This is an age-old concern, and there's a traditional approach: tithing. Automatically donate 10% of your after-tax income to a charity you believe in. Then stop thinking about it except in special emergencies. Tune the percentage as you wish, but make that decision once (or infrequently) and keep it out of your daily anxieties.

10% seems appropriate for those of limited means. I'm not sure it applies to those of us more fortunate.

Yes, but you can spend your whole life worrying about appropriate amount to donate, without donating anything in the meantime.

10% is a good start. If you think it's too little, you can adjust upwards later. While you're making up your mind, you'll still be giving that 10%!

Sure. But 10% is what 'tithe' means. Tweak to suit.

Think of spending $70k in Haiti (for example) as investing in the Society of Haiti, Inc.: what level of the problem would you like to address? Buying food will help people eat right now, but will not solve their long-term problem (unless it's truly just short-term). On the other hand, long-term thinking is unhelpful if they die of starvation first, so you need both. You could also invest through an organization that teaches Haitians skills that let them earn more than subsistence farming would. You could invest through an organization that (re)built homes and buildings. You could invest through an organization that drills wells to provide clean water. In a discussion a few weeks ago on Haiti here, one post compared the Dominican Republic and Haiti and noticed that Haitians were unwilling to learn (to overly summarize) and insisted on patterns of belief and thinking that keep them in poverty; you can invest through an organization that attempts to change culture. You could use the money to take six months off work (theoretically speaking) and volunteer in Haiti personally.

I think you'll be happier about your decision if you are investing in an area you really feel benefits, e.g. Haitians. I also think you'll be happier about the decision if you decide how much money you want to invest, rather than doing it out of guilt or from a reason-based ideological imperative.

I'm not a fan of the charity tourism thing. Unless I have some special skill that's in demand in the area, I'm literally taking somebody else's (probably low-wage) job and doing it for free. I'm sure I'd feel good about it, but I'm not optimizing for my emotional fulfillment.

Certainly the selection of charity is a huge issue and is worthy of careful thought and research, but I think a bigger issue to me is how much to donate.

I already live beneath my means, but I could go a lot lower. I could get a roommate, I could get a cheaper place. I could work more hours at a second job.

Especially as I approach the one percenter territory, the degrees of freedom between living like a king and a pauper seem daunting.

Unknown people in far away countries don't matter at all. Might as well put the money on fire, the outcome would be about the same.

There's probably enough people in your local community that need help of some sort where you could make an actual difference.

What goes wrong in ones life to end up with a mindset like this.

If what you say is true, then you too very much don't matter at all, and the billionaires should quickly exterminate you as you're simply a waste of the planets finite resource of which they require.

"Unknown people in far away countries don't matter at all."

Citation needed.

He donates about 30% of his income. He freely admits he still lives comfortably. Would you have a higher opinion of him if he didn't donate any money instead of "only" 30%?

Peter Singer doesn't claim to be a martyr. I'm not sure where you get that. He is a philosopher/ethicist -- it is his job to think about moral issues and present his conclusions, right or wrong.

In his book, "The Life You Can Save" (free to download as an audiobook or ebook from thelifeyoucansave.org) he does talk at length about the question of "how much is enough? how much is too much? what obligation do you have to your family and community vs helping distant strangers?"

In Chapter 10 of that book, "A Realistic Standard" he brings it all home. He has no problem recognizing that the philosophically perfect solution is unattainable for but a rare few, and that pragmatic solutions that fall short of it would still leave the worst off far better off than they are now.

> Hence in this chapter I propose a much easier target: roughly 5% of annual income for those who are financially comfortable, with less for those below that level, and significantly more for the very rich. My hope is that people will be convinced that they can and should give at these levels. I believe that doing so would be a first step toward restoring the ethical importance of giving as an essential component of a well-lived life. And if it is widely adopted, we’ll have more than enough money to end extreme poverty.

The corresponding website also has a calculator that has a progressive suggestion about what is a good target for someone of a certain income.

https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/take-the-pledge/

He gives 30%. I don't think he is extremely rich, yet he gives at a rate 6 times what he suggests people who are comfortably well off should give. Do you still feel he is a hypocrite?

> Do you still feel he is a hypocrite?

Unequivocally yes, because the bar he set was (apparently) saying that living in comfort beyond hunger and pain (or whatever the comment I responded to said) is "wrong". Random numbers don't change the fact that he's still living quite comfortably, which by his own standard is wrong. If he admitted to changing his views, or acknowledged his hypocrisy, then I'd think highly of him for his intellectual honesty. Otherwise I don't see much value in his points unless you happen to already agree with him, again, like the commenter I responded to originally

The comment you replied to originally has this quote:

"if you are living comfortably while others are hungry or dying from easily preventable diseases, and you are doing nothing about it, there is something wrong with your behavior."

You claim what Singer said was:

"living in comfort beyond hunger and pain is wrong"

You did "doing nothing is wrong" turn into living better than abject poverty is wrong?

>For me, other people's problems aren't my problem.

Just hope that in whatever society you live in, the people who do have problems don't get to a point in which they're so desperate they turn to violence against you, if you so have a lifestyle in which they feel you should be helping maintain said society.

> if you so have a lifestyle in which they feel you should be helping maintain said society.

I don't understand this but protecting myself from other humans is part of my goals, just like making sure I'm never in serious danger from wild animals either.

> For me, other people's problems aren't my problem.

If your luck runs out, we'll be here to help you.

I highly doubt that you, specifically, or any other commenter in this thread will do anything to help me if I run into trouble. And if one were willing to do something, I would hope that they'd choose to channel their help towards someone their know deserves it like a loved one; not me, who as far as you know could just make up a fake sob story to con selfless strangers on the internet.

Too late, we probably already paid for your K-12 education.

I'm not sure what your point is. I'm happy to benefit from others. If others are happy when I benefit from them then that's great for them, but I don't care much one way or another unless it's a loved one.

Peter Singer himself is completely irrelevant. At the end of the day it's just an opinion.

The donor's dilemma: to whom when so many are needy? I'd suggest donating to a reputable agreggator, such as the United Way or Red Cross.

And there's the usual claim that many charities are super corrupt. Yes, there are lists of "good" charities. But you know.