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In the Arms of the AngelFollow

#1 Jan 03 2012 at 9:07 AM Rating: Excellent
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According to Alyssa Milano, I can save a dying African child for fifty cents a day.
According to Sarah McLachlan, I can save an abused cat for sixty cents a day.

By my math, this means each cat is worth 1.2 African children.

Assuming each organization is fulfilling its mission to the best of its ability...

Is it morally acceptable to send Sarah McLachlan money?
Yes:17 (54.8%)
No:7 (22.6%)
An answer that is neither "yes" nor "no":7 (22.6%)
Total:31


Off topic, the song "In the Arms of the Angel" is about heroin addiction. I guess it's Ms. McLachlan's song so she can repurpose it for whatever she wants but it's still my first thought each time I see that commercial. On the other hand, Ms. Milano's plea came on during my hotel stay so each time she asked "What would you do if you saw a starving child right in front of you?", I thought "Call the front desk?"
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#2 Jan 03 2012 at 9:08 AM Rating: Excellent
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I wonder how much cat food you could make from a sarah mclauchlan?
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#3 Jan 03 2012 at 9:13 AM Rating: Excellent
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50 cents to fatten up some African kid. An extra 10 cents to cut him up and serve to the cats.
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#4 Jan 03 2012 at 9:17 AM Rating: Decent
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Uglysasquatch wrote:
50 cents to fatten up some African kid. An extra 10 cents to cut him up and serve to the cats.
Huh, watermelon flavored cat food.
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#5 Jan 03 2012 at 9:19 AM Rating: Good
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lolgaxe wrote:
Uglysasquatch wrote:
50 cents to fatten up some African kid. An extra 10 cents to cut him up and serve to the cats.
Huh, watermelon flavored cat food.


With a side of "lemonade" Kool-Aid to wash it down.
#6 Jan 03 2012 at 9:44 AM Rating: Excellent
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I see Starving African Kids commercial and think to myself "is Alyssa Milano gonna turn into Sally Struthers?" That's a depressing thought.
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#7 Jan 03 2012 at 9:47 AM Rating: Excellent
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Gosh, and Make-a-Wish foundation is like, what, $15 a month to make a dying kid's wish come true. That's like 30 kids who could be saved versus one who's a goner no matter what!

This topic makes me feel like a jerk Smiley: lol Well, more of one.

Edit: Also, what is that 50 cents buying? Ramen?

Edited, Jan 3rd 2012 10:47am by LockeColeMA
#8 Jan 03 2012 at 10:03 AM Rating: Excellent
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Nutri-Paste from the look of the commercial.

There was some other commercial I saw for saving polar bears or something that worked out to 20 cents a day. So, yeah... 3 bears = 1 cat.

Edited, Jan 3rd 2012 10:04am by Jophiel
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#9 Jan 03 2012 at 10:15 AM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:

By my math, this means each cat is worth 1.2 African children.

Only the American cats. American dogs are valued closer to 1.5 African tots.






Edited, Jan 3rd 2012 5:15pm by Elinda
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#10 Jan 03 2012 at 10:42 AM Rating: Good
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It's 2012 already. I'll think about donations for tax reasons towards the end of the summer. 2011 tax donations already done.

Cats, kids (living or dying), I'll donate. I need the tax breaks.
#11 Jan 03 2012 at 2:13 PM Rating: Excellent
I spent about 20 cents a day this year to train a rat to sniff out TB. So 2.5 African giant rats is equal to one African child, and worth three US homeless cats? math fail: three rats are worth one cat.

Edited, Jan 3rd 2012 3:32pm by catwho
#12 Jan 03 2012 at 2:20 PM Rating: Excellent
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catwho wrote:
I spent about 20 cents a day this year to train a rat to sniff out TB. So 2.5 African giant rats is equal to one African child, and worth three US homeless cats?


I wanted to segue into the Monty Python swallow joke here somehow, but you already said that they're African giant rats. Smiley: glare
#13 Jan 03 2012 at 2:54 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
Nutri-Paste from the look of the commercial.

There was some other commercial I saw for saving polar bears or something that worked out to 20 cents a day. So, yeah... 3 bears = 1 cat.

Now that exchange rate seems off. Polar bears are pretty big; you'd need something like three snow leopards to match.
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we all know liberals are well adjusted american citizens who only want what's best for society. While conservatives are evil money grubbing scum who only want to sh*t on the little man and rob the world of its resources.
#14 Jan 03 2012 at 3:22 PM Rating: Good
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LockeColeMA wrote:
Edit: Also, what is that 50 cents buying? Ramen?

Edited, Jan 3rd 2012 10:47am by LockeColeMA


Rice is so much cheaper than Ramen.
#15 Jan 03 2012 at 7:24 PM Rating: Good
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Thumbelyna Quick Hands wrote:
I need the tax breaks.

Is there something I'm missing? Tax deductions for charitable giving can make your giving cheaper or even free, but I never known any to net you an increase.
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I know you guys are having fun, but I'd I'm slightly interested in taking the topic seriously.

Is it morally acceptable to send Sarah McLachlan money?
Well, how many morals is one child worth and how many morals is one cat worth. I know this is the very concept you were poking fun at in the OP, but it really is the question that is being asked.

To not discuss this aspect is akin to asking "what is the tallest mountain" and hearing a debate between Everest and Mauna Kea when you should be clarifying how tallest is defined.
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And still serious, but off topic, charity is one fudged up world. It's often viewed from a very emotional perspective--easily evident in how nearly all advertisements try to appeal for donations---rather than a rational one, which leads to highly problematic situations where charitable organizations are highly inefficient with donations or occasionally make the lives of those they are "helping" demonstrably worse.

Giving canned food to a food shelter may make you feel very good about yourself, but in terms of helping people, it's absolutely terrible. You'd be better off just giving cash. Some projects, such as play pumps, made people's lives more difficult than they were originally.
#16 Jan 03 2012 at 8:24 PM Rating: Excellent
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My take on the topic is, give where your heart tells you to give. Do the best you can. Are you going to save every child, extending the human population by a million or so person-years per year, before you save a single animal? Cause I'm not.

As far as which kids, my reflex is usually to donate to the Red Cross, because they've been doing the charity thing long enough to know how to cope with corrupt governments and what not. I'm sure everyone has totally altruistic motives, but I hate the thought of charitable contributions rotting in a warehouse or being sold to fill some tinpot's pocket. A certain amount of that is inevitable, but it should be limited as much as possible.

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#17 Jan 03 2012 at 9:07 PM Rating: Excellent
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I've always had an affinity for organizations like Amnesty International. Human rights violations have always been a hot button issue for me, I suppose.

I used to have arguments with a very activist ex-girlfriend. She would get upset with me for not getting worked up about every single cause that she brought to my attention. I used to try to tell her that there's a limit to the amount of things that a single person can care about. I always felt that taking her argument to its logical conclusion showed her to by hypocritical, as I could name myriad other causes that she didn't contribute to, and she still purchased luxuries and such.

Edited, Jan 3rd 2012 10:08pm by Eske
#18 Jan 03 2012 at 9:28 PM Rating: Excellent
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Allegory wrote:
Giving canned food to a food shelter may make you feel very good about yourself, but in terms of helping people, it's absolutely terrible. You'd be better off just giving cash.

We actually just went through that. I felt my family was pretty blessed this year financially and wanted to contribute back. As touchy-feely as the idea of donating a turkey dinner or something may have been, we ultimately decided that a cash donation to a local food pantry would be most beneficial. They have more buying power via bulk channels and tax-exempt status than I do at the grocery store buying retail canned cranberries.
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Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#19 Jan 03 2012 at 9:31 PM Rating: Good
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It might be 50 cents a day now, but once the demand increases it'll be a bit more
#20 Jan 03 2012 at 10:50 PM Rating: Good
Quote:
Is it morally acceptable to send Sarah McLachlan money?
Well, how many morals is one child worth and how many morals is one cat worth. I know this is the very concept you were poking fun at in the OP, but it really is the question that is being asked.

To not discuss this aspect is akin to asking "what is the tallest mountain" and hearing a debate between Everest and Mauna Kea when you should be clarifying how tallest is defined.


That's only one half of the question - and the less important half, because the question makes its own implicit assumption about the moral worth of child and cat (that the cat is not worth 1.2 times more, though as you note the question seems to be asked somewhat in jest).

The more important question to answer is this: is it morally acceptable to give sub-optimally? Is doing something positive, when you could just as easily do something better, good? If you answer in the affirmative, the issue of moral weighting doesn't need to be addressed. Even if you determine a cat is worth more than a human child, you still need to consider the other half of the question to answer the obvious follow up: is it morally acceptable to give to Alyssa Milano?

Another problem with your re-phrasing of the question is that it assumes that people and cats are measured on the same scale, and that some amount of either one must be worth more than a given amount of the other - many people would say that no quantity of cats is worth a single human.
#21 Jan 04 2012 at 12:00 AM Rating: Good
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Kavekk wrote:
The more important question to answer is this: is it morally acceptable to give sub-optimally?

There are a lot of important questions that follow, and just because I chose one does not mean I'm dismissing the others. I just thought it important to start by rejecting the the joke that quantization of these issues is somehow ridiculous. I was already branching out into three different directions in a single post, can't I get a break?
#22 Jan 04 2012 at 12:18 AM Rating: Excellent
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When i donate, I give cash to my wife and food to my son. I have precious little of either left for myself...
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publiusvarus wrote:
we all know liberals are well adjusted american citizens who only want what's best for society. While conservatives are evil money grubbing scum who only want to sh*t on the little man and rob the world of its resources.
#23 Jan 04 2012 at 12:24 AM Rating: Decent
All right, but only because I like the cut of your jib.

Were your jib cut differently, we'd have a problem.

Edited, Jan 4th 2012 6:24am by Kavekk
#24 Jan 04 2012 at 1:00 AM Rating: Excellent
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Allegory wrote:
Giving canned food to a food shelter may make you feel very good about yourself, but in terms of helping people, it's absolutely terrible. You'd be better off just giving cash. Some projects, such as play pumps, made people's lives more difficult than they were originally.
However, giving fresh fruits and/or veggies, or fresh/frozen meat to an active "soup kitchen" or shelter with a kitchen is the opposite of terrible. These are things that food banks (who do distribute to shelters) rarely have or get in stock to distribute.

At least that's been my experience after working 5 years at a homeless shelter/mission.
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#25 Jan 04 2012 at 5:09 AM Rating: Excellent
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Yeah, some friends and I used to participate in "Grow a row" (I don't know if this is still active and I'm too lazy to look), where you add a row to your garden that's just for donation to the local food pantry. I think I grew peppers, tomatoes, and summer squash since I figured those were easy to use in a variety of dishes.

Nexa
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#26 Jan 04 2012 at 6:34 AM Rating: Excellent
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Many participants in the local farmers' market here donate their unsold produce to food shelters every week rather than haul it away. Tax break for them, fresh food for the shelters.

Of course that might get pretty monotonous in a bumper year for cauliflower, or whatever.

"Oh, more turnips. Yay."

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