Blank Slate
So there's a piece by Daniel Akst in Slate today about optimal charity giving. The piece, "Bang for your Buck," is a perfect illustration of what a superficial, prurient, self-congratulatory mess Slate has become.
The premise is actually an interesting one. You have $1 to give to charity, what's the best place to spend it? This is certainly worth thinking about for anyone in a position to give away money. Given the massive suffering in the world today, it's also a serious topic. This makes it a perfect candidate for the Slate treatment: do no real research, jot down your casual thoughts, insert a few jokes, assert a bold conclusion with much more confidence than it merits, and sum it all up with a headline attractive to people who need to be spoon-fed their opinions.
Akst follows this formula slavishly.
On the environment:
"The problem here is one of scale. Spending a buck to somehow ameliorate global warming, for instance, would seem silly."
Well, yes, spending a buck on anything seems silly. If you take your premise that literally, you can make any philanthropy seem pointless. Having dismissed private efforts against global warming as "probably not the most cost-effective place to put your money," Akst moves on. That actually doesn't exhaust all the important environmental issues, but we wouldn't want to bore the reader.
On funding a prize to spur scientific research:
"A decent prize will attract lots of attention and seduce contestants to invest irrationally in winning."
Akst sees this as a good thing. Later he notes that the likelihood of a useful discovery being made are "presumably remote." So scientific prizes induce other people to spend their money irrationally, independently pursuing a scientific discovery without sharing data, with a high likelihood of all those resources having been invested in vain. Akst likes it! So why isn't this a good place to direct your charitable giving? "But of course, $1 is no help here."
Akst finally concludes by endorsing micro-lending, which does in fact have a good track record. I'm not sure any of the operations will take $1 donations, but Akst isn't concerned. He's spit out a simple opinion pre-chewed for any impressionable reader who takes this crap seriously. His only failure is to use a mind-numbing headline like "How to Save the World with a Dollar."
Sadly, Slate used to be pretty good. It still mixes in the occasional thoughtful article, but mostly it's Akst clones who apparently think all their readers are stupid. If they keep this up, pretty soon they'll be right.
The premise is actually an interesting one. You have $1 to give to charity, what's the best place to spend it? This is certainly worth thinking about for anyone in a position to give away money. Given the massive suffering in the world today, it's also a serious topic. This makes it a perfect candidate for the Slate treatment: do no real research, jot down your casual thoughts, insert a few jokes, assert a bold conclusion with much more confidence than it merits, and sum it all up with a headline attractive to people who need to be spoon-fed their opinions.
Akst follows this formula slavishly.
On the environment:
"The problem here is one of scale. Spending a buck to somehow ameliorate global warming, for instance, would seem silly."
Well, yes, spending a buck on anything seems silly. If you take your premise that literally, you can make any philanthropy seem pointless. Having dismissed private efforts against global warming as "probably not the most cost-effective place to put your money," Akst moves on. That actually doesn't exhaust all the important environmental issues, but we wouldn't want to bore the reader.
On funding a prize to spur scientific research:
"A decent prize will attract lots of attention and seduce contestants to invest irrationally in winning."
Akst sees this as a good thing. Later he notes that the likelihood of a useful discovery being made are "presumably remote." So scientific prizes induce other people to spend their money irrationally, independently pursuing a scientific discovery without sharing data, with a high likelihood of all those resources having been invested in vain. Akst likes it! So why isn't this a good place to direct your charitable giving? "But of course, $1 is no help here."
Akst finally concludes by endorsing micro-lending, which does in fact have a good track record. I'm not sure any of the operations will take $1 donations, but Akst isn't concerned. He's spit out a simple opinion pre-chewed for any impressionable reader who takes this crap seriously. His only failure is to use a mind-numbing headline like "How to Save the World with a Dollar."
Sadly, Slate used to be pretty good. It still mixes in the occasional thoughtful article, but mostly it's Akst clones who apparently think all their readers are stupid. If they keep this up, pretty soon they'll be right.
posted by James | 12:08 PM
1 Comments:
All brilliant, all true.
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