alt Hacker NewsWhy not rural Americans? When helping someone in my community, I don't first stop and analyze whether my time/money could be better allocated to maximize some sort of utilitarian loss function, I help them because they're there, need my help, and I'm able to help.
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bryanlarsen • today at 5:49 PM
It gives me serious "steal from the poor and give to the rich" vibes. Rural Americans are richer than the majority of humans, and Stack Overflow was a fairly global website.
Rural America also has a government that is fully capable of taking proper care of it's underprivileged; most governments across the world are not.
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OGEnthusiast • today at 6:03 PM
Rural Americans are responsible for the situation they're in.
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I don't disagree with you, but there is value in considering how money could be best put to use for the common good.
One perspective overlooked here is the purchasing power of non-Americans (i.e., not U.S. citizens). Dollars in developing countries can be worth multiple times what they are in the United States. For example, you could help 5000 rural Vietnamese for every 1000 rural Americans. There is also a higher potential for rural Americans to obtain dollars vs. non-Americans. In utilitarian terms you have the potential to do more good by sending money to rural communities overseas.
I'm saying this as someone who loves Appalachia.