I think that people who are interested in making the world a better place should allocate some of their resources with an eye toward maximizing their positive impact.

Agreed, of course.

As I've said elsewhere, I think that there's a fair amount to the points that Yvain makes in his Doing Your Good Deed For the Day and do think that it sometimes happens that people's willingness to help others is diminished by their existing charitable activities.

Yes, I regard this as definitely a bug and not a feature.

I'm all for people feeling more fuzzies.

Glad to hear it. :-)

I'll take some time to reflect on the nature and extent of our apparent disagreement.