070 - Philanthropy Pitfalls

I've noted something very counterintuitive about Philanthropy in recent years, which appears strongly rooted in several cognitive biases.

A company with demonstrably false claims asking for handouts from philanthropists is more likely to receive funds than another company with proven technology for the same target market that actually has the means of turning a profit. So, why is this happening?

Snake oil sales bottleneck on PR/marketing, focusing on social engineering and "persuasion", as they have no actual technology of their own. This means they focus heavily on that, flooding the information ecosystem with misinformation and disinformation supporting their goals. 9 times out of 10 times that is sufficient to outcompete the groups who focus on making viable technology with product-market fit, at least when it comes to securing funding.

As such frauds focus on persuasion, the art of emotional manipulation to make people "feel good" about making terrible decisions, philanthropists make for easier marks to con. They are people with a stated passion, giving con artists a clearer target for manipulation tactics.

As Antonio Damasio's research demonstrated, humans are emotional decision-makers. As Daniel Kahneman's research has demonstrated, they're also incredibly biased, in a myriad of ways. Any combination of those cognitive biases can and will be used by those seeking to manipulate.

This seems to now be epitomized by groups like "Effective Altruism", which in theory should serve humanity, but in practice appear intent on funneling much of the funding directly into some of the most obvious frauds out there.

The information ecosystem is collapsing even more quickly than the biological ecosystem of Earth, and a "dart-throwing-chimpanzee" today could probably beat the average philanthropist in the game of avoiding snake oil, purely thanks to not falling for the typical manipulation methods.

The status quo is a fairly short road to extinction, as the best of intentions can't move a single stone.

Should we be asking for handouts rather than seeking investors? From any rational perspective that would seem like nonsense, but then again, humans aren't rational.