Because if your true goal is to help the optimal strategy is to give even more so a greater percent help.
No, the optimal strategy would be to investigate further before helping. I don't know about where you live, but here where I live (i.e. locally) people "work" specific areas of the city. Either they hold signs roadside or they hang outside certain stores asking for change. They will come at you with lines that go "Hey man, I need some change for the bus..." or "My car just broke down and...", over and over like a broken record. If you probe further on the problem you start to get a very illogical story forming that eventually leads to "Go fuck yourself!" Later, you will see them walking around with booze or climbing into their boyfriend or pimp's vehicle with the day's haul. Often it is the same people over and over and they've practically made a career of it. There is always the off chance someone might be sincere, but most of the time they are not. It is not cynicism not to give to these people, it is "street smarts" and you learn very very quickly here.
"Giving more" does not better the situation, giving more just means they will seek you out first and you are losing resources that could have been more helpful elsewhere. You can't generalize people (especially the needy), it's not that simple. The optimal strategy is to focus your efforts where they are inclined to do the most good. For example, If you don't trust in giving $10 to a stranger who asks for money then buying $10 worth of food and giving it to a food bank or buying supplies for a homeless shelter are more likely to yield positive results.
And more is that the "hierarchy of poor" kind of opinion is frequent too and is ironic when we speak together on an international forums ... the problem of local and "far" is a false problem today because the world is in reach if you have a computer. The thing is that those are floating argument people didn't really thought by themselves, they didn't question them, they just adopt them.
Ignore the drowning man 10 feet away to save the hanging man 10 miles away? A person has only so much time in a day and so much resource. Do you give that time and resource to those suffering right there in front of you or do you walk past them and give it to others? To be honest, I have no problem with people choosing to help locally or abroad, but I myself stay focused locally. Why? Because I know where my time and resource is going and who it helps directly. I become responsible for my efforts, I have to look them in the eyes, I don't get the comfort and detachment that distance offers. I don't help or give because I want to be a good person, I help or give because it cuts deep to see someone struggling.
I am not saying I don't want people in Africa (or wherever) not to suffer, I am just saying I do not realistically have he time and or resources to personally see to it that they don't. Right or wrong, I want to know where my efforts are going and who they are going to. Specifically, not generally. Now I could do some kind of outreach program or something, and I know people who do, but the problem is that there are still people suffering here locally including members of my own family. So do I help the drowning man 10 feet away or the hanging man 10 miles away? I do not have the time and resource to do both.
I have seen a lot of suffering in my lifetime. People shot and stabbed, people whose houses burned down, people going hungry, people getting robbed, people with mental disorders losing everything and people dying because they can't get treatment, etc. I have yet to see suffering of any kind that didn't make me feel horrible to have witnessed, didn't matter their wealth or lack thereof or where they lived. I can't knock anyone trying to end suffering of any kind, but what does rub me the wrong way is that everyone seems to care about everything but only a few seem to do anything about any of it. It's the sentiment I got from the video. "Care" is a very loose and fashionable idea these days, but realistically there is only so much we can actually "care" about because our time and resources are limited, especially those of us who struggle to keep our own heads and the heads of our families above water.
To avoid being spread to thin, and to better help others, we have to focus our efforts. This means knowing who we can help and how best we can help them. I think this is the barrier most hit, everybody wants to believe they care about everything but nobody can do anything about everything so they become overwhelmed and do nothing for anyone. We are taught the world is our problem but that is a very misleading generalization. The world is not our problem, each individual suffers specific problems from a specific chain of events, and is generally affected by specific people. Those actually doing good are doing good in specific places, whether they travel to specific places in foreign countries, serve in specific homeless shelters or food banks, give to specific people who have specific needs, etc. Generalization is where the real evil is, it breeds detachment and separatism.
"Poor" isn't even the problem, you can give people money and you still have suffering. Where I live people have money and even those with money suffer. The problems are very specific. The problems are specific attitudes and behaviors, specific social structures, specific injustices, etc. You can give people money but if you don't teach them what to do with it, if they aren't willing to do better with it, or if you aren't even sure they are getting it then you are just throwing resources to the wind. That is largely the problem. The "poor" need more than money, they need more than resources, they need our time. Doesn't matter what level of poor they are, they need time. Helping people in general requires time. Time is where you learn the specifics. The problem of the modern world is that we are taught that the only socially acceptable way to spend our time is to earn and spend money, right down to our charities, but really the most important way to spend our time is to spend it on each other. That is where the real "caring" is.
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P.S. I have given up caffeine so I haven't yet found anything to fill the void of morning coffee... Tea just isn't cutting it yet... lol.