Recent submissions

Comment · 1 month ago
Donating feels good, but is that the goal?

People who have spent time in these areas (not as tourists) often notice the hugely damaging effects of many charities. If Western societies had relied on charity in pre-industrial times, they might never have been forced to develop strong institutions and welfare systems. Instead, they might have evolved into begging cultures.

These systems are incredibly difficult to develop because doing so goes against our selfish nature. In Tanzania, across Africa, and in many other parts of the world, people often care only about their own circle—in other words, their own family and kin.

I do believe wealth should be shared. It shouldn't be a choice; it should be an obligation. But not like this.

The ultimate goal of charities should not be to enrich individuals, but to help them build cooperative societies capable of supporting the most vulnerable.

I believe your donation only makes the problem worse. Helping people is much harder than simply giving money to someone in a way that makes you feel good about yourself—without even getting into the many Western NGO workers who profit from posts like this.

Comment · 3 months ago
> The solution, then, seems to be holding people in power accountable, no?

The problem is that this is an extremely difficult step to achieve, because it does not simply depend on the will of the people. It depends on cultural evolution. Human beings are not naturally rational; like other species, we are driven by evolutionary processes that are often irrational and self-interested.

Most countries—and, more specifically, the majority of their citizens—have not yet reached this stage of civilizational development. The French are far from it, and I believe the Germans are as well. Despite belonging to the generation that emerged from a relatively recent period of cultural barbarism, Germany is currently supporting what is considered as the greatest genocide and one of the gravest sets of war crimes of our time. So I would not overestimate the level of civilization of a population whose majority appears unconcerned by what I see as such an obvious moral failure.

In my view, one of the roots of human barbarism is the tendency to overestimate either human nature itself or the moral achievements of one's own culture.

Comment · 4 months ago
> they morally can't deal with - their subconscious starts throwing all sorts of obvious signs up until they get caught That's the view narcissistic have of human nature: "we feel so bad when we behave selfishly, because deep inside we are so naturally virtuous". It's very comfortable to believe that deep inside we remain virtous/innocent even if our life clearly shows how mediocre we are. In the real world, you are what you do.
Comment · 4 months ago
mixing up bioweapons, malware, with hate speech (which is basically a censorship) shows how very basic people like Trump can win. Hopefully you won't wait to be censored before realizing that anything could be interpreted as "hate speech".
Comment · 5 months ago
a non popular theory: the more people become civilized (not using the traditional meaning) the less basic / animal they become. Animal are programmed to follow one goal : replicating one genes. Some (few) human manage to follow more elaborate (and less selfish) goals than replicating their genes.
Comment · 5 months ago
the debates is rich= bad, poor = good. The idea that they are all mediocre isn't popular on the left since it's a left dogma (and the reason why either the right always win or the left always loose).
Comment · 5 months ago
Taking into account our mediocre human nature, I wonder how much is actually true in what we say and believe (but can't even count on (human) statistic to answer that one, can't wait for AGI)
Comment · 5 months ago
wéro (é like elephant)
Comment · 5 months ago
For many people "terrorists" are the one bombing and invading, which means that Iran is currently victim of terrorism.
Comment · 5 months ago
to be fair, I bet more human knows that USA is much more dangerous to the world "order" than Iran having a nuclear weapon (Pakistan and even Israel has it, so why not Iran and Mozambic too?)
Comment · 5 months ago
Comment · 5 months ago
"both sides are horrific" is convenient, but only one keep invading and bombing others since decades
Comment · 6 months ago
Comment · 6 months ago
Someone has to do it, and it should be seen as a great service to society and rewarded accordingly

You are just too priviledge to understand people: many people would be glad do do it for the minimum wage, I would fight to have that oportunity (I live in west EU).

Live from the official Hacker News API

A modern reader for Hacker News · SvelteKit + Skeleton