[Apollia]

Originally Posted by fountainAtlas

It seems like you came from some difficult life circumstances, but are you sure that you don't have a few too many "wants" that you used debt to finance.

Sure, a few. But, most teenagers aren't known for good judgment. My mistakes are all perfectly clear in hindsight, but it's far too late for anyone to repair the damage and give me back all the opportunities I lost as a result of being ensnared at a vulnerable time (naive youth) in something akin to indentured servitude.

And what is it with your idea that the wealthy should give there money away to charity, why? Why should they give away money that they have worked for earned or inherited to you?

I will answer this as if you're not referring to force, because I wasn't recommending force in the first place. I think nothing should force the rich to donate money, except perhaps their own conscience.

There are tons of people who could use such charity much more than I could, so I wouldn't say wealthy folks should necessarily give money to me in particular (though if they really want to for some reason, I won't complain ).

But as for the idea of giving it to others who need it more, sure, why not? The wealthy have tons of money. Why not rescue a lot of people from starving to death, even if you can't afford to save every starving person in the world? If I were rich, I would be constantly haunted by the thought of all the starving, miserable people in the world (especially children) whose lives I could almost effortlessly save just by using my wealth. I would never have any peace unless I did something about it. Even now I feel guilty for not being able to do more.

As for a more selfish reason why people should rescue the poor - there are probably tons of talented artists, musicians, writers, inventors, etc. who end up destroyed by poverty in various ways, such as by their lives being cut short by preventable ill health, or by being driven to despair and suicide. At best, these artistis, etc. might end up wasting so much time working at a mindless job that they don't produce as many creative works as they otherwise would be able to. Any art, music, literature or technology lover, even one who is a non-humanitarian, should find that to be reason enough not to abandon everyone to near-slavery and misery.

Persuading the rich to be more generous is fortunately not my only idea when it comes to charity. I'm actually much more interested in one particular alternate idea - microdonations.

One of the great things about the microdonations concept is that it requires no contributor to be wealthy or to make a burdensomely large contribution in order to make a significant difference. A tiny donation like $1 could add up to a very large amount of money if a large number of people could be persuaded to donate $1 at the same time for the same cause.

At the very least a wealthy person has managed to hold on to their worth, that isn’t as easy as it sounds.

What an enviable difficulty to have that would be.

A great man once said that the easiest way to become a millionaire is to start with a billion and lose 999 million. You should be grateful for how loose lending is;

It's hard for me to be grateful for more rope to hang myself with. Or more leashes to tether me to unwanted masters and give them power over me no one in a free society should have over another human being.

Fortunately, though, I don't have that problem anymore - my credit report is probably so destroyed after being in default for about a year, I'm pretty sure it would be very difficult for me to find a loan or more credit even if I wanted to look.

at least there aren’t any debtors’ prisons.

Except you can be thrown in jail due to owing child support or taxes, at least in the USA.

There are certain types of charity that is good, those that promote education and facilities more members of society to become productive.

Yes, free education, etc. would be great. However, I still think no-strings-attached forms of charity which leave people free (instead of imposing some kind of obligation on them to try and make them become "productive"), are likely to facilitate people to become productive anyway, despite no one cracking the whip to make them do it.

For instance, if someone had simply _given_ me a decent computer when I was a teenager, I think that would have done me a lot of good, and I would have probably developed better programming/web design skills years earlier, and would probably be a much better programmer/web designer today, and much more capable of earning a living.

But instead, I ended up wasting a year of my life at a meaningless job as a copy editor/typist as a small newspaper. I guess anyone who regards miserable drudge work as virtuous for its own sake, regardless of the much better things one could do with one's time if one wasn't a wage slave, might think that was good - but I think I could have accomplished many more valuable things had my circumstances, debt, and peer pressure not encouraged me to stick with such a pointless job.

(The thing I found pointless about that job was the fact that that job did hardly anything to improve the world at large. Although, since my boss was a nice guy, I'm not unhappy that I saved him some money in the time I was there. He said I did the work of three people, by the way - so, lest there be any doubt, I just wanted to mention that, to show I am definitely capable of being productive ).

But pure charity only allows people to continue to not work and perpetuates an entitlement sentiment.

You sound like you have no problem with inheritance, though - despite the fact that inheritance is often thought to produce much the same results, "spoiled rich kids", etc.

Actually, I don't have a problem with inheritance myself. I'm glad at least some people never have to worry about money and aren't pressured by their circumstances into becoming wage slaves, etc. I wish everyone had a huge inheritance.

I am still trying to get over how someone who writes well and is apparently capable of intelligent discourse

Why, thank you.

can have views that are so disturbing.

If _I_ shock you, what do you think about Steve's article, 10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job?

Thanks for inspiring me to write these messages, it was fun. I hope it helps make my views more understandable and less disturbing to you.

Best wishes,
Apollia