Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
Agreement
Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2005 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.
Like Seth's, my birthday is also approaching, and I would urge that anyone thinking of buying me a birthday present instead donate to one of his favorite charities. Other preferred charities include Fix Our Ferals. Alice and Steve got some laughs out of their friends by informing them that Leonard and I had given to Fix Our Ferals as a wedding gift partially because I don't like cats.
Seth makes wonderful points about altruism.
There is a certain strange randomness to where and when people donate; it's so often reactive rather than following a plan or policy....There is some diversity in the kinds of problems people are prepared to help with, on many, many, different levels and meanings of "prepared"....
If I showed up in the Katrina disaster zone today, I would be worse than useless....
There is really a dizzying regress that we necessarily run up against when considering how we could become more useful against the problems of the present and the future....
....But after spending five hours yesterday reading about New Orleans, Biloxi, Gulfport, and people who will actually know what I have only heard about in literature, I want to agree with Johnny Gunther that "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof"; so if you are stuck and dizzy in the Garden of Forking Paths this afternoon, please at least give what you can to the American Red Cross.
