I agree with Octavious's point about time spent playing Diplomacy.

I will point out that the parable of the Good Samaritan was actually told explicitly as a clarifying parable about "love they neighbor" to show that foreigners you didn't know could be your neighbor. To those seriously interested in interpreting Christ's words (as His words, not just as teaching they partially endorse), this would be highly relevant.

Perhaps relevent to those studying Christ, but less so to this conversation. The Samaritan's treatment of the (I forget who the chap being helped was...) bloke in need as his neighbour matches my definition of neighbour as well as it does Thucy's.

" Either your definition of love is sadly lacking or, like myself, you do not love them. Like everyone else you feel sorry for them, but frankly you have other things you'd rather do than help them. Be honest with yourself. Don't try and be someone you can never hope to be."

Hey you should maybe read my posts more carefully. I am 100% aware that I do not do enough and maybe never will. Your point about working instead of doing other things is an interesting one and it is one I have considered before.

It is important first to understand that I am telling you about what I think everyone *should* do, it is also important to recognize that that doesn't mean I actually do it. I strive toward it but fail like everyone else to live up to it.

The idea that we should set our moral standards somewhere we already achieve is repugnant - there is no motivation to strive to be better if you already meet the standard of goodness.

Therefore I have set a goal higher than what I already do and constantly strive toward it. The fact that I do not meet the goal is not a cause for despair but a call to action.

There is a weak justification that I have for not doing what you recommend, I offer it for your consideration but do not expect or even advocate that it is valid, but it what I have thought before:

Could I study business and economics and join the rat race and make as much money as possible and donate it all to charity? Yes. It is a valid course of action, I think, look at Bill Gates, whether or not that was his plan, it is working out.

But that's not what I've chosen, I've chosen a non-monetary road that involves studying the issues myself with the hope that I will be able to offer my labor/services to that end. In the meantime, I plan to give as much of my income as I can manage to charity even if it means I live poorly. One can always do more - but I will do as much as I can.

A person does need leisure time, lol - it's like saying to your employees "stop taking breaks, your productivity would go up 40% if you didn't have a lunch break"

okay maybe on paper but....

do you understand? i still think it doesnt mean what im dioing now is best, but there you go

@ semck83, your metamorphism is flawed, in that there have been, many other people, as well as before as after Einstein that were smarter then him in the sense they had a higher IQ. He's theories are subjectively seen as great, but I think you idealize Einstein to much. There have been many other "great" people in other fields of research as was as is physics. I think to say he is the one and only best physicist would be a very subjective statement.

That aside though, yes, we do not know the exact variables, but we know more or less the building blocks of life as in how it was created on earth and under what circumstances, so if there are many other examples of earth like planets, what would you make believe that only on earth life came into existence?!

Say you allow all variables in the universe, what makes you think that exactly our variables are so unique and outstanding that most likely only life came to existence on this earth here alone?!
It would be like saying Einstein was the only person in the world? There are many othere people different from Einstein that were created under different variables.

@Lopt - regardless of knowing the building blocks and haveing an idea how life came about, there is no way of knowing that there are many earht-like planets. This exact orbit around a yellow star is very sensitive. Change it by more than a few miles and the earthj becomes to hot or cold to support our life.

Additionally, we were talking about aliens not caring about humans, which implies intelligent life. We don't have a clue to the variables that led to the development of a higher intellect beyond that of the rest of the animal kingdom. We say "opposing thumbs" and crap, but chimps have opposing thumbs and yet Dolphins, who don't, are smarter than them. Dolphins have language and I've heard that used, but that is potentially confusing the relationship. Perhaps communication and language is a result of intelligence, or perhaps a parallel development where both have a symbiotic relationship.

The fact is, we don't know why intelligent life developed here and we don't even know that there are all these earth-like planets out there. We haven't found one yet in all our telescopic studies of strs that show "planet wobble". So the odds of another inteeligent species being out there are incalculable.

@Lopt, I didn't say there wasn't intelligent life out there. I said we had no way to evaluate the probability. YOU'RE the one saying we can know. Read again your argument. You'll see it's an excellent argument for saying, "We just don't know," which is exactly what I'm saying (and what you don't). You say "What would make you believe that the variables are so unique" etc. I ask -- what would make you believe they're not? We don't know EITHER WAY.

And yeah, ... basically what Draug said.

@ Thucy

I understand perfectly. You'd be surprised how many people venture down that avenue of thought at some time in their lives. The trouble is that it is painfully flawed.

What you have done is set off with the best of intentions. All men are equal, the inequality in hypocrisy in the world is disgusting, if everyone did their bit the world could be a paradise etc etc etc. Your conclusion is that if you dedicate your life to making the world a better place (and yes, I am aware that you're including allowances for your personal R&R in this) it will do some good directly and hopefully inspire a few others to join in. All lovely thoughts, they really are.

It ain't gonna work.

Problem number one is that you don't love humanity like your neighbour. You may think you do (ok... that's not fair... lets say at least that you think you should do), but you don't and you never will. Lets say there was a disaster in the place where you live. Some sort of flood, maybe, that is a serious threat to the people who are your neighbours in every sense of the word. Concepts such as your own personal rest and relaxation would go out the window, and your every effort would be centred on putting things right untuil either it is done or you are exhausted. That is what the love in love thy neighbour is all about. A stubborn refusal to back down into you know full well that things are as they should be. You will never feel this for humanity as a whole, and you should never try. If you did you would go insane.

The second problem, and I'm going to be harsh here, is that you have given yourself a get out claus. Be setting yourself standards that are impossible to achieve you have essentially paved the way for justified failure. Setting your morale standards so high they are impossible to achieve is what is truly repugnant, because there is no motivition to stick to them. You know you will fail, so you tell yourself their is no shame in failure, and judging whether you have actually achieved anything is damned near impossible. I challenge you to set yourself some difficult but achievable morale standards, and then to stick to them. To do so is ultimately far harder and more meaningful than what you have currently.

Out of interest, with the whole world as your neighbour how do you judge who to help? Which of your neighbours is worthy of your time and aid? Who do you intend to leave to die and who will you try and save?

Give yourself a sensible definition of neighbour and the choice is easy. You help those in need around you. The elderly who live alone, perhaps, or Mr Patel down the road whose family has been caught up in the latest earthquake in Pakistan and needs all the help he can get to do something about it.

If the world is your neighbour then, love them or not, you have to let them down. Every day you must chose which of the desperate and dying you will ignore. No matter whose lives you make better, countless others you will abandon to their fate. That is not good for the soul and over time it will destroy the person you are trying to be, and that really would be a tragedy.

"Be setting yourself standards that are impossible to achieve you have essentially paved the way for justified failure."

No, you see, I think they are one day achievable - but they are certainly out of reach if no one tries. Culture can change, and culture can affect your mind a lot.

I set for myself reasonable goals that bring me closer to the ultimate goal and then attempt to meet them. The most recent goal is to cut the fat out of my spending and donate the extra money. There isn't much fat to cut but there is fat, and I am getting there. After that, I don't know, I might put in some extra volunteer hours.

The point is there is no harm in trying, and yes I do try. I think your statement that attempting to reach that goal will make me go insane is not true - it motivates me like nothing else in my life because whether you believe me or not it is something I believe in very strongly - it feels right in a world where very little seems certain to me.

In terms of your question of who to help, my criteria are:

Who needs help the most and
Who can I help most effectively.

I apply these two and try to make the best judgment. Based on my interests and the things I have learned and am studying it has primarily to do with West African development. So that is what I choose as a ca

"Be setting yourself standards that are impossible to achieve you have essentially paved the way for justified failure."

No, you see, I think they are one day achievable - but they are certainly out of reach if no one tries. Culture can change, and culture can affect your mind a lot.

I set for myself reasonable goals that bring me closer to the ultimate goal and then attempt to meet them. The most recent goal is to cut the fat out of my spending and donate the extra money. There isn't much fat to cut but there is fat, and I am getting there. After that, I don't know, I might put in some extra volunteer hours.

The point is there is no harm in trying, and yes I do try. I think your statement that attempting to reach that goal will make me go insane is not true - it motivates me like nothing else in my life because whether you believe me or not it is something I believe in very strongly - it feels right in a world where very little seems certain to me.

In terms of your question of who to help, my criteria are:

Who needs help the most and
Who can I help most effectively.

I apply these two and try to make the best judgment. Based on my interests and the things I have learned and am studying it has primarily to do with West African development. So that is what I choose as a career.

But one can help multitudes of people in a less skilled fashion along the way by doing things like I mentioned, saving some money and donating it instead of having a luxury or two. Or volunteering some time wherever it is you currently live. Or educating yourself about a relevant issue. Or educating others. Or just being a decent person to the people you meet in your life - giving that guy walking down the street a ride, giving up your seat for someone else on the bus - the little things count too.

There are a lot of people who are best suited to directly help their closeby "neighbors" like you describe and who help those far away best by giving money - there is nothing wrong with that, so long as you actually still care and actually still try to what is right by it.

One can only ever do his best, and I am doing my best. And on the contrary I think it is absolutely necessary to stay up to date on the problems of even the people I can do nothing for - so that at least I can encourage others to help them or recognize areas where I may be of help.

In short - I am doing everything I can do, in every way I know how, so I can sleep at night, yes. But if I did what you suggest and somehow lowered the bar, no I would not be able to sleep at night, knowing there is more I could be doing.

odd... first post seemed to have been cut off

I still insist that focusing your efforts on your true neighbours instead of taking the global view is not lowering the bar, but instead a way of better maintaining your motivation and achieving solid goals. Still, I can also see this is an argument I am not going to win :p.

I'm a bit concerned about your sleep at night comment. Doing things out of guilt is not a great foundation on which to build a life. It does make me wonder how things will go when the people you set out to help disappoint you. Still, I won't say that your apparently unshaking belief in your ideals combined with a global perspective isn't impressive. It's on the backs of people like you that Empires were built!

Best of luck.

Your argument would be valid if every region of the world were equal - they are not.

Africans can help Africans and Europeans can help Europeans and they should and that's great, but if rich people only ever help other rich people, the poor will stay poor.

Your argument would be valid if the regions of the world were isolated and people stationary.
-They are not.

In the modern age a man's personal neighbourhood includes not only his village or area of his city, but also his friends and family scattered across the globe and those people who are important to his friends and family. It is a wide and diverse neighbourhood, and yet still small enough to be manageble. The old "everyone on the planet is connect by five links" thing may not be entirely accurate, but the gist of it is true.

Let us leave alone for now the idea that only the poor are in need or deserving of our help (which I could spend many hours arguing against), but look instead at the idea that you are somehow better suited to to helping total strangers in West Africa than the local people. You may have a few more resources at hand, but your understanding of the subtleties of their culture and problems will unlikely ever match what already exists. Let people fight their own battles, make their own mistakes, solve their own problems, and live their own lives. Where they get overwhelmed and ask for your help, be ready to help them. But the people they ask will more likely than not be people they know or are linked with somehow in this wonderful interconnected world, and that is how it should be.

From a Christian viewpoint, the value of a human life has been set at the highest bar possible. Each and every human's life's ransom was made possible by the life and death of the Son of God, Jesus. It just doesn't get any more high stakes than that.

Economic status, race, region, religion, gender, etc. all have no bearing on the value of a human life as measured by this mark.

"Let people fight their own battles, make their own mistakes, solve their own problems, and live their own lives."

I agree with this sentiment, but unfortunately Western imperialist of a few decades ago would have begged to differ. They fucked them up, it would be wrong not to try to clean up our mess. Yes I agree that local people are well suited to the work - this is one thing I am learning in my studies. But quite frankly I am better suited to it them some Africans, and I am better suited to work on West African development than I am to work with underprivileged American kids. I'm not very good with kids.

You do your best, as I said. What I am best at and where I have assessed I can do the most good is in West Africa, it's not something I decided on lightly or without seeking out information. And they do ask for help - they understand the historical inequity I just described and many feel the West is obligated to get them out of the shithole we dug for them; I'm inclined to agree. Won't even mentioned global warming.

Your idea that everyone can just help who they know and since everyone is in a large network it will work is also bunk.

Black people in the US tend to know fewer rich people than white people. Yes they may know *some* rich or white people, but they are still at a disadvantage. An unfair disadvantage. I can't believe you can't see that.

White Americans versus minorities, for instance, have much higher net worth because they usually have an inheritance, whereas minorities tend to have nothing. Neither is any more entrepreneurial or any of that racist bullshit, the white people just have more connections. You seem to be advocating this status quo and I can't comprehend how you could do that.

http://www.npr.org/2011/09/15/140428359/making-it-in-the-u-s-more-than-just-hard-work

I agree with Leif-Syverson; this is one thing true Christians and I have in common, and it's one reason I particularly detest Christians who appear to reject this principle. Be Christian or don't lol.

And I am not implying that only the poor deserve or need help - remember I mentioned that I try to do things for anyone I come across, because they are there.

But we should, as you point out, having limited resources, focus our efforts on people who need help more. Often this is the poor, though not always.

The idea that the poor need help is wrong-headed to begin with.
It implies the poor are incapable.
The poor need opportunity much more than they need some sort of "help" or "aid" which seems like code for a multi-national bureaucracy.
The poor and the world certainly don't know more bureaucracy.
The poor and the world need more opportunity.

Congratulations, your dead body is worth $5075!

Mine is worth 250K to my wife. But don't tell her that.

@ Thucy

Couldn't disagree with you more about the influence of the West in Africa. There were plenty of mistakes made, but the benefits have been huge. Also the concept that because of the actions of a few toffs long before we were born we are somehow duty bound to help them sort out their countries is absurd. Why on earth should I be held responsible for the actions of some long dead chap whose sense of morale authority and global perspective led him to make a boat load of cock-ups in foreign countries? To help because you want to help is one thing, to help out of some sense of misplaced guilt is quite another.

And I will say once again that your neighbour is not just people you know, but people in your local community. I don't know a huge amount about the US, but surely segregation is a thing of the distant past these days? Besides which I don't see how colour is that big a factor. A working class white man is just as unlikely to know many upper class types as a working class black man. It is class and not colour that is the problem in the US, and it is a problem you will be largely turning your back on because you consider other to be more worthy of your time.

@ Tettle

Giving the poor more opportunities is helping them. You are trying to confuse the issue by introducing bizarre and unhelpful definitions of what is and isn't help. Stop it.

@ KalelChase

Dead bodies aren't where the money is. Stick to organ harvesting and you can make 10x that without trying. It'd be difficult to generate more funds than by simply killing Draugnar, but with a bit of effort you might come close

" but surely segregation is a thing of the distant past these days? "

In theory, yes, in practice, it's been getting worse as blacks get poorer.

" A working class white man is just as unlikely to know many upper class types as a working class black man."

The problem: you are infinitely more like to be working class if you are black than white - that is unjust.

"There were plenty of mistakes made, but the benefits have been huge."

This is joke, right buddy? Colonialism was a *good* thing? You're making that claim right now? We should start a whole nother thread for that so I can set you straight. Like.... you couldn't be more wrong. The earth revolves around the sun, too, by the way.

Also, I am 100% in agreement that no one need pay for the sins of his father.

However - you are a direct beneficiary of the rape of Africa - your comfortable lifestyle is a direct result of the stolen resources by those "toffs." You *do* owe that back, whether you believe it or not is another matter, but I would be happy to painstakingly prove to you that the prosperity of the west is directly related to the misery of the third world.

@Thucy - I defy you to tell me how my position in life is a result of the slave trade. My father is the oldest of nine kids from a *very* poor part of Tennessee. He went in the Navy to better himself and met my mom while serving his country. He got out, worked his way to the top of his chosen profession and instilled values in my brother and I of a similar nature. We both took seperate routes (him law enforcement, me white collar technical work) but are working our way to the tops of our profession. Nothing handed down. No hand outs. We didn't inheret anything from anywhere and every bit of money used to pay for our schooling came from student loans or our own income. Mom and dad paid for nothing school wise. The only priviledge from them was a roof over our heads rent free as long as we were in school. But neither of us took advantage of that and moved out on our own after coming home from the service ourselves (I was a MArine and my brother an MP in the Navy).

So tell me how I had some advantage again when affirmative action made me work harder to get ahead because I was neither black nor female.

*SP in the Navy technically speaking.

I am worth 200.000,000€ to my fiance. But I like to think of myself as priceless :{D

*200.000,00€ (it really wanted another zero in there)

"I would be happy to painstakingly prove to you that the prosperity of the west is directly related to the misery of the third world. "

No you wouldn't, because at the end of it all I would be no more convinced than I am now, you would be no less convinced, and it would have been a completely pointless and extremely time consuming exercise.

Indeed, it would probably wise to stop this conversation here as we are unlikely to do anything other than get frustrated with the perceived blatent stupidity of each other.

We could attempt to regain some common ground by spending the next hour or so insulting Tettleton?

Value is definitely subjective and there is no standard unit to measure it, so I don't think the question can be answered in a meaningful way. It's like asking about the color of eleven.

Draugnar, the status of your ancestors is irrelevant.

This is the short version: The GDP of the United States of America and other Western countries is extremely high because of exploitative terms of trade to acquire raw materials cheaply and then generate large profits from the finished products. This has been going on for a long time.

Because the United States has a large and powerful economy, you and your parents have had opportunities that simply do not exist everywhere - you did not earn these opportunities, nor indeed did you have anything do with bringing them home to America. But, at the end of the day, the reason they are there is because of the resource exploitation of the periphery by the core - the West.

If you disagree with me, Oct and Draug, tell me how exactly the West got so rich? And it's not as though just because one, ten, or one hundred years passes it's not the same wealth. We're still rich off what we stole and continue to steal. Your family doesn't have to be rich, indeed YOU don't have to be rich for it still to be true that you directly benefit from colonialism and neo-colonialism. If you live in the West, you benefit. It's not a racialized thing, it's not an ancestor thing.

Dr. Dre and OJ Simpson benefit just like Casey Anthony or Bernie Madoff or Taylor Swift or Shaun Alexander or my grandmother or your father or Nicolas Sarkozy.