I think less of people supporting causes that affect them

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kombat

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I support worthy causes now and then. But I feel it's very disingenuous when people solicit money for causes that affect them. For example, I've given money for breast cancer research, even run in races for the cause. But when I find that someone raising money for it is a breast cancer survivor, I suddenly think less of them.

You know who I'd respect? A cancer survivor who's raising money for Cerebral Palsey. Or an organ donor recipient who's raising money for Cystic Fibrosis.

When you're raising money for a cause that directly affects you, that's not very noble. Christopher Reeve never gave a **** about paralysis until he broke his own spine. That's not heroism, that's selfishness.

Just me, or everyone?
 
Nobody cares about the laws that regulate home brewing unless you are a home brewer.

My supervisor is a war vet as well as a cancer survivor.

If you or a loved one has never been through it you dont understand. They know how much they were helped while they were struggling and want to give and help those that come after them.
 
I can't think of a more noble gesture than a 32 year old young lady, with a husband and 3 year old son. Total mastectomy. Loss of almost all function of one arm because so much mass and muscle has been taken from her to remove cancer, to stand up, with a voice and do everything she and her family can to help the cause that can and most likely will be the hand that death has dealt.
She lives the life of heroism and selflessness every single day.

I hope you never have to experience any of this 'selfishness'.
 
Right. Until it affects them, they don't care. Then suddenly it's the most important thing to them, even if it's not actually a big deal.

One of my friends has a 2 year old who has been diagnosed as Autistic. Now everything she posts on Facebook is about her struggle, raising awareness, fundraisers, #autismspeaks and so on. But before she had an autistic kid, not a single post about the topic.

Now I'm sure autism sucks, but the kid's still going to live a long life. It's not like he has Leukemia or a hole in his heart or any of a hundred other more serious issues. But it's only autism she posts about. Is she a hero, or blindly self-centered?
 
I put this post amongst the stupidest ever posted on HBT!!!!

I support worthy causes now and then. But I feel it's very disingenuous when people solicit money for causes that affect them. For example, I've given money for breast cancer research, even run in races for the cause. But when I find that someone raising money for it is a breast cancer survivor, I suddenly think less of them.
 
Right. Until it affects them, they don't care. Then suddenly it's the most important thing to them, even if it's not actually a big deal.

One of my friends has a 2 year old who has been diagnosed as Autistic. Now everything she posts on Facebook is about her struggle, raising awareness, fundraisers, #autismspeaks and so on. But before she had an autistic kid, not a single post about the topic.

Now I'm sure autism sucks, but the kid's still going to live a long life. It's not like he has Leukemia or a hole in his heart or any of a hundred other more serious issues. But it's only autism she posts about. Is she a hero, or blindly self-centered?


Sheesh. Do you have kids? That last statement is unbelievable...
 
No, I don't have kids. And I never will.

Your perspective would probably be different if you did. Your wiring changes once you have kids (at least for most). Typically a parent will do anything humanly possible to help their child.
 
Maybe "selfish" was a poor choice of words. It's at least not heroic.

In my city, there's a local girl who had a genetic flaw that compromised her lungs. She eventually found a donor and had a double lung transplant. Now she's an evangelist for organ donation. The city even renamed a street after her.

But the only reason she cares about organ donation is because she directly benefitted from it.

I'm not saying I have a problem with her promoting her cause. That's perfectly understandable. I'm just saying I don't respect her as much as someone who organizes the fundraisers and runs the half marathon when they HAVEN'T received an organ. Her reasons are obvious. It's self interest. It's less noble. That's all I'm saying.
 
Your perspective would probably be different if you did. Your wiring changes once you have kids (at least for most). Typically a parent will do anything humanly possible to help their child.


Right. They care about the diseases that affect THEIR child. Even if they're less severe than diseases affecting other peoples' children. It's understandable, I'm just saying I resent them being held up as heroes. Their reasons for caring about juvenile diabetes or whatever are obvious and self-interested. Understandable, but not heroic. That's all I'm saying.
 
kombat: when you wake up tomorrow, you will hopefully feel embarrassed by what you posted tonight. If not, I pity you for being petty enough to call out organ recipients for promoting organ transplants.
 
I don't resent organ transplant recipients for promoting organ transplants. In fact, I'm a registered organ donor. I resent them being hailed as heroes for evangelizing something that saved their lives. I don't resent them promoting it - that's understandable. I'm annoyed at society elevating them to the status of heroes for something so self-promoting.
 
I support causes that affect my family members - I simply acknowledge that there's nothing necessarily heroic or virtuous about it. I'm saying I don't need a street named after me if I organize a breast cancer run after I lose a loved one to it.
 
My dad is a recovering alcoholic. He has been sober for more than thirty years. He is ashamed of the pain he caused my family and he is my hero. Heroes are faulted broken people who in spite of their challenges rise up and stand against evil and hardship. Often they find that the grasp of the enemy has fallen upon them and in escaping that almost certain death they stand to warn others. He waits in the wings to take them and yet they speak. These are heroes. I suspect that you are yourself faulted and therefore can't see these men and women who stand as witness against the enemy, but then if you are deceived then you might never see.
 
What I think is happening here is that kombat assumes that because someone suddenly has the knowledge and first-hand experience of something, they deign to be called a Hero. Actually, they are probably just doing it because they suddenly have knowledge and first-hand experience, and THAT is what gives them the motivation and the qualification to solicit to the cause.

When you have first-hand experience with something it gives you a different perspective. When you don't, it's easy to sit on the sideline and say, "So what?"
 
When you have first-hand experience with something it gives you a different perspective. When you don't, it's easy to sit on the sideline and say, "So what?"

I glanced, but I think this is closer to what he was initially trying to say: that it's even more amazing when someone doesn't have that perspective but still chooses to help to the best of their ability and not sit on the sideline.

Frankly, both are admirable but for different reasons. I don't know that I would put one above the other, however, just seems like a dick measuring contest in that case.
 
I support the Innocence Project. I don't know any people convicted of murder, correctly or unjustly. Nor do I think I'll ever be in the position that many of the people affected have, where they are bullied/screwed by the system largely because they don't have the means to arrange adequate representation that can protect them from the system.

I do it because I can't imagine anything worse than being on death row or convicted to life without parole for a crime you didn't commit. And I do it because it's not exactly a group that inspires much sympathy. Everyone has sympathy for the mother of 3 with breast cancer. Nobody has sympathy for the 34-year-old black man who was convicted of murdering 3 people and claims up and down that he didn't do it because they secretly don't believe him. So I figure sometimes it's important to stick up for the people who have no supporters.

I'm not a hero. I tend to think that the term "hero" is watered down and should be applied to the people who truly do risk themselves and their livelihood to help others. I didn't do that. I merely gave them some money to do work that I think is laudable.

But I'd ask that if you're really taking the time and thinking about it, ask yourself who needs your help most? A charity that's trying to "raise awareness" of a disease that we're all REALLY aware of? Or the charity who is trying to restore justice for someone who has been royally screwed by the "justice system"?
 
I support the Innocence Project. I don't know any people convicted of murder, correctly or unjustly. Nor do I think I'll ever be in the position that many of the people affected have, where they are bullied/screwed by the system largely because they don't have the means to arrange adequate representation that can protect them from the system.

Innocence Project is awesome.
 
I support the Innocence Project. I don't know any people convicted of murder, correctly or unjustly.

Yes, thank you, that's exactly what I'm talking about.

I'm not a hero. I tend to think that the term "hero" is watered down and should be applied to the people who truly do risk themselves and their livelihood to help others.

YES! Exactly! Everybody's a "hero" nowadays. Nurses are heros, firefighters are heroes, everybody's a hero except the doctor who gives up time with his/her family to quietly do their job day in and day out and save dozens of lives a month.
 
Why are doctors heroes, but not nurses? Do nurses not "give up time with his/her family to quietly do their job day in and day out and save dozens of lives a month"? Absolutely they do. Do firefighters not give up time with their families as well? Of, f-ing course they do.

With all due respect - and I do mean that - this is the stupidest thread with the stupidest line of reasoning I have ever read on this forum (and that is saying something).

This goes back to the old saying - it's better to sit there and have everyone think you're an idiot than to open your moth and prove it.
 
I will agree with the sentiment that the term hero is liberally handed out these days, like participation trophies.

To me, a hero puts themselves at significant risk or cost, to benefit others. It is going way beyond the call.
 
Why are doctors heroes, but not nurses? Do nurses not "give up time with his/her family to quietly do their job day in and day out and save dozens of lives a month"? Absolutely they do. Do firefighters not give up time with their families as well? Of, f-ing course they do.

With all due respect - and I do mean that - this is the stupidest thread with the stupidest line of reasoning I have ever read on this forum (and that is saying something).

This goes back to the old saying - it's better to sit there and have everyone think you're an idiot than to open your moth and prove it.

Seriously? We just got everyone back down to earth and you have to stir the muck. Nobody said there aren't any other professionals that deserve recognition. They did however use ONE (a doctor) as an example. Please re-read your old saying and let the sleeping dog lie.
 
Ok so is batman selfish because his crimefighting was a result of something that affected him, or is he selfless because he wears a mask a doesn't take credit?
To the OPs Christopher Reeve example, he's a public figure so he probably just thought he could get more support using his disability?
 
There are many factors that motivate charity. Thank goodness that true pure altruism is not the only one or most charities would go broke tomorrow. The most effective charitable campaigns and this is just my opinion are the ones that suggest you get something in return, like the gratitude of a desperate child or woman in distress. Or a chance to save a life.

So firefighters and ambulance medics save lives every day when they inject narcan into a junky. Is the junky grateful? Mostly no. The reality of altruism becomes quickly dismal. The synic in me is very grateful that if I find myself someday bleeding from my ears in a ditch, some jerkoff who wants to see some crazy **it is getting paid to take me to a hospital.

In the dark hours heros are not discriminated against. Perhaps they should be, but that is not the world we live in today.
 
As a brain cancer survivor, I am deeply offended by the OP.

At the risk of offending you further, you just made my point for me, perfectly.

You clearly care deeply about the cause of brain cancer. Not because you objectively evaluated all of the issues affecting mankind and decided that brain cancer is the most serious one where your attention could produce the most benefits, but because it directly affected you. That's entirely my point.

Had you never contracted brain cancer, you would most likely continue to afford it the same consideration as you do many other equally serious causes, like Lou Gehrig's disease, or ALS, or Boko Haram kidnapping young girls and forcing them into marriage. But none of those things affect you.

I'm not saying it's bad, or even irrational. Of course you care more about things that affect you directly than the things that don't. I'm just saying it doesn't make you a hero.
 
At the risk of offending you further, you just made my point for me, perfectly.

Dude, you called it "selfish" in your OP. To criticize anyone for supporting a cause that benefits others is beyond ignorant...

You have some truly misguided thinking.
 
At the risk of offending you further, you just made my point for me, perfectly.

You clearly care deeply about the cause of brain cancer. Not because you objectively evaluated all of the issues affecting mankind and decided that brain cancer is the most serious one where your attention could produce the most benefits, but because it directly affected you. That's entirely my point.

Had you never contracted brain cancer, you would most likely continue to afford it the same consideration as you do many other equally serious causes, like Lou Gehrig's disease, or ALS, or Boko Haram kidnapping young girls and forcing them into marriage. But none of those things affect you.

I'm not saying it's bad, or even irrational. Of course you care more about things that affect you directly than the things that don't. I'm just saying it doesn't make you a hero.

Wow...just wow. Your logic is stunningly idiotic. And did I ever claim to be a hero? No.
 
I understand what the OP is saying. I never thought a thing about stroke until it affected me personally. We are not promised tomorrow. I hope the OP never experiences a tragedy but if (s)he does I hope for peace and understanding. I believe true heroes are men and women that will never hit the headlines. Silent professionals.
 
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