The irony is that people with diametrically opposite goals will both claim that they are “making the world a better place.” A placard-holding, clinic-protesting pro-lifer and a Planned Parenthood-donating, clinic-access-promoting pro-choicer will both claim their labors are making the world better.
Slightly off topic, but do you get to see the results of any of your loans? Or do you just know when it has been repaid or whatever?
The world, nah. My master bathroom? Oh, yeah.
Seriously, the number of people who have literally “made the world a better place” is vanishingly small. Jonas Salk, who’s vaccine has virtually rid the world of the disease, could be counted as one though he didn’t do it alone. What, as a random example, did any of Einstein’s work do to directly affect tribesmen in sub-Saharan Africa, or the mountains of Haiti? Not much, if anything at all. Edison, with the light bulb and telephone especially, certainly made the world a much different place. Jesus Christ and Mohammed certainly changed the world. Whether that change was for better or worse depends entirely on individual viewpoint.
Currently Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffet and a very few others have a chance to make a world wide impact, depending on how they use their fortunes.
I voted “unsure” and my quibble is: As compared to what?
That said, as humans go I’m a fairly good one.
I think you mean “make the world as a whole a better place” vs. “making a tiny part of the world a better place.” Everyone who is doing something to make their tiny little corner of the world a better place, has made the world a better place.
This is like saying, if a small part of your body is healed from injury, has it made your body better? Well, maybe 99% of the rest of your body is unaffected by whatever stitches or treatment you received, but by improving a tiny part of it, you can say technically the body - as the sum of its parts - is better than what it was before.
Or put another way, how many people have made the world better by 1% improvement? Almost no one; with Edison being perhaps one example.
But if someone helps a beggar on the street corner, they might have made the world a better place by a 0.000000000000001% improvement.
I’ve been a teacher, and generally a good one, for fifteen years. I’ve worked in a big city school district with mostly poor and disadvantaged students. In the last 5 years, I really found my niche in helping poor kids get into college with good funding. They are often amazing kids–they humble me. So I hope they will be able to leverage the advantage of four years at a good school and little or no debt into helping the world themselves. I’m also really active in school administration type stuff, making our school more effective and more accessible to all sorts of kids. We absolutely lead the country–or at least, we are in the very top tier–in achievement for poor/minority kids, so I like to think everything I do here makes a difference.
Kiva profiles success stories, but there are hundreds or thousands of loans out there. What Kiva does is employ field agents to check on the legitimacy of the person requesting the loan, the progress made by the recipient, and to monitor the repayment of the loan. In ten years, I have never had anyone default on repayment. You don’t make money off of this program, and the money you invest just keeps getting recycled into new loans per your instructions. You can opt to donate a small percentage to the overhead costs that Kiva has. We choose women or women’s groups over individuals for obvious reasons, and we don’t add to loans for things like someone getting married (although those are rare). If the loan doesn’t get fully funded, the money reverts to your account.
Impact and change is always incremental. True philanthropy means planting a seed and knowing that you will never see the full-grown tree.
I went with the last choice but I would say yes in an infinitesimal way; being a good neighbor and responsible citizen and helping as I could. Can the difference be quantified? Probably not. But if we all do the same, who knows what the result could be?
I’m one of the "No"s. When I die I will be completely forgotten within ten years. (Maybe five. Maybe two. Maybe one.) I have done nothing that will have lasting impact - okay yes I’ve published a couple of if-I-say-so-myself decent fiction books, but nobody buys or reads them. (Not that I’ve promoted them or anything.)
And to be honest, I’m not really bothered by the lack of ripples I make. I like things quiet.
Thanks for the info. I’m not really concerned about the repayment as much as knowing if the loan made somebody’s life easier or whatever. Knowing that a person took a small loan and now they have a thriving business doing whatever would be good to know. Just knowing that yes, the person repaid the loan, not so much.
Thanks again for the info. Forgot about that site.
I feel like I have! (Please forgive if this sounds self-aggrandizing!)
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Volunteer literacy tutor. I have taught several adults to read.
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Volunteer reader. I read newspapers which transmitted via low-power radio signal to people with poor vision in the community.
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I work for a non-profit with an educational mission.
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I serve on the board of a women’s writers conference, the longest running conference of its kind in the country.
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I donate platelets, a process which takes considerably more time than whole-blood donations. I am also on the bone marrow donation registry, but I’ve never been called to donate, so I haven’t made the world a better way in this regard (yet).
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I volunteer time to moderate an internet message board.
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I have in the past served on the board of directors of a local Hospice organization.
I’m always looking for new ways to give of myself to help others! 
On a local basis, what I have done has helped some people. When looking at the whole picture, I didn’t make much of a difference at all. Maybe someday the few people I taught things to will pass on the info to friends and maybe in a hundred years I will have made a difference. The problem nowadays is that so many people are polarized and can only see what they believe is real. That actually is not new, but the polarization is getting stronger.
no, not really. If I disappeared tomorrow I doubt the world would notice.
I don’t agree, not that that means anything…
To expand on your analogy, if I improve speed and strength in my ring finger by adding bionics, it helps my big toe not at all. The fact that it improves the finger, and only the finger, by 100% does not translate to improving my overall body by any percentage. It helps one part and affects others nil. Making the world a better place would be more analogous to improving my muscle structure so that every part of my body sees improvement.
Similarly, you certainly improved, albeit temporarily, the life of one beggar but you had zero impact the one 10 feet away (except maybe to make him jealous) and certainly didn’t impact any in the next town, state or country. I don’t see that as improving the world. YMMcertainlyV.
Don’t mind me, though, I’m just doing some mental masturbation.
I can’t figure out multi-quote anymore.
To Bayard, Manda Jo, Ellen Cherry, and any I missed, I invite you to say the same thing I thought:
I teach. What’s your superpower?
Almost certainly not.
I was a hospice worker for ~15 years, and now I teach math and writing classes to GED students. I suspect I’ve made a positive difference in a few individual’s lives but nothing more than that. My biggest fear is fucking up my kid’s lives.
In the grand scheme of things, when it’s all said and done, my contribution to “good” in the world will be the nutrients my body provides after I die.
I make people laugh. I don’t interact with a huge number of people, but those I do interact with generally feel better for having spent time with me, and thank me for it. I believe that increasing the sum total of happiness and laughter in the world is worthwhile, and the world is better for it.
I wake every morning with a desire to have everything I want. I choose to temper that desire, and try to leave a little for other people, too, and I even often do without, in order that others can have some pleasure in their lives.
The counter girl at BK has a shit job working shit hours for shit pay for a shit boss, and her angry customers deal with shit that is not her fault. I can pile on more. Or I can smile and say something nice to her that make her day a little better, and her world a better placed.
Try it sometime. It has the added effect of making your own world a little better, too.