02-11-2003 02:33									#61
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Let me say it again: I have never said you SHOULDN'T do the RIGHT thing; in fact, you SHOULD. However, the crux of my argument is that that is not the same as you MUST.

	02-11-2003 02:35									#62
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quote: Originally posted by Gatekeeper People don't have to help *all* the time to be of assistance to others. If they help just some of the time, that's better than never. Ideally, all the time would be nice, but then we begin running into the very nature of what it is to be human. And that debate is one that's been going for thousands of years ... Gatekeeper

Yes, it is a NICE thing to do. It should NOT be a legal requirement.

	02-11-2003 02:41									#63
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I think if you see injured person, you should help the person the best you can, if you don't have SERIOUS reasons why you wouldn't do it. In fact, we do have a law to that. For example if I see someone lying on the ground, injured, and I just walk by, I'll be sued automatically. And that's the way it should be.

It's different if you can't help this person. But you can't just keep walking if no one is helping this person. If someone is shot, it's ok not to help this person immidiately because you might get shot too. So if you are in danger yourself by helping, then there shouldn't be a law that forces you to do that. But if there are no reasons for not helping, then it doesn't only make you human garbage if you don't help, it makes you getting sued in here, and that's they way I like it.

	02-11-2003 02:48									#64
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quote: I think if you see injured person, you should help the person the best you can, if you don't have SERIOUS reasons why you wouldn't do it.

Right. You SHOULD do it, I agree completely. I am completely opposed to saying that you MUST do it.

	02-11-2003 02:49									#65
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And this is the problem too with for example Africa. If I see injured man before my eyes, I just can't walk by. I need to help this person, or get help to him right there, no matter if the hot date with stripper is taking place.
Sure you see misery thought television, but you can easily just forget about it. You go 'oh man that sucks.. what are we doing to help these people' and then forget about it soon after that. You don't HAVE to confront it.

Perhaps we should arrange free tours to Africa or something..

OR maybe we should think about new strategy to get people helping them seriously. Forgetting the guilt trip, which is obviously the current strategy. We should make helping Africans interesting option. Somehow, that people who really help, then benefit more than getting good feeling about it. Something.. bonus.. something. That people would fight to get there to help them.. I bet there are some ways to do this.

	02-11-2003 02:51									#66
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It's called tax deductible

	02-11-2003 02:55									#67
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As Lincoln's post suggests, foreign aid intended to help the starving typically lines the pockets of corrupt government officials who then have no incentive to improve the lives of poor as that would render unnecessary the foreign aid that makes them rich. Bypassing these governments and getting aid directly to the starving people also props up the corrupt governments and renders unnecessary reform. Thus there is a growing consensus that the only solution to global poverty is to improve governments.

Think about Saddam's Iraq for example. Saddam was was able to ignore his people because international food aid was able to feed two thirds of Iraq's population.

(Isn't it also interesting that the vast majority of the world's poor are located in countries hostile to the United States?)

	02-11-2003 02:56									#68
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sure, that is one. But even more.. to really make it worth the while.. and to make people actually go there and help there at the location. Skilled people that is. Also think about how we could set up profitable businesses there.. but that they'd be in control of it, we'd help to set it up and loan the money for it, and give specialists to help them and give those specialists good salaries, so it would be interesting option to skilled specialists... something like this.

	02-11-2003 02:57									#69
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Everything should be monitored, and corrupoted ****s shot. Show warmongering folks few videos how nukes work and say 'start war, we nuke your asses sooner than you can run 400 meters'. With stick, and with carrot.

	02-11-2003 03:00									#70
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Actually, we should make it worth their while for their PEOPLE to make their OWN lives better. Reform their governments and you're nine-tenths of the way there.

There's a chinese proverb: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

	02-11-2003 03:05									#71
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skywalker, yeah. With skilled people that should get there I mean this. Teaching stuff. And with controlling I mean beating their silly dictators. And others who make this task more difficult. With stick and carrot! We need to get hardcore here..

YOu know, I bet.. let's look at this situation again after 30 years.. I bet my left testicle, that it's exactly the same IF NOT worse. Actually I bet on the even worse one.
So we should get hardcore right now.

	02-11-2003 03:09									#72
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quote: I bet my left testicle

and

quote: So we should get hardcore right now

are not thoughts that should EVER be combined

	02-11-2003 03:12									#73
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you have very selective reading..

	02-11-2003 03:15									#74
	Inflate your Upload Space

I have my own corollary to Murphy's law (which works very well on the bus ride home ): if you catch any snippet of a conversation, it will be the most disturbing one. Apparently, it works when glancing at a page as well

	02-11-2003 03:18									#75
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skywalker, but do you agree with me that:

1. after few decades, situation will be the same if not worse.
2. the amount of money we give to Africa is at least two times bigger at this point, and we help less and less people in reality.
3. The collective misery only continues to grow. Continuos and new wars will give it's own tribute to this as well as sickness, viruses and stuff. Dying rate is still horrible and worse than now.
4. Birth is uncontrolled and even worse than now. Meaning bigger.

You agree?

If you do, then what are we going to do about it? It is clear to me, that we need to think about hardcoreness.
It means killing some people with brute force, it means helping some people even if they don't want it. It means invading something. It might even mean blowing some places up. It means putting our effort to at least 3 times bigger than now. It will be more expensive later. The suffering will be lesser if we start being super duper tough.

Because we can't continue like this, if we REALLY honestly and sincerely want to help. Another question is, do we really want to? I don't know. I'd support hardcoreness.

	02-11-2003 03:23									#76
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Neo-colonialism?

	02-11-2003 03:27									#77
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Ned, I don't know. Maybe. But not like the last time. We should keep the priority in the locals and their well being.

	02-11-2003 03:43									#78
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Pekka, yes. Iraq may be a prototype where the world as a whole works to make a better place, a better country.

	02-11-2003 03:45									#79
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Ned, maybe.. maybe. I don't know if we could directly copy that for our doctrine, but something like that. I agree.

	02-11-2003 04:30									#80
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mcleod... Why are you writing this? Why you even have a computer? You should have sold it and donated to third world. You are guilty.

Every single person in this world has the right to seek their joy and happiness, as long as they don't hurt any other in the process. For that single reason, I have all the right not to sell my beloved car.

But even more important, your philosiphy is wrong. Once the "rich" people has "shared" all their wealth they lose all the chance to generate more wealth, research, development, prosperity... They become just like the people they were trying to "help".

What is truth is that it would be convenient for the people who has achieved a reasonable level of hapiness to WILLINGLY devote a part of their time and effort helping others to achieve hapiness. But sacrifying your own joy. That's not acceptable. Unless you achieve hapiness by selling everything you have and giving it to third world countries, of course.

	02-11-2003 04:32									#81
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Why don't I just kill everyone then no one would feel guilty, there solution solved. No murders no starving, no dying, because there are no people! No People = No Problem.

	02-11-2003 06:50									#82
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I have considered this before, but I do not feel guilty.

1) YOu can go ahead and go to India and try to help, then you will see how helpless you are. I have a hard time keeping myself fed honestly, I don't know how I could possibly help someone else. I only pull in about 8-900 a month, and cost of living is high.
If I went to India, I would just end up starving like all the rest.

I consider myself a peasant. A worthless commoner. It is not the position I dreamed of in school, but it does have it's perks.

	02-11-2003 07:04									#83
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quote: Originally posted by OliverFA Every single person in this world has the right to seek their joy and happiness, as long as they don't hurt any other in the process. For that single reason, I have all the right not to sell my beloved car.

Such rights do not exist.

	02-11-2003 07:06									#84
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The question is will donating these good or services actually get to the people who need them?

Examples:
American charities send tons of food to the starving Ethiopians, which is immeditely torched and destroyed by the Ethiopian governtment which had worked really hard to starve the people into submission.

American food companies work for years to get the right to sell food in India. The India Legislative Body bans them from bringing in the food because they would rather starve than have food thats not 100% nutritional perfect.

The US Government gives several herds of livestock to N Korea for them to breed and raise the livestock for food. The North Korean government butcher every single animal and ships the meat to its front line troops and the whole country is starving two days later.

Eventually you get to tired of wasting effort on morons who adamantly refuse to take assistance. Darwin wasn't too far off for some of these people, they're starving for a reason, natures taking them out.

	02-11-2003 07:52									#85
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All of your above examples are of giving money (or resources) to third world governments.

Why not give money to private charities that support the third world?

Things like micro-credit schemes in Bangladesh, or research into a cheap malaria vaccine or even supporting a free-trade organization that lobbies for the elimination of the rich world's trade barriers on things like agriculture and textiles.

Most foreign aid would go much furthur if these sorts of things were targeted - but they are usually not.
This is because the prime reason for aid (especially American aid but all countries are guilty of this) is to influence the government of the recepient country. and usually a secondary reason is to subsidize the production of domestic industries (much aid is 'tied' to buying certain goods from the donor country).



On the original point.

I belive that equality should be striven towards, but that it should be equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes.
This would mean investing in the things I mentioned like free trade, health and enabling more of the people of the third world to access their capital (most can't as the legal systems work against them).

Last edited by el freako on 02-11-2003 at 07:58

	02-11-2003 08:10									#86
	Re: Should every person on Apolyton feel extremely guilty? Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

quote: Originally posted by johncmcleod They could sell everything they have, work a lot, and donate everything they earn to people in third world countries that are dying of malnutrition or lack of medicine. If they did this, they'd be saving lives. However, no one does this.

Well, I didn't do that, either. But I am an Oxfam Partner (that means I make a regular donation every month), and I do volunteer work in a couple of non-profit organisations.

Does that count?

	02-11-2003 08:19									#87
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quote: Originally posted by el freako All of your above examples are of giving money (or resources) to third world governments.

No their not. The first one was an example of charities giving food to people. The government came and seized the goods and then destroyed them.

And in all three you would have to illegally smuggle in the food to help the people.

	02-11-2003 08:27									#88
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Ok, granted on the first example.

On the second, India has not had a major famine for 30 years (despite a massive failure of the harvest 15 years ago).
Would the same American Food companies be as willing to open the US market to foreign food? I doubt it.
I think that your second example is not an example of aid at all but an example of protectionism.

The third example is of tied aid, the US specified what the aid should be used for - however if you give a starving country something that will be usefull for the future (and remember that meat provides less calories than the fodder used to make it) why are you surprised if short term actions triumph over medium/long term ones.

You seem to be coming across as someone who does not favor any aid to the third world, please tell me it ain't so

	02-11-2003 10:24									#89
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I am President of two companies with a total of 8 employees (including myself) and a fair number of contractors. My 8 employees have a total of 28 family members depending upon them for some portion of their incomes (in a couple of cases, the only portion). It is my responsibility to make sure that payroll is met, that new clients are developed, that invoices are paid, etc. It is my goal to increase our business so that in time I will be responsible for dozens or hundreds of employees and their families.

So do I feel guilty? Hell no: I'm already doing my share.

	02-11-2003 10:44									#90
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The moral course of action is to act in one's own self interest, without violating the rights of another.

So, the quick answer is "Absolutely not", followed by the very reasonable question of "why should I help others at the expense of my own interests?".