Charitable Parasites

Every week or two someone delivers a large plastic bag in which I'm bidden to put unwanted clothes. As I wear clothes until they disintegrate I never have a contribution, but I do note the large number of rather specialised charities begging for my discarded rags.

I think they are over specialised. There are many charities each devoted to a particular form of cancer. Finding out how to deal with cancer requires detailed knowledge of the genome and the immune system, so general research into those subjects should help the treatment of any form of cancer. Segregating researchers into separate compartments is likely to produce a wasteful duplication of efforts. It will also increase the number of administrators and publicists, the bureaucrats running the charities without making any direct contribution to the well being of those the charities are supposed to help.