{"id":175,"date":"2014-11-25T21:31:42","date_gmt":"2014-11-25T21:31:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cookywook.co.uk\/blog\/?p=175"},"modified":"2014-11-25T21:31:42","modified_gmt":"2014-11-25T21:31:42","slug":"marathon-fascism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cookywook.co.uk\/blog\/marathon-fascism\/","title":{"rendered":"Marathon Fascism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unpopular opinion time:\u00a0<\/strong>I don’t like giving money to people doing marathons for charity.<\/p>\n

Oof. I know, right?<\/p>\n

I don’t know when exactly this started becoming a thing, but it’s a thing. Way back when you had\u00a0the\u00a0<\/em>marathon and that was about it. You’d sponsor your teacher or something and the whole affair would only set you back about \u00a310 or so.<\/p>\n

But now it seems everyone is at it. It’s probably just that most of the people I know are twenty-somethings in the peak of their physical fitness, but there’s loads of them. And they\u00a0all want my money.<\/p>\n

It’s not financially feasible to sponsor every request, especially when you work in a large office full of fit, active people. You just can’t do it.<\/p>\n

This puts you in an awkward position too. I can only give so much to charity and I inevitably have to pick and choose who I’ll sponsor (and I\u00a0do<\/em> sponsor them, I’d hasten to add). This means I’m literally putting a financial stake on how much I value someone’s friendship, breaking the unspoken\u00a0kayfabe<\/em> that we all selflessly adore each other. And I hate awkward.<\/p>\n

“Richard, it’s all for a good cause! Why do you hate charity?”<\/em><\/p>\n

I don’t hate charity. I just prefer to give sensibly.<\/p>\n

That’s why I always donate via GiveWell<\/a>. With some charities being many many times more effective than others, it only makes sense to allocate resources to the most efficient. I’d be a lot happier sponsoring your Race for Life run if Race for Life didn’t spend so much on advertising, for instance.<\/p>\n

Compare the Against Malaria Foundation<\/a>\u00a0for example, which has a pretty basic website, demonstrating all the donations they receive go towards life-saving mosquito net. Or how GiveDirectly<\/a> are completely transparent with where your money goes.\u00a0More of that, please!<\/p>\n

Why “marathon fascism” though? Well, it sounded like a catchy title and googling it didn’t return any results. It’s probably a bit strong, but I kind of needed to rant.<\/p>\n

I was also going to say something about my misgivings about Race for Life being a female-only event. But I checked my\u00a0ciswhiteheteromale<\/em> privilege and decided it wouldn’t be good.<\/p>\n

In summary:<\/strong> I’m running the marathon this year and please give generously.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unpopular opinion time:\u00a0I don’t like giving money to people doing marathons for charity. Oof. I know, right? I don’t know when exactly this started becoming a thing, but it’s a thing. Way back when you had\u00a0the\u00a0marathon and that was about it. You’d sponsor your teacher or something and the whole affair would only set you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[173,95],"class_list":["post-175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sport","tag-charity","tag-marathon"],"yoast_head":"\nMarathon Fascism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cookywook.co.uk\/blog\/marathon-fascism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Marathon Fascism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Unpopular opinion time:\u00a0I don’t like giving money to people doing marathons for charity. 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