Allow me to slip into my self-entitled persona for a second.
Yesterday, I was apparently nominated to do the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, and I will not be participating in the slacktavism of freezing my head, or donating money.
I don't think it's worth it for me to do either. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis(ALS) is a horrible disease, no one deserves to have it, but I think the Ice Bucket Challange, which from now on will be reffered to as IBC because I don't want to spell it a million times, is massively in-efficient, The way I see it, IBC wastes a lot of potential donations to other charities.
If I understand correctly, the rules of IBC is that you pour iced water over your head, nominate other(how many?) people to do the same and if they don't do it, they "have" to donate.
I don't like the structure of it, It reminds me of one of those chain emails that tells you to do something or x will happen, only that you're pressured to be at financial loss by your friends if you don't.
Another problem is the people who opt to pour iced water over their head, and then burden other people with the "challenge" get to pat themselves the back and are less likely to donate to other charities because "I just did the ice bucket challenge! give me a break." where essentially they just wasted a bucket of water and quite often some megabytes of youtube storage.
So that's why I don't want to do the IBC, the reasoning for not donating any money, is this(from /u/RickyPhere)
I know Cancer is a bigger offender when it comes to hogging donations, and that diseases like Diabetes, Heart disease and HIV are mostly preventable, and I'm pretty sure you can't research a cure to Suicide, but donations to these things are badly distributed, I'd rather donate my money(if I had any) to something else.
thoughts?
Hey, as a whole, it's raised almost a hundred million dollars at this point. You can call the movement dumb, but it's gotten some pretty fine results. caelum19: As to the distribution of donations, I don't think anyone can really claim fairness until millions start pouring into the neglected tropical diseases. Heart disease is by far the largest killer, but it's also the biggest treasure for pharmas to go after. I'm personally cool with people giving money to any uncommon disease, since cures don't normally disappear once discovered.
Knowing the name of something != Knowing what the things is. Even if they learn that it is a motor neuron disease, they are more aware of it than they were before.
No, not at all. I'm just saying, knowing what ALS stands for, especially when the words are somewhat technical, is not the metric by which you should be judging people's knowledge of the disease.
You're right, of course. I think it's depressing that the plight of our most famous modern scientist, an ALS victim who has contributed a huge amount to our modern understanding of a lot of things, is not what spurs donations to foundations that fight ALS. But money is the bottom line.
Yep. If I never hear about this ice thing again, that's fine by me.
I did the ice thing. Prior to my daughter dousing me, I held up a letter that I had written to my congressman asking that he support increased funding for the NIH and I challenged anyone viewing to do the same. I credit mk for the idea.
I used to work in an lab researching Alzheimer's, and funding is getting harder and harder to come by for everyone, my PI even got a grant from some grape grower's national organization to pursue a tie between amyloid beta and grape extract, just for the money, knowing full well that was a total stab in the dark. They worked quite a bit with fundraising organizations that they received funding from, and having something take off like the ice bucket challenge can get a lot of money focused in the right direction, if it's managed well. What you're focused on is the social aspect of the awareness campaign, and your criticisms are valid, but, in the end, the researchers and health care advocates don't give a shit as long as they're getting funding. It is a waste of time as compared to the energy that could be going into the actual work, but gutting funding is what precipitates nonsense like this. Piss on the parade all you want, cause it is fun, but instead of just simply being contrarian, redirect peoples focus onto the fact that research needs equivocal funding across the board.
Donating money is not, and never will be slactivism. Would you be donating to any charity if not for these challenges? This isn't a zero sum game, and people often don't normally donate. These challenges inspire them to and increases the total donation numbers. Or they can just not comment, which many have and will do. And you are supposed to donate even if you do the bucket. That is exactly what it is: for charity. And you are supposed to donate if you do the bucket.slacktavism of freezing my head, or donating money.
The way I see it, IBC wastes a lot of potential donations to other charities.
nominate other(how many?) people to do the same and if they don't do it, they "have" to donate.
I don't like the structure of it, It reminds me of one of those chain emails that tells you to do something or x will happen
"I just did the ice bucket challenge! give me a break." where essentially they just wasted a bucket of water and quite often some megabytes of youtube storage.
That's fine. I have thought since this comment about the difference between "Let's talk about the ALS challenge," the wording of your post, and every variant in between. I feel like I responded negatively to your post because it demonstrated a pattern of asking Hubski to justify your own actions. I do believe that we should make our actions with our own personal justification, and not rely on others for it. However, I also believe we should ask others for advice and input, especially those whose opinions we admire or think will bear merit. I also thought about how I feel "burnt out" and irritated by the ALS challenge and how that may have been a factor in my response to your post - aka, there may be a bear here, but the bear ain't all on your side of the fence, if that makes sense. I refused to participate in the ALS challenge, I thought it was dumb. I do have a bad habit of getting annoyed with anything that takes over my Facebook feed too much. I also had a friend who tagged me in the challenge knowing full well I wouldn't participate and in fact probably tagging me because of such. I commented on her post that "The buck - or bucket - stops here." If someone had posted to "shame" me into participating I would have told them that my mother taught me not to succumb to peer pressure - glib, ain't i? ;) It's easy to be glib when thinking of reasons not to do things. We all, and certainly I, have used Hubski for advice and input from time to time, and I think that's fine, and I don't think anyone should be shamed for doing so. I would be leery of doing it overmuch. I do also think sometimes a better response could be garnered when the original question doesn't focus so much on the individual user and instead is presented as a universal discussion point. However, I don't have a say in that any more than I have the ability to post comments and threads here or there. Your Hubski use and experience really is up to you and I don't want to fault or shame you for it.
I donate to St. Jude children's hospital quite often. But you know what? I don't feel the need to inform all of my facebook friends, or to "challenge" them to do something pointless and post it on youtube. If you want to help out, donate the freaking money. I don't want to see a video of you pouring water on your head. There is absolutely no way that that's helping anyone. It's just a fad. That's the only reason it's working. People love fads.
Exactly! the dumb fads are useful for raising public awareness, but I'm pretty sure the public is aware enough now and it's not worth the negative effects it has on other charities.
I donate to St. Jude children's hospital quite often
Children hosptials do seem like a nice way to donate your money for when I get any, do St. Jude Children's Hosptial have a website or something?
http://www.stjude.org/ there url looks a little spammy when the page loads, but this is them I believe
I'm returning to this thread after chewing on the issue a while, inspired by thenewgreen's post here. Yes, the "challenge" was an entirely annoying fad, but as thundara points out, it will garner at least an extra $100 million extra towards funding research for ALS. IMHO, that's a drop in the bucket against a neurological disease, but are we seeing a new era of social-media/grassroots/p2p fundraising? And furthermore, what does that say about our system of taxes? Almost everyone will claim that they're overtaxed, but many* would put money towards what they believe to be a worthy cause. An issue, of course, is that we don't all agree on what a worthy cause is. So, my main question; Is this ALS stunt one of the first indicators that the pendulum could swing towards a system more centered around truly democratic/representative policy-making, aided by the advent of social media and the Internet? And, further food for thought; Would centralizing an idea like this even work? Imagine creating a reasonably secure (just pretend it could be perfectly secure, for argument's sake) government-run website where you were credited with your tax dollars after proving your citizenship, and you were allowed to distribute them as you saw fit amongst a list of 10,000 causes. Would the logistical kinks of a system like this be manageable? Is there too much potential for corruption and abuse? Are there overwhelming privacy concerns preventing adoption of this (thanks, NSA)? Maybe a multi-web-domain, distributed media phenomenon like the ice bucket challenge is the only way to do it? If any one of the three people who's hubwheels turn orange respond to this, I gotta say it was a good day. *Still, maybe not the majority, and certainly not everyone to the same degree.
That infographic is one of the sexiest things I've ever seen.
"The true test of someone's character is what he does when no one is watching." - John Wooden (apparently) Donate to the charity you feel deserves it most. Tell no one.
Meh, I don't see much harm in doing it. Yes, it's just a fad and people are aware by now. People do stupid challenges all the time without any cause behind them (planking, the harlem shake remember?) and if people want to throw a bucket of ice water on their head let them do it. The campaign was a successful in raising awareness, the people that were not going to donate will not donate anyway and money was raised. No harm in having a fad with at least SOME positive after all. And I honestly had fun watching some of the well-made challenges and had a good laugh watching my friends do it. Nobody is forcing you to watch the challenges if you are tired of them and they don't make you smile.
Basically my thoughts. When I was challenged the other day, I basically told the guy that a.) I was already perfectly aware that ALS was a disease people have, and b.) I donate to causes because I care about them, not because an acquaintance tries to pressure me into giving.
All the contrary. i read yesterday that OTHER charities have had a spike in funding due to the people doing the ALS challenge bringing attention to other charities they thought deserved attention too. And now the honest less in-your-face charities will know what they should do to be more in-your-face.
All the contrary. i read yesterday that OTHER charities have had a spike in funding due to the people doing the ALS challenge bringing attention to other charities they thought deserved attention too.
That's actually really good to hear