I think this is an excellent idea. Members of certain religious traditions do something similar, by having literal charity boxes they keep at home; this allows them to donate at the moment rather than allow the moment to pass. Yours obviously updates the idea: people keep much less of their money in physical form, so the change to chips may be very helpful.
I wanted to comment on “I do worry about doing my good deed for the day and having negative externalities flow from that, but I can’t say I’ve seen it happening yet.”
I think this is always a real problem, and I have a few possible suggestions.
When possible, try to donate later in the day rather than earlier. (but of course, you don’t want to let the inspiration pass, so don’t take this too far).
When you do donate earlier, you can then remind yourself of the early donation, and therefore the need to find ways to be helpful to others. Alternatively, lsparrish and you talk about the antifuzzy jar for beer/etc. Perhaps the ties should go both ways; by rewarding yourself explicitly for your good behavior you may potentially see that good deed as “resolved”, and avoid trying to compensate by mistreating others. I don’t have data on that, but it would be interesting to look at (I may try this myself over the next few months).
Make sure the chips only substitute for financial donations. If you let it substitute for helping people with your time/effort, there may be less positive consequences.
I think this is an excellent idea. Members of certain religious traditions do something similar, by having literal charity boxes they keep at home; this allows them to donate at the moment rather than allow the moment to pass. Yours obviously updates the idea: people keep much less of their money in physical form, so the change to chips may be very helpful.
I wanted to comment on “I do worry about doing my good deed for the day and having negative externalities flow from that, but I can’t say I’ve seen it happening yet.” I think this is always a real problem, and I have a few possible suggestions.
When possible, try to donate later in the day rather than earlier. (but of course, you don’t want to let the inspiration pass, so don’t take this too far).
When you do donate earlier, you can then remind yourself of the early donation, and therefore the need to find ways to be helpful to others. Alternatively, lsparrish and you talk about the antifuzzy jar for beer/etc. Perhaps the ties should go both ways; by rewarding yourself explicitly for your good behavior you may potentially see that good deed as “resolved”, and avoid trying to compensate by mistreating others. I don’t have data on that, but it would be interesting to look at (I may try this myself over the next few months).
Make sure the chips only substitute for financial donations. If you let it substitute for helping people with your time/effort, there may be less positive consequences.