Scott argues against the concept of "telescopic altruism" - the claim that liberals care more about distant strangers than nearby people - showing that people who care about faraway causes also care about nearby ones, and that compassion is generally correlated across all distances rather than inversely related. Longer summary

Scott Alexander critiques the concept of "telescopic altruism," which claims that some people (usually liberals) ignore those close to them to care about distant strangers. He argues this accusation collapses under scrutiny: people who care about 50,000 deaths in Gaza would also care about 50,000 deaths among their neighbors. He debunks a commonly cited study whose heatmap visualization is misinterpreted to suggest liberals care more about rocks than family, when it actually just shows the outer limit of their moral concern. Scott proposes instead a "correlated altruism" hypothesis, citing Dave Barry's principle that someone nice to waiters is genuinely nice. He provides evidence that liberals who support foreign aid also support domestic programs like school lunches and COVID measures, and shows statistics suggesting liberals aren't worse at maintaining family relationships. The post concludes by acknowledging that some people do neglect their communities, but argues this happens because they care too much and are incompetent, not because they don't care at all. Shorter summary

Scott analyzes why people support government-funded foreign aid instead of donating voluntarily, examining and critiquing several theories including virtue signaling, coordination problems, and time-inconsistent preferences. Longer summary

Scott examines why people support government-funded foreign aid rather than just donating directly, pushing back against the 'other people's money' argument. He considers and critiques several explanations: the force multiplier theory (seizing opponents' money), virtue signaling through voting, psychological free-riding on knowing problems are solved, coordination problems requiring bundling, transaction costs that make voluntary systems impractical, and time-inconsistent preferences where people's long-term values differ from their moment-to-moment impulses. Scott concludes by proposing a thought experiment where tax forms include an opt-out box for foreign aid, predicting most people wouldn't use it, suggesting the issue is more complex than simply wanting to spend others' money. Shorter summary