If you're only a decent person when consistently threatened into being one, you're not a decent person. I say we get rid of the system that rewards and encourages the worst parts of humanity.
Bullshit. This is how Christianity works. People fear damnation for their darkest impulses and they don't hold back because they've become a better human and realize why those are dark impulses, they hold back and don't do it because they're afraid of sky-daddy.
I've literally had one of these fucking freaks approach a philosophy group I was part of at a local coffee shop. It became creepily more and more apparent, as he kept referring to scenarios like rape and murder, that really the only thing holding him back was fear of Holy retribution. He basically admitted that if he were to become an atheist like us that "nothing would stop him."
It was eye opening and fucking disturbing, so no, I don't agree at all that "ultimately actions matter more than reasons."
The lady in the article seems well intentioned, but this quote:
“You guys could be part of the turning point that protects your children, your grandchildren and your client’s children and grandchildren. Isn’t that worth something?”
makes me think she doesn't know her audience. *They dont care *
She said many rich people wanted to set up their own educational or health foundations without checking whether there was a need or an existing charity or government-funded programme working to address the issue.
When the rich only think about charity as a means to further their own name, it's no wonder nothing ever really gets fixed.
Its worse than that. A corporation starts a charity or gives 100k to one. Real nice right? Nope.
They will:
use that to decrease their tax burden, robbing the commons of their share of taxes to repair the infrastructure their semi-trucks and businesses disproportionately use and tear up, the public educated, pre-literate workforce they have access to, and then...
they ADVERTISE how noble they are, spending millions upon millions in ad buys to tell you what how awesome they are for donating that 100k. They use the guise of what is supposed to be giving with no expectation of return, ie "charity," as a marketing strategy, and then...
They use such initiatives as lobbying tools to explain why their industry doesn't need to be taxed to institutionally, societally address the issue that is currently subject to the transient whims of charity.
There is nothing a publically traded corporation does that isn't done out of greed, that isn't calculated to provide more return than dispursment. Nothing.
Charity with any expectation of return, beyond a warm fuzzy feeling inside, isn't charity at all, but there is a word for it: a transaction.
Having studied history, I am increasingly convinced that nothing brings about violent revolution like an incompetent ruling class mismanaging difficult times. Revolutions are also pretty unpleasant things through which to live though, so hopefully the times will get easier or the ruling classes more competent.
Clare Woodcraft, a fellow at the Centre for Strategic Philanthropy at the University of Cambridge, said wealthy people’s philanthropic efforts had a “bad reputation” because the industry was “poorly understood, poorly executed and poorly regulated”.
“There is often, unfortunately, too much focus on the passion behind philanthropy and the feelgood factor and not the actual need,” said Woodcraft, who works as an adviser to the super-rich. “Philanthropists are all too keen to jump in when they surmise that there might be a need, without actually having the data.”
Clare Woodcraft, second from the right, is a fellow at the Centre for Strategic Philanthropy at the University of Cambridge.
Clare Woodcraft, second from the right, is a fellow at the Centre for Strategic Philanthropy at the University of Cambridge. Photograph: Aidan Synnott
She said many rich people wanted to set up their own educational or health foundations without checking whether there was a need or an existing charity or government-funded programme working to address the issue.
“I still see way too often family offices that come to me and say: ‘We want to do education, we want to set up a foundation and we want to do it in market X’,” she said.
Woodcraft said in these cases she would ask the family for their rationale, only for them to reply: “It doesn’t matter. Let’s just get some quick wins, let’s get the money out there.
“That is the challenge. We need to step back, and have a clear methodology for investing philanthropic capital, because that’s how you’re going to maximise impact and hence mitigate some of the risks of reputational damage.”
Clare Woodcraft seems to think that philanthropy is the solution to inequality, but individuals helping in ways that they want is just giving them more power to decide the fates of the vast majority of people. Systemic change is needed to take power away from the bourgeoisie and give it to the masses to decide their own economic futures.
Please! only solution is to abolish capitalism. If Samantha has €7 and bobby has €0. Bobby can't buy any gumdrops, while Sam can buy some. Pure made up inequality. abolish abolish abolish