Charity, yay or nay?

#21

Shucks, there will always be people that need help. We as a human society tend to be a tad greedy on the inside though dont you think? You know, that little voice that says “why should I give her a dollar, she is just gonna go buy booze with it” or “why should I help that kid on the tv comercial out? I will never see him and who knows where that money goes” or “why should I send money for a country that is so dirt poor anyway. shouldnt they figure out their own problems?”

We all have those thoughts. Every last one of us. The struggle I think is from trying to do the right thing like mommy taught us, while maintaining our own ability to live. Sort of like we dont mind sacrificing as long as it isnt too costly to ourselves. eh?

#22

We’re biologically programmed to care for close relatives, NOT for anyone else!

If I feel the need to help someone I know and care for, I’ll help them. If I feel the need to help someone who I don’t know but who I respect, I’ll help them. But for some stupid charity organization to come up to me in the streets and ask for money, piss off!

#23

Lord Grieveous you are 100% dead wrong about that from a scientific standpoint:

Neuroscientists at the National Institutes of Health are using brain imaging and psychological experiments to study whether the brain has a built-in moral compass. The results suggested Altruism was not a superior moral faculty that suppresses basic selfish urges but rather was basic to the brain, hard-wired and pleasurable.

#24

Yes, altruism is true. And if you’d learned basic evolution you’d know that this only extends to close relatives, and only in certain species (like mammals).

Also, neuroscience is exact science, psychology is quackery so the fact that they’re using psychological tests doesn’t seem very convincing to me.

#25

Now you’re just trying to cover your ass. :wink:

[b]Neuroscientists at the National Institutes of Health, had been scanning the brains of volunteers as they were asked to think about a scenario involving either donating a sum of money to charity or keeping it for themselves.

When the volunteers placed the interests of others before their own, the generosity activated a primitive part of the brain that usually lights up in response to food or sex.

Altruism, the experiment suggested, was not a superior moral faculty that suppresses basic selfish urges but rather was basic to the brain, hard-wired and pleasurable.
[/b]
I’m sure you’ll come back and say brain scans are “quackery” or the study was “liberal bias” or something like that. Nobody is ever wrong on the internet :rolleyes:

#26

I think of charity in terms of Karma;
Go ahead and give when given the opportunity. 'cause odds are, you might need it yourself

#27

I’ll give to most charities, but for me it also depends a little on who the charity is helping.

This might sound kind of selfish but while I’ll help out people in natural disasters and other incidents where it wasn’t their fault I tend to be much less willing to help people in situations that can be in some way blamed on themselves for either poor decisions or laziness.

#28

That’s pretty elitist. Some people don’t have the luxury of having the resources or even time for making “good decisions.”
And how do you know if someone is lazy?

#29

What the fuck man.

No society is perfect. There are traps, faults that makes those people unable to save money and get better because they don’t even earn enough to spare some. It’s not because they’re lazy. Yes, some welfares are lazy, but they’re a minority.

#30

I give to charities when I can, but not to charities that are out on the street asking for it. If you’ve got a bucket in the median or you’re standing outside a store ringing a bell, you won’t see any of my money.

My money, however, does go towards cancer research (my grandmother died from it), SIDS research (my sister whom I never knew because she died from it before I was born), and victims of disaster (I’ve given over $500 to Katrina victims and over $100 to the relief effort in Haiti).

I wish I could do more but I’m almost in need of charity right now. :expressionless:

#31

There is no need to have a debate about charity, if you have money, it’s up to you to spend it how you want, if buying a fast car makes you feel better, go ahead and do it, if you’d rather give your money away, be my guest, but if you have more than enough income to last you for your entire life, you can easily afford to give for a good cause. At least donate to people on the internet once in a while.

#32

If I had the extra money to throw around and the cause was just. I’d donate, but the fact is my nerd addictions take priority over people I don’t know or care about.

<- Bad person =(.

#33

Charity is a pasttime of the rich.

#34

I fail to see what karma has to do with anything. If you only participate in charity because you might need charity as well some day… Well, in my book that’s more selfish than my point of view.

And how do you define a just cause anyway? Is it a just cause to support some people with food, water, medicine, etc just so they can stay alive and nothing else? Or do you honestly believe that your givings, along with the givings of any other self proclaimed saint, will change the way those people have been living so far? Do you think that your givings will result in the creation of job possibilities, result in a better life, of a better government?

And to change the subject to something closer to home. Some 8 year old child has an aggressive cancer (or any fatal disease). Why would I donate money to the family of that child? You might say that it could be spent on research and development of a treatment, but do you honestly believe that the companies performing said R&D don’t have the funds? They have more than enough money, and odds are they already have a treatment for that cancer, but they’re just in in the process of testing it and getting it approved. That 8 year old child is already sentenced to death and won’t be cured, and future patients may or may not be cured, regardless of how much money we sent to the family to support “Little Timmy’s Charity Fund against Cancer and other Bad things”.

My brother has a form of Becker’s Muscle Dystrophy, and his type may not be lethal, he’s in a wheelchair and he does need help in an hourly basis (pouring him some coffee, for example). I’ll gladly help him and his friends with anything they may need when I’m around, but why should I send money to organizations or scientists that are working on a cure or treatment? We know they’re working on it, and even if they figure one out right now, it’ll still be another 4-5 years before it gets on the market. That’s how it goes. Money won’t change any of that.

And about those animals. I’m a firm believer in the law of nature and evolution. If animal species are getting extinct because of human wrong doing, then (in my eyes) that’s part of the evolutionary cycle. Humans are part of nature, everything we do will affect other creatures, just like army ants, just like lions, just like any living thing on this planet. Now, you may say that what humans do is “too much”, that we “fish way more than what we need”, and that’s probably true, but I see that as a treat if the human race, just like how destroying any wildlife they can handle in certain areas is the treat of an army ant. If you don’t keep the rabbit population in check, nature in that area will suffer greatly as well (and certain species of animals in that area won’t survive). Humans are animals, and just like any other animal, our actions have effect on the rest of the planet. If that effect is the extinction of animals, so be it. I don’t like it and I hate to see it happen, but I sure as hell won’t give an organization any money so they can rent a boat and stick and go poke some Japanese whalehunters.

#35

Brain scans are indeed good science, I merely mentioned quackery because your first post said they used psychological tests.

And in what way am I covering my arse? I hope you’re not referring to the fact that I said I agree that altruism is true but only for close relatives? Because I’ve made this very clear in my previous posts that I have no problems helping people I know and care for. Your post about altruism implied that it is natural for animals (and humans) to just help any other animal willy nilly. A pack of lions might take care of it’s young even if they’re not their own, but they’re all close relatives. Have you ever seen a lion from one pack help a lion from another pack?

Look, I prefer helping people that I know and care for, and even people I don’t know but whom I respect. This whole idea of some charity organization coming up to me in the streets and try to persuade me to donate money to people I’ve never even met and who I might not even like if ever I did meet them? No, just plain no.

I don’t think that giving precedence to people close to me over people a thousand miles away makes me a bad person. And don’t think that donating $10 to some charity all of the sudden makes you a feckin’ saint either.

There’s a difference between charity and helping people, one doesn’t exclude the other you know.

#36

I could probably find some, but I know that dolphins help and care for animals that aren’t even the same species as them.

#37

It would have to be consistent behaviour, not some one-off freak of nature event like the two cheetahs who didn’t kill the little antilope from a couple of weeks ago. And it has to be purposely done, they have to be aware that they’re helping the other animal.

And it has to be with wild animals in their natural habitat, not wild animals in zoos nor domesticated ones.

#38

Yes.

EDIT: Though, I’m not sure why you’re excluding zoo animals or domesticated ones…

#39

Because it has to be an example of animals in their natural environment. Wild animals in captivity and animals that have been domesticated for over 2000 years behave differently than their wild cousins.

#40

Grievious - Nope, still wrong. Why did I know you’d keep arguing this point?

Dude the study (read: “evidence”) I linked you to directly contradicts what you keep saying about altruism only being true for close relatives. Since you’re apparently incapable of reading even the shortest citation even when I quote it in this thread for your convenience, I’ll just summarize it yet again for you:

Neuroscientists scanned people’s brain states while asking them to perform a thought experiment about giving to charity. Not “giving money to close relatives.”

When people think about helping complete strangers financially, their brain reacts to reward them in the same way it reacts when they do something to help yourself.

Neuroscientists say this implies quote “Altruism was basic to the brain.”

You may disagree with Neurscientists based on your profound scientific knowledge of brain anatomy, but you’ll have to come up with a better counterargument than babbling about “zoo animals.”

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