Buying Things = Murder?

I'm seeing a connection of this and 'Aegis and the Beggar' in that they're both about helping someone in need. It's just that when you actually SEE a homeless person with your own eyes and in person, a certain connection is made when you see the desperation or whatever that can't come through, say, a TV. Most people find it easier, or perhaps more reassuring, when they see what they've donated going straight to the hands of who needs it. Giving a homeless person money means pulling something out of your pocket, which lasts all of ten seconds, if that. Donating to foreign countries means calling a phone number, donating an amount of dollars that you actually have to think about, and all that good stuff. It's much more complicated, and donators don't know the people that they've just donated to. Humans act differently when the circumstances differ, and that's just the way the world works.

I think another factor of this is intimidation. All the time, you hear about Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or Richard Branson or whoever donating X billion to charities. Humans like to mimic each other. But when a donator can't match up to a super CEO's amount, they don't donate what they can, they drop out altogether. Some people, whether they like it or not, have subconciously twisted a giving game into a sadistic competition they just can't win.

The scuba diver is NOT a criminal, murderer, or a bad person at all just because he chooses not to give what he has, and neither is anybody else in the world who chooses not to donate to third-world countries. He has what he has and the kids have what they have. If he chooses to give what he has to the kids, that's great. But if he doesn't, then there's no reason to call him a murderer. And if there really was a 60% chance the oxygen wouldn't make it, that's another reason for him to withdraw. If the deaths of the "kids" were inevitable, then what REAL reason was there to donate anyway?

~Ryuzaki573, Unofficial 13-year-old Philosopher

Actually, I'd say the biggest problem with the homeless is mental illness. A few decades ago, many mental institutions were closed down in order to save money and they purged a lot of the less-extreme patients out onto the streets, which is why you see so many crazy homeless people. When you live as close to downtown LA as I do, you see tons of them.

Do remember that people like you who have the mindset to not care at all and not give are cruel. (That is to say, if you have the chance.) As Aaron stated once, don't give what you can't afford to give away. True, but can't a little bit go a long way? Yes, it isn't ending the problem immediately, but it certainly is helping out, right? Truth be told, if everyone had the mindset to help out a little, then the fire would be no match to our number of pales with water.

So your mindset is cruel and unjust.

Remember, age is of no matter. Yes, you cannot make much difference, but every little difference counts.

Even food aid gets stolen. When "20/20" went to Kenya a few weeks ago, Kenyan farmers said bags of food aid from their government never arrived.

"You find most of it is getting lost on the way," farmer Joseph Nthome said. Lost, but then found ... for sale in street markets.

We could send trillions of dollars and only a fraction of it would translate to any help for any hungry people and the solution would be painfully temporary.

If you really want to get serious about this problem, you need to talk about toppling governments. Throwing money at the problem does nothing for it except make us feel better about ourselves and project moral superiority over others.

After reading this, all I get from the "philosophical topic" was that the scuba diver can't help the suffocating children if their submarine was already ill-equipped in the first place. The blame lays in the submarine manufacturer and the children's inability to take up for themselves before they submerged.

Just another quixotic topic made to guilt trip people.

If what you're saying is true, then there should be almost no observable cases of people in poor countries successfully having their suffering alleviated from the works of charity worker/missionaries/relief workers/etc. Are you saying this is the case? If so I think thats a pretty radical claim that many would disagree with.

So the fact that the sub may or may not have been ill equipped would remove all responsibility from the diver in this situation and he would be excused for letting them drown? Thats a rather interesting sense of justice to say the least...

I never said that 100% of the money goes to waste, but it is undeniable that a significant amount of it does and, as I've said numerous times, you are not alleviating their suffering if you're only offering a temporary solution to a problem that will continue under the current circumstances.

It would be nice if the problem could be solved by just throwing money at it, but unfortunately, it's not.

I hate the Ayn Rand philosophy that pure selfishness is a virtue and altruism is impossible, which conservative economics is largely based on. It often makes me want to say "maybe it's not human nature like you claim, maybe you're just an asshole". It's a self fulfilling prophesy because people who otherwise would've been willing to show compassion without reward are no longer are able to.

I would disagree that temporary investments are pointless. Just about everything we do has a short term benefit rather than a long one. You may as well say "Why on EARTH would you get a car wash when you know the car is just going to get dirty again in a month? It's MADNESS!".

At least the car gets clean for some time, right?