Borrowing some eloquence from others...

From NYT today:
The roots of human cooperation may lie in human aggression. We are selfish by nature, yet also follow rules requiring us to be nice to others.

“That’s why we have moral dilemmas,” Dr. Tomasello said, “because we are both selfish and altruistic at the same time.” ...

Following the Kiva / P2P Debate:
P2P non-profit and the Kiva debate

Let's look at the P2P debate from the angle of human nature...

- We inherently want to give but are selfish
- We want to trust a non-profit by giving them money to allocate and discretion to screen partners but are troubled by false advertising

I feel that the process is about finding own's own comfort level of giving. With giving, it can be hard to tease out how much is influenced by guilt, a desire to fight the selfish nature, and how much is driven by proactive desire to help others. But ultimately if the end result is a net positive for those around us - does the level of analytical granularity matter? Similarly, the bigger picture to the P2P debate, in my view, is the ultimate measureable results that non-profits have produced. The delivery and process of the end product is certainly important, but refining this will be iterative and constant. In the meantime, we can't wait for a perfect methodology to surface while the conditions of the less privileged populations continue to spiral downwards.