER
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Griskevicius calls this phenomenon “blatant benevolence.” Patrick West calls it “conspicuous compassion.
Note:LA NS GENEROSITÀ

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charity is an advertisement, a way of showing off.
Note:IN ALTRE PAROLE

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“Take egotism out,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson, “and you would castrate the benefactors.”
Note:LA MASSIMA

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To donate with credit in mind hardly seems like charity at all.
Note:RIMOZINE

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one of our primary audiences is potential mates.
Note:MA CHI VOGLIAMO IMPRESSIONARE?

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Stinginess isn’t sexy.
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Women actively celebrate the generosity of Princess Diana and Mother Teresa,
Note:OBIEZIONE

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women who have gone through menopause (and therefore have no mating incentive) are as generous as any other
Note:ALTRA OB

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even when they’re happily married with no chance of having further children.

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charity serves to impress not just potential mates, but also social and political gatekeepers.
Note:INFATTI

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“Why does charity make us attractive to mates, teammates, and social gatekeepers?”
Note:ALTRA DOMANDA

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The most obvious thing we advertise is wealth, or in the case of volunteer work, spare time.
Note:COSA OSTENTIAMO?

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Those who are struggling to survive don’t make ideal allies.
Note:XCHÈ

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Charity also helps us advertise our prosocial orientation, that is, the degree to which we’re aligned with others.
Note:ALTRO BENE

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This helps explain why generosity is so important for those who aspire to leadership.
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This is one of the reasons we’re biased toward local rather than global charities.
Note:POLITICA E POTERE

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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

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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

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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

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“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

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it means you’ll make a great ally.

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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

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This also helps explain why we respond to individual faces and stories more than we respond to dry statistics,
Note:LA SPONTANEITÀ SPIEGA TANTO

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Paul Bloom,
Note:STUDIOSO DI EMPATIA

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“The mark of a civilized man is the capacity to read a column of numbers and weep,”
Note:BERTRAND RUSSELL

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MISSING FORMS OF CHARITY
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giving to people in the far future.
Note:ATTIVITÀ NEGLETTA

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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

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These have been called “Methuselah trusts,” the most famous of which were set up by Benjamin Franklin.
Note:BATTESIMO

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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

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helping people in the far future doesn’t showcase our empathy
Note:PURTROPPO

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“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

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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

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there’s no way to demonstrate to others that you’ve engaged in an act of marginal charity;
Note:L INCONVENIENTE IN QS CASI

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WRAPPING UP
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