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> how many of your friends "don't give fuck all about the poor"? Almost all of my friends. And I'm from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, generally considered a pret

> how many of your friends "don't give fuck all about the poor"? Almost all of my friends. And I'm from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, generally considered a pretty open-minded, progressive, tolerant and caring place. My friends are educated, middle-class. They're caring and generous to friends and family and have disposable income. But they're extremely hesitant to something even like Kiva - a charity which allows you to lend money to business projects, and actually get your money back. I've lent thousands and got all of it back and relent it over and over again. Worst case is you miss out on $0.10 a month in interest while putting $100 to work charitably, infinitely, in a way that can't in any way be described a handout, as going to corrupt governors, as creating a relationship of dependence or be used to buy drugs. But they really don't give a fuck. Trust me. May not be the case for everyone, buy my very generous friends are only generous to the people they know and love. Outside of that, they don't give a shit. > That's blatantly untrue. I disagree. The numbers are clear. About 5 thousand people die each day from preventable causes, such as a lack of clean drinking water. That's 9/11 every single day, completely preventable, mostly children. On that statistic, here's a quote > It is estimated that it would cost about US$ 23 billion per year to achieve the international development target of halving the percentage of people unserved with improved water sources globally (currently at 18%) and improved sanitation services (currently at 40%) by the year 2015. But governments presently spend US$ 16 billion a year in building new infrastructure. The additional US$ 7 billion a year needed to supply good water and sanitation to some who lack it is less than one tenth of what Europe spends on alcoholic drinks each year, about the same as Europe spends on ice cream and half of what the United States spends each year on pet food. Compared to what governments expend on military weapons, the cost of providing people with the means to improve their health is small. Yes, one country spends twice as much on our pets than is necessary to spend to worldwide solve one of the biggest tragedies the world knows, that kids die each day from entirely preventable trivial issues like diarrhea. That's why the whole ice bucket challenge rubbed some people the wrong way, because it was one big tragic joke that was hard to criticize because at the end of the day, it did raise money that wouldn't otherwise be raised. These quick notes are but the tip of the iceberg. There's a lot of data and we can do a lot more with very little, but people don't care, and don't seem to care enough to know or consider to change their mind, either.

czbond 12y ago
I agree from a distance people don't care. What I've learned is we have to actually live it, for some time, for it to register. Short term experiences people count as inconvenient. Long term experiences people realize it's a problem.
TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
There is - sadly - a hierarchy of insight which privileges self, then family (sometimes), then friends, then associates and coworkers (more or less), then local community, then country, then other countries, then species, then planet and ecosystem. The basic problem is that economics rewards smart choices for the earlier items on the list and punishes smart choices for the later ones. So it's 'not efficient' to think about them. One hypothetical solution is to make distant pain points personal. If you're directly, immediately impacted by someone else's misfortunes you're going to want to do something about them. It's possible technology could help with this. But it may have to do it in some unexpected and new ways.
- IkmoIkmo 12y ago
  > a hierarchy of insight Absolutely, there's a joke on journalism that newsworthiness = death / distance. Evolutionarily that makes a lot of sense, for immediate selfish reasons it makes sense to pay attention to that which directly impacts you. The tragedy here is that we're not really very moral creatures. Somehow when we see a child drowning in a nearby pond, we jump in, despite ruining our smartphone, expensive watch and new jordans in the process worth $1000 together, to save the kid. And if we ask someone 'would you do it again, knowing it'd cost you $1000 of your stuff', they'd smile 'of course'. We celebrate this, and we call them heroes, and when we tell them they're a hero they smile 'anyone would have done it'. And if it was a boat, and 100 children were in the water, we'd still go in and save as many as possible, even if you're alone and can only save 3 kids. But when we are presented with data that $60 can save a child from a painful death through the purchase of Malaria nets, we say no. We come up with many reasons. One is cost, people can't afford the $60. (Note in the previous example someone was willing to pay $1k to save nearby child). We might say there's too much suffering, we can't solve the problem. (Note in the previous example, someone would be killing to save even a few, as every life counts). Technology could play a role. The big internet utopia is that we're all connected, and the world becomes a smaller place, a world in which everyone is a neighbour we care for. To a small extent that can be achieved. It seems we give more to our overseas allies, friends and those with historical ties. France is more prone to give to an Algerian earthquake than one in Tunisia, due to colonial, cultural, political, historical ties, for example. So cultural exchange through technology can help bring us closer, but only on a macro-level. More specifically, we're seeing blogging slowly take off. You know how CNN etc now have twitter feeds, and a portion of the news is reported by citizens? That'll take off everywhere, as publishing (blogging, vlogging, tweeting etc) becomes easier and cheaper. That may shorten the distance between the needy and those with disposable resources, a role normally suited for NGOs that try to bridge the gap. Storytelling, reporting, data collection etc will become cheaper and easier, and that affects people's willingness to give. > If you're directly, immediately impacted by someone else's misfortunes you're going to want to do something about them. Indeed, although I don't really have any clue how technology could achieve it, or if we'd even want to. For now there's the correlary, which is that as countries become richer, natural family planning occurs and the birthrate goes down. The tendency for illicit outlets (like crime and indeed terrorism, e.g. check out the movie Horses of God) decrease. The level of education increases. Look at China, suddenly we get 300m extra middle-classish people whose children go to school. The point here is that rising tides lift all boats. And all ideas (and thereby all knowledge), Chinese ideas or otherwise, are like a candle, you can light someone else's candle without diminishing your own. So while I may not be hurt if a country is poor, I look forward to a country's development, as it benefits me, too. I hope that becomes a slightly bigger element in our rhetoric on things like national security, because we could partially displace military action with more international development.

czbond 12y ago

I agree from a distance people don't care. What I've learned is we have to actually live it, for some time, for it to register. Short term experiences people count as inconvenient. Long term experiences people realize it's a problem.

TheOtherHobbes 12y ago

There is - sadly - a hierarchy of insight which privileges self, then family (sometimes), then friends, then associates and coworkers (more or less), then local community, then country, then other countries, then species, then planet and ecosystem. The basic problem is that economics rewards smart choices for the earlier items on the list and punishes smart choices for the later ones. So it's 'not efficient' to think about them. One hypothetical solution is to make distant pain points personal. If you're directly, immediately impacted by someone else's misfortunes you're going to want to do something about them. It's possible technology could help with this. But it may have to do it in some unexpected and new ways.

IkmoIkmo 12y ago
> a hierarchy of insight Absolutely, there's a joke on journalism that newsworthiness = death / distance. Evolutionarily that makes a lot of sense, for immediate selfish reasons it makes sense to pay attention to that which directly impacts you. The tragedy here is that we're not really very moral creatures. Somehow when we see a child drowning in a nearby pond, we jump in, despite ruining our smartphone, expensive watch and new jordans in the process worth $1000 together, to save the kid. And if we ask someone 'would you do it again, knowing it'd cost you $1000 of your stuff', they'd smile 'of course'. We celebrate this, and we call them heroes, and when we tell them they're a hero they smile 'anyone would have done it'. And if it was a boat, and 100 children were in the water, we'd still go in and save as many as possible, even if you're alone and can only save 3 kids. But when we are presented with data that $60 can save a child from a painful death through the purchase of Malaria nets, we say no. We come up with many reasons. One is cost, people can't afford the $60. (Note in the previous example someone was willing to pay $1k to save nearby child). We might say there's too much suffering, we can't solve the problem. (Note in the previous example, someone would be killing to save even a few, as every life counts). Technology could play a role. The big internet utopia is that we're all connected, and the world becomes a smaller place, a world in which everyone is a neighbour we care for. To a small extent that can be achieved. It seems we give more to our overseas allies, friends and those with historical ties. France is more prone to give to an Algerian earthquake than one in Tunisia, due to colonial, cultural, political, historical ties, for example. So cultural exchange through technology can help bring us closer, but only on a macro-level. More specifically, we're seeing blogging slowly take off. You know how CNN etc now have twitter feeds, and a portion of the news is reported by citizens? That'll take off everywhere, as publishing (blogging, vlogging, tweeting etc) becomes easier and cheaper. That may shorten the distance between the needy and those with disposable resources, a role normally suited for NGOs that try to bridge the gap. Storytelling, reporting, data collection etc will become cheaper and easier, and that affects people's willingness to give. > If you're directly, immediately impacted by someone else's misfortunes you're going to want to do something about them. Indeed, although I don't really have any clue how technology could achieve it, or if we'd even want to. For now there's the correlary, which is that as countries become richer, natural family planning occurs and the birthrate goes down. The tendency for illicit outlets (like crime and indeed terrorism, e.g. check out the movie Horses of God) decrease. The level of education increases. Look at China, suddenly we get 300m extra middle-classish people whose children go to school. The point here is that rising tides lift all boats. And all ideas (and thereby all knowledge), Chinese ideas or otherwise, are like a candle, you can light someone else's candle without diminishing your own. So while I may not be hurt if a country is poor, I look forward to a country's development, as it benefits me, too. I hope that becomes a slightly bigger element in our rhetoric on things like national security, because we could partially displace military action with more international development.