Charity's,intellectual Laziness And Lack Of Pragmatism

[Steph1988]

Ok some insights and questions about big topics i like to share let me know what u think. i was inspired to write this after seeing Leo's video on lying.

topics are:

- The lack of any clear long term plan or vision from our leaders and politicians 

- The lack of big idea's on mainstream media ( good AND bad )

- My suspicions about the charity subculture 

- My own impression that a large part of humans prefer emotional stimulus over deep thinking and problem solving 

Charity 

Questions 

Charity is something that is seen by most automatically as something good but i would like to pose some questions for u good Samaritans   

- If u are going to the third world and help ''develop'' those poor people did u think about the definition of development? Do u think this is long term? do we mean by development becoming like us? and having the same level of luxury as we have? Well who makes a LOT of our products for cheap and digs up resources? third world country's of course and armies of slave laborers. Do we even have enough resources on this planet to make it a reality and if not are we not giving them false hope? Are we ''the west'' at this moment a good example?

- Why do u really go? ( and this one is of course not targeted to all of them i am not that cynical ) To feel good, to make selfies with poor children on your side and put them on your facebook and tinder profile? of course u go to really help! But how much does this this play a role in your motives? 

- If the problems would suddenly go away, so say we found cure for cancer and we solve the structural problem of poverty in a reasonably short period  would u secretly be disappointed because the institute of charity in general would be obsolete and your purpose u put all your energy in would be gone.

Intellectual laziness

These days we let footballstadions stand up in the fight against cancer ( literally ) , we practice charity at extravagant dinners, and our celebrities do shows on TV to gather money for all good causes and people cry tears of joy. I sometimes mistrust these elaborate social rituals mostly because i am not hearing plans i see no discussions about how to structurally solve problems, Where does the problem come from? Do we need these problems maybe in some way to keep the status quo? instead i see a huge crowd being riding high on their emotions, is this enough? What is really going on i sometimes wonder.

Sincerity 

i have this short documentary made by Christopher Hitchens ( who i always very much love seeing debating ) about mother Theresa

 

He argues that she was a friend of poverty and not the poor and brings some dubious stuff to light i also heard for example that she refused to install elavators in the buildings and that she carried the sick which is i can imagine less efficient and i think to myself ''what is going through her mind while she makes such decisions '' does hard work equal effectiveness automatically? do we want to be effective? is there some part of her that knows that at that moment she depends on that poor person for her spiritual well being as he is on her to be dragged upstairs? This is such an example of suspicious charity. I think we need to think clearly on what doing good means i think we need to ask the most important question ''DOES THIS WORK LONGTERM?''

Lack of imagination 

The lack of idea's and debates do not stop with charity of course it is just an example. I miss it most off all in politics and during elections where we should talk about the big idea's and if u are gonna talk about the short term plans which are of course not unimportant at least talk about how they connect to the big idea's if trump wants to build a wall he can make some compelling arguments for it But once it is done then what? On the other side of the spectrum we can welcome all immigrants instead but again once they are in then what? where are the PLANS? maybe there are gonna be some success stories but i can see a lot of them going unemployed,bored maybe even joining radical Islam and why not after all we need a purpose right?

And this is what i mean what about these future technology's? 3D printing,electric cars,nano robots,fusion energy or the countless alternatives but even then what about just planting some crops  look at this!

  

 

 

 

Where is the pragmatic problem solving? ( or at least talking about it )

something i find inspiring tho is for example what Elon Musk is doinghttp://waitbutwhy.com/2015/05/elon-musk-the-worlds-raddest-man.html this is an interesting piece about his idea's he asked himself a simple question how ''why is sending out rockets so expensive'' the solution was to reuse them and that cuts the cost drastically that was a technical solution and required no celebrities or chanting crowds just imagination.

these are some insights i had and maybe they are wrong or can be improved i am open to that possibility i would like to know your views on this.

 

 

 

   

   

 

                             

                              

 

 

[Foreign]

You might be interested in the book What's Love Got to do with It? By David Wagner. Charity does not help people, it keeps them on their knees and allows the givers to feel morally righteous. 

[Nahm]

I think there are millions of individual situations. I love real life stories about people who got the opportunity to learn to fish and ran with it.