This is a special post for quick takes by Rasool. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.
Matthew Yglesias wrote a Giving Tuesday piece about GiveDirectly that makes a compelling case for effective giving to a general audience. The article addresses why one should consider directing charity to the Global South, what makes cash transfers an appealing intervention, and how this approach can be reconciled with the desire to volunteer locally.
Someone accidentally donated $15,000 instead of $150 to their neighbour's charity in Bangladesh. Before they could get a refund they were inundated with pictures and videos from the grateful recipients.
You can use Firefox/Safari/Chrome etc. on your phone, go to swapcard.com and use that instead of downloading the Swapcard app from your app store. As far as I know, the only thing the app has that the mobile site does not, is the QR code that you need when signing in when you first get to the venue and pick up your badge
Only what you put in the 'Biography' section in the 'About Me' section of your profile is searchable when searching in Swapcard
The other fields, like 'How can I help others' and 'How can others help me' appear when you view someone's profile, but will not be used when searching using Swapcard search. This is another reason to use the Swapcard Attendee Google sheet that is linked-to in Swapcard to search
You can use a (local!) LLM to find people to connect with
People might not want their data uploaded to a commercial large language model, but if you can run an open-source LLM locally, you can upload the Attendee Google sheet and use it to help you find useful contacts
Matthew Yglesias wrote a Giving Tuesday piece about GiveDirectly that makes a compelling case for effective giving to a general audience. The article addresses why one should consider directing charity to the Global South, what makes cash transfers an appealing intervention, and how this approach can be reconciled with the desire to volunteer locally.
https://www.slowboring.com/p/you-can-help-the-poorest-people-in
Someone accidentally donated $15,000 instead of $150 to their neighbour's charity in Bangladesh. Before they could get a refund they were inundated with pictures and videos from the grateful recipients.
In addition to then donating $1,500 rather than the $150 as originally planned, they also told the story of their blunder on reddit, which went viral and caused ~3000 people to donate ~$100,000
Warm fuzzies galore
Not necessarily just warm fuzzies. Bangladesh is one of the places where hunger is still prevalent.
Oh for sure, and I gladly donated.
I just didn't want this to turn into a whole conversation about effectiveness, but rather the power of stories
Swapcard tips:
You can use Firefox/Safari/Chrome etc. on your phone, go to swapcard.com and use that instead of downloading the Swapcard app from your app store. As far as I know, the only thing the app has that the mobile site does not, is the QR code that you need when signing in when you first get to the venue and pick up your badge
The other fields, like 'How can I help others' and 'How can others help me' appear when you view someone's profile, but will not be used when searching using Swapcard search. This is another reason to use the Swapcard Attendee Google sheet that is linked-to in Swapcard to search
People might not want their data uploaded to a commercial large language model, but if you can run an open-source LLM locally, you can upload the Attendee Google sheet and use it to help you find useful contacts