Do You Want To Save The World?

What do starving children in Africa and polar bears losing their ice have in common? They are both devices used to appeal to emotion in order to take your money. Their survival or lack thereof has no impact whatsoever on your life, but people harp on them to get you to care, for their benefit, not yours.

Why do they do it?

They do it because it works. It works because people do not realize that not caring is the better option. By not caring about these and other activist causes, they will cease to have power. Also, telling some telemarketer you don’t care instead of some lame “I don’t have money this month” excuse gets you blacklisted from charities real quick.

Remember, it was “i got my mind on my money and my money on my mind” not “I got my mind on the polar bears.” Do you want to retain resources for yourself and things you actually care about? If so, stop caring about things that do not impact you.

If a man had the discipline not to be wasteful, these parasites that want your money for their pet causes would disappear quickly. They continue to exist, though, because not enough people tell them no.

You might think giving $5 to the girl extolling the necessity to save orphans in Darfur is a quick and easy way to keep things moving on the subway, but it merely feeds this beast of suicidal altruism. Having the discipline to leave these social justice types hanging is key to getting them to stop.

Third party observers that are not zombies will see that you are not bending to the will of a dipshit, meaning that you actually have a backbone. If they see you as selfish and miserly, then you probably don’t want to enjoy their company anyways.

The characteristics of charity looters

 

One of the first things I have noticed about those who solicit me is they appear weak and meek. Whether its some skinny hipster asking me to donate to xyz at the coffee shop, or some big organization that wants to deprive me of money, time, or legal freedom by utilizing the subterfuge of emotional appeal or social conformity, they cannot be direct. This lack of candor is close enough to dishonesty for me to dismiss them immediately.

Speaking of social conformity, it is a powerful weapon to get people to do things that are not in their best interest. It is visible everywhere, from Apple earphones to women wearing the same leggings and boots as each other. The use of social conformity is imprecise, though—it is not agile enough to react to the smart non-conformist.

When one stops caring, those who wish to persuade you cannot change the direction of the herd fast enough to rope you in. To counter this weakness in getting people to behave a certain way outside of their own interests, other options are examined. Remember, if they cannot get you to care, they cannot get your money. Do you really want to be that guy that goes along to get along?

One of the best indicators that not caring is effective is what these activists do when their cause peters out. They appeal to government. If you don’t want to donate, they will just get it through tax dollars. What they do not realize at the “grassroots” level is that co-opting government power turns people away from their cause—well, at least the productive citizens.

No one likes paying higher taxes. This trumps the well-being of sand fleas on NoOneCares Island. It also exposes the true intentions of the higher-ups of these various activist organizations. Everyone sees Al Gore as the greedy hypocrite he is after his advocacy for clean energy.

The merits of not caring about things unrelated to you are simple. You get to keep your money, there are fewer restrictions on you, and it exposes these do-gooders for the control freaks they really are. If they cannot control you through the soft power of emotional appeal and social conformity, they have to switch to the hard power of laws and regulations.

Whenever an organization or movement makes this switch, the truth comes out. In conclusion, I will only care about nonsense when they make me care about nonsense.

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