The idea that charities take donations that damage them. They must be a net benefit, as otherwise they are free to turn them down and they would do.
People are using language like ‘damaging’ and ‘no choice’. What they really mean is the donations are useful but they could be more useful if unrestricted.
Well yeah lots of things are more useful when you don’t have any responsibilities along with them.
I think this is meaningless pedantry. It's like saying if I hold a gun to your head and tell you to dance, you always have a choice. Technically true but diluting the term choice past the point of usefulness.
More subtly, it's assuming that costs and benefits are somehow quantifiable in a single "benefit function". This is a modelling assumption that is often not true. There can be a benefit ("at least we can get some money to some people") that you can't turn down ("ethically can we turn down some money for some people like this?") while also being deeply damaging ("we are 'selling our soul' by acting as a PR arm for companies that want to improve their reputation rather than lives. This is damaging the ethical undeprinning and structural integrity of our organisation").
Summarizing this complex situation as a net benefit is naive and a bad model that will lead you to incorrect conclusions (like: "well they must get a net benefit, so it can't be that bad" rather than "we need to eliminate the structural factors that lead to such situations.")
People are using language like ‘damaging’ and ‘no choice’. What they really mean is the donations are useful but they could be more useful if unrestricted.
Well yeah lots of things are more useful when you don’t have any responsibilities along with them.