Donate to a Charity just by clicking!

[EvilTypeGuy]

Normally I don't post things like this, but:

www.aquaplastics.org

One click on the "give" graphic on that site will donate to a charity that's trying to provide clean water to people in Africa. All you have to do is click...

[Mr Jake]

do it now!

really, if you dont do this you really are a lazy little....

[Trapezoid]

I clicked, but I don't understand why I need to. Do they have a big pile of money lying around that they'll only donate if somebody clicks a button on a website? Why don't they just skip the site and donate it ALL NOW?

[evenwolf]

For some reason I feel like I'm being watched... and laughed at.

[MrColossal]

what i don't like is that when big companies give to charity... it's usually cause they are being forced to for destroying the earth or killing babies before they were born

it's like if a movie star gets arrested they just do a "The More You Know" spot or something on tv or take a photo with cancer boy, they don't go to jail

so does that mean i should click or shouldn't?

[Timosity]

Charity's can be helpful, but I didn't check this out,

as far as sports people, movie stars etc setting up charities, it is basically to make them pay less tax, a sly way of money laundering, that also makes them look like they are doing something good for somebody else, but in the end it just means they earn more money, and as if anyone needs more millions when they already have them.

shit they might go broke in a few years if they only have 100 million left

[Las Naranjas]

You'd think if Pat Rafter was so concerned about people's welfare he'd live here instead of the tax haven of the Bahamas. After all, he'd be redistributing money through welfare, medicare and the like..

Oh wait, he doesn't get his face on it.

[jannar85]

Lol.... It's a hoax...

[Timosity]

That's interesting Las, I had an image of That Rafter bloke in my mind as I was writing, funny that he quit tennis when he was young and rich, so much for the love of the sport

[Scid]

I can just see it all happening right now.

After the required amount of clicks, ten huge trucks full of water are going to rally all through the african mainland, leaving behind them a trail of oil, mud and smoke, in order to dump some water on these natives.

But being serious, this is probably real. I don't know why this site exists either, but I don't see any way they can make a profit of many people visiting the page. After all, webspace does cost money. And there are no banners there.

Incidentially, there is no way the world's economy can support third world countries becoming richer. They are probably fucked for eternity, or until the next SARS wipes them out. It's a really cool world we live in, isn't it?

[Larien]

There's actually a place on that site for donating real money but the "click once a day" thing is kind of strange.

[bspeersismyfather]

Incidentially, there is no way the world's economy can support third world countries becoming richer.

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Just checking, but I don't quite know what you mean.

rantmode = 1;

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Theres is a famous argument called the "Myth of Catching up
Development" which prooves pretty much beyond reasonable doubt how the wealth of most corporations *depends* upon having a resource pile and cheap labour in foreign countries.  Which is why that method of our economy is insupportable for everyone.  If Uganda rises up to our level, they'd need another few countries to depend on, and we're depending on all the other countries, so the others would have to get poorer, etc.  That's a crude way of putting it, but the stats are there.

So if we want to help other poor countries in a long-lasting and meaningful (not just a bit of aid that will be blown on the paramilitaries) way, we have to get out of exploiting cheap labour in other countries, which is a systemic change, and in that sense, you're right, our society can't support change without changing itself.

Plus there is the mantra that more is better: that living a subsistence culture is worse than living a highly technocratic consumer culture.  Of course, if we care about health, wellbeing and happiness, there is no evidence that a consumer culture provides these things better than a subsistence culture that is well managed (like many of the cultures of southern India, the herding cultures of Africa, many older First nations tribes, etc).  Kerala, one of the poorest states in the world, for a long time had comparible literacy rates, life expectancy, etc as the affluent west, but used a fraction of the resources.

Since we live in a finite world (as most scientists agree), and since we do not have the technology to create matter ( : ), other countries could not live at our "standard" or rather, consumptive excess.  The average American uses about enough resources for 6 planets of waste (multiplied out, of course)--and isn't any happier than the average Keralian.  So yes, our system could not withstand another few countries at the American level, or the Canadian level, or the German level, what have you.  Which is why improving the rest of the world also requires a reduction in our own consumption, a relatively easy task, considering what people in poorer countries (or poorer regions of our own countries) do to get by.  Since the former problem suggests the dependency of the rich on the poor, the two solutions are related.

So in a second sense, you're right.

But imagining that we lived in the exact same economy as we do now, but people suddenly had a jolt of conscience--if no money was lost or made, but only 10% of the world's military (or just the American military), 10% of the revenue made in Golf courses (and money that would have gone into building new ones), 2% of the richest people's wealth and say, a 2% tax was levied on all money speculation, everyone in the world could have proper medical care, education etc (based on statistical analysis).  Unfortunately, that might lead to the first problem (lack of dependency), but by that point it would be too late.

So this society is perfectly capable of solving world hunger.  It just likes golf and bombs better.   So in that sense, I disagree.

Though in my opinion, the very first step towards equal opportunity world wide is not 10 cents of charity (though that can continue), but to stop the international arms trade.  Start by taking the liscence away from General Electric and the like on the grounds that terrorism would be impossible without them.  Without militias driving people out of their homes, there might be a hope to stay out of the maquiladora and feed the kids.

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