Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- thoughts:philosophy:morality [2021/05/25 04:24] – Owen Mellema
+++ thoughts:philosophy:morality [2021/05/25 17:26] (current) – Owen Mellema
@@ Line 44: / Line 44: @@
 ===== Objections =====
-There are a few objections you might have. Firstly, who does take care of the starving orphans in Africa? If everyone adopts this worldview, won't we abandon those who are far away from us, and who are possibly in the most need of help? Certainly this is a negative, and I concede that this could be problematic for some people.
+This system is not perfect. I have a few problems with it, despite being the one who made it up.
-I am not saying that we shouldn't care about people who are far away from us. I am saying that our investment in the situation ought to be proportional to our ability to actually make an impact in it. We should still have some level of concern, and we should, if possible, help. But our ability to help is very, very small. The real people who can make an impact in the problem are those who are closer to the problem and policymakers.
+==== Regional economic differences ====
+The biggest problem comes when everyone applies this system. Some communities have more resources than others. For example, a city in America will likely have a much larger charitable budget than a village in Africa. Furthermore, even the poorest in America have a far higher pre-charity quality of life than poor people in Africa ((Please, do not try to tell me that Africa is actually thriving. Sure, there may be //regions// where it is quite nice, such as South Africa, but the fact is that many, many people are living in abject poverty. This is especially true in Central Africa, in nations such as Uganda and Chad)).
+If we apply the principle of helping those who are closest to us first, we may be spending our resources on problems that are trivial compared to the larger problems. One million dollars spent improving the education of inner city kids could be spent overseas to prevent thousands from actually dying of starvation or being severely malnourished. In this light, it seems almost psychopathic to follow my ideas.
+Frankly, I don't have an answer.