We're all Terrible People

[teisjm]

I'm constantly perplexed by animal charities. People giving money to them should just straight out say they value the continued existence of that particular species far more than human lives. Or that they consider a blind person having a seeing eye dog far more important than human lives.

You can't argue with this, this is more awesome and adorable then anything in the world.

 

[SlowShootinPete]

Spoiler

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

That depends on the actions. Being in a gang does not necessarily mean that you are a bad person, it's whether you actually commit crimes, what sort of crimes, and the circumstances behind them that determines that. Are you a murderer? If so, no, questioning that would not be contemptible.

The guy I quoted said that I was comtemptible for questioning the actions of everyone around me, including myself. I said it is not comtempible. It seems you agree with you, at least that's how I understand the above post.

I did not say "ignore suffering". I said that the average person is only capable of absorbing so much suffering before it becomes too difficult to bear. Being depressed every minute of every day because you're carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders solves nothing.

You don't have to "absorb" suffering to do something about it.

You can argue which causes are more worthy as much as you want, but don't try to tell me that the only way to be properly moral is to stop enjoying my own life and be miserable for everyone. I am not capable of doing that, because, I admit, I am not a perfect. But my imperfection does not make me the terrible, selfish person you seem to see me as, nor does the imperfection of humanity justify the claim that it is hopelessly immoral as a whole.

If we can go back to the child on the train tracks analogy. You admit, that saving the child would be the moral choice. How much you would have to sacrifice before it's no longer moral. If someone had to choose between a child and an icecream that they didn't want to melt, and choose the ice-cream, would that be alright? What about if their car was also in the path of another train, and it was either the child or the car? You might expect that someone who chose the car would face an extremely unpleasant reception from the members of the community. I'm asking, how is this circumstance different from the choice between a new car, or giving that money to charity?

In your scenario of the baby on the train tracks, that allowed direct intervention. When the ability to directly intervene is available, not doing so would be immoral, yes. But the analogy is inexact, because when I donate money to a charity, I am not directly intervening in anything. I am giving money to someone to give to someone else, and once it leaves my hands I have no control over what is done with it.

When I jump to save the baby, assuming I am in a position where it appears possible for me to save it, I know what results of my action will be. But when I donate the money I can't be sure if what I intend to do will actually ever happen. When there is good reason to believe that action will achieve nothing, why should I take action anyway? If the baby I see on the tracks is actually on the other side of the world and I am watching on a TV, is it wrong for me to just stand there?

I'm pretty sure some charities give you the option to sponser individual children, and you can recieve correspondance from them as they grow up with an education. You are directly intervening in that child's life and it's alot cheaper than leaving a car to be crushed by a train with the exact same cost if you don't do it.

I demonstrated that your analogy was inaccurate.

Exactly. I was trying to say that you have no right to call someone terrible because they don't support the same causes that you do to the degree that you do.

You're missing my point. The question was how your ability to intervene influences the choice you will make, not which of two things would be more appropriate to save. That is irrelevant.

Give me a few minutes and I'll put together a letter passing myself off as an 11-year-old Sudanese girl.

 

[RUINER ACTUAL]

I hate human beings, so I would much rather pay for the dog to be awesome.

Im sure you agree that i gladly kill you to make dog happier since i hate human being since you have no regard for life. There's a point that you do not reallize the values of other human being but yourself makes you a narcistsic bastard. If you really love animals would you sacrifice yourself or believe the value of yourself.

Well yeah I'd expect you to kill me. I'm not a hypocrite. Everyone's lives are equal regardless of status or situation. Also, work on your sentence structure a bit.

 

[Mr.Governor]

I hate dogs
and I hate humans.
All my money should go to cats at least they don't bite or bark at you for no apparent reason.

 

[FightThePower]

I've known this for years.

Guess I'm going to continue being a terrible person.

 

[GL2814E]

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.

Why, when presented with these two options, would anyone choose the dog?

So you're really criticizing people for donating to certain charities instead of other ones?

I'm sorry, but that's just stupid. You should be glad that people are being charitable in the first place.

You took the words straight out of my mouth.

 

[TylerC]

Wait, let me get this straight. We shouldn't donate to seeing eye dogs, for people who are blind and may have other disabilities, and can't get around themselves, but if people are starving we do donate? You do realize that not all of that $100 goes to food. Most of the money goes to commercials, and workers. I've seen commercials where they say 15 cents of every dollar goes to the children in help. So if I donate $100, I'm really just giving those kids $15. That's not going to last, but seeing eye dogs will last a very long time. The dogs are companions for the people, and in some cases are one of their only friends. So how can you say one is entirely better than another when they are both helping?

 

[chunkeymonke]

I for one don't give a shit about any cause
i don't know the people i can't feel sympathy for people i have never met and probally never will meet. I am horrible in that way but who gives a shit?

 

[Markness]

It's time like this I'm glad I just hate everyone. I don't give to charity (maybe a letter-bomb if I were named Theodore (cookie for the reference), I don't give to homeless people (unless you count beatings), and I'm just a general psycho misanthrope. Makes life easier.

What is

I would give me life savings if i knew it would save 10-20 abused or neglected animals wrong as it may be i love animals more than humans, we could learn from them.

wrong with

I donate to both charities that help humans, and ones that help animals. I don't see why it should be one or the other. And do I think donating money to charity makes me a better person? No. I do it because even small gestures still make a difference. And hey, maybe I never get recognized for it. Big deal. At least I did something other then sit on my ass.

you people?

From this page only. The 2 best quality's about dogs are their stupidity and appearance ie cuteness, they don't have nearly as much value as a human. It's all irelevent btw, I don't particuly care if you're a dog lover, I like dogs myself, but it's really quite off topic. Despite your bravado, I doubt if a blind person and a guide dog fell into a river and were being swept towards a waterfall, you would save the dog.

Almost this exact thread,inc seeing eye dog vs human charity example was done to death by DoW Lowen about a week ago......

Hey, how about that, someone copied or was simultanous inspired. I made this thread more than a month ago by the way.

I demonstrated that your analogy was inaccurate.

Exactly. I was trying to say that you have no right to call someone terrible because they don't support the same causes that you do to the degree that you do.

You're missing my point. The question was how your ability to intervene influences the choice you will make, not which of two things would be more appropriate to save. That is irrelevant.

Give me a few minutes and I'll put together a letter passing myself off as an 11-year-old Sudanese girl.

What causes? I am not advocating any cause except for the cause of saving children from certain death. I am calling us all terrible, because we don't support that cause. As for the second half of your post. Can you fake personised photographs, or even video in some cases? It's not even worth it, and definately not from a respected charity. Once you know that you can save one child, does it matter that the child is surrounded by children in similar situations? Does it matter at all?

Condoning child murder is like paying people to murder children.

I don't know what dictionary you're using, but condoning something does not entail paying for it.

Trust me, the like was there the whole time.

Pointing it out is all well and good, but it's a bit disingenuous if you're not actually going to do anything about it. Abe Lincoln once said: "He has the right to criticize, who has the heart to help"

I may have gotten the definite and indefinite articles a bit off, but you get the idea. If you wish to comment negatively on the situation, please make an effort towards changing it.

It may have made this a lot easier if I had put this in my initial post, but the whole point of this thread was to point out the interesting fact that human have a remarkable capacity for ignoring suffering if it's not in the immediate vicinity and they won't be held socially responsible for their inaction. The point was not to make people change their ways or give all their money to charity, but just to highlight this fact.

I'm not saying comparatively or relatively you're a terrible person, but objectively, everyone is.

Okay, this particular statement really irked me. How can you objectively say that we're all terrible people? Surely no human can be objective on these matters?

(Unless you're a robot, in which case I retract my statement)

By objectively, I meant from the moral standards of the humans in face-to-face relationships.

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.

So you're saying inaction is okay if I can't feasibly act to help others? Like I've been saying this entire conversation?

I pretty much said the opposite. Why do you think you can't feasibly act to save anyone?

Not donating to charity does not make me a bad person, and phasing out the suffering of people I can't help is just something I do. I feel for them, but I can't change the situation. I'll sign petitions, and I'll vote for aiding others, but I can't help people living in horrific conditions in Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Sudan, Ethiopia, Iraq, and other countries in a state of turmoil.

It is the responsibility of our leaders to initiate large-scale change. I'm no leader.

I'll do my best to affect the world positively, but that's all that can be asked of me.

Also, people are not inherently bad. We're capable of great altruism, and that's not something an inherently evil being would do.

You may not be able to initiate large scale change, but why does that mean you can't save anyone?

 

[Cody211282]

How can people even say things like this?

Because I couldn't say it better myself.

 

[subfield]

I find your argument amusing. If you are so convinced that we are all terrible, then answer me this: how can someone who has no morals be a terrible person?

I will ask you to consider that problem rationally, as you asked me to do in your post.

 

[SlowShootinPete]

Exactly. I was trying to say that you have no right to call someone terrible because they don't support the same causes that you do to the degree that you do.

What causes? I am not advocating any cause except for the cause of saving children from certain death. I am calling us all terrible, because we don't support that cause.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

As for the second half of your post. Can you fake personised photographs, or even video in some cases? It's not even worth it, and definately not from a respected charity. Once you know that you can save one child, does it matter that the child is surrounded by children in similar situations? Does it matter at all?

I can't, but that doesn't make it impossible to do. My point is that I am skeptical to simply take the charity's word on it, because if they want to deceive me they can. I don't oppose charitable giving, but I will only donate to the ones I feel I can trust.

I've heard that the Jane Goodall Foundation is a good one, but I'm not familiar with very many others.

From this page only. The 2 best quality's about dogs are their stupidity and appearance ie cuteness, they don't have nearly as much value as a human. It's all irelevent btw, I don't particuly care if you're a dog lover, I like dogs myself, but it's really quite off topic. Despite your bravado, I doubt if a blind person and a guide dog fell into a river and were being swept towards a waterfall, you would save the dog.

Thank you for this, though.

 

[Iron Criterion]

I hate human beings, so I would much rather pay for the dog to be awesome.

This. But then again my money could be better spent trying to create ways to destroy humanity...

Good point, then give me all your money and I swear to destroy humans with it. *evil laugh* [/sarcasm]

Hmm this is obviously a trap, but then again I should be awarding such deceitful behaviour...

 

[Valksy]

I have a few charities that I routinely support and am not swayed by any others. These mare my own choice and I do include animal charities, if for no other reason that they can only exist by virtue of donations. I like the Cat's Protection League (non destroy) and the Blue Cross (offer veterinary care cheaply or for free). It would be fair for me to say that I like most animals more than most people.

I give money to Marie Cure cancer research and to the Macmillan nurses (who help people with cancer live a more ordinary life) because of my late friend Joanne who died of a brain tumour at the age of 28 - much too soon

I can compare these to some adverts I have seen on television recently. This advert goes on an on about how it would be great to sponsor a child and they could live a normal life and not have to walk for miles to get water or look after her baby brother. And as an advert it infuriates me - the girl being featured as someone to sponsor is being treated as a chattel by her own family. And she lives in India and last time I checked India has a fucking space programme.

That example aside, yes you could save a lot of lives with a hundred bucks of food - assuming that 100 made it to charity, assuming it wasn't filtered off or corrupted. And all you do is create a social group who lives on hand outs. It makes no sense. Perhaps it isn't a fashionable thing to say but as far as I am concerned, those who have child after child in an environment that cannot hope to support them and condemns them to a painful death need to fucking change, now, and not stick hands out.

 

[PhiMed]

Meh...

The fact that anyone helps people they will never meet is a testament to the goodness of people. There are no other animals on earth who show concern for a completely unrelated organism. Your charges of murder by failure to be a good samaritan to a person thousands of miles away are dismissed with extreme prejudice.

 

[II2]

Most charities are BUNKO; just legitimate enough to survive audits. Any (most) charity with "volunteers" on a payroll is a blatant conflict of interests.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Trust is such a fleeting thing.

In a profit-driven world, I find it hard to believe most charities actually behave like charities, and more like hedge-fund groups.

 

[The Eggplant]

There are countless charities in the world. Some of them are more honest, more genuinely altruistic than others, to be sure. But I would wager that many of them were nevertheless founded with the goal of somehow improving the lives of others. And that's noble.

The same applies to the people who give to charities. Some are cannier, kinder, more genuinely altruistic than others, but many--if not all--of them gave their time, money, possessions, what-have-you with at least the partial goal of improving the lives of others. And that's noble.

Humanity isn't terrible. It's flawed, and complicated. But despite that, it tries to improve itself in little ways on a constant basis, and that's goddamn noble.