I used to think that feeding ducks was an act of kindness. It certainly felt like it—just pure, selfless giving with nothing expected in return, except, of course, that warm and fuzzy feeling of having done something good. Parents bringing their kids along for this surely aim to teach them something virtuous, perhaps leading many of us to accept it by default.
It turns out that despite good intentions, feeding ducks might actually have many negative effects[1] on both the animals and their environment. So why do people do it?
One explanation might be that the feeling of good disincentivizes investigating the consequences of the action, as one would not only risk losing the good feeling, but also learn that it might in fact have been harmful, retroactively re-interpreting the past. Cognitive dissonance is tricky like that, oftentimes settling for comfort over truth.
Another is simply the lack of prompting. There is no Chesterton’s Fence to spur introspection while navigating on autopilot, inferring “doing good” from “intending good” without ever doing the second-order thinking. The consequences aren’t immediately obvious, and therefore might never really be visible to us.[2]
This goes for other things too, like donating clothes to African countries and “Voluntourism”, or giving advice or “helping” where it’s not welcome.
On a somewhat related note, I think this is something that also applies in areas of life where the preparation for something nice involves so much stress/tension that it outweighs the good of the experience itself, especially since it’s also often at the expense of moments that could’ve been spent together instead.
One of the things I want to improve at in the new year is to become better at detecting if I’m “Feeding ducks” in other areas of my life, where the consequences of my actions do not necessarily align with my intentions. Kindness here might be the willingness to look further than my intentions, and to sometimes do nothing at all—or just to be present.
Thanks and further discussion
Thank you for reading this! I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas too. Join the discussion on Hacker News, or feel free to email me at <firstname>@klungo.no.
Bread is bad for them and can lead to metabolic disease, leftover food can degrade water quality and/or attract rodents, overcrowding (with over-competition, agression, spreading of disease and injury), can prevent migration which can lead to starvation, etc. ↩︎
Though seeing the aggression and desperation of waterfowl being fed in the winter is definitely not what I’d consider a cozy “Naahw” moment. There’s nothing cute with too many birds in too little space, pecking at each other while attempting to get some of the food being thrown at them. ↩︎