An answer, or a solution?

For a background, please read from page 5 of chapter 436 of Naruto to the end of the chapter.

http://www.mangafox.com/manga/naruto/v47/c436/5.html

In a summary, Pain's mission is to create world peace. The way he does this is by essentially blowing up countries to the point that everyone is too afraid to start conflict. This will work. However, it is to Naruto a quite malfactory solution. Unfortunately, Naruto is not able to answer the question until after an extremely drawn out fight to the death. (If you are interested in this series start from chapter 1... don't want to spoil it lol).

Sometimes, you will know that your enemy is wrong even though you can't give a well-though answer yourself. This happens all the time in politics. Generally speaking, certain political figures will have "answers" (generally Democrats) while others will waist far too much time criticizing the lousiness of such answers while lacking an effective solution themselves (generally Republicans).

Suppose an answer needs to be given immediately. If you choose an ad hoc solution, you will save the lives of millions. But even still, this will cause an ongoing curse of malignancy for the generations to come. If you wait to give a meaningful solution, you can help the future generations, but several million people will die over the next few years because there was no temporary solution.

Which would you choose, and why?

A roast beef sandwich

Last Thursday I went to downtown Austin and visited the UT campus. It was really nice. After the tour, I was quite hungry and went to a "Potbelly's Sandwich Shop" (that's the printed text/literature). I ordered a "big" roast beef sandwich with wheat bread, provolone cheese, hot peppers, lettuce, tomatoes, and onions with the addition of a fountain drink, in which I mixed root beer and Doctor Pepper. Spicy things tend to make my nose run, and for a short while I was forced to breath in through my nose and out through my mouth. I refilled the soda and went outside.

After I went outside, I started walking down the sidewalk of the center I was in. It was a very busy street with many businesses, and was called the "drag," or Guadeloupe street. Not more than 20 steps out, a young Latino guy asked me "Do you have a moment to help save children?"

Before I had time to respond, I was interrupted. It was a dude wearing blue jeans, a windbreaker, and a pair of sunglasses perched on a bicycle leaning against a street-light post. I have bad verbal memory and don't perfectly remember the exact conversation as it was quite drawn out, but this is at least close to how it went:

Homeless dude: “Don’t give anything to him man, what he’s doing is wrong”

Humanitarian guy: “What do you mean, wrong? We are working to save children’s lives!”

Homeless dude: “You aren’t saving anyone’s lives! You are ENABLING third world countries to drive themselves into the dirt!”

And so on… it became clear that there was significant hostility between the two and to my embarrassment, my animal instincts kicked in and I started getting a rush of epinephrine. I am quite experienced in such situations, however, and I decided that I would just stay quite while drinking my soda for a while. This solved several things, one- it was somewhat amusing, two- if I waited, I could get the CO2 of the soda out of my system in a way that would not show up while I talk, three- if I waited, my nose would finally stop running, four- since I am of the male gender, if I just calmly waited my stress receptors would retreat and I would be able to meaningfully interact without being nervous, and five- I was  interested in both of their opinions.

So they kept on berating each other. The homeless guy’s opinion was that if you mindlessly donate to developing countries, you are “enabling” them to rely on you, which will basically make the situation worse. His only sentiment to their development was that it would help to boost literacy rates.

Humanitarian guy: “That’s what we’re doing!”

He explained that his organization was trying to help improve conditions for young starving children and boost literacy rates. This did not seem to click.

Homeless dude: “No, that’s not what you’re doing! You are making the situation worse! You are enabling these countries to drive themselves into the dirt. Why don’t you donate to the poor in America? I am homeless and I have a job and get along fine. What you’re doing is sick, and God is ashamed of you.”

Here (about 15 minutes in the conversation) I realized it was good that I stayed calm and let myself cool off, because if this was said in the beginning I would likely have interrupted with my own opinion and made the situation worse. I realized that the activist was being reckless do religious debate on the street with one who may likely have absolutely nothing to lose. Quietly, I made one pace toward the homeless guy (still in his funny position on his bicycle) and alertly watched for even the most subtle hand movements, in preparation to quickly bring him down should he pull out a weapon of some sort. Fortunately, nothing came of this.

Humanitarian guy: “My God!? The Lord Jesus Almighty? I don’t know what YOUR God thinks, but to mine, saving poor children from starvation is right?”

At this point I reached into my pocket and handed him a dollar. The homeless dude dissed me… I completely forgot exactly what he said.

“This dollar will save a child from starvation in Africa!”

“You are sick. This isn’t what God wants” etc., etc…

Random guy from a distance: “I don’t think it’s right for you to be arguing about what God does and doesn’t do…”

Thank you, random person! I too share the same belief! God’s opinion is far above ours, and it is foolhardy to argue over it.

After another stream of insults, the homeless man finally said:

“I feel sorry for you. You are a disgusting, f******g liberal democrat. What you are doing to these children is horrible and your God looks down upon you. If you plan on doing what’s right, why don’t you help out the poor in America? Feel free to stop by and buy some of my ARTS and CRAFTS!”… and he rode off.”

This is where I finally get a chance to speak! I thought that after listening to both of their opinions, I could formulate a meaningful answer of my own.

“Man… I’ve seen that guy around, but I had no clue he thought like this. I’m so disgruntled…  I’ve been doing this for two weeks and I have to put up with **** like this. I’m not making a dime doing this… I only do it because I know this is right. But it’s starting to take its toll on me.”

Now, don’t take me wrong, I do not always try to act like Yoda and give philosophical insights on everything I’m asked about. But in this situation, I had been formulating opinions on the topic for what was only 30 minutes but what seemed like days. I decided that I agreed with this one far more than the other, and would say whatever was necessary to keep him motivated for his work.

“Don’t give up.”

“I know man… I know. He pisses me off so much. I mean, who does he think he is talking like that? You know what, I’m going to seek him out. I will stand right in front of him and ask for donations. I will keep doing this, just to spite him.”

This would be good motivation for his work, but I couldn’t condone his reasoning. Doing good things with bad motivation can lead to a tragedy.

“If I could offer any opinion, I would suggest that you forgive him.”

“Oh my God… you are right. You are so right. I can’t believe I started to think like that…”

Finally, he was open to my opinion. I couldn’t stay around and mentor him forever, as I didn’t  even have the qualifications to do so. I have no experience in volunteer work. I remembered that the only thing I could say was that which would motivate him, and I remembered an important quote that greatly helped me in this situation.

“What you are doing is right. He said that improving literacy is the only way to help third-world countries, and that is what your organization is doing. It did not seem to click though… and plus it’s hard to learn to read and write if you are starving. There’s no reason to worry about what this guy says… if you are confident, you will take it, and that is necessary as there will be many more to come. I do not know what inspired his hatred, but know that God is on your side and he is much stronger than any of them. Truly, it is men like these that need help. It has been said that the poor are more blessed than the rich as they can see more clearly that which is more important. So, these children in Africa are really as blessed as can be, and it would be a great cause to help these ones as well. Anyways, just don’t give up because of silliness like this.” I wanted to tell him to be careful in arguing with them all the time, as many of them have nothing to lose. Unfortunately, I was cut off in the middle of that thought process and forgot to tell him in the end.

When I get in deep enough thought, I tend to stop paying attention to my surroundings. I believe he essentially reiterated something to the effect of a mission statement and I congratulated him again on his work and left.

I thought I spoke kindly to him… but what I said was quite twisted. I do believe that God was on his side as Christ said that it is good for the rich to give to the poor and the will of the Son is the will of the Father.

However, everything else wasn’t completely true. What he was doing may not have been right. There are other ways of helping third world countries than improving literacy. It may have clicked, but he may have been to aggravated to admit it. If they are fed well they may not be motivated to learn to read and write. I do not know what exactly inspired his hatred, but I know what can inspire such hatred. Not all the children may be completely blessed. Some may have significant jealousy and hatred toward those who have it better.

There are many different moral conflicts in helping third world countries and the poor in general, which I will blog about later if necessary.

What do you think? Also, the literature involved is the printed words “Potbelly sandwich shop.” Believe it or not, that does relate to this article. Do you know why?

Hersheys

As I sit and eat this hersheys bar, it comes to pass that I notice there is a message hidden on the fold of the wrapper that says: "Every Hershey's product you've enjoyed has helped support children in need through Milton Hershey school. Thank You for making a difference!"

It is frequent that man will denote a higher cause to gain appreciation for a practice that may otherwise be malfactory to or nonbenificial to such. In this case, the Hershey company is saying that they "helped" children despite the fact that the relative percent of transfer may be extremely low.

In addition, BP recently aired a radio commercial where a fisherman described everything good BP did to "make things right" despite that there is still a massive amount of pollution and many other fishermen or members of neighbouring industries may have been ignored.

How do you feel about this?