Ask the Grumpies: How much should one give to charity?

Jess asks:

How do you decide how much to give to charity? I’m not religious so I’ve only heard of the 10% tithe recently and it seems like so much! At the same time, I know a “could” afford to donate 10% while still saving 15% as recommended, so is it wrong not to do so? I am very young (25) and the idea of compound interest has been hammered into me, plus I am reasonably confident I will be taking a pay cut in about a year to switch industries (into one that is better for the world) and move cities, so it feels safer to save a lot while I can.
Right now I’m donating about 2% through automatic monthly donations and so far in 2020 have donated about 2% in one-off donations. I expect to donate more this year given the many extenuating circumstances. Any advice is welcome!

There’s no hard and fast rule about how much you should give to charity.  In fact, in an ideal country, you wouldn’t have to give *anything* to charity because the government would be collecting taxes to take care of needs.  But, we don’t live in an ideal country and really, no country has figured everything out.

There are a couple of things to keep in mind though.

1.  Take care of yourself first.  Keep saving 15% for retirement!  Also make sure that your emergency fund is full, that you’ve got plenty of insurance, and that you have a plan to save for big goals like cars or houses (or job changes) etc.

2.  Just like the tax system, it doesn’t make sense for everybody to donate the same percentage to charity.  Richer people should be donating more to charity and lower income people should be donating less.  We explain why marginal tax rates make sense here, complete with a diagram that we stole with attribution from someone else.  But the main idea is that for people who have lower income, 10% is a huge cut in their ability to meet their needs and wants and is a drastic decrease in their utility (aka happiness).  For a billionaire, 10% leaves them with 90% of their billions, which is still more than any reasonable person should want.  They only get a small decrease in their utility.  Because that 100th yacht just isn’t that exciting.  (And honestly, we’d be better off if evil billionaires would stop getting their jollies by buying politicians and screwing with civil society.)

So… there is no right answer.  Only you can decide.  But as you make more, you should up your % donated, not just the dollar amount.  As you make less, you should cut it.

On top of that, some people have charitable giving plans where they figure out how much and where they will be donating in advance.  Other people (like us) tend to be soft touches and tend to donate based on whatever makes the hurting hurt less, and donate at any point in time based on our finances when we’re asked or read a sad news article or etc.  The former is probably a better way for the charities and a better way to live life, but the latter is how a lot of people do it, which is why we get so much junk mail and so many emotional appeals.

We just did our taxes, and gave about 1.5% of our income to actual 501c3 organizations, but we gave a TON more to political organizations which are not tax deductible.  Does that count as charity?  I tend to think so because I have a strong belief that government should be providing public goods and not, you know, separating children from their families and putting them into concentration camps.  $ to Stacey Abrams will have saved a lot more lives than money to pretty much any charity I can think of this past year.  Not to say that donating to 501c3 charities isn’t important, but political action and political donations are not wasted efforts or wasted money if your end goal is to make the world a better place.  They’re just not tax deductible.

Grumpy Nation, how do YOU decide how much to give to charity?  Has this varied over your income/life?

Why I don’t want to list my pronouns

I’ve been thinking a lot the last couple of years about gender and sexuality.  I’ve been learning a lot more about other people and about myself too.

I’ve mentioned before that I only recently learned that demi-sexual is a thing, and is in fact, a thing that explains so much of my life (and why I will never ever be able to do modern-style dating if something terrible happens to DH).

I have *always* thought that gender was just a construct and an unfair one at that.  I have never understood the actual concept of people being male or people being female.  Male and female to me was always something that society assigned and assigned roles for based on my chromosomes and physical characteristics at birth.  I’ve never cared about my clothing being masculine or feminine, just that it be comfortable and appropriate for whatever venue I have to be in (I LOVED grunge in the 1990s, and my pandemic wardrobe is DH’s old t-shirts with workout shorts/pants). I have always figured I was female because it is much easier to be female than it is to be a trans man.  If DH was ok with it and I had a magic wand, I would totally switch sexes and reap the benefit of all that male privilege.

At some point, I realized that other people do identify as male or female and not because society has tricked them, because trans women exist.  In order to give up that male privilege, they must really truly identify with being female.  Thus it makes sense that some people truly identify with being male, even if their chromosomes are XX.  And there are likely XX-types who feel they must be women and XY-types who feel they must be men.  This is just one of those things that I don’t understand, much like the way my demi-sexuality makes it so I don’t understand instant sexual attraction.  But just because I don’t understand something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.  People are different and that’s ok.

After a lot of thought, I have decided of the types of genders listed out there, I am probably non-binary.  But I’m also the kind of non-binary that doesn’t have gender dysphoria (so I can’t even answer many of those “am I non-binary” online quiz questions). That is because I don’t understand the concept of gender at all (except as a construct of how society views me). I don’t care if people gender me male or female or non-binary or what have you.  People who are non-binary who really identify with not being male or female might have negative effects being mis-gendered as something they’re not.  Me, I don’t care.  It’s not that I need to come out because I’m fine with how other people gender me (other than the whole misogyny thing) because my view of gender is exactly that– how other people gender me.

Lots of people have started listing their preferred pronouns on their zoom profiles and email signatures.  The idea is that if CIS-gendered people (that’s people whose gender identity matches their chromosomes/sex characteristics) start doing this, it will seem more normal for trans and non-binary people.

The one part of my gender identity that seems real is that I do not want to label myself. I do not want to bring attention to my gender.  I don’t want to list she/her because I resent being treated in the way that women are treated.  I don’t want to put down he/him because people look at me and see a woman and that would cause cognitive dissonance and problems I don’t want to deal with, even though I would prefer to be treated as if I were male.  (I wish we were *all* treated like white men on the lowest difficulty setting and given the benefit of the doubt etc.)  I don’t want to put they/them because it doesn’t bother me to be referred to as she or he and I know it’s hard for people to get used to the they/them construct and I don’t want to be the person they practice on.  (Maybe that’s selfish?  But I don’t think I have to always sacrifice myself.  I’m already gendered as a woman by society.)  I don’t want to draw attention to myself or to have to explain this whole, “I don’t understand gender” thing.  Someone would likely try to explain it to me(!)

On a recent anonymous survey, we were given multiple choices for gender and I happily picked female and non-binary.  When I only get to pick one of male/female/other, I assume they mean “how do others view you” so I pick female.  I think this is different from the pronoun listing because with the pronoun listing it really feels like I am saying, “this is what I *prefer*” and it isn’t.  I would prefer people treat me (and everyone else) like a dude.  I would prefer there not be genders at all!  (But I understand that some people prefer gender, so as long as it isn’t hurting others, do what you will.)

If I were forced to do the pronoun thing, I would write: (whatever/whatever).  But I know that seems flip and not helpful for people who want to make their genders clear because it is part of their internal identity.  So I’m glad we’re not forced.  (Briefly considers an email sig with “pronouns:  it’s all good,” rejects it.)

And I think this is ok.  I’m not making fun of listing the pronouns.  I understand why they’re important, and I think it is great that CIS people are adding them to their profiles.  But I do not want to do it myself.  Not because I think they’re bad or wrong but because I really do not want to label myself with a gender.  I hope this absence doesn’t harm anyone or make me less of an ally, but there’s so little that I care about when it comes to gender that the fact that I do care about this one thing… well, I think I should listen to myself, especially since I’ve determined it isn’t coming from a place of internalized bigotry.  I don’t want to lie and say I prefer she/her when I in fact do not prefer it.  It turns out that I really do care that I don’t care.

Also, I love the comic strip, egscomics even though the beginning is immature and the storylines take years.  I think it’s neat how the author has played with gender identity and how different cast members have different levels of it.  Now I have the Ranma 1/2 season 1 theme stuck in my head.

Have you put pronouns on your stuff?  Why or why not?

Unemployment insurance or not?

Last time DH was unemployed, he couldn’t get unemployment insurance because he’d left his (professor) job, and the only way he could have lost the job would be to quit or be fired.

This time, DH is in a textbook layoff situation– first furloughed (but didn’t bother getting unemployment supplementation even though he could have) and now the company has gone entirely out of business.

Sadly, our state does not currently have the covid provision that you can get unemployment even if not looking for work.  If he wants unemployment insurance money, he needs to look for work.

If he gets unemployment insurance, he would qualify for somewhere around $500/week or $2000/month, which is not nothing.  Back when we had a mortgage, that would have been our mortgage.

The hang-up is about looking for work.  DH wants a break before going to the next job.  Last time he had a 3 month break (basically summer) and enjoyed it immensely.  But he was also younger then.  More attractive to companies, maybe?  (We don’t actually know that much about age discrimination in high level tech positions even though we very much WANT to know.  It seems like some of the problem is that when you’re older you are expected to have connections.  And DH does have connections– everyone who has ever worked with him LOVES him and he’s done pro-bono stuff for companies when I’ve had technical issues with their technology.)  And will there be a problem with an extended length of unemployment (again, we don’t really know much about higher level workers and the effects of unemployment duration– really big literature, but nothing specific for our case… the closest is the Farber et al. work which suggests it maybe won’t be a concern for DH).

He’s also not sure what he wants to do next.  Ideally he’d do some kind of consulting where he swoops in and fixes difficult technical problems for people and they feel grateful and he’s done something that matters.  But… that’s not how large consulting companies work (particularly not the consulting company that his labmate wants him to work at)– they tend to be called in for CYA reasons or management doesn’t understand technology reasons and do something superficial that isn’t actually helpful and doesn’t get used.  That’s totally demoralizing.  He does not at all want to be an adjunct or lecturer at the university even though he could get a job doing that easily (and be paid very little to do so!).

One of his former coworkers is now working for a company that they worked with in the past that sounds to me like it would be a good fit.  They’re larger than the previous company and actually get products out to market instead of being an SBIR-mill.  And they allow working from home.  And he likes the people.  But DH is holding back on asking about it.  There’s something about it he can’t articulate that makes him not currently interested.  It may just be that he wants a sabbatical and this could lock him in for work for another decade.  I don’t know [update:  DH says the project they worked on together didn’t go well for reasons involving a third company not holding up their end].  I keep saying that once his former coworker gets settled DH should find out if he likes working there and hit up that network.

He could also switch from medical the-thing-he-does to just the-thing-he-does which is used in many industries, not just medicine.  There are several older members from his grad program actively looking for new employees at their companies.  Or he could just do computer programming– he’s one of those types who can pick up any new language in a few days.  And he’s known at a company I’ve bought specialized equipment from since he worked with them to fix some of their bugs that were causing me problems.  His plan for the month was to work on gimp via github, which is an open source project that would allow him to do labor for free that he could put on his resume to get his computer science cred up.  Or he could lean back on his imaging and instrumentation experience, which he has kept his hand in.

Anything that isn’t work from home, we’d have to move for.  And I cannot move.  There are like 20 jobs for people at my level in econ this year, and I did not apply to any of them.  (Though I think I would have had a shot at a couple of the jobs in Boston, but I can’t move poor DC1 in the middle of hir high school career from high school in the south to high school in Massachusetts for so many reasons.  Even if it would be so much better for DC2.)  Moving makes more sense in a couple of years when DC1 is out of high school and DC2 hasn’t yet started.

Then there’s all the jobs listed on the state unemployment website.  DH is over-qualified for many of them, but they’re not really good fits at all.  It looks like he wouldn’t have to accept jobs from them if offered because they likely don’t pay enough, but I’m not sure that he wouldn’t still have to apply to some number in order to get unemployment benefits.  If getting a job is most likely through networking, how much active cold applying will he have to do?  He’s going to look into that more.

Is it better to be able to say, “I took time off from applying to jobs to work on these fun projects and to help deal with the covid schooling situation” or to put the minimum amount of intensity into finding a job in order to get unemployment benefits, risking getting one that isn’t a good fit?  Or should he tap those networks hard to see if he can get a job, even though covid means a lot of places won’t be hiring?  (And we just found out that his friend who got him this job 7 years ago and left a few years back took 8 months to find a new position, though he didn’t quit his old job first and was definitely looking for something remote and stable that pays well.  Sadly for DH, he landed at a start up that can’t afford another engineer!)

I know hiring cycles start in January, so maybe we should just wait until the new year to worry about it after DH has had a break.  It looks like he can put off applying for unemployment insurance about that long without triggering any red flags.  I’m not sure how long he can put off applying before it gets difficult to apply though.  The website only says, things like “we encourage you to apply the first week you’re unemployed.”

Have you ever applied for unemployment insurance?  Have you taken breaks between jobs?

Are we going to send the kids to school in the fall?

The answer is:  I don’t know but we have to decide by July 30th.  We have the option to send the kids to school or have them virtual school at home.  We don’t know what either will look like but it also sounds like we’re not going to know until the school knows how many kids they’re dealing with.

I do think we will be sending DC2 [update:  things have gotten worse in the South– now we’re not sure].  Zie is still in the age range where there’s not a lot of transmission and cases tend to be mild, with a few exceptions [update:  some new articles have come out suggesting transmission rates may be higher than previous articles suggested, but it is still unclear].  Hir pediatrician is very good and we trust him to be on top of things and the nearest city has a top rate children’s hospital should it come to that.  And zie has been a handful this summer.  I suspect we won’t be using after-care like we usually do and I’m not sure if we will be using the bus.

It’s harder to decide for DC1 [update:  we’ve pretty much decided DC1 will virtual school for at least the first grading period].  Zie is 13 and in high school.  Kids these ages are much more like adults in terms of transmission and effects.  Plus, DC1 doesn’t get sick very often (zie has perfect attendance awards almost every year of schooling), but when zie does get sick and it’s something zie didn’t contract back in daycare many years ago, zie gets really sick.  Hir tonsils and adenoids have also become less protective overtime (which is good because it means hir teeth straightened out and zie doesn’t need to have surgery to remove them, but also means they’re not as protective.)

Plus, DC1 is young for hir grade and could take a gap year and still be early for college.  I don’t want to have hir skip a year of math, but precalc is one of the less useful years, and we could in theory get it somewhere else and waive it somehow.  And… DC1 has been pretty good at entertaining hirself and doing schoolwork hirself without interaction.

The big thing is that no matter what we do with the kids, I am still going in to teach two days a week.  I will still have classes of college students, and these classes are going to be bigger than usual because the other people teaching the section are all teaching online, so suddenly my 8am section looks attractive.  Even though they’ve added another section so there are more teachers than usual.  So… I’m fairly sure I am going to get it even if I opt out of all of the conference travel I currently have planned.

If I get it, it is likely my family will too.  I suppose I could quarantine myself in the house and not see my family for the duration.  But even so it’s likely I will transmit it to my kids.  And if they get it from me, does it matter if they get it from school?  Should I be worried about them transmitting it to their classmates (again, less concerned about DC2)?  These are really hard questions.  I don’t have an answer yet.  I do promise that we will be very good about not sending kids to school with the slightest fever or drippy nose, but that doesn’t help with pre-symptomatic spreading.  Maybe we keep them home if/when I get sick?

The NYTimes recently posted a survey they did back in May in which they asked a bunch of epidemiologists if they planned to send their kids to school.  Most of the ones who had kids said that they would.  Most of the ones without kids said they would not recommend it.  Having had DC2 home for months, I empathize with the epidemiologists willing to take the risk.

Update:  This more recent article from NPR suggests numbers you should look at while making the decision.  The numbers for our county suggest that we should be keeping both kids home.

We’ve also gotten some more information about the way that Virtual learning will work at the high school.  It looks like DC1 will be able to take all but one of the classes zie has requested.  Ironically the class not offered online is computer programming.  We may see if we can work something out for that class since DH can easily teach any lesson if DC1 is allowed to just do the work.  The alternative would be to take AP Physics 1 which wouldn’t be so bad if zie wasn’t already taking AP US History (which is a lot of work) and Pre-AP Chemistry (hard and a lot of work).  Another alternative would be to take AP Statistics , but then zie doesn’t have a math class for senior year.

Right now (as of last Friday) I think there’s a 98% chance DC1 will be staying home at least for the first part of the year.  I give DC2 an even 50%… I want to check the numbers again before July 30th and I would like to know how dual language will be addressed.

We’re also allowed to switch from virtual to in-person at the end of a grading period, so that may be the right thing to do– see what happens in the first 6 weeks of school and then send them in.  There’s a non-negative possibility that all of school will be shut down by then.

Grumpeteers with school-age children:  How are you making the decision about sending your kids back to school in the fall?  Has your school district made that decision for you already?

Karen, co-opted

One of my friends brought to my attention a conversation around the term, “Karen,” in econ twitter.

For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, Karen is the slang term for a privileged entitled white woman who uses her privilege and authority to harm a minority person.  Karens are often seen in videos calling the police on an innocent black person or family, and have the catch phrase, “let me talk to the manager.”

But one important aspect of Karening in its original slang definition is that they are using their privilege for evil.  They’re punching down.  They’re using unjustified anger at minorities simply being in their space to harass and hurt people.

Unfortunately, the term Karen has been co-opted by white men and the occasional metaphorical Karen to mean any strong white woman who is not afraid to speak her mind or, mind-bogglingly, any white woman who follows rules.  So a friend was called a Karen for very briefly blocking traffic in an alley to close a gate that needed to be closed.  White women politely asking other white people to put on their masks have been called Karens.  White women protesting racist and misogynistic men on twitter have been termed Karens by those same white men.

The term is no longer just shorthand for “privileged entitled jerk who uses authority to punch down” when white men and women use it.  It has become a tool of oppression used by more privileged people to keep women down.  Not because of people correctly using it in its originally intended purpose, but by others perverting the meaning to reinforce patriarchal structures of oppression.  Instead of being a term used by the rebellion to free, it’s being used by the evil empire to oppress.

So after some discussion in which my friend said she did not like the term Karen and I noted that I liked its original use (though we both feel sorry for non-Karens named Karen), we came to an agreement.

First, we decided that white men are not allowed to use the term Karen.  When white men use it, no matter how they use it, it is punching down.  Next we discussed white women’s use and decided that it’s either punching down or sideways and there’s not much lost by white women no longer using the term.  They can say entitled privileged jerk, or what have you.  So we agreed that if white people stop using the term “Karen” then its powerful short-hand use can be preserved by the people who truly understand the definition and who need it most.  (I reserve the right to use the term “Karen” when the woman in question is actually named Karen because puns.)

Language evolves, and if enough people use a sexist version of the term Karen, the term itself will do harm.  (And c’mon, white men are even worse– can’t we stop protecting them from their terrible actions too?)

Who do you think should use the word Karen?  What should white people say instead?

Ask the readers: What should we do for our 20th wedding anniversary mid-June?

So… DH took John Green’s advice and started planning 20 months ahead for our 20th wedding anniversary, only to have Covid come and destroy our plans to go to Portland (with MIL taking care of the children).

Now we’re at home.

What should we do?

I suggested leaving the kids at home and just like driving to a corn field to make out, but it turns out we don’t live in the Midwest anymore and it’s hot and we’re no longer teenagers.  (Disclaimer:  We did not have children when we were teenagers, though we did have siblings.)

There’s not really any beautiful nature to drive to within a 3 hour radius.  We haven’t been ordering take-out mainly because none of the places we would want to order take out from are open for business.  *crying*

I’m feeling a bit more bummed than I ought.  We usually just do a fun or fancy meal out for our anniversary, though some years we have had adventures.  We’d been planning something special which we never do and now we can’t.  And we can’t just go to the city to eat something fun or order something fancy in our town like we would do most years.  I am at a total loss.

A friend recommended renting a movie, but I don’t even know what’s out there.  Also I only like uplifting happy movies that don’t have TSTL characters… and I have a hard time with movies that are longer than 90 minutes (though I did recently rewatch most of Howl’s Moving Castle with the kids, which is 2 hours).

Do you have any suggestions?  What would you do for an important anniversary or birthday or other celebration?

Who is the protagonist?

Look, we all know we’re living in some dystopian novel, probably written by Donald Westlake, but maybe Vonnegut.

So everything that is happening, is happening, as they say in LA, for a Reason.  (The Universe/God closes a door but opens a window?)  This is generally true because people in LA who say such things tend to live storybook lives with plots and things.

We’re in a plot and someone is being punished ironically.  Or is being given strife in order to have Character Growth.  Or maybe the universe is on its way to being destroyed so that they can save it.

But who?  Who is the protagonist?  And WHY?

I know it’s not me– my life is too boring and I no longer have enough cats to be a cozy animal novel (which I have decided after much pondering this question is my ideal novel to live in).  So it can’t be my fault for deciding to not only go to DH’s family thing this summer but to also have an actual vacation for our anniversary when we NEVER go on vacations that aren’t work or DH’s-family related.  I didn’t make the universe’s sense of irony do this, simply because I am not at all important.  My narrative is supremely uninteresting.  Nobody wants to read about me.  I’m a side character in someone else’s book.

I do not disagree. https://t.co/IdPGnhdfRs

— John Scalzi (@scalzi) April 6, 2020

Who do you think is the protagonist?  What kind of novel are you the protagonist of/a character in?

What challenges do you like reading about and why?

I really like reading and hearing about no-spend challenges or buy-nothing-new and so on.

I like reading about how people’s lives are changed, with their relationship with “stuff” now different.  I like seeing people pay down debt with what they didn’t spend, or increase their savings (or vacation fund, or whatever they put the money towards that they value more than their gazingus pins or whatever they were buying habitually without really appreciating).  I can’t really seem to get tired of reading about people’s personal journeys with challenges that limit what they can buy.  Even their failures are instructional.  (I googled “no spend challenge” and it seems like it was really a THING back in January 2018!  But it’s still a thing even if not a THING.)

I don’t know WHY I like this brand of challenge so much.  A friend suggested it’s because I’m uber-frugal, and I’m like, so I like watching people challenge themselves at doing something I’m really good at!  (I’m not actually uber-frugal, given that we spend more than the median family makes each year, but conditional on our income one could make that argument.)  But that can’t be it.

Because I’m also REALLY good at reading novels.  Like SUPER good at reading novels.  And I find people’s novel reading challenges to be supremely boring.  Like, read 12 books a year or 30 or whatever.  I don’t count and I don’t get counting.  So me feeling superior is not it.  Though, I do kind of get a kick out of when people who read only white dood books do a “read only women authors” or “read only authors from underrepresented groups” challenge.  Because then they discover all these great books that they never knew existed, which is cool.  I do already read mostly women authors and a lot of underrepresented authors, but because the fact of bias in the publishing industry means that anything by an underrepresented group actually published is probably going to be better than average or it wouldn’t be published.  Similarly self-authored stuff is going to be better on average for the same reason– more underrepresented group people aren’t getting regular publishers because of bias so there’s higher quality.  So… that’s kind of selfish on my part even ignoring the benefits of diversity.  I’d love for a world in which mediocre books by underrepresented groups are also published just like they are with white authors, but we’re not there yet.

So I guess I like challenges when people’s eyes are opened and they learn something about themselves or about the world.  When challenges help people grow.

I do kind of like wheezywaiter‘s random challenges even when they don’t work.  Because I’m curious about people’s experiences with things even if they’re not things I’m going to want to do.  So it’s not just challenges that are likely to be successful and life-changing, but seeing what happens and what works.

I am not the only person in this world who loves reading about challenges.  I mean, that’s kind of wheezywaiter’s current brand right now, and it’s made his popularity go way up according to a couple of his videos.

But I don’t like all challenges.  Maybe the question is more about why I don’t like the reading some number of books challenges.  And maybe it’s just that I don’t like challenges that are about doing something fun.  Which makes sense– a few years back #2 did a read steampunk books challenge and she hated it.  Challenges take away fun from things that are already fun, but they add something to things that aren’t.  Sort of like taking that Jane Austen class in college was the last time I ever reread Pride and Prejudice without zombies, but it made Mansfield Park somewhat interesting.

Do you like to read/watch other people’s challenges?  What genres are your favorite?  Do you prefer doing or watching?

What do you do when your local library is going to be closed for 7 months?

It’s not a great library, but it’s better than nothing!  The closest other library in the system is 30 min away in the next town, which we only go near when I have to drop off voter registration forms.  (That will drop off a lot once students settle in.)

DC1 will be ok because hir school library is already better than the local library for hir reading needs (they have multiple copies of popular YA books, unlike our local library which has long wait lists and series gaps that take a long time to replace when a kid loses a book).

What would you do?  Where do you and yours get reading material?

For our peeps in grading jail: How do you motivate/reward yourself while grading?

I’m in the middle of grading final projects and exams and completely tuckered out.  And yet, I have to keep chugging.

I tend to work best when I set myself a reward like, “after grading each problem for all exams, I can watch a 4 min youtube video or read a part of a book chapter”.   If the procrasinatory mood is right, I might be able to “reward” myself with less pleasant things like switching out the laundry or loading the dishwasher.

How do you keep yourself going when the grading gets rough?  Non-academics, how do you motivate yourself to do long repetitive boring tasks that are frequently disappointing?