Food industry Robin Hoods & Microsoft – looking for an innovative charity?

Have just watched Microsoft’s vision of the mobile future at YouTube

and was struck with the scene of the benefit concert (1m 45s : 2m). There’s an old man on the silver screen in traditional Arabic-like wearing, who plays music, and a mobile-armed youngster making his decision to donate between 500$ and 1000$.

And it comes to me whether the technologies do help us to meet the problem of someone’s being indigent in more responsible and effective way.

Imagine the residents of one city decided one day to splash out the coins at the railway station, wouldn’t that attract more beggars to the place and produce a competition which actually endangers the positions of those who are desperately in need. Likewise the uncontrolled energy flows contribute to the growth of entropy an irresponsible charity fosters the fraud.

Many people give to charity – even (and especially) the ambivalent Americans who rank The Atlas Shrugged next after The Bible [link],[link]. Only few people do this directly, most prefer to be protected from seeing the eyes of the unfortunates, using the mediators (orphanages, food banks, religious orders, hospitals, etc). Let’s leave the psychological analysis of such behavior to the fans of Ayn Rand’s novel, but we can’t ignore the resemblance of charitable giving with the indulgences collected by early Roman Catholic church.

To me, what mobile technology provides to that guy in the advertisement is a mean to apologize for his fortune. More innovative way, but what about its efficacy? Young man seems not to give a toss about it.

I would like to show you few instances of more responsible charity requiring not much of technology to work.

A Saudi restaurant in Damam city, the capital of the Eastern Province in Saudi Arabia, has started charging costumers who do not finish their meals. By doing that they hope to encourage people to order only the food they need and to donate the penalties to the food charities (watch BBC video). All they needed to make this were a plastic container and a gentle disclaimer.

In the cafés of Naples there was a tradition of a caffè sospeso – literally, a coffee "in suspense". When a sospeso is ordered, the customer pays for two coffees, but only receives one. That way, when a person who is homeless or otherwise down on their luck walks into the café, the person can ask if there are any coffees held in suspense, and can have one as a courtesy of the first customer. Though the custom has been a part of Neapolitan society for many years, it is somewhat less common today (Wiki).

These examples are especially good as they emerged in the restaurants – food industry faces both the needs of unfortunate people and the redundant appetites of the great. They have been doing that for a long time and hopefull will keep doing that, all technologies notwithstanding. And being demanded with such a moral pressure (of having to leave some people starving behind the gate while feeding the others) they have always had to be innovative with the charity, caring about its efficacy of the charity they could afford. I guess more often they preferred to act like Robin Hood, charging the rich to feed the poor. 

I can't find the reason why this shouldn't be so.