Regarding Impulse Donations

So we're donating in record numbers, in record amounts. Good for us. I am happy to join the ranks of the charitable. I suspect I may not have it it hadn't been so easy: go online, pull out the mastercard, and viola, I'm 100$ poorer but full of that priceless sense of goodwill. I suspect theres a bit of a chick and egg question, as to whether my willingness to do things that take a great deal of time and effort declines because of the general opportunity to do many things instantly and easily, or the other way around, but it has to be admitted that these are two important phenomena in our current culture. Both have also been generally labelled as 'bad', the impatience on my part because so many 'important' things take time and energy, the ease and quickness of the electronice world because it allows for those with poor impulse control to do things quickly that, had they time to reconsider, they might not do. These are some valid points. I'd like to say that this whole donations surge shows that not all impulses are bad, and so sometimes it is a good thing for people to be able to do stuff quickly and easily, because the things they do are good and might not get done if they took more time and effort.
You could argue that everyone should be willing to put as much energy as they have into doing the right thing, but let's face it, people won't. So making it easy for people donate- that's a really good thing. It shows that this face-paced world we've now created does, incredibly, have a real humanitarian upside.

BTW, if you're feeling an impulse to donate, go and do it. You can give a few bucks or a few hundred. It feels good, you'll probably save someones life.