Altruism and compassion is the normative attitude of average people. However enough of the recipients selfishly take advantage of that fact to persuade them that it's a waste of time and energy to squander resources uncritically aiding and abetting selfish and ungrateful parasites. A lot of our social discourse is simply disagreement between those who are still naive about this, and those who've already learned the hard way.
When I first got out of college I had that sort of doe eyed attitude. I felt -- correctly -- the fact that I had managed to get through college with relatively little debt, in a field that had decent demand, and managed to get a decent enough job right out of college, had a lot of elements of pure luck and I happened to roll the dice well.
There was a time period where I went out hoping to lift up others who hadn't had the same good luck I did.
After years of sacrifice, the subjects of my charity were no closer to self-sufficiency, but we're very well taken care of in terms of grooming and gadgets, and were endowed with a deep resentment that I hadn't given even more.
For people outside my immediate family, I've learned I need to give help that's constrained by cost, scope, and time. Do a specific thing and when it's over it's over, because otherwise you become just an exploitable resource. For my wife and kids, it needs to be a leadership first approach that instills and aligns values before providing material resources. For my kids in particular, I'll be dead someday soon (relatively speaking) and they won't be able to rely on me for help for most of their own lives.
There was a time period where I went out hoping to lift up others who hadn't had the same good luck I did.
After years of sacrifice, the subjects of my charity were no closer to self-sufficiency, but we're very well taken care of in terms of grooming and gadgets, and were endowed with a deep resentment that I hadn't given even more.
For people outside my immediate family, I've learned I need to give help that's constrained by cost, scope, and time. Do a specific thing and when it's over it's over, because otherwise you become just an exploitable resource. For my wife and kids, it needs to be a leadership first approach that instills and aligns values before providing material resources. For my kids in particular, I'll be dead someday soon (relatively speaking) and they won't be able to rely on me for help for most of their own lives.
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