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Originally Posted by Cecily
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Thanks but I was only half kidding. I did manage to get through it. I could sense from a glance it was going to be difficult. The first few lines made me feel extremely uncomfortable and I can say without reservation that your views on this topic literally make my skin crawl. Suffice it to say our opinions on the matter differ.
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I know you were and I think your reaction is appropriate. It means you are human ^^ the thing I have learned is that reason is indifferent to truth and not all truths are pleasant. Many, liek this one are depressing. Accepting a truth is not the same as embracing or reveling in it though.
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Your paraphrased argument is that it's my duty to personally save someone if I'm going to bother helping them at all. That's a callous and impractical view of the nature of suffering which is both acute and chronic. I simply don't have the ability, free time, or resources to provide employment or housing for the guy begging for food on the street. I've tried but I've learned that I can't fix someone else's life. What I can do is share a portion of my limited resources to help alleviate some immediate suffering. That's always worthwhile.
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That wasn't my argument ^^ (also wasn't directed at you, was in response to sonders post). my argument was that if you do not do enough to remedy the situation, or frequently enough to diminish it, then you are subsidizing it. This is where pokes gets frustrated as well and I don't blame him for it.
in the past, I've had trouble articulating why doing nothing is preferable when the result could be death, but it is a long the lines of why one should not have a child without the means to feed it. you don't have children when you dont know where your next meal will come from.
i believe suffering is fundamentally bad and an act may be known as wrong if it constitutes suffering. subsidizing it is therefore wrong.
Also, you make a super good point about being unable to fix other people's lives and that is another reason why providing intermittent subsidy is not good. We are the only ones who can save ourselves and generally we are only so inclined when we have no other choice.