Aid to the extremely poor and ethical "minimal decency&

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I think there's a slight misapprehension here. The focus here is not on those who are poorer than ourselves in general; the focus is on those in extreme poverty, defined as living on less than $1.25 of goods a day adjusted for purchasing power. Nearly 20% of all people live at that level.

That level may (or may not) imply a completely different level of moral obligation from what we, in the United States, call poverty (note that the per capita income in the US's absolute poorest places is still well over $1000 a year).

While the relief of poverty would presumably involve some kind of augmentation of the productivity of those societies which are impoverished, this is not necessarily a sufficient approach to that level of poverty because there is an immediate threat to basic sustenance; Singer's article states (although I don't know the source) that some 20% of children die prior to age 5 in the rock bottom poorest nations. If this is true, then this is a very basic well being issue for people in no position to pursue otherwise (as we might argue for the poor in say the US).

I think we need to be on the same page here.

The problem with the issue of global poverty is that it's very much a globalist guilt-trip for the common man while those who propagate it enjoy vast wealth and power to make them the very worst offenders.

To address the issue of poverty, one must ask WHAT is poverty?

So what if someone only gets $5 a day? If that's enough to survive in a local economy, that means nothing. Attaching an arbitrary dollar amount to what someone gets a day/week/year often leads to confusing the debate, not clarifying it. You need to make at least $20K a year in most parts of the USA to survive, but that's because of taxes, cost of living, etc. that is nowhere near as low as it is in other parts of the world.

The next question is WHY does poverty happen?

In many nations with the worst poverty, you get the following aggravating factors that people in the USA have NOTHING to do with....

1. Rampant overpopulation....locals breeding like rabbits even though they know there isn't enough food or clean water to support the population.

2. Corrupt local government....do you know how much "humanitarian aid" never gets to the people who need it because the local government squanders or hordes it for something else?

3. Incompetent local leadership....any nation can have prosperity if they work for it. Most nations have leaders so incapable of building anything successful that the national economy stays in the dumps. We are seeing the same thing happen in America with idiots in power creating policies that drive industry out of the nation and the standard of living down with more and more Americans falling below the national poverty level as a result.

4. War...by those who could choose not to fight amongst themselves....any nation that chooses to fight with a neighbor must commit resources to the fight. This is a zero gain enterprise. War builds nothing, it only destroys (as the USA is seeing economically today). If the USA never emerged from its civil war, would it have become as great as it is today? No, I say. No nation busy fighting with its neighbors will ever become prosperous short of conquering and seizing the wealth of its foe.

So, we can see that most nations with disgusting levels of poverty are largely responsible for the mess they are in, and "throwing money" at them won't solve their problems. I do not feel any guilt for the affairs of another that they choose to embrace. If those nations can't learn the ways of peace and choose to build a better future, sending help isn't really going to change anything.

Now, that brings us to the issue of domestic vs. foreign aid. We have Americans who are homeless, depending on food banks, no medical care, etc. and yet we have virtually no help for them. Having worked as a case manager for a welfare program, I can tell you that most people getting help don't deserve it. They are leaching off the system while others who do deserve help are disqualified for technical reasons...basically the "welfare" system requires one to be utterly destitute before they get any meaningful help...at which point it is too little, too late.

I would sooner give money to help a homeless person locally than worry about someone in another nation. Even in spite of that view, Americans give more than ANY OTHER NATION in the world when there is a natural disaster, even to the point that our government gives money it does not have (putting it on the taxpayers without our consent) to help.

And the globalists would go "tsk, tsk, tsk" to us for not doing more?

Come to me about this issue when the Carnegies, the Rockefellers, the Rothchilds, etc. renounce all but $1,000,000 per head (enough to live comfortably on for a lifetime) and give all the rest of their wealth to those in need around the world. Come to me when Bill Gates, John Travolta, Bono, and those glam stars do likewise rather than pouring out what looks like a sizable amount of money but really it is but a mere fraction of their wealth.

These figures are adjusted for purchasing power. If you look at the poorest municipality of any substantial size in the United States, Kiryas Joel:

You will find that it doesn't stack up on the shit-hole factor next to the least developed parts of the world. While there are some very poor people in the US, by and large it doesn't compare to the 1 billion plus living in extreme poverty.


If we're talking about the bottom rung of human well being, then it doesn't take modernizing their countries to make a morally significant impact. If there is a 20% mortality rate prior to the age of 5, then any help at all is important. More to the point, the question is what the relatively powerless, and disenfranchised have to do with the sins of the government to which they are attached. If a child is born into a very poor society, its death prior to age 5 is not something it could be considered just to have happen as it is in no way responsible for the poor quality of life it has received; nor yet can the throngs of those living in extreme poverty who have lived in extreme poverty be considered individually culpable for group incompetence. The very affluent are by and large not capable of having earned being born into a wealthy society and the very poor are by and large not capable of having earned being born into a very poor society, as people exercise no power over their birth place and conditions.

Why is it that someone who has been born into circumstances which imply a short and brutish life is perfectly acceptable to ignore?


Yet conspicuously gives very little proportionately when suffering doesn't make dramatic newspaper headlines.

Now, this can be
1) denied factually (as in, you're full of s**t)
2) disputed factually: as in, you may be full of it, and the question is whether or not the possibility that you aren't is sufficient to justify the moral calamity if you are and you do nothing. Let' set up a table:

*By your calculation, I assume. One might still argue that you're pretty damn evil still.
** There is no try

Now, "Do" help is clearly the dominant strategy here.
3) Let's assume that you're completely not full of it. I really do not see on what grounds you adjudge that the moral worth of an individual is related to the mean competence of a group to which you assign that individual. Does someone born into the United States have more moral worth than a "naturally" comparable individual elsewhere in the world by virtue of the fact that the US has awesome people in it? How did their awesomeness rub off on him?



1) Naked is-ought fallacy
2) Assuming that that's what evolutionary psychology says, you're hanging your hat on a very flimsy science (research has shown that evolutionary psychology consists largely of "just so" stories). See the above table on respective payoffs involved in highly uncertain premises.

1) What's immoral about the discontinuation of a lineage defined arbitrarily?
2) What the hell does the fact that white people don't have babies have to do with helping the extremely poor?


It has nothing to do with the physical equality of anyone and everything to do with their moral equality, which you have done nothing to address.

True, but my point in that matter leads to the next....



That is a valid point, but what do you suggest? Do we have the right to interfere in the sovereign affairs of another nation? Should we send in the Marines to lay waste to the governments that oppress the poor and hungry so we can ensure medicine, food and such reaches them? If I was a Marine, should your moral imperative obligate me to risk life and limb for these people?

Unless the locals will overthrow the yoke of their oppressors, we can do very little to help them. Meantime, we often ignore the needs of those we can help in our own neighborhoods.

It is shame that poverty is not already eliminated.

Solution: Eliminate wealthy hook-noded leeches with high hats.