We're all Terrible People

[SmartIdiot]

I give to charity as and when it suits me. Don't get me wrong, that isn't a bullshit get-out-of-hail-free card. I do give to charity, when I can afford to. First rule is looking out for number one: you. However I have noticed, as I'm sure many of you have, the increasing number of obnoxious charity workers on the high street who will stop you when you really need to be going somewhere, to ask you to donate X amount per month to such and such a charity. This. Really. Fucking. Pisses. Me. Off. I'm not ashamed to admit that. You know why? I fucking work to survive. I'm working to pay my rent, my bills, my food. On top of that I work so I can fund my own way through college instead of getting my folks to do it. Then someone comes up to me in the street with a saccharine sweet smile and demeanour and tries to sweet talk/guilt trip me out of money for this charity. Here's a message to any of you in this line of work who may be reading this: fuck off, you're wasting your time and you are pissing off everyone. I, along with just about everyone right now, cannot afford to donate any amount of money to charity on a monthly basis.

I'd love to help out. I really would, but I simply cannot afford it. At the still-tender age of 22 I am in that limbo where I can just earn enough money to get by comfortably yet not much else beyond that unless I save every spare penny I have, which isn't much.

We're not all terrible people. We're just struggling to get by in a more convenient environment than some people have been given. Are we at fault for not being victims of our circumstances? Certainly not. Just because things are easier for a lot of us in what some would call the 'developed' nations doesn't mean we can afford to throw every spare penny we have to charities.

 

[Outright Villainy]

So what does that make me? I give to zero charities, so by extrapolation I'm double terrible.

But were not all terrible people. Why? Because if it's normal, then it's neutral. Not terrible or good. So you're disenchanted with humanity. Deal with it. We didn't dominate this planet by being nice.

Murder, genocide, rape, torture, extinction, cannibalism. All deeds committed by humans. But double-standards regarding charity makes us terrible? Think again.

Agreed on all counts here.
Not being a great person doesn't equate with being a terrible person, or has the Op not heard of the Middle ground? Besides, giving money to a charity, any charity, is a good deed. Whether or not you thing there are more worthy causes is irrelevant, terrible people wouldn't have given anything, and more likely found a way to take more money from others. The whole original post is the kind of cookie-cut cynicism that just pisses me off when I hear it: no offense, but people like him just annoy the shit out of me.

 

[benoitowns]

The fallacy in your analogy is that dogs rule and there is no quantitative value in one life over another. It is a biological bias that impedes logic. But who the hell cares about animals anyway? Oh yea....PETA...those crazy fuckers....

 

[Markness]

I'm paraphrasing you, as you said something to do with drunken behaviour indirectly killing children.

Speaking of which, this "indirectly killing children" thing is bullcrap. You are saying that curbing our charity donations is basically murder or manslaughter. I say that your logic is wonky. They'd die without our assistance, sure, but they shouldn't need our assistance in the first place. A lot of this starvation and death is caused by poor leadership and war. We're not to blame for those (Except for places like Afghanistan and Israel/Palestine, where Western society was partially responsible), so it's not our fault.

"If we are not all terrible, I put the figure at least 99.9%."

Dear god, this exaggerated cynicism I'm coming across is starting to grate. Allow me to set you straight:

There are good people, alright people, and terrible people in the world. If "99.9%" of us were terrible people, society would be entirely based on violence, theft and bloodshed, and we'd probably have nuked ourselves out of existence by now. If you're going to make a bold statement, at least make sure that it makes sense.

Imagine that someone tied a child to train tracks and you were nearby when a train was coming.

Note that A: Without our assistance they'd die sure, but they shouldn't need our assistance in the first place.
B:It's not our fault

By your logic, it's morally correct to leave the child to die.

ON AN UNRELATED BUT IMPORTANT NOTE:
When I say, we're all terrible people, I understand that if everyone was terrible it would be normal and then wouldn't really mean anything. However, when I say we're all terrible people, I mean : According to the moral standards we use in everyday life and if we take away our ignorance we would each be terrible people in our communities. I understand we are all kinda nice in everyday person-person relationships, but are pure directed ignorance of suffering that we are not directly confronted with makes us terrible people

 

[bobknowsall]

I'm paraphrasing you, as you said something to do with drunken behaviour indirectly killing children.

Speaking of which, this "indirectly killing children" thing is bullcrap. You are saying that curbing our charity donations is basically murder or manslaughter. I say that your logic is wonky. They'd die without our assistance, sure, but they shouldn't need our assistance in the first place. A lot of this starvation and death is caused by poor leadership and war. We're not to blame for those (Except for places like Afghanistan and Israel/Palestine, where Western society was partially responsible), so it's not our fault.

"If we are not all terrible, I put the figure at least 99.9%."

Dear god, this exaggerated cynicism I'm coming across is starting to grate. Allow me to set you straight:

There are good people, alright people, and terrible people in the world. If "99.9%" of us were terrible people, society would be entirely based on violence, theft and bloodshed, and we'd probably have nuked ourselves out of existence by now. If you're going to make a bold statement, at least make sure that it makes sense.

Imagine that someone tied a child to train tracks and you were nearby when a train was coming.

Note that A: Without our assistance they'd die sure, but they shouldn't need our assistance in the first place.
B:It's not our fault

By your logic, it's morally correct to leave the child to die.

ON AN UNRELATED BUT IMPORTANT NOTE:
When I say, we're all terrible people, I understand that if everyone was terrible it would be normal and then wouldn't really mean anything. However, when I say we're all terrible people, I mean : According to the moral standards we use in everyday life and if we take away our ignorance we would each be terrible people in our communities. I understand we are all kinda nice in everyday person-person relationships, but are pure directed ignorance of suffering that we are not directly confronted with makes us terrible people

Actually, by my logic, that's a load of rubbish. You're basically implying that I condone child murder. I find that very insulting.

Actually, come to think of it, how on earth is morality logical to begin with? And how dare you comment on my moral fiber? What are you doing to change the situation, exactly? I do charity work, so at least I'm bloody well trying.

NEWSFLASH (CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL, AS WE ALL KNOW):

We can't save every AIDS orphan and refugee. It's beyond our control. We've got our own problems to deal with, and since when are we obligated to do anything about other people's problems? Altruism can only stretch so far.

People aren't going to give all of their disposable income to charity, and even if they did, it wouldn't end the misery that goes on around the globe.

If some poor girl in Sudan goes through the agony of infibulation, what the hell am I supposed to do? Get a plane in there and start busting heads?

Do not attempt to comment on other people's worth when you are no better than them. It's contemptible.

 

[SlowShootinPete]

Spoiler

I'm paraphrasing you, as you said something to do with drunken behaviour indirectly killing children.

Speaking of which, this "indirectly killing children" thing is bullcrap. You are saying that curbing our charity donations is basically murder or manslaughter. I say that your logic is wonky. They'd die without our assistance, sure, but they shouldn't need our assistance in the first place. A lot of this starvation and death is caused by poor leadership and war. We're not to blame for those (Except for places like Afghanistan and Israel/Palestine, where Western society was partially responsible), so it's not our fault.

"If we are not all terrible, I put the figure at least 99.9%."

Dear god, this exaggerated cynicism I'm coming across is starting to grate. Allow me to set you straight:

There are good people, alright people, and terrible people in the world. If "99.9%" of us were terrible people, society would be entirely based on violence, theft and bloodshed, and we'd probably have nuked ourselves out of existence by now. If you're going to make a bold statement, at least make sure that it makes sense.

Imagine that someone tied a child to train tracks and you were nearby when a train was coming.

Note that A: Without our assistance they'd die sure, but they shouldn't need our assistance in the first place.
B:It's not our fault

By your logic, it's morally correct to leave the child to die.

ON AN UNRELATED BUT IMPORTANT NOTE:
When I say, we're all terrible people, I understand that if everyone was terrible it would be normal and then wouldn't really mean anything. However, when I say we're all terrible people, I mean : According to the moral standards we use in everyday life and if we take away our ignorance we would each be terrible people in our communities. I understand we are all kinda nice in everyday person-person relationships, but are pure directed ignorance of suffering that we are not directly confronted with makes us terrible people

Your scenario allows direct intervention, and from what I understood of his post he was not trying to say that inaction is morally correct.

Please understand, if we all tried to be aware of world suffering in the way you suggest, we would go numb. It is horrifying what happens in some parts of the world. Limiting our sympathies primarily to our immediate social environment is like a defense mechanism.

 

[bobknowsall]

Spoiler

I'm paraphrasing you, as you said something to do with drunken behaviour indirectly killing children.

Speaking of which, this "indirectly killing children" thing is bullcrap. You are saying that curbing our charity donations is basically murder or manslaughter. I say that your logic is wonky. They'd die without our assistance, sure, but they shouldn't need our assistance in the first place. A lot of this starvation and death is caused by poor leadership and war. We're not to blame for those (Except for places like Afghanistan and Israel/Palestine, where Western society was partially responsible), so it's not our fault.

"If we are not all terrible, I put the figure at least 99.9%."

Dear god, this exaggerated cynicism I'm coming across is starting to grate. Allow me to set you straight:

There are good people, alright people, and terrible people in the world. If "99.9%" of us were terrible people, society would be entirely based on violence, theft and bloodshed, and we'd probably have nuked ourselves out of existence by now. If you're going to make a bold statement, at least make sure that it makes sense.

Imagine that someone tied a child to train tracks and you were nearby when a train was coming.

Note that A: Without our assistance they'd die sure, but they shouldn't need our assistance in the first place.
B:It's not our fault

By your logic, it's morally correct to leave the child to die.

ON AN UNRELATED BUT IMPORTANT NOTE:
When I say, we're all terrible people, I understand that if everyone was terrible it would be normal and then wouldn't really mean anything. However, when I say we're all terrible people, I mean : According to the moral standards we use in everyday life and if we take away our ignorance we would each be terrible people in our communities. I understand we are all kinda nice in everyday person-person relationships, but are pure directed ignorance of suffering that we are not directly confronted with makes us terrible people

Your scenario allows direct intervention, and from what I understood of his post he was not trying to say that inaction is morally correct.

Thank you, sir. Your reply was far more concise (and coherent) than mine.

 

[Silva]

People have different reasons for choosing various charities. It's quite possible that the idea of contributing to the children's charity did not occur to them at all.

Or else they might subscribe to the odd notion that since humans are harming the planet, there are better species to donate to, and thus forget that human rights are as important as the environment, if we are to rise above our own suffering to conquer our wastefulness.

I don't think it's fair to call people who make this choice "terrible". They are still contributing to the solutions for society. True, if all of humanity united against one common problem, then that problem would disappear instantly, but a whole lot of other problems, remaining untouched and not effected by that one, would be a little bit worse than they might've been.

There is also a justification for having more than one charity for each single issue, in that if one charity is corrupt or wasteful with donations, having another available means that you are more likely to reach the effected victims with your funds.

So we should be thankful for these people and their disparateness. Yes, it means that there are more different problems than there may be, but as a whole they are not better or worse than the alternative.

We could possibly call those who contribute nothing to charity when they have the funds to do so "terrible", though. Misers are called that for a reason. Doing that may make slightly more sense.

 

[SlowShootinPete]

Thank you, sir. Your reply was far more concise (and coherent) than mine.

You're welcome. Inexact analogies give me headaches.

 

[Kiriona]

Well, I'd give to charity if I knew for sure that the money was actually going where they say it's going and not into someone's pocket.

As for the dog vs human issue, I'd rather donate money to the dog simply because I think people are shit.

I know it probably sounds cruel to neglect the starving children, but whose fault is it really that they're starving? The adults who created the mess in the first place. So if someone were to create a charity to fight against the horrific plague called 'stupid' that's constantly running rampant all over the world, I'd support it wholeheartedly. In fact, I'd probably be helping to coordinate it. It seems to me that that's what the world really needs to rid itself of... maybe then a lot of these problems would go away.

It'd be nice...

 

[wordsmith]

We're all terrible people

Yes, yes we are. Welcome to humanity.

EDIT: That was all I was going to write, but

1. $100 towards the seeing eye dog foundation. Your money pays for a fraction of the training of 1 dog that would slightly improve the quality of life of a blind person.
2. $100 towards starving children. You probably save the lives of multiple children and vastly increase their quality of life.

Woah there captain underpants, $100 "saves the lives" of multiple children? Heh, round here, £100 is a couple of weeks of food for 4 people. And that's assuming that every penny goes to the kid. Which it won't do, due to admin charges, transport costs etc.

So the way I see it:

1) $100 towards the seeing eye dog foundation. Your (along with some other people's) money pays for the training of 1 dog who will give a blind person a new lease of life, for the rest of their live
2) $100 towards starving children, $80 of which actually goes towards buying food, which means $20 between 4 kids. You make their lives better for 3, 4 days at most, before they are back to square 1, and you may as well not have bothered.

 

[De Bureau]

1. $100 towards the seeing eye dog foundation. Your money pays for a fraction of the training of 1 dog that would slightly improve the quality of life of a blind person.
2. $100 towards starving children. You probably save the lives of multiple children and vastly increase their quality of life.

Do you really think providing food and water will secure the quality of life for children in, let's say, sub-Saharan Africa? The 3rd world's been systematically picked apart and screwed over by imperial powers since the Europeans first got their eyes on the continent, and even with the fall of colonial empires, it hasn't really stopped. Between the exploitation of cash crops, the corrupt unstable governments, and the rogue military groups, there will be no shortage of starving children. Handouts and humanitarian groups can only do so much - with your money they can feed some starving children today, but they can't secure them a future. "Don't give us more food, take away their guns."

You're blaming us for taking the time to patch up all the people with broken legs instead of putting bandaids on a patient with terminal cancer. Some problems can be more readily fixed with simple donations than others. Besides, just because a problem isn't life threatening, that doesn't mean it doesn't merit attention.

 

[QuickDEMOL1SHER]

We're not terrible people. HORSES are terrible people.

 

[SlowShootinPete]

We're not terrible people. HORSES are terrible people.

That's not true. The Houyhnhnms are like walking, neighing incarnations of Jesus. Where are you getting these facts.

 

[manic_depressive13]

NEWSFLASH

This, coupled with your avatar, was greatly amusing.

OT: Yes we are. Stupid too.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I don't give to charities, I give to homeless people though.
Don't ask me why, I don't really know. Maybe the ads just piss me off.

Maybe because you can't trust charities? Honestly you can't trust anyone.

It entirely depends upon the charity I'd think. I work in the IT field currently (for a company that provides contract IT services) and many of my clients are charitable non-profits. The one thing I've found that has struck me as terribly strange is that a particular non profit specializes in abused women and children and collects millions a year in total donations and grants. Another deals with treating alcohol and drug abuse and barely scrapes by - 2 of the 4 counselors are volunteers for example and they can barely afford to keep the computers they use (required to file the proper reports to maintin their current status) running.

The thing is, the former simply serves as a social tournaquet - you simply treat the visible symptom of a problem. The latter seeks to treat the underlying cause of a great majority of the spousal and child abuse cases. The difference? In the former, you have battered, sobbing children and spouses to tug at the heart and open the pocket book, in the latter you have a drug addled junkie who inspires no pity (only disgust). The more conservative your region, the more this seems to sway in favor of treating the symptom (a fools errand in my book) leaving the cause unchecked by anything but the legal system.

 

[GothmogII]

We're all terrible people

Yes, yes we are. Welcome to humanity.

EDIT: That was all I was going to write, but

1. $100 towards the seeing eye dog foundation. Your money pays for a fraction of the training of 1 dog that would slightly improve the quality of life of a blind person.
2. $100 towards starving children. You probably save the lives of multiple children and vastly increase their quality of life.

Woah there captain underpants, $100 "saves the lives" of multiple children? Heh, round here, £100 is a couple of weeks of food for 4 people. And that's assuming that every penny goes to the kid. Which it won't do, due to admin charges, transport costs etc.

So the way I see it:

1) $100 towards the seeing eye dog foundation. Your (along with some other people's) money pays for the training of 1 dog who will give a blind person a new lease of life, for the rest of their live
2) $100 towards starving children, $80 of which actually goes towards buying food, which means $20 between 4 kids. You make their lives better for 3, 4 days at most, before they are back to square 1, and you may as well not have bothered.

Well....at least for the rest of the -dog's- life. xD

 

[AtticusSP]

I'd choose the dogs, as I consider dogs to be a much better species in general than humans.
Dogs are so much more likable than people.

 

[Markness]

According to the moral standards we use in everyday life

Most of the other points I had hoped to make have been made already, but I think I'm at liberty to say that unless you've met, studied and understood every single persons motivation for donating in the world in order to truly believe that 99.9% of us are 'terrible people' based on how we choose to donate money or aid to charities we might not have any direct relation to it's cause or goal (a normal, healthy person donating to the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation for example.) then you have no real basis for the things you outlined in your original post.

That is because everyone is different. Some people might be as you described. Sure I'll accept that. But not as many as you believe. Things in the world would be very different if your statistics were true.

I'm sorry but I can't make any sense out of this post. The first paragraph up there is all one sentence, what you're saying sounds interesting but I don't get it.

Actually, by my logic, that's a load of rubbish. You're basically implying that I condone child murder. I find that very insulting.

I'm not saying that you condone child murder. Why would I say that? It's not backed up by anything. I mean, you could, but I doubt it. I'm not even saying that we all condone child murder. Condoning child murder is like paying people to murder children. You can check a dictionary if you don't believe me. I don't think anybody around here is doing that.

What I'm saying is, by our actions or inactions, we are allowing children to die. We don't condone this, we just ignore it. Please note (and I've said this a few times throughout this thread): the title of the thread is not called You're all terrible people, and it's not called everyone is a terrible person except me, I'm just as bad as the rest of you, I just thought I'd point it out.

Actually, come to think of it, how on earth is morality logical to begin with? And how dare you comment on my moral fiber? What are you doing to change the situation, exactly? I do charity work, so at least I'm bloody well trying.

Good work on doing charity work, you're a slightly less terrible person than the rest of us. I'm not saying comparitivly or relativly you're a terrible person, but objectivly, everyone is.

NEWSFLASH (CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL, AS WE ALL KNOW):

Thanks for that, comparing me to people who only use caps and spk liek dis. I hope you know that caps also has a use for drawing attention to an important part that I wanted everyone skimming through the page to read.

We can't save every AIDS orphan and refugee. It's beyond our control. We've got our own problems to deal with, and since when are we obligated to do anything about other people's problems? Altruism can only stretch so far.

People aren't going to give all of their disposable income to charity, and even if they did, it wouldn't end the misery that goes on around the globe.

If some poor girl in Sudan goes through the agony of infibulation, what the hell am I supposed to do? Get a plane in there and start busting heads?

You don't have to save everyone to do something good. Even if a million children were tied to train tracks with trains headed their way, it doesn't make saving one a waste.

Do not attempt to comment on other people's worth when you are no better than them. It's contemptible.

Lol, why not? If I was part of a gang, would I be contemptible to question our actions?

Your scenario allows direct intervention, and from what I understood of his post he was not trying to say that inaction is morally correct.

Please understand, if we all tried to be aware of world suffering in the way you suggest, we would go numb. It is horrifying what happens in some parts of the world. Limiting our sympathies primarily to our immediate social environment is like a defense mechanism.

Intereting, so you think it's not our fault if we ignore suffering as It is a defence mechanism. What's more, inaction is not morally wrong, may I ask why not? What's the difference?