Vitanuova for 2005 September 4 (entry 0)
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USPS defends junk mail >

There is a certain strange randomness to where and when people donate; it's so often reactive rather than following a plan or policy. I recall giving to Americans United specifically because of Roy Moore (or maybe my memory is wrong and it was because of Michael Newdow). And of course donations to EFF often cluster around our victories or losses in major court cases, even though EFF needs money day-in and day-out for its budget and operating expenses.

Wealthier people sometimes form a real philanthropic plan and think things through, or even create a foundation and have a whole staff to think things through. But Wolfgang pointed out that millions of people in America (probably including most people reading this) can be philanthropists of a sort for the third world and closer to home.

Today I'm sending donations (reactively and haphazardly) to the American Red Cross and the Wikimedia Foundation. I promised myself at the start of Wikimedia's campaign that I would participate, and I've kept my promise. And for days along the way, I've found the effects of Hurricane Katrina absolutely shocking and sickening.

Since my birthday is coming up this month, I'd like to suggest that anyone thinking of getting me a birthday present consider donating to an organization such as

If I think about this for longer than an hour, I'll probably come up with dozens more organizations, especially in animal rights and animal and vegetarian advocacy, and organizations that work outside of the United States.

Looking at the variety of issues and scales on which the organizations I've just mentioned work -- both geographic scales and time scales -- I'm reminded again of how disconcerting it is not to have an overall plan for trying to improve the world, but being confronted with problems and projects (and catastrophes) in a way that seems kind of random.

People often ask Richard Stallman whether he really thinks that the issues that he works on are the most important issues in the world. He always responds that they are not the most important problems, but they are the problems that he personally is best equipped to work on in consequence of his particular expertise and skills.

And there is an obvious truth to this. Richard noticed problems that were not the most important problems in the world but that he was perhaps better at noticing than anyone else in the world. There is some diversity in the kinds of problems people are prepared to help with, on many, many, different levels and meanings of "prepared".

I remember the blood drive Betsy organized in high school. I had not only a severe fear of needles, but even a history of starting to faint when I was poked with a needle or otherwise cut (what doctors sometimes told me was "vasovagal syncope", which is exacerbated by fear or stress and which raises the weird question of whether I was afraid of needles because I would faint or whether I would faint because I was afraid of needles, or both). So I helped people with the paperwork and protocol of blood donation, and gave them juice and cookies afterward, instead of giving blood myself. At one level, this seems a sensible way to help; at another level, maybe I should try harder to get over my fear of needles. (See also The glass floor and the meaning of rationality; here the fact is that people will need blood donations for the rest of my life, and I know that my level of fear, and likely my risk of vasovagal syncope, can be changed together over time depending on what I do. So why shouldn't I put together a plan to change them?)

So there is a dizzying (with apologies to the glass floor) problem not only of our current capacity to work on problems but also of our ability to develop different capacities and skills which would influence what we could do (and which problems would start to catch our attention and seem more or less compelling and urgent).

If I showed up in the Katrina disaster zone today, I would be worse than useless. Not only am I out of shape and at risk of fainting, but I haven't been through ICS training, nor CPR, nor Search and Rescue, nor even First Aid. Not so Nicol, who has had many of the elements of formal paramedic and disaster training, and may actually be in a position to help. The Red Cross literally told me in so many words that I have already done the most useful thing I could do, which is to send them cash. In every disaster, established relief organizations have to waste a tremendous amount of time trying to persuade people that it is not helpful to ship commodity donations long distances to a disaster site, and that it is not helpful for untrained volunteers to travel long distances to show up in person at a disaster site.

But despite this, it is not absolutely clear that simply sending money is actually the most useful thing I could do, because I know something about ICT, if not about ICS, and because people on several mailing lists I'm on were talking about whether they could get permission to set up an Internet cafe in the Houston Astrodome for the benefit of refugees. And while they were talking about it, an established Texas technology organization already did it -- because, naturally, they were in a better position to do something like that, since they already knew people and sources of equipment in Houston.

But Ping and some techfedders are talking about infrastructure -- and, more importantly, co-ordination and interoperability -- for missing persons databases. (You can read about Ping's work on this problem, if you're interested.)

On the other hand, I could actually try to get First Aid, CPR, and other kinds of training, at least by way of being prepared to use them in my day-to-day life, especially since there are many indications that people in actual emergency situations often react more courageously and usefully than they might have expected. The adrenaline reaction is just the start.

There is really a dizzying regress that we necessarily run up against when considering how we could become more useful against the problems of the present and the future. I can't help immigrants with their legal problems, but I could give money to organizations that do; I could go to law school, but I'm not willing to become an officer of the court, so I couldn't practice law. But I could do things to help other people who are willing. I could learn First Aid and hope or try to reduce my propensity to vasovagal syncope at the sight of blood. I could try to get in shape so that I might actually be able to help with a search and rescue operation.

"[Ts'ui Pên] believed in an infinite series of times, in a growing, dizzying net of divergent, convergent, and parallel times. This network of times which approached one another, forked, broke of, or were unaware of one another for centuries, embraces all possibilities of time. We do not exist in the majority of these times; in some you exist, and not I; in others I, and not you; in others, both of us. In the present one, which a favorable fate has granted me," I was able to help Dmitry Sklyarov go home to his family, while innumerable others spent years in prison for non-violent drug offenses.

But after spending five hours yesterday reading about New Orleans, Biloxi, Gulfport, and people who will actually know what I have only heard about in literature, I want to agree with Johnny Gunther that "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof"; so if you are stuck and dizzy in the Garden of Forking Paths this afternoon, please at least give what you can to the American Red Cross.

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