Thread: charity is devolution?

does anyone give their loose change to beggers on the street... or donate money to charity??? why???


it is understandable if charity was given to contribute society, making it a better place for us to live in.. helping out friends and family is also understandable. survival, investment... something darwisnism would agree with. is it not all about trade.

so is it not that helping strangers, people who would only hinder us, be a devoluton process??

Peace of mind... good feelings... moral responsibility all those invisble factors have any effect on human evolution??

or is there such a thing?? or maybe that the rate of this devolution is so slow compare to evolution that it does not matter at all.. but it would mean there is one?

First:

Human evolution is a very tricky subject, because many people mix the definition of status.
In evolution animals with a high status, get the best partners and reproduce a lot.
In evolution for the mammal human, a high status makes him(rather then her) very sexy. But this does not result in many children.
Former evolutional logics are not applicable anymore.
Think about it to be successful in evolution is reproduction and bringing your descendent up safe to reproduce further. Succesful women in society (business, models, athletes) all have a lower reproductions rates.
If pam andereson had her boob-job done 100.000 years ago she would be reproduction hit, now it is a business success and a risk for sexual diseases :wink: .
In summery, the most 'fittest' humans are in many case with those low social status.

Second and I fear a new topic here:
We’re driven by other emotions then our evolutional instinct (if we can call it like that). We have moral, if moral says do not hurt you’re wife, many man can leave their beautiful short skirted secretary alone (not al of them, so moral can conflict with biology, but it does not mean that biology is dominant and neither is moral).

To reply more directly to your question, I think other factors are responsible for the ‘devolution’ of mankind (being science and progress). Quit funny progress and devolution in the same sentence in this meaning.

and just for the record it think giving to charity in anyway possible helps the human society.

Stuff enough to think about, it would say

Welfare versus Charity

The differences between welfare and charity are so significant as to render the two completely different from each other in character. First, to the beneficiaries, welfare is a legal entitlement whereas charity is provided at the discretion of the administrators of the benefits. Second, charity is voluntary on the part of those providing the funds and welfare is coerced. We’ll address the first aspect here.

Because welfare is an entitlement, the effect on the recipients is quite different from the effect of a charity. In fact, there’s no doubt that on the whole, welfare is destructive while charity is, at worst, harmless. When racial considerations are taken into account, welfare programs and the underlying value system will ultimately be recognized as the policy most responsible for continued racial economic inequality in the last half of the 20th century.

The problem with welfare derives from the very basic principle that people don’t value what they get for free. Those who get free health care tend to visit he doctor for frivolous or even imaginary afflictions. Those who get assistance with their grocery bill tend to spend their other income on things they don’t need (alcoholic beverages and tobacco, to name two). Providing low-rent or free housing almost universally results in chronic vandalism, if not wholesale destruction, of the housing facilities.

The question most often asked by welfare proponents when someone proposes the abolition of state-run welfare programs, is whether it’s fair to penalize the truly-deserving welfare recipient just because there are some who take advantage of the system. The answer, or reciprocal question, is plain as day. Is it fair to destroy the lives of the majority of welfare customers just to ensure some help actually gets into the hands of the few people who may be deserving of some form of assistance? Pushing certain drugs is considered a terrible crime because it plays off of the inability of the drug user to control his use of the drug. Giving people the bare necessities for life eliminates those people’s motivation for learning how to provide life’s necessities for themselves.


Copyright © 2002 David R. Krueger

I try to keep my argument as short as possible.

Welfare and charity are a necessity. Especially welfare (now that I know the difference)

And here’s one of the main reasons:
Modern capitalism is very competitive system. It drives many people to maximum of their capacities resulting in enormous progress. Because of this many people receive a wealth unseen in history. So this is a good thing.
The backside is that (and I’m making an estimation which is too high) let’s say 10% of the people aren’t capable to fit in the system. Some of will fit in if forced, but still many are just not born to function well in such a competitive system (although they often have many talents).
The only human thing to do is to admit the flaws in your system and try to correct them by giving everybody some basics needs. Of course this is a small brake, but a speeding car also needs to watch out for the turns on the road.
So in my opinion if capitalism does not want to spin out the track it needs to feed everybody.

First I'd like to address a nuance that seems implicit in your thread title "charity is devolution?"
I am not clear what you mean by devolution in this context. It implies a belief that evolution is somehow concerned with improvement, in becoming better in some way. If this was your intent than I suggest it is a flawed one. Evolution is about change, about organisms becoming fitter, or less fit, for their specific environment. Those that are fittest are most likely to survive.
Characteristics that are a benefit in one environment are a liability, or at best neutral, in others. There is no absolute standard of rightness: better is a relative term.
Given the above, devolution has really no applicable meaning.

Originally Posted by Quietsoul

does anyone give their loose change to beggers on the street... or donate money to charity??? why???

The superficial reasons:
a) Empathy
b) Sympathy
c) Guilt
d) Self righteousness

The underlying reasons:
We are a social animal. A tendency to aid others of our species has proved, in the past, to be an effective survival device. It has been engendered as an instinct, reinforced by positive cultural feedback.

Originally Posted by Quietsoul

so is it not that helping strangers, people who would only hinder us, be a devoluton process??

Why would strangers hinder us? In a general sense, when I sit down to breakfast it is only possible because of the input of some tens of thousands of people, of whom all but a handful are strangers to me. My lifestyle is possible only because of the efforts of many many strangers around the planet. Strangers are good.
Perhaps, I am being pedantic, and you mean by a stranger this 'low-life' on the street who may mug me later that night in a dark alley, or break into my home.
I believe, beacause there is evidence for it, that giving to that kind of stranger can be positive, can help them not only in monetary terms, but in terms of raising their spirits, helping them climb out of their personal hell. Of course, for that to work the gift of money must also be accompanied by the gift of concern. Sometimes a smile is enough.

Originally Posted by Quietsoul

so is it not that helping strangers, people who would only hinder us, be a devoluton process??

If everybody helped everybody then nobody would need help. There wouldn't be your strangers and beggars on the street to think about.
When you break your leg you can't walk quite well. Fix it and you can walk perfectly. All of us are ONE. Help out those strangers and somewhere along the line you'll realize you were just helping out yourself. Do you know what i mean?