The issue, it seems to me, is that many people think of giving the same way they think of eating broccoli: they feel obligated to, they know they should, but they'd rather not. So charities, smartly, treat them like 5-year-olds: they try to trick them into it. If there were millions of dollars riding on getting some kid to eat his broccoli, the wisest move would probably be to get one of those chocolate-covering machines and douse the stuff until it's unrecognizable." - Meaning and context.">
In "Chocolate-covered broccoli", January 2007
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The issue, it seems to me, is that many people think of giving the same way they think of eating broccoli: they feel obligated to, they know they should, but they'd rather not. So charities, smartly, treat them like 5-year-olds: they try to trick them into it. If there were millions of dollars riding on getting some kid to eat his broccoli, the wisest move would probably be to get one of those chocolate-covering machines and douse the stuff until it's unrecognizable.

— Holden Karnofsky

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "The issue, it seems to me, is that many people think of giving the same way they think of eating broccoli: they feel obligated to, they know they should, but they'd rather not. So charities, smartly, treat them like 5-year-olds: they try to trick them into it. If there were millions of dollars riding on getting some kid to eat his broccoli, the wisest move would probably be to get one of those chocolate-covering machines and douse the stuff until it's unrecognizable." in the context of "In "Chocolate-covered broccoli", January 2007" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Holden Karnofsky" (Quotes) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Holden Karnofsky

About Holden Karnofsky

Holden Karnofsky is an American nonprofit executive. He is a co-founder and co-chief executive officer of the research and grantmaking organization Open Philanthropy. Karnofsky co-founded the charity evaluator GiveWell with Elie Hassenfeld in 2007 and is vice chair of its board of directors.