Interesting. Here there are periodic set ups at churches etc, I imagine because they have large halls that are probably free for them. Anyone can come to them, but you’d have to take time out of work or do it in your free time.
That’s the thing, I don’t see helping an old lady up as charity. That’s just kindness. I don’t wake up thinking “Hmm, I’m going to help an old lady today” or “Oh dear, an old lady is in trouble, I have to go and help her”. An old lady falling down when I’m close is a random event that can be fixed or rectified that very moment. One moment she’s down, the other moment she’s back up again. When she’s up again, we both go our ways again.
Yes, I realize that some of you have problems with me drawing a line between helping and charity… You don’t call a “helpdesk” a “charitydesk,” now do you? You don’t call the support department of a company and ask for charity…
To me, charity is the attempt at solving a long term problem through the use of help. So charity is a form of helping, but it’s not just a synonym. I prefer helping people with short term problems or problems caught in the momentum, just because those problems can be be solved and I know those problems will be solved if I help.
Help:
Problem: old lady falls down.
Solution: I help her up.
Result: Problem solved
Charity:
Problem: Africa is poor as hell and people die due to all sorts of things
Solution: I donate some money or materials
Result: Africa is still poor as hell and people still die left and right due to all sorts of things, but at least they don’t die due to malaria.
To me, the first scenario is meaningful. The second scenario is pointless. And that’s why I do help people, but don’t support most (well, none, bar a few) charities.
Same with long term problems.
The second scenario is badly put, but obviously not pointless, since the point is that it saves millions of lives.
I don’t know why you keep saying that Africans are a pointless cause because they die all the time either. The death rate there is higher than in our countries, but it’s not like people are dropping left, right and centre.
Chairty:
Problem: Access to clean water in Africa is miles away from there homes
Solution: I donate some money to build a tap
Result: A tap is built and people there are given easier access to clean water, thus saving peoples lives
Problem: Kids are abused by parents
Solution: I donate some money to help
Result: Childline is setup and funded by my money, kids can ring up and talk privately and confidentally if they are being abused and get the help they need
Problem: Animals are abused and/or abadoned
Solution: I donate some money
Result: An animal is given shelter, and his injuries are cared for
Yes, lives have been saved for no. But most of Africa is dead land, land where they can’t do anything on, they can’t keep cattle, they can’t grow food. I’d rather see them spend the money on moving entire villages over to a place where they can actually begin to develop rather than just sitting there being poor and hungry with their brand new tap, without any form of evolution or development.
Abuse is only a small fraction of what ChildLine does. Most of the other things are subjects I used to talk to my parents about. But ye, the abuse. Great, they talked to someone about how they got/get abused. ChildLine enlists someone to come and take the kid away from his family so he doesn’t get abused anymore. And what does it matter? Nothing at all. The kid still got mental/physical scars, damage has been done and can’t be undone. When a child gets abused, it’s already too late to help.
If it’s a puppy, it might have a chance, but how many animals are stuck in that shelter for their entire lives? -If- they can live their entire live there, that is. In general, after a few months, the animals are put down because they couldn’t find a new home for them.
Problem: 100,000 die due to malaria and AIDS.
Charity: Money is donated and malaria is cured.
Result: 50,000 die due to AIDS.
Normal people: 50,000 lives were saved and tens of thousands of families aren’t broken.
Bolteh: 50,000 died due to AIDS so charity did nothing.
It’s helping them stay alive with new technology
God damn, you’re stubborn. For a start, no, it’s not too late to help. At that age, help would have a massive benefit. Secondly, herp a fucking derp, it stops them from getting abused further.
My cat is from one of those places. Yeah, some get put down, but the fact is they wouldn’t operate if the majority of the animals had to be put down.
Fixed
They aren’t still as miserable as before. Before they would have been dead. How is this not better?
The fact is, if there are less diseases or other factors making life harder or more dangerous, life is more stable. If life is more stable, there is a better chance of actually improving your life, and by extension your society.
All this is accomplished by giving people who can’t afford it nets and malaria pills.
Curing malaria -> improving local society -> raising standard of living -> good step on the way to a better/more balanced world.
so cleary human life doesnt matter as long as suffering still exsists, so by your logic a family who already lost a son, I should shoot their other son because hey theyll still be suffering, no gain, no loss, right? Makes all the sense in the world
Lost someone close? HA! Who cares? Here lose another, hahaha, what? your still suffering, your still miserable, whats different
Perhaps the fact you’ve just shot my kid
The life doesn’t matter we should all die
Difference is that I won’t go to prison, you will.
And seriously, suffering or misery because you lost someone close? What kind of weak person are you if you actively suffer and feel miserable when someone close to you died? My grandfather died las year, I was sad, I cried, I lost someone dear. Was I suffering or feeling miserable? No not really, I tend to look back at the good times I had with him. I’m happy now, and I’m happy when I think back to my grandfather. Life went its way with him, life will get its way with all of us.
Onwards to the black continent!
As I said before, most parts of Africa will never become balanced compared to the rest of the world because it’s a dead land. Tens of thousands of years ago, humans left an area when it turned hostile, when it became impossible to live there. But what do we do these days? We gather around, throw some money together, put a damn tap next to their village and then hope that a big civilized nation will rise from it? The only thing that tap, those meds and those nets do, is keep them there for no reason at all. You keep them alive on that very spot, a spot where they have absolutely no business of being at, because it doesn’t offer them anything. The only things offered there, are frigging taps that people shoved in the ground before buggering off again.
You’re basically just keeping them on life support, hoping something comes along to magically boost the quality of the land (and thus the life) there.
So yes, it is pointless. You make sure that people exist there, but you don’t offer them lives.
haha I thought you were talking about this thread at first when i read that 
Bolteh, Africa isn’t dead land. There’s plenty of possibility for farming and industry. There are even plenty of forests and jungles. Where do you think gorillas live?
That’s the worst argument you’ve made so far.
Then why are people still wasting charity on Africa? Why don’t Africans “just go out and reap all the lovely fruits mother nature gave them”? The first humans did it, why can’t they? I’ll tell you why they can’t, because they can survive by charity, so they have no reason to produce their own food, collect their own water, develop their own civilization.
Also, gorillas in Africa:
(Just to make it clear: the red bits are the habitat of the gorilla, massive amount of jungle indeed)
Besides, jungles aren’t the best areas to farm in, unless you put up a banana farm.
Side note: I do buy fair trade, btw. But that can’t really be considered charity, since I buy materials for my own needs. Though I do like the idea that poor farmers who farmed those materials get a decent price for it, even they still get a lot less than what their products go for. But at least they did something for it, rather than just sitting there being poor and hungry.
If the Democratic republic of Congo was properly and efficiently farmed (like California), then they could feed the entirety of the African population. the problem is that:
A) the government and economy are shit.
B) there is zero infrastructure to transport that food
C) Even if the the country wasn’t royally fucked, they still have to transport materials through other war-torn African countries.
I wish there was a way to get their shit together.
Because European civilization stole their resources, destroyed their civilizations and suppressed their peoples?
No. They can’t even survive thanks to charity. Charity helps those that need it.
My point was, Africa isn’t a barren wasteland, it has plenty of space to use productively.
You know what fairtrade is about? Poor farmers and such selling their goods at fair price around the world, which they simply can’t do because of western companies and policies.
One of the reasons why they can’t is that Europe and the US, mainly, produce more food than they can sell. They then dump it on Africa where they can sell it for less than local farmers and businesses can, because of which they can’t survive.
A second reason is import taxes. Europe (and other areas too, probably) have high import taxes on food, which forces African producers to sell their products for more than food that’s sold here, because of which they can’t sell anything.
As soon as an African country tries to enforce import taxes, we extort them so they won’t. Many countries receive massive amounts of financial help which they absolutely need (which is because of us in the first place) from Europe, which gives us a lot of power over them.
tl;dr: Africa can’t sell domestic products anywhere because of unfair conduct. The west can sell their products everywhere because of unfair conduct. Africa is in its current state largely because of the west.
In other words, fairtrade is charity. You buy materials for your own needs, but the rest of your money goes to the organization that makes it possible for you to buy it.
I donate €5 a month to Oxfam (a fairtrade organization), and I sometimes buy from them too.
Your whole stance on Africa seems to be that they got themselves in this mess, so they don’t deserve any help. That simply isn’t true at all.
And as long as this keeps up, I see no point in wasting money on charity for anything in Africa.
So you’re saying that the farmers don’t get any money (or material) from it, that it all goes to the organization? Then what’s the point of that fair trade business? Nono, farmers do get money/materials, and sure, that might be through an organization that took upon them the burden of charity, but the actual process doesn’t change. Person makes product, I buy product, person gets money/materials. So I actively paid for the service/product of someone, so that person can keep on doing what he does and make a living that way. I prefer that method over blindly giving money so they can stomp a water tap near a village, while its inhabitants remain a waste of space.
Sure, you can say “it’s the fault of the west”, and you’re right about that, but why should I make up for mistakes done in the past? I had nothing to do with it. It’s just how humanity has evolved. Natural selection. The strong survive. The strong west came in and ripped the weak Africa dry of its resources. Yes, it’s unfair, but why should I care? There’s no way we can undo it, most of Africa is dead land because of events in the past (whether you like it or not) and there’s nothing you can do about it, so I see no point in pumping money to attempt to develop Africa, while there’s little to no room for development.
Maybe you should care because it’s unfair? You were bitching about how we were just as rude as you (well, no, you left that part out) so surely unfairness is something of an issue with you?
I didn’t say the farmers didn’t get any money. I said you bought their goods, so do they obviously get money.
And to the rest in that paragraph: without that organization that took upon them the burden of charity it wouldn’t be possible to buy, and you’re donating money by buying the products from them.
I guess you could look at it as paying them for the service of making the products available to you.
Also, it’s not just mistakes done in the past. Those “mistakes” still go on today, and yes, you should try to make up for mistakes stillmade by your own culture all the time.