We're all Terrible People

[Capt. Crankypants]

I've always thought about just why charities don't unite for even a small while. For example, for one year, why doesn't EVERYONE give money to one cause, say, Breast cancer research. With the combined proceeds from every charity going to one cause, for R&D, we could probably have the problem fixed in a year or just over. When it is, we won't NEED a breast cancer charity anymore, and we can move on to solving a DIFFERENT problem. But no. Charities squabble over which is more important and thats just how people are. screw em.

 

[lacktheknack]

I give all the money I have spare to World Vision, which helps starving children in Africa.

I don't like your way of thinking, if one simplifies it enough, you can validly say that everyone should own exactly the same amount as everyone else if we want to stop being "terrible".

 

[CINN4M0N]

Damn double post. Sorry, I reloaded the page like 5 times and my comment hadn't appeared so I re-wrote it and added a little more; only to have my original comment suddenly appear.

 

[RatRace123]

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

So much this, as I often say: "I would sacrifice a thousand human babies, just to make sure one dog lived a happy life"

Ahh, but a man can dream.

 

[The Heik]

To me, the sheer number of charities is a paradox. Surely, if you had money that you felt like giving to a worthy cause, you would give it to the most worthy cause? Now there will be some disagreement over what is exactly the most worthy cause, but many, many, (I'd say the vast majority) of charities are easily seen as not being as beneficial as others.

For example. Note: Please try and take the following argument rationally. Seeing eye dogs: Ok good use of money I guess. Helps improve the quality of life of blind people and most certainly money better spent that buying a foot massage machine. But seriously? Compare the value of your charity.

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?

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.

This can even be extended further.Imagine you could save 10$ by walking to a supermarket 1km away or just buy a few items at a corner store near you. I'm sure many people would do this, but isn't that sort of the same as denying a starving child food, when you could have donated that 10$ to charity?

It's obvious that we, as a race, have somehow evolved to only display altruistism or sympathy when we are directly confronted with the problem. That's how we so quickly feeling sorry for pandas and then people.

The best amoung us is, by their ignoring of other people's plight, committing crimes that would land you many years in jail is those people happened to be near you. For all you spiteing those who leave their children to starve while they go out drinking and get criminal sentences for it, are you really so different?

Please no captain obvious for saying this, but you can now see why We are all Terrible People. (especially you, you know who you are)

*note I did make a somewhat similar topic about a year ago, but I wanted some more opinions.

actually I would pay for the kids rather than the dog, mostly because I'm a pragmatist. If my money will do more good overall, then that's where my money is going. That's why I gave 200 bucks to Rick Mercer's Spread the net. 10 bucks = 1 net to protect people from malaria in Africa, and a dozen people or more will use that net in it's lifetime. that over 200 people, so for just for 200 bucks, I've saved the equivalent of my hometown or more. Oh off-topic, but I suggest that if you can donate to Spread the Net, do it.

BTW who still donates money for pandas? They've been dying out for 50 years now! Either there are more of them than we thought, or the WWF aren't using all that money too well. Anyway, the Panda doesn't exactly epitomize "survivability". They eat only one increasingly sparse and nutritionally meager food, and continually have to eat it else they starve.

 

[KillerH]

I do a lot of community work, and work with many different charities. I understand giving to animals only to the extent that we were the ones to imprison/domesticate them and they can't really help themselves, unlike humans.

What I don't understand giving money to Africa and other countries. I'm not being racist with this, but we have enough problems here at home (no matter what country you're from) yet we spend all of our time helping them when we can't even fix our own problems. It's like a match-maker that's been single all of their life.

Since people suck, we should fix that first at home before we try to profess our great way of life to others.

 

[GooBeyond]

have you ever thought how many millions of dollars are spent on entertainment every year while others starve to death ?

you .... yeah you, spending $60 on a game which non-essential for your survival while a beggar starves to death, have you ever thought about that ??

Spoiler

that's why i pirate games

 

[Vilcus]

I don't like most charities because it seems like they're trying to guilt me into giving them money.

I'm not saying all of them do this, but it's obvious that some simply stare at you for long periods of time hoping to make you uncomfortable enough to throw money at them.

Also when they're not trying to guilt me they're trying to melt my heart with pictures of sad looking animals.

However the biggest reason as to why I don't donate is that I don't have enough money to give away, and if I gave to charity I wouldn't be able to do the things I like to do.

I feel bad for the people suffering and all, but does that mean I need to give up the things I enjoy for them?

 

[benrout]

I'm not big on any charities I see about saving any animals lives. I mean seriously, this abundance of charities for all the animals is a little ridiculous in this economy with this many people struggling to support their families.
That and those foreign country charities. Can we fix, or at least work on, the problems inside our borders before we even look outside for some domestic disputes we can rub our noses in all around the globe?

 

[Canadamus Prime]

There is a saying that comes to mind here, "give a man a fish, feed him for a day. teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime." If you give money to feed people over seas, then you only delay the problem, just sweeping it under the proverbial rug to deal with later. But something like a seeing eye dog (while a less serious issue) stays with them for their life (or at least the dogs life).

That's what I often wonder too. Are we really helping all those starving people by giving them handouts? Assuming any of the donated money even gets to them rather than paying for those annoying TV commercials. Many of the nations that now consider themselves to be "developed" had to go through what most "3rd world" countries are now, abject poverty etc. and got through it without any outside interference. I think it'd be better if we allowed these countries to do the same. It's kinda like the Prime Directive in Star Trek. As we go meddling in a under-developed culture, we could actually be doing more harm then good.
In any case, giving out handouts usually makes people complacent and dependant on your handouts.

 

[Koganesaga]

To me, the sheer number of charities is a paradox. Surely, if you had money that you felt like giving to a worthy cause, you would give it to the most worthy cause? Now there will be some disagreement over what is exactly the most worthy cause, but many, many, (I'd say the vast majority) of charities are easily seen as not being as beneficial as others.

For example. Note: Please try and take the following argument rationally. Seeing eye dogs: Ok good use of money I guess. Helps improve the quality of life of blind people and most certainly money better spent that buying a foot massage machine. But seriously? Compare the value of your charity.

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?

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.

This can even be extended further.Imagine you could save 10$ by walking to a supermarket 1km away or just buy a few items at a corner store near you. I'm sure many people would do this, but isn't that sort of the same as denying a starving child food, when you could have donated that 10$ to charity?

It's obvious that we, as a race, have somehow evolved to only display altruistism or sympathy when we are directly confronted with the problem. That's how we so quickly feeling sorry for pandas and then people.

The best amoung us is, by their ignoring of other people's plight, committing crimes that would land you many years in jail is those people happened to be near you. For all you spiteing those who leave their children to starve while they go out drinking and get criminal sentences for it, are you really so different?

Please no captain obvious for saying this, but you can now see why We are all Terrible People. (especially you, you know who you are)

*note I did make a somewhat similar topic about a year ago, but I wanted some more opinions.

The dog is clearly the better choice, and I'll explain why. For starters, dogs are fucking awesome, and they could help the blind person contribute to society by guiding that person to their job. Also the 100 dollars is spent on training the dog, which is then given to the blind person who will use it to maintain the dog itself, so the dog is a one time cause. Lastly, your not just slightly increasing their quality of life, you're greatly increasing it. The dog itself become a source of joy, as dogs are fun to play with even if you can't see. This also greatly increases the blind persons chance of survival, as a cane won't well you when you're wandering into traffic.

The children on the other hand will require constant 100 dollars, as their food will run out and their quality of life may be even lower than before as they'll be even more sad that nobody is willing to keep trying on them. Also this is a long term investment as it will be some time before the children are old enough to contribute back to the world, if at all, because if they're starving in the first place the surrounding area can't be doing too well, and that means they won't have anything to give, or to give back to, and will resort to crime to survive. Basically if they're already in such terrible conditions, the odds of feeding them to help them live is either prolonging their suffering or making somebody else suffer.

Also while the suffering of children is never a good thing, did anyone stop to consider we're the LEADING species on the planet in terms of everything except sheer number? Number isn't too much of a problem as out population swells at a rapid pace. To top it all off, because of the ignorance and greed of humanity, we're slowly destroying the planet on which we and all these other creatures live, so don't feed me that shit about saving every human life when I could save twice that in animals that aren't brutally destroying everything in the name of themselves. For the record, this isn't hippy bullshit, it's logic, so go animals, fuck humans.

 

[Kermi]

I understand where the OP is coming from, it's kind of how I feel too.

But on the other hand if people give ONLY to the most desperate people through charity, who's going to pay for the seeing eye dogs? The autistic children? Schooling? homelessness in non third-world countries? The RSPCA? Just because these are lesser needs does not make them unneeded.

You can't put a dollar value on charity. You give what you can, and do it from the heart. If you approach charitable acts in terms of $x = y people saved, you're giving for the wrong reasons. you're trying to buy some sort of karmic offset, like a big polluter buying carbon credits instead of reducing emissions.

Fuck "Carbon credits for the Soul: is probably the title of a pretentious self-help book somewhere.

In fact it's probably because people (generally) are capable of such evil that I'd totally put my money to charity for animals before one for humans. I'd certainly make sure my cat were fed before myself if my budget were ever so stretched that I had to make the choice.

 

[Icehearted]

Markness, you sound as if you have a problem with what has made modernized capitalism such a richly divisive concept; every man for himself. I won't go into my own thoughts because I'm fairly certain that I am a man of what others would probably call a peculiar perspective. I'm not so lost that I don't see what we are as a society, or as individuals, but my circumstances actually place me very squarely on the opposite side of this equation.

I will however say that with an exponentially growing population of 'every man for himself' thinkers I've already long decided we are a doomed species, and I, for one, am indifferent to all of it, which is better than rooting for our self-destruction, but that's a realm I dip my toe into from time to time as well.

 

[LloydEsaka]

I don't care about humans. You can give them the world and they'll still want more, and if you don't give it to them they'll stab you in the back if someone who comes along can give more. Give a dog a slice of turkey and you've got a lifelong companion (or at the very least a mooch, as per the case of my sister's dog).

 

[Roganwilson]

The only charity I donate to is the Humane Society. I also volunteer there, so I help in more than one way.

I do feel that the animals are a more worthy cause to donate to. The only reason they are in need of help is because people are ridiculously cruel to them. Without morons to treat them poorly, animals would be just fine. At my Humane Society branch, every animal that comes in is neutered or spayed as soon as they possibly can be, so I know that I'm not paying just to have a bigger problem on my hands.

 

[WayOutThere]

I'm constantly perplexed by animal charities.

You're argument is unfortunately sound. There are perhaps rule-based ethical theories that can circumnavigate you're reasoning but as a consequentialist they don't help me.

Congratulations sir, you have just tried to make people feel bad about one more hting that they do. Perhaps you think it is cool to be all cold and aloof, seeing so much more than the rest of us mere mortals. Mayhaps you think that you are so much smarter, so much more intelligent than the rest of hte human race, so as to see our flaws. I used to htink like that, but i opened up my eyes, and now i pity you.

You have no right to judge the human race. You have no right to sit in judgement on other people, and most of all,you haven to right to tell other what thier priorities should be. Gahndi once said "Become the change you want to see in the world" so try that instead of complaining on an internet forum.

Have you just had a bad day or is that really the best you can do? You didn't even advance a coherent argument, unlike the OP.

Edit: I suppose I have to admit your argument "'Become the change you want to see in the world' so try that instead of complaining on an internet forum" reaches the level of coherency for all the difference that makes.

Arguing with you, however, is likely pointless, so, i will simply say that you are wrong.

You must really have had a bad day. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here.


It would do you well to read this
http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/singermag.html

and this

How is any of the stuff discussed on these forums anyone's business at all? The point of this thread is the same for any other: to generate discussion.

This thread is supposed to be thought provoking. It brings a topic to attention, and gives everyone a chance to put their two cents in. Maybe some people will have realizations in the process and walk away feeling enlightened, who knows?

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

This argument does not deny that we should be happy that people are as charitable as they are it says that while that?s good, it isn't enough.

Why? Because if it's normal, then it's neutral.

you subscribe to survival of the fittest then?

I don't like your way of thinking, if one simplifies it enough, you can validly say that everyone should own exactly the same amount as everyone else if we want to stop being "terrible".

The smaller the inequalities become the less terrible we are. To be morally in the clear we must be able to benefit no one else with our money more than we can benefit ourselves. This argument rests on a consequentialist perspective that we should reduce suffering in the world. If giving our money can reduce someone else?s suffering more than it can our own than we have a moral obligation to put it to that use.

My problem lies solely with the OP's assumption that our choice to help someone OTHER than humans is terrible.

I don't think I need to say this but he's not saying that animals have no moral worth but only that humans take moral priority. This assumption is a reasonable one. It would have been better for the OP to explicitly state that but I really don't see much to object to in it.

In fact, the earth is currently overpopulated with humans, so maybe the terrible ones are the people who help others, considering they are prolonging human life and therefore reducing the earth's resources. (This isn't really a serious argument, but it's the same kind of generalization that the OP is using.)

Fine (I think), but why is his generalization no better than your own?