The Best Of All Possible Fundraisers · 12:59am Mar 2nd, 2013
It seems all the cool kids [1] are auctioning off fanfic to raise money to offset the Unicon debacle. I have some opinions about how that's being run, but you've already read a bunch of opinions on the subject and you don't need to see mine. Let's just say that, while I'm in favor of fanfiction and I'm in favor of charity, there are charitable causes better than this one, and—
"Whoa, slow down," I hear you say. "I've seen this pattern before. A group of people comes together for a cause, and another group arrives to sneer from the sidelines about how there's a worse problem out there somewhere. At the end of the day, only one of these groups has actually done something good. It makes me wonder if the sneering folks are more interested in feeling smug than in getting things done."
Well, my conveniently talkative reader, you have a point. I can't promise to stop the sneering completely—I tried in the first paragraph and you saw how long that lasted—but if I tell people we should raise money for more important projects, I shouldn't expect anyone to take me seriously unless I'm actually, y'know, raising money for more important projects.
"Is that it?" you say. "Are you writing this post to apologize? Somehow I doubt that."
You know me well, gentle reader. This is the internet; you'll find no apologies here. [2] No, I'm writing this post to announce that I'm selling my writerly services to raise money for one of those better causes I was talking about. Scroll down for the details, if you want to skip our dialogue, although I'd look a bit foolish talking to myself.
"But wait. What's to stop someone from using your own arguments against you? I mean, if you can mock any charitable effort by pointing towards a better charitable effort—"
Aha! You're assuming that there is a better charity. There are a limited number of charities. Somewhere out there, one of them is literally the best charity in the world.
"There are so many types of charity, though. You really think you can compare, say, a charity that saves lives to a charity that educates children?"
People already do this every time they give money or time to a charity. If you write a $50 check to PegAssist, that is $50 you didn't send to Oxfam or whatever. Deciding between things like this is a very hard problem, but there's no way around it. That's what money is.
"Even if I accept that, the world is kind of big. There are seven billion people, every one of whom wants to make the world a better place. Are you really going to claim you've found the best charity, out of all that?"
Short answer: yes. [3]
"That's absurd. That would require a tremendous amount of research. Maybe if you had a smart guy searching full time for two or three years, you could find it."
Actually it's a lot harder than that! Nevertheless, the folks at GiveWell are doing a very, very good job. They've examined hundreds of charities, and they recommend three as being the best. I'm hoping to raise money for those.
"Okay, I've glanced at their work. It's impressive, but I'm not convinced. Sure, their picks are very good, but who made them the final judges? I can think of a better charity or two."
I can work with that. The point here is to raise money for The Best Charity In The World, whatever that may be. I'll accept donations to any of GiveWell's picks or to anything else that you can reasonably argue is TBCITW. If you think you can save more lives or do more good by sending money somewhere else, then for Celestia's sake do that! I'll write a bunch of horse words for you, too.
"Which reminds me. How did we start talking about this? Isn't this a site about fanfiction?"
Indeed it is. Let's talk about how you can acquire some.
HEY! YOU, SKIPPING THE DIALOGUE! You can stop scrolling down, now.
A) The rate is $10 for a 2500-word of story, or $25 for a 5000-word story. You can donate directly to the charity and forward me an email receipt. If you're donating to one of GW's picks and you're worried about transaction costs, you can also choose to Paypal me money and I'll add it to my next donation. I'll eat Paypal's fee, if that happens.
B) I'll write nearly anything pony-related. That story idea you've been wishing someone else would write? Sure. Your OC's origin story? No problem. Fanfics of fanfics? Vague prompts meant to drive me mad? Gore? Obscure crossovers? Second-person porn? First-person porn? Bring it. If the subject is truly shocking, send me a PM to check; I can't think of something I wouldn't write for this, but I'm leaving myself an out, just in case. [4]
SPECIAL NOTE: You folks who have asked me about sequels to my existing stories? Yeah, that's on the table.
C) This is not an auction. This is a standing offer. If a whole bunch of people want to do this, I may create a waiting list. If you're reading this in 2015 or whatever, ask if this is still valid. The answer may well be yes.
D) I can write quickly or I can write sober, but not both. You get to pick. [5]
E) You can donate to any of GiveWell's three picks (if you're having trouble picking, AMF makes a good default), or you can argue that something else is The Best Charity In The World and therefore eligible as well. You'll have to present an argument that your choice is, not merely good, but the best possible use of money. You don't have to persuade me to switch my future donations, but the argument must be coherent in my judgement.
F) The finished product is yours, to do with as you like, so long as I'm credited as the author. I can post it here, with credit to you; you can post it to your own blog; you can keep it on your hard drive where no one else will ever know it exists.
Interested? PM or reply below.
[1] For whatever definition of "cool" applies to ponyfic authors, I guess. My understanding of the subject has always been a bit shaky.
[2] On the other hand, if you wanted an apologia, today is your lucky day.
[3] The long answer has the form "No, but..."
[4] If the subject is too shocking for me to write, I promise not to judge you for asking. Adults who write fanfiction about candy-colored ponies shouldn't throw stones.
[5] My most popular story was written drunk, so there's that.
As it's a standing offer, I shall have to keep this in mind! Did want to respond briefly to the "objectively best charity" bit, as a meandering thought response.
Humans aren't always rational actors, and people don't donate to the "best" charities for any number of good or bad reasons. However, I think there's a rational defense of an objectively suboptimal choice.
For example, if we want to be coldly objectivist about it — and this is making me feel dirty, so appreciate it while it lasts — the most important benefit of charity is that we are trading resources in exchange for happiness, i.e. the warm fuzzies of making others' lives better. A given charity might maximize those warm fuzzies without actually maximizing enhancement of others' lives. Therefore, your charities aren't optimal for all ethical systems.
Of course, when most people decide to point money at charity, it's a mixture of those two calculations. In the particular case currently making the rounds — the #lasPegAssist thing — there are other benefits at play. There's an element of tribalism here: the charities that make the most impact will affect people we'll never meet, while donating to a brony cause strengthens the community that we engage with every day. In the case of, say, me donating a story commission, there are also a number of benefits that directly reflect back on me: I get to do something I already enjoy doing, except now it has a value to someone else (both the purchaser and the recipient). The donation raises my profile slightly among the hundreds of other authors and readers involved. It will result in me getting a kick in a pants to post a story, which as you know by now can only be a good thing. (And, since it looks like Bad Horse is the winning bidder, it also guarantees I have another author whose opinions I respect looking at my work before it gets posted to the public!)
The moral stance that the enhancement of others' lives trumps all of those factors is a righteous one. As the righteous know, sometimes being right means being lonely. You're a better man than I.
Also, I'm really tempted to donate just to make you write clop.
But we've already established that you're a better man than I, so I don't feel the need to belabor the point.
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To the extent that folks are actually making calculations and choosing to purchase warm fuzzies instead of living children, that's fine. It's the moral equivalent of going on a vacation to Europe, or buying a shiny new computer. My worry is the person who doesn't make the calculations; she just see two things labeled "charity" and figures they must be pretty much equivalent, and then someone is dead who the donor would have saved if she had actually stopped to think and choose.
The ratio of righteousness to loneliness is actually really good. Having a blog post ignored is literally the most unpleasant thing that's happened to me as a result of organizing my entire life around this kind of smart giving. On the other hand, the people I met through this are about as awesome as can be expected.
I should mention that you've already started me writing borderline clop. Which reminds me, where's that draft of Social Lubricant?
Ohh... this is oh-so-tempting... Considering I tend to think in 'epics', I don't have that kind of money, though...
(Asking anyway, for some reason: How's you knowledge of Evangelion?)
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I don't know if I'm up for epics. I'd hesitate to commit to anything over 5,000 words. Writing a 20,000 word story is much more than four times as hard as writing a 5,000 word story.
As for Eva, I would describe my knowledge as "rusty." I watched the whole thing two or three times, but that was... eight years ago? Ten? I'd have to rewatch an episode or three before I felt comfortable writing about it. (Which doesn't seem like a terrible fate, really.)
993867 Well... you're probably in at least as good shape as I am. I've only seen it once, most of my knowledge of it comes from the internet.
Even if I had the funds, I'd be attempting to pick it up in units of two to five thousand words. Not that I think that actually affects your point.
(Not a terrible fate? The supposed last two episodes were completely unrelated. Oh, they could have been fit in perfectly with no changes to the 'plot' of them, but it would have taken another four or thirteen episodes to do so, and it still would make Background Pony look sane&balanced.)
Given some of your group affiliations, would you be particularly hard to convince of the merits of donating to a charity working towards some form of life-extension goal (e.g. SIAI or the Methuselah Foundation) as the most effective long-term way to help the most people (namely, all of them, with an infinite expected benefit for each person in the long run)?
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That's an easy sell. I am all about radical life extension and far-future concerns. (I'd quibble with infinite expected benefit because the Second Law of Thermodynamics is still a thing, but the argument is still sound.) You'd have to figure out whether you'd get the greatest expected marginal return per dollar from MIRI or the Methuselah Foundation or FHI or something else, of course.
Now that I've actually tried this out, I think I set the initial prices too low. I'll put some thought into revised numbers. Meanwhile, if you have a request in mind, PM me and we'll start the conversation.