Ineffective altruism at Polish border

How good intentions can create chaos

Because of war in Ukraine, more than 100k Ukrainians crossed the border with Poland, seeking refugee. They have been welcomed in Poland, maybe too welcomed.

The people can cross the border without the visa, without the passport and with their pets. The government created help checkpoints outside the border, where they are registered and can get help settling in Poland.

But people also took actions outside of the government guidelines. There have been news and social news reports of people going to the border to help transfer people where they want, people offering houses, people offering clothes food and other products.

I have to admin, I was considering going to the border to take someone myself, but having knowledge about effective altruism first wanted to check if this is something that is needed and is effective. It turns out it creates more chaos than help.

First signal that it is busy work and not real help was noticed by me on the television. I saw someone packing supplies into the van in Łódź some 370km from the border. He got the supplies from people donating them. The strangest thing was, how many bottles of water he packed. One of the cheapest product you can buy at the supermarket, that takes a lot of volume in the van. Now let’s think about busywork being done here. The van owner writes on Facebook seeking product donations. People have to go to the supermarket, buy stuff, bring it to him. He packs them. Drives 370km and drops them at the border, or gives away personally. Now, wouldn’t it make more sense to collect money online, pay some organisations that is already there, or the local government, to buy them at the local supermarket and distribute to people in need?

Second signal was about virtue signaling. There were some posts on the facebook feed by distant people. I saw one investment banker, who proudly posted on his wall “I am going to the border. If someone can provide the following, that would be greatly appreciated:” and he listed stuff he could have easily bought himself in any supermarket. Stuff that would cost about 50$, probably what he earns in less than an hour. But when you do something altruistic, there is a tendency to tell other people about it. How else would all the other people know he cares deeply about Ukrainians? He previously added Ukrainian flag to his profile picture, but I guess it didn’t gather enough likes.

At this moment I decided to dig deeper. I joined some grass root groups in Polish. I joined Ukrainians groups. I understood that this busy work and virtue signalling might actually make things worse. First there was a post by “Resources Group”. They asked people not to come to the Warsaw train stations, and not to bring anything. They had more than enough, and people coming there were actually making the train stations crowded and harder for Ukrainians to get help by skilled personel.

Then I saw a post from president of one city near the border (60k inhabitants). He asked people not to bring any supplies to the city. Not to come with their own cars offering transport, as cities parkings are all full and that the city organised free buses to every city (train tickets are free for all Ukrainians by the way). He finally asked, to respect the efforts organised by local and country government and wrote that trying to help Ukrainians on your own is actually causing more problems for organisers.

Still, looking at the groups I joined, every minute someone posts about driving to the border, offering to give away clothes etc. The information that it is creating chaos has not been distributed.

There is a bias to visible personal action in helping. Donating 100$ to one of NGO organisations is doing X times more than wasting 100$ equivalent of your time. But visible personal action makes you feel better. It gives you stories to tell and stories to post on Instagram. It feels more real than sending cash. But it can cause real chaos and this time it kinda did.