Alyssa Battistoni: Why is aid to Pakistan so slow? Because we're bad at giving.

Alyssa Battistoni: Why is aid to Pakistan so slow? Because we're bad at giving.: "We shouldn't count out these factors entirely. But the disconnect between the amount people donate to disasters and the extent of devastation is nothing new. For all their compassion and generosity, individual donors are unreliable, uninformed, often illogical, and have short attention spans to boot.

Rather than corresponding to the severity of the disaster, the amount of money donated to disaster relief tends to correspond highly to the amount of media coverage. And unfortunately, the amount of media coverage doesn't typically correspond to the severity of the disaster."