Comment by tonyhart7
Comment by tonyhart7 4 days ago
"My mom taught me the same thing about giving."
care to share what you learn???
Comment by tonyhart7 4 days ago
"My mom taught me the same thing about giving."
care to share what you learn???
More or less: yup.
The great thing about saying "give 10%" is how well it scales.
Except it doesn’t. If you’re poor, 10% directly impacts your life negatively. It means less (or lesser quality) food. It means less money set aside for yourself in the case you need it — and you will.
10% for middle class is fine. That’s just one less night out.
People should not give to charity if they themselves are likely to be dependent on charity.
I could get into virtue ethics or religion but I know this is Hacker News, so maybe I can frame it like this:
Telling people to wait until they're financially stable before giving risks creating a dynamic where people never start. The person who says "I'll give when I can afford it" at $30k is likely to say the same thing at $100k, because the scarcity mindset scales with income.
Small-scale giving early on helps build the identity and habits of someone who contributes to their community rather than just consuming from it.
And arguably there are network effects formed from generosity of time/money that can bring long-term benefits as well. It's a spicier idea, but I could even suggest that giving helps you see money as a tool rather than as security itself.
This comment perfectly illustrates the mindset folks are talking about. "I'll give when it doesn't hurt me so much" is another form of "I'll give when I have more." It doesn't make the person "bad" or any such thing for not giving, but you won't convince folks to not give by saying "but what about you, don't you want nicer food/clothes/etc."
Probably something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ayPuijerjQ tldr; have your kids split their money into three separate "jars": Spend (can be freely spent), Save (this jar generates interest from the money in it, they also have to wait some time to access the money if they want to spend them) and Give (for charity).
They mean don't wait till you're rich to start giving charity. Just give what you can when you can. Many people tell themselves they are great people because of all the money they'd give away just as soon as they are rich enough to do it but die without giving anything.