<p>@stressedouttt I watched it too and I liked the message of individuality it preached.</p>
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<p>Exactly. OK - you brought a bracelet from Invisible Children, and 32% of the money you paid for that KONY2012 bracelet actually went to helping the children. </p>
<p>There are better ways to donate your dollars to charity. </p>
<p>Of the $8.9 million they spent in 2011, this is the breakdown, according to the charity itself. The charity won’t allow a third-party audit. </p>
<p>$1.7 million in US employee salaries
$357,000 in Film costs
$850,000 in Production costs
$685,000 in Computer equipement
$244,000 in “professional services” (DC lobbyists)
$1.07 million in travel expenses
$400,000 in office rent in San Diego
$16,000 in Entertainment etc…</p>
<p>Invisible Children’s goal has been to educate the public as to what is going on in West Africa. The best way to do that is movies (as they just proved). The thing is, how does a private humanitarian organization actually spend money on direct action (and what would that be?) Isn’t that the work of governments? If so, isn’t the money best spent educating and advocating? </p>
<p>I’m not planning on donating to Invisible Children; just playing the Devil’s Advocate.</p>
<p>True, Invisible Children has raised awareness, and the organization hasn’t done anything intrinsically wrong - there is overhead to any charitable organization.</p>
<p>But when you look at something such as Doctors Without Borders, which spent 0.97% of its donations on management, and 9.76% of its donations on fundraising, and the remaining 89.27% on program services, Invisible Children pales in comparison.</p>
<p>But Doctors Without Boarders has a comparatively easy goal: to provide medical care to those who need it. No need to lobby for that. Invisible Children has a goal which would need military intervention to be reached.</p>
<p>Do you think that life has an ultimate goal?
I’ve never really thought about the “end result” of life.
According to common sense, man is (supposedly) getting more civilized…
As in, everything that happens leads to progress, whether it be intellectual (cuneform writing → different languages → education) artistic (cave art → oil paintings → modern art), technological (integrated circuit → early computer → Macbook Air), the list goes on and on… It seems reasonable to think that all this progress must lead somewhere. Ironically, the rich are still rich and the poor are still poor, whether it be a caveman having more furs and meat than his friends, or a yuppie having more stocks and summer homes than the average blue-collar worker. So are we really as civilized as we think we are? Don’t we still divide people into classes? Aren’t we still asking the same questions about life, God, the universe, as Descartes and his friends were asking in the 17th century? Isn’t death still inevitable?</p>
<p>It’s hard to predict the future. Perhaps it’ll all lead to some utopia in the end. </p>
<p>BTW, how do you know that life will ever end for good? Wait…no, I’m not going to go into the big bang theory; my post is so long…</p>
<p>(lol, a thread titled “analyzing life” automatically invites ranting.)</p>
<p>I want to mentor people through high school, preferably affable girls. I pretty much bombed my first two years, but now I have a 4.0 UW GPA despite taking 5 APs, so I know I can do well. I know this one girl who’s always so damn nervous about her grades, and I really enjoy mentoring her currently about courses, homework, teachers, etc. I almost want to stay in HS for one more year just to see her make it; just to see her succeed and overcome all her self-imposed challenges. I want to help her succeed and partake in her joy when she finally does. No. What I really want to do is reach out to her and touch her on the arm somewhere each time she gets freaked out about something like a test or assignment. I want to brush her hair, look her in the eyes, and tell her, reassuringly, calm down - it’ll be fine - and here’s what you need to know. Soon, it’ll be summer, and she’ll be wearing short-sleeves, so if I touch her on the arm, it’ll be skin-to-skin. Even better. Again, there is no true altruism. Thus is human nature: to perhaps undertake seemingly altruistic acts, but at the same time, further our own selfish interests. To what extent do you agree with my characterization of human nature?</p>
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<p>I was reading this and I thought of singularity. Can you guys imagine sentiment, knowing computers and machines? I believe that within our lifetimes, we will see machines with “strong AI” - i.e. the machines understand what they know. I also wonder if I will see machines have emotional intelligence. It would be very interesting connecting emotionally with a machine. Perhaps within our lifetimes we will see people wedded to machines … what do you guys think?</p>
<p>After reading the OP’s derisive gesture towards hipsters, I pontificated on some generalized pattern of deviance I found in nature.</p>
<p>Hipsters are merely extensions of the great beast that is American counterculture, people who seek to be ironic for the sake of being ironic. This urge to be different, to ascend above the common rabble, to find themselves at the forefront of cultural enlightenment, by buying ****ty clothes, by unnecessarily wearing fake eyeglasses, by listening to music no one you know has ever heard of (hopefully), is the great societal niche of our time.</p>
<p>Could it be that since humanity is the universe’s way of knowing itself (as the great Carl Sagan once said), hipsters are the universe’s way of holding its most horrifying qualities, and treating them with scorn???!?!?!?!?!</p>
<p>ha I liked your post! for some reason i really like reading people thinking about the big picture, of where humanity was, where we are now, and where we’re headed. the more one learns about our history, about our development of the technology we have today, the more intriguing the future seems, i think.</p>
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<p>mm we may see all of this - i hope so :). I’m interested mostly in the prospects of treating aging. of course i’m also very worried for humanity (as are the many scientists/philosophers who study existential risks to humanity). the convergent answer among them is we really need to watch out for rogue, smarter than human A.I, which we develop without taking the right precautions to ensure it doesn’t harm us.</p>
<p>Because if humans aren’t happy in the future (or if it ends up ending), then what’s the point to living to see such an awful thing. </p>
<p>my naive vision of the future I would like, which makes me happy to think about, is of exploring habitable planets, and maybe finding other beautiful intelligent life (eeep! :D).</p>
<p>also it would be nice if we were smarter and kinder, and not all those things can happen in our biological bodies very easy (i think we will leave those at some point, but not in the near enough future that treating aging isn’t crucial), and that makes me a little uneasy, but we’ll see.</p>
<p>It’s really interesting. I think about this all the time. I know I have my answer for this, but what would you say about Mother Teresa? Or other volunteers around the world, for that matter?</p>
<p>I concur with IceQube, alas someone with whom I agree on this topic; as for Mother Teresa, I have but one word, faith. You see it is to be quixotic in nature to claim that there is altruism. We all have our motivations. Whether that be hours for college, the belief that if I help others I will go to heaven, or rather simply if I help someone get up from a fall, hopefully he or she too will do the same, the today you tomorrow me concept. It is not easy to accept; however, I hold all other beliefs surrounding it apocryphal. This is also much of the way of capitalism versus socialism, if you really think about it, but I won’t go down that road as your last quasi political thread didn’t go down too well IQ. :)</p>
<p>Hey it’s a progress thread reunion. How is everyone doing?</p>
<p>I didn’t quite mean that there’s an ultimate goal towards human society. more like an ultimate goal to the universe and everything (getting more into the metaphysical).</p>
<p>I figure I’m the only one, but I’m going to say true altruism does exist :D</p>
<p>I’m going to say true altruism does NOT exist. Say you’re doing community service. You’re doing it for community service, to feel good about helping others and therefore feel better. End of story- give me a situation where true altruism does exist. I’m curious to hear it.</p>
<p>I think true altruism exists. I don’t think religion is the best demonstration of that.</p>
<p>How about anonymous donations to charity? Just because YOU might do it to feel better about yourself doesn’t mean that’s everyone’s motivation. People regularly go above and beyond that which gives them a self esteem boost, be it for charity, community service, etc. </p>
<p>Here’s an example from the internet:</p>
<p>"A firefighter who is in a burning building only has a few seconds to choose whether he saves this child from dying or whether he leaves and save himself. He grabs the child and throws her out of the window to the inflated air-“mattress” below with the knowledge he will not live by doing that. The ceiling collapses, killing him.</p>
<p>What possible selfish motivation would there be in that situation? He saves the life of someone else while losing his own. He was not suicidal, but simply chose to save someone’s life at the cost of his own. Show me the selfish motivation in this situation (that has also undoubtedly occurred)."</p>
<p>Honestly, Ayn Rand and her followers p1ss me off to no end.</p>
<p>Fame. The prospect of fame after death. He’ll be celebrated and remembered - at least for a couple weeks - as a noble guy. Contrast that with dying a normal death, in which only a few family members remember your passing. Saving the child is a surefire way to increase your fame.</p>
<p>@turntabler Read any Chuck Palahniuk novel and you’ll think otherwise. Martyrdom has always been a huge deal, think of Jesus, for Christ’s sake! (heh heh) People only fear death because they think there’s nothing afterwards, but in fame, one can live forever.</p>
<p>Developing a rapport with anyone takes a large investment. One must invest time - time to listen - time to be physically there - time to be virtually there (e.g. on Facebook). One must also invest attention to that someone. One must also invest memory: what was her essay on? What does she have due tomorrow? What is she stressed about? I’ve recently found myself trying to care, trying to develop rapports with other people, but my mind has been so atrophied by not caring or giving a f about anyone other than myself that I find it hard to care about others in even the most superficial way. If I remember their names, then that’s a start.</p>
<p>OK, I’ve changed my position. true altruism does not exist, but not in the way most of you seem to mean it. let’s take the firefighter and baby example. the firefighter saves the baby, but he has no motive behind it besides compassion and love. the altruism lies in that he satisfies his urge to save the baby by sacrificing himself. he’s at peace with himself.
so, going off this, I don’t think true altruism is necessarily a flaw, depending on what it’s based on.</p>
:)</p>