@mrzaius @uliwitness question: why is this bad? Some people I know would say this shows capitalism is compassionate. They’d argue that amazons motivation is irrelevant and the out come of the charity receiving anything is good.

So what’s bad here, other than just being judgy about why they’re doing it.

@jiva @mrzaius @uliwitness I am with you on this.

If this program benefitted small charities that do not possess large donation machinery and that would have otherwise received less if not for AmazonSmile, I am pleased to hear it.

I think the truth of the program's origin should be known, but I can see the positive side here - even if Amazon did it ultimately for cynical reasons.

@msw @jiva @mrzaius @uliwitness It seems to me that if those Reddit posts are accurate, Amazon created this program purely out of self-interest.

Perhaps a word choice that is too harsh on my part?

I am open to that.

I suppose that, at the end of the day, it does not matter much how it is defined.

If small charities got paid, I am not going to knock Amazon for that.

Sad to see AmazonSmile go then, I guess... as those charities may not receive what they did before.

@adamjcook @jiva @mrzaius @uliwitness ah, I see. I'm not used to seeing "cynical" as the contrast against "altruism".

I am skeptical that altruism exists in humanity (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism/), and it's _definitely_ not how corporations operating in a capitalist system tend to operate.

I think that "enlightened self-interest" is generally more reliable behavior to expect than altruism.

But I wouldn't call that cynicism. Just reality (based on my personal, biased, flawed perspective).