Another Way To Prove My Point about African Children.

[David Sklansky]

Be prepared to feel uncomfortable. But the fact is that those who don't espouse the clearcut philosphy, that other people's welfare is not our responsibility, will have difficulty responding to something I just thought of. The only other people who this won't apply to are the mega generous or the ones who argue that they are accumulating wealth now mainly for the ultimate benefit of others. And of course those sickies who might prefer Africans to die.

This leaves, I think, the majority of people. People who use the excuse that "you just can't help everybody" when in fact I believe that the real truth is that a strangers LIFE is worth less to them than a tiny bit of convenience.

To show this you need only to answer the following question honestly. HONESTLY.

To actually keep someone in Africa from dying costs maybe $20 a month. Pure guess. But almost certainly reasonably accurate. That translates to perhaps a one time donation of $1000. Certainly everyone on this forum is pretty sure it is between $300 and $3000. Let's all agree on that. So here is the question: Suppose it only cost One dollar to save a life? Plus a few postage stamps. Wouldn't you spend some time and money to save at least a few dozen people? You might even spend more than the thousand dollars you opted not to spend to save one person. Even if you didn't spend that much how many of you, not including those who were philosphically opposed to the whole concept, would honestly say they wouldn't go for a twenty dollar bill to save 20 lives?

But wait. At the same time you are acknowledging that you will pay $20 because you want to do some good you are therefore admitting that your unwillingness to pay or help pay for one life is based solely on the fact that you want to keep the money. It ISN'T because of some pseudo philosophical thought "one can only do so much". (unless you are already not well off or again, if the money is eventually earmarked for others, or if you are giving it to another charity where the money goes farther.) If that was true you wouldn't contribute at the cut rate price either. The reason you don't contribute at the higher price is that YOU WOULD RATHER HAVE THAT EXTRA THOUSAND DOLLARS THAN THAT THE AFRICAN CHILD LIVES. Period. Sorry.