My post wasn't a response to Žižek's views overall but to the arguments he makes in this particular 10 minute video that people keep posting as an argument against charity.
What would you suggest I read to understand how Žižek would answer the question, "what should I do to most improve the world?"
Zizek is quite a prolific writer, and so I hence hope you'll forgive me for linking to a book that I haven't myself read, but this book appears to be the one which is most geared towards the question at hand (especially given that it shares its name with Zizek's talk).
As I side note, I must admit that I do completely understand the frustration that comes with people constantly posting videos like this in an attempt to justify themselv...
Since repositories are popular and useful, I thought it would be good to have one where we pair common bad/incorrect/flawed/misleanding/incomplete ideas with high-quality articles that explain why those ideas are bad/incorrect/flawed/misleading/incomplete.
Examples:
Myers-Briggs as a theory of personality. -> Richard Batty's "The Myers-Briggs type Indicator: A Popular But Flawed Way of Understanding Your Personality" from 80000 Hours.
Microfinance -> Ben Todd's "Is Microfinance Mostly Hype?" and GiveWell's "6 Myths About Microfinance Charity Donors Can Do Without".
Zizek's talk on charity "First as Tragedy, then as Farce" (or the idea that charity is bad because it undermines political change) -> Jeff Kaufman's "Good Charity as Neither Tragedy or Farce".
The idea that the AI will be benevolent/Friendly by default. -> Luke and Louie's "Intelligence Explosion and Machine Ethics".
etc.