

Karmabox - Do something good with one line of code - manume
http://karmabox.io/

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dtp
The idea of being presented with the names and faces of people in need and
asked to choose who to give money to is so repellent to me that, if I
encountered Karmabox on a website, I would choose not to donate at all.

Seriously. This makes me so incredibly uncomfortable. It's like you're forcing
these people to compete with each other to get medical care.

I realize that donating to all of them is an option, but it doesn't make the
presentation any less icky to me.

When I give to charitable causes, I want to feel like I'm entrusting it to
people capable of making informed and compassionate decisions about the most
impactful way the money can be put to use. I know that charities often fall
short of this ideal in reality, but I don't think the solution is to present
me, a rich white Westerner, with a menu of suffering third-worlders to choose
from. That's just gross.

~~~
dtp
Sorry if that sounds too harsh. I shouldn't shit on you too hard for trying to
do something good. I've never written any software that does anything even
remotely as good for the human race as this, so maybe I should just keep my
mouth shut.

I really did have a strong "oh wow this is kind of messed up" reaction to
Karmabox, though, and I suspect I'm not the only one who will. Maybe it would
be worthwhile to offer an alternative interface that would be less jarring to
people like me?

~~~
manume
I absolutely understand your reaction and yes, we realize it is a bit unusual
to present the profiles like we do (and Watsi does) with the names and large
images. However, I think in this case, "unusual" might be a good thing,
because it gets people to actually click on the widgets and learn about Watsi.

Initially we didn't even have the headline above the profiles ("Spread the
health! Fund low-cost, high-impact medical treatments for people in need."),
and it was very unclear what the purpose of presenting the profiles actually
was, so we added the headline to give some context.

And of course it's more "comfortable" to donate to a charity with a nice
website, design and public image, and not actually see the faces of the people
that are supposed to benefit from your donation. Watsi (and thus Karmabox)
takes a different approach: there is no layer in the the middle, deciding for
you who receives your money and who doesn't. With Watsi you can (and you're
actually forced to) make that decision yourself. It's an uncomfortable one,
but it has to be made, either by you or by somebody you don't know who works
at the organization you donate to. I'd rather decide myself.

So in closing: yes, it's an unusual way to "do something good", and it has to
be done carefully and tastefully, and we're always open to constructive
feedback on how we can improve the website and the widgets to reach that goal!

