[jewayne]

> we have a staggering amount of wealth to share with the less fortunate

Many Americans will stop you at that first word. Who is this we you speak of?

If the pandemic taught me anything, it's that to all too many Americans the most important freedom is freedom from strangers' problems. They don't want to see them, they don't want to hear them, and they sure as hell don't want to pay for them.

Now, if THEY happen to have that problem, that's a different story...after all THEY are real people, unlike...checks notes..."foster kids".

[coffeemug]

America is the most charitable country in the world[1]. But, as evidenced by the parent's comment, there is no shortage of people willing to spend other people's money, and Americans are justifiably cautious of that.

[1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-char...

[magicalist]

> America is the most charitable country in the world

Maybe double check your link next time?

> The most noticeable change was arguably the United States, which ranked first in the world in giving for the years 2009-2018 but fell to 19th in the world in 2020.

(I also seriously doubt the methodology of this confident ranking of the world's charity based on self reported charitable behavior in surveys, but this was more humorous)

[coffeemug]

And the next few sentences from the link:

> However, the U.S. was not the only high-level giver to drop. In fact, many countries that landed in the top 10 most charitable countries in previous years slid completely out of the top 20. According to Charities Aid Foundation Chief Executive Neil Heslop, these changes are not a sign that people's willingness to donate decreased, but that their opportunity to donate diminished, largely as a result of pandemic-related lockdowns. Charity-based retail stores were forced to close, fundraising events were canceled, and many elderly charity volunteers had to shelter themselves instead of volunteering.

[jewayne]

I think what you will find is that a stunning amount of that "charity" falls within the giver's social circle. My understanding is it includes donations to the giver's own religious organization. Or even donating to a cause once it's touched you personally -- your mother dies of cancer so you donate to a cancer charity. Giving within your own monkeysphere, and being willfully ignorant of everything outside it, is what I am talking about.

[coffeemug]

As a spot check I googled "turkey earthquate donations by country". The result is a table with US on top donating $185M, followed by UAE donating $100M, Kuwait $68M, and finally the UN $50M.

[rayiner]

I’m convinced this is a structural characteristic of America, resulting from the immigration patterns that built the population.

If you look at polls worldwide, most people wouldn’t leave their home country even if they had the choice to emigrate somewhere else: https://news.gallup.com/poll/468218/nearly-900-million-world.... In South Asia, where I’m from, it’s just 11%. Even in sub-Saharan Africa it’s under 40%. Immigrants are the outliers who are willing to leave everything they know behind.

Of course over time there’s regression to the mean, and new communities form here in the US. But most of the US population traces their ancestry only back to the late 19th century or early 20th century. This constant population turnover means there’s a very limited ability to develop the kind of solidarity required to make sacrifices on behalf of strangers in your community.

[steve_adams_86]

You're correct, and I don't think this has to be true indefinitely but it's certainly in the DNA of most of North America.

I could go on at length about this. I'm deeply convinced this component of North American culture has contributed significantly to many aspects of decline and general loss of well-being. I won't go on at length of course, I just wanted to say I think you're on point and this feature of a lot of our cultures here is quite harmful.