You may have heard about the heroics of Batkid:

San Francisco is safe again all thanks to Batkid.

Five-year-old Miles, stepping in to help Bruce Wayne, freed a damsel in distress Friday morning after getting an urgent call from Commissioner Gordon.

So daring were his feats, and so perilous was the fate of the city, that CNN Headline News interrupted to bring live coverage, and the Gotham Chronicle printed a special edition.

Hundreds of thankful Bay-area residents lined the streets to watch Batkid apprehend the Riddler (aka Edward “E.” Nigma). Batkid’s bravery encouraged hundreds more to volunteer to help fight crime.

The whole thing was set up by the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Even President Obama got into the act. Wil Wheaton says that it gives him faith in humanity. For me? It indicates that I have probably lost mine.

I’m sorry for the kid having cancer and I’m happy he got the day of his life. But I also look at this as a terrible allocation of resources mostly in the name of making us feel better. A lot of time, effort, and money here was spent on the emotional welfare of one child. Not even pain alleviation, but having a good time. The memory of a lifetime… to a kid that is dying. If you were to do this for a kid that isn’t dying, that kid would have a lifetime of memories that would last longer. As likely as not, he’d have kids to pass the story on to. It’s the ultimate example of self-regarding charity.

I have nothing against the Make-a-Wish Foundation or anything. Or doing things for dying kids. Maybe I have some of my humanity left. But this raises the bar really high for future MAWers. Obviously, you can’t do this for every kid that is dying. So the next dying kid is going to look at meeting Cal Ripkin and say “But I wanted to be Batkid!” Expectation-management failure.

Of course, with my luck, it’ll turn out that the kid lives to 100 and has the kids and all that to pass the story on down to. That’d be cool.