When an average person is charitably inclined, the objects of that charitable impulse are most likely to be local. The local opera company gets a big check. Hurricane victims in a far-away corner of the nation, though their need is larger, get a smaller check. Unfortunates in distant countries get almost nothing. Government policies seem to reflect the will of the average person. Lots of money is spent on domestic programs, helping the people we know and see every day; comparatively little is spent on foreign aid.
For American computer nerds, this relationship is reversed. Bill Gates gets rich. His thoughts turn to malaria, AIDS, and going over to Africa to try to hold back the tide of these diseases. The Google founders are talking about their foundation concentrating on Africa and they just bought a personal Boeing 767 to make it easy to get back and forth. A visit to www.itconversations.com reveals that when techie movers and shakers gather, e.g., at Poptech, they talk about how they are going to fix Africa. Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the MIT Media Lab, decided that his next act would be the $100 laptop for children in Third World countries.
How to explain this difference? Perhaps the average person has a lot of emotional ties and uses these to guide his or her giving. Whereas the computer nerd has mostly been isolated from other humans in his or her community. When the time to do something charitable, he does a Web search for “unfortunate losers” and finds out that there are lots more in Africa than in Seattle or the Bay Area. If you have no personal connections and the people to be helped are mostly just statistics, it is just as satisfying to help people far away as geographically close. When the people far away are in worse shape than the people nearby, it becomes more satisfying to help them.
[The folks who’ve actually spent time in Africa feel a lot less sorry for Africans. One fellow at the Hacker’s Conference spent nearly a year on a road trip through Africa with www.dragoman.com. He said “In a lot of the villages where we stayed, folks only have to work about two months per year to pay for all of their food and shelter. They’re so much happier than Americans.” My friend who work in public health and have spent years in Tanzania don’t shed tears for the locals, either. And there is some evidence that Africans may not be as bad off economically as the dry statistics suggest. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/gear/2005-10-16-africa-cellular_x.htm notes that “an estimated 100 million of [Africa’s] 906 million people” have mobile phones.]
“folks only have to work about two months per year to pay for all of their food and shelter.”
I live in the UK, and that’s what I do. I can’t afford “essentials” like a car or package holidays, but I’m much happier than when I worked full time.
Most people could do this, but they know that society would view them as eccentric. They’d rather fit in than be happy.
Is there a paragraph missing from this post? The first paragraph lists what Bill Gates, the Google Guys and Negroponte are all doing for Africa. The second paragraph then starts “How to explain this difference?”
What difference? They’re all doing similar things. From what’s in the second paragraph, it seems there should be a paragraph that says “When middle class people donate money, they give it to local charities.”
Carlos, I respect your take on life. Not quite what I’d do with my life, but I envy it somewhat.
I’m certain Philip’s friend is right, people in Africa are happier than Americans or than Kiwis where I come from. It’s actually easier to be happy when you don’t have so much stuff. Money, cars, cellphones, all the usual culprits. I don’t think its a problem with wealth so much, as the attitude people take to wealth. But certainly, if you don’t have wealth, then you can’t actively take a harmful attitude to it.
On why geeks like to fix Africa’s problems: most people, geeks or no, tend to find it easier to concentrate on problems on the other side of the world than problems next door. The thing with problems next door is that you know the people better—it’s those lawless thoughtless youngsters who trashed your letterbox. It’s those socially embarrassing, often ugly, mentally impaired, ‘special needs’ children. It’s the poor people in the disgusting slums just outside your city. It’s the golden rule, Love Your Neighbour, and it’s tougher than loving the world.
When I first read this post, I was tempted to react with indignation that Philip would cast aspersions on those who try help others outside of their own backyards. But the note about simple Africans being happier than materialistic Americans gave me some pause. I think ultimately these charities raises issues of globalization and the appropriateness of interventions by the “modern west.” It can be cynically argued that these organizations are basically attempting to export American capitalism to Africa (when every kid in Africa has an intel laptop with internet, they can be trained to go to Amazon.com to buy the Nike sneakers they see on MTV.com). I.e., bring 3rd world countries up to speed as future sources of global market expansion. The people there seem to be happy enough without internet gazillionaires swooping down on their villages bestowing beneficence (and gadgets). However, I think that given the advances in modern medicine, it’s outrageous that so many are still living out relatively short lives with high risks of contracting miserable diseases (same goes for famine). At the end of the day, there doesn’t seem to be a better system for derlivering those desirable improvements in standards of living than the mechanism of free market capitalism. I’m sure our medieval ancestors were also perfectly happy in their agrarian existence until they died of one plague or another at age 30.
Sean: The posting WAS missing its first paragraph. Thanks for noticing! I have restored it. I guess my brain is full of helicopter theory (am in Los Angeles taking the Robinson Factory Safety Course at the Torrance airport).
Philip: Reads much better now ;-), though it seems everyone got the gist of it even in amputated form!
africa’s problems? *sigh*. it’s a PEOPLE problem first, and a PEOPLE problem last.
Africa is a land of contrasts like any other continent. You can find humble people, very rich people, big cities, small villages, traditionnal tribes, occidentalised people, peace, war, etc. The fact is, there are places in Africa where problems are so enormous that, as a human, you are shocked by the situation, even if it’s very far from where you live. Just think about what’s happening in Darfur now.
I think you use the wrong data to draw your conclusions. You compare the average American to a bunch of extremely wealthy and influential power geeks. The average geek is about the same as the average American. They contribute to something where they feel they can make a difference. A hundred bucks won’t do much for AIDS in Africa, but it would buy dinner at a soup kitchen for at least a hundred people.
Compare wealthy geeks to other wealthy Americans and see if there is a difference. I doubt it. The geeks are probably more charitable in general, because they are mostly “new money” and not as attached to it as the Carnegies and Waltons and Hiltons.
The $100 LapTop just got some coverage on CNN.com: http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/11/17/tunisia.technology.ap/index.html
You’re ahead of the curve again, Phil!
Just a general comment: Any generalization about Africa is generally flawed.
I’ve spent a lot of time in Africa, I spend a lot of time with people who have also spent a lot of time. The “Happy African” that you hear about is about as correct as the “Noble Savage” myth of the last century. The myth about “working for two months to make enough to buy food for a year” is, not to put too fine a point on it, bullshit. Most of Sub-Saharan africa has an average YEARLY salary of a few hundred dollars. This is not much. Food is not that much cheaper there than here. Poverty and unemployment are at much higher levels in Africa, as well as the prevalence of disease. If people there are as happy as they are here, it’s because they don’t expect as much, not because they don’t want as much.
Markos Kloos worries what’s going to happen to kids in third world countries when they’re given a piece of hardware worth the equivalent of a year’s pay in their country.
“What would happen in the United States, with our developed civil justice system and ample police presence, if a foreign organization gave a piece of hardware worth $30,000 to every needy minor in this country? Do you think their parents, neighbors, and neighborhood crooks would just smile and say, “Good for you”? Or do you think a significant number of those devices would end up getting stolen, traded, or sold in very short order, possibly resulting in injuries or deaths to many of the kids who didn’t want to give up their new gizmo voluntarily?”
Bill Gates is concentrating on health issues…I suspect even Africans aren’t real happy when they’ve got malaria or river blindness. And these are problems that can be fixed much more cheaply per person than the big Western diseases. The amount of money Gates has put into it has been tranformative…it’s hard to imagine a more satisfying form a philanthropy, no matter what your background.
I figure a lot of those $100 laptops will end up on ebay…but the fact that all those poor africans are managing to hold onto their cellphones suggests that maybe this project will work out okay.
Speaking of which…cellphones started out as symbols of affluence in the U.S., but in a country without landlines, rolling out a cellphone infrastructure is a lot cheaper than wires.
There are so many things wrong with your analysis, it is the typical result of someone talking about something they know very little about, and the main problem, as far as I see it, is that you perpetuate myths that are damaging to peoples lives. I have posted, on my blog, a refutation, and don’t feel like repeating it here.
Well I was annoyed at first when I read this blog entry. But I guess Philip is suffering from the common tendency to take anecdote and rumour to be good evidence (so maybe I should get annoyed with everyone for doing this…) Travelling in Africa you come across a lot of story and innuendo that has spun out of control until everybody (or everybody in some social group) seems to believe it e.g. condoms are a European device for infecting black people with AIDS so that Europe can once again take the continent for it’s own, the average black villager is too stupid to change his traditions and grow extra rows of corn now to carry his family through the coming dry season he has been warned about. Philip’s flippant claims and these rumours, if not outright falsifactions of evidence, all suffer from being just so stories – stories that happen to fit a few sketchy details but with no proper evidence or research to back them up. If you take this sort of approach you’re either ignorant or dishonest.
Frankly I couldn’t give a monkey’s why IT zillionaires choose to help Africans – there are far more Africans in need of far greater help than there locals in need of help, whichever first world country you talk about. The IT geeks might be able to do what’s needed (which isn’t to say the particular projects they have picked are the ones that offer the best chance of success).
The silly remark about geeks being socially isolated is irrelevant too. Suppose they are socially inept and suppose that means they Google for the most desperate cause they could help. The fact, if it were, that social isolation leads them to do this, doesn’t mean that the social types are right to concentrate on local issues. Sure, sometimes we feel more and care more about the good neighbour down the road than the stranger in a far land. The fact that we do so and do so because we are socially adept only tells you what the effects of certain social histories are on an average persons charitable inclinations. You learn nothing about how we ought to behave. Philip needs to do a bit more to tell us why being physically close to or even personally involved with someone means you should spend considerably more time or money on helping those people than people living far worse lives, and dying far worse deaths, far away.
It’s also rather irrelevant what people who have spent time in Africa might feel about Africans. Should I send less money to Africa because Joe Aid Worker doesn’t feel sorry for Africans? Obviously not. The point is surely to look at the problem and decide as best you can if you should and can help based on the needs of the people. Joe Aid Worker is no authority on that.
Secondly, it surely is wrong for people to think that the problems in Africa are in no part the responsibility of Africans. War, famine, the spread of disease, poverty, lack of education are surmountable problems and one factor that prevents them being surmounted is a human one (Africans start African wars, largely; African administrators live it up at the expense of the education budget etc). But these problems of beliefs, attitudes and culture are part of what we look to help with (as best we can). And no doubt, when you work with a group of people in which some, maybe many, are exacerbating the very problems you are seeking to help them overcome, it gets frustrating to the point where ones sense of sympathy wanes a good deal. That isn’t to say we shouldn’t care. It also isn’t to say we shouldn’t sympathise. Maybe you can carry on helping despite the frustration. Maybe you should take a holiday. Maybe you decide, for some particular problem, the very people suffering are causing the problem – perhaps even wilfully at times. But that isn’t a reason not to help. It tells you instead that the help needed is help to change themselves, help to see their problems, relationships, community or whatever differently.
If a hundred miilion Africans have cell phones, maybe something has finally worked to turn Africa around a little, in communications at least. But there are a load of really serious problems there still. If you go to Africa you will also notice cars, satellite dishes, business shirts, paved roads, restaurants, buses and trains, some skyscrapers, oil refineries, etc. But again, there is famine, abject poverty, brutality at all levels, terrible disease, corruption etc. We are told little about African lives by merely mentioning that these things are there. If you tell me 100 million Africans can afford cell phones, then that doesn’t tell me much about the rest of Africa except that up to 800 million may not be able to afford them. And that 800 million might be in such abject poverty that I really should be spending my money helping them rather than a couple of hundred homeless folk in my city.
For those despairing of the state of Harvard Law, click on Philip’s name on this blog and you will find he is not at Harvard Law (not that he said he was – the blog is open to non-Harvard Law people.) Instead, despair at the quality of education the MIT com sci and egineering grads receive (or received when Philip was there.) Perhaps a few philosophy courses in argumentation, evidential support, and ethics might help….