Extreme altruism: should you care for strangers at the expense of your family? | Larissa MacFarquhar

This was a difficult read kids. And it raises some really tough questions. So let me get the first question out of the way first. The answer is that I would first care for the family first and then look at strangers. But there's one major difference kids. I think given the work I do, that allows me to look at the issues a bit more easily. Plus what I can do is to devote my time and hours to charities. Unpaid consultancy so to say. That it much better than giving money. I think I can do more and better with my time than with my money. 
For example the work Im doing to keep the home start charity running for the past 5 years. That's 500 families helped in various forms. I do donate £500 to the charity per year. But the biggest contribution is that the charity is running successfully and in a sustainable manner. Big win. Same with the other bits and bobs. 
So where do you go? My suggestion is that you do try to do what you can. And don't talk about it with others. People don't understand charity son. Either they get defensive. Or do something weird like clicking like in Facebook. But hey ho. Everybody has to make peace in their own ways. 
Still that's the best way to be happy. To make somebody else happy kids. And you have to go out of your way to do so. Clicking like doesn't hack it. 
Love
Baba


Extreme altruism: should you care for strangers at the expense of your family? | Larissa MacFarquhar
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/22/extreme-altruism-should-you-care-for-strangers-as-much-as-family
(via Instapaper)

---

For many years, Julia Wise wondered if she would ever meet another person who thought as she did. Everyone she knew thought her ideas about morality were strange. Some people told her they thought she might be right, but they were not willing to make the sacrifices she made; other people thought her ideas were not only misguided, but actually bad. All this made her worry that she might be wrong. How likely was it that everyone else was wrong and she was right? But she was also suspicious of that worry: after all, it would be quite convenient to be wrong – she would not have to give so much. Although her beliefs seemed to her not only reasonable but clearly true, and she could argue for them in a rational way, they were not entirely the result of conscious thinking: the essential impulse that gave rise to all the rest was simply a part of her. She could not help it; she had always been this way, since she was a child.

Enactus in the National Finals

Is very chuffed that two of my universities where I am the Business Advisor have gotten into the Enactus National Competitions. LSE and Bedfordshire. I was informed about this yesterday and I am looking forward to coaching them through the competition. And hopefully one of them will go forward to the International Competition.

Its truly humbling to see these very passionate and committed students learning about capitalism, entrepreneurship, economics, management to transform lives and shape a more sustainable world. Truly amazing to see how we harness the power and make things happen. 5-6 years now and every year, these students make a giant amount of difference to the homeless, the students, the poor, the mentally ill, or what have you.

What’s Enactus? I quote

 

Enactus is an international non-profit organization that brings together student, academic and business leaders who are committed to using the power of entrepreneurial action to improve the quality of life and standard of living for people in need. Guided by academic advisors and business experts, the student leaders of Enactus create and implement community empowerment projects around the globe. The experience not only transforms lives, it helps students develop the kind of talent and perspective that are essential to leadership in an ever-more complicated and challenging world.

Our Commitment

Together we pledge to take action. Together we commit to apply our passions and talents and ideas to impact as many lives as we can. Not to hand out help to people in need, but to work side-by-side with them to create opportunity. So every person and community we touch is empowered to live up to their fullest potential.

Amma’s Multifaceted Empire, Built on Hugs

Son

Few things to note here in this description of an Indian religious leader's life and work. 

First is that when governments are failing or are unable to function, these religious - social movements frequently fill the void. It's a fascinating phenomena. For example people worry about Islamist or Hindu or such like movements. But this is because governments give them space because of their incompetence. 

Second is to note how single prophets and guru based religious movements can turn into long term movements. India Middle East etc etc all give rise to movements like this. Think of the Ramakrishna mission which is a broad mission now. Same with like Narayan guru. Or shirdi sai baba. Scientology. Etc etc. Islam and Christianity also started with individual prophets like this. 

Third is that religion is frequently associated with money. It's like flies t honey. Very common to see cultish behaviour. 

So this kind of behaviour isn't strange or unknown. People have this bizarre tendency to need to have gurus and prophets. I personally find it bizarre, just like I find people needing drugs or drink to be merry. But logic or arguments don't work on these people. Seriously. I used to argue and debate once but nowadays I just give a jaundiced look and back away slowly and stay away from them. People who can act irrationally like this can't be trusted to be around when you leave your guard down. 

Still one good thing, give hugs son. That's great and wonderful behaviour. Hugs make so many things better :) 

Love

Baba

Amma’s Multifaceted Empire, Built on Hugs - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/business/ammas-multifaceted-empire-built-on-hugs.html?_r=0&pagewanted=all

---

THERE are entourages — and then there is the retinue of Mata Amritanandamayi, a 59-year-old Indian guru known simply as Amma, or “mother.” On Friday, she began a two-month North American tour during which she will be accompanied by 275 volunteers. They plan to ride in four buses across the continent from Bellevue, Wash., to Marlborough, Mass., visiting 11 cities, including New York. And at each stop along the way, Amma will sit on stage for 15 hours at a stretch, greeting her thousands of devotees.

In the Time of Cholera

Kannu

We've got a book called as the white mans burden. By WILLIAM easterly. It talks about how the aid and human rights industry has been born and how little it's been effective. In a previous guise this was colonialism. Now it's aidism. 

See what the un and cdc and who and and and have done. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Years of intervention and billions of dollars and frankly progress has been shite. 

Ridiculous. Still you need freedom of speech son to keep these governments and supranational agencies in check. 

Love

Baba. 

In the Time of Cholera - By Jonathan M. Katz | Foreign Policy
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/01/10/in_the_time_of_cholera?page=full

---

The horror was in the stomach, an empty, draining pain. All the way up the highway, Rosemond Lorimé had felt it running out of him. It was like the river running out of him, getting worse with every turn around the mountains.

Rosemond lived in a thatch-and-mud house in Meille, a small village on Haiti’s central plateau, built along a little river of the same name. There wasn’t much to do there, among the bean plants and banana trees, for a man of 21. You could swim or take a bath in the river. You could help the older folks raise pigs and turkeys, or plant cassava. Rosemond and his cousin would sell rum andkleren moonshine to the soldiers at the U.N. base, and introduce them to the neighborhood girls in exchange for a few dollars. But that was about it. Even the earthquake had been boring in Meille. The ground had just groaned and rumbled and stopped.

The sickness came nine months after. Rosemond’s father fell ill first. A low, hard pain formed in his gut and radiated all over his body. Then the diarrhea began, then vomiting, torrential like a fall storm. Soon everyone in the house was sick: Rosemond, his four brothers and sisters, his mother. The illness then moved into the neighboring houses. The family gathered up its money and sent Rosemond’s father to the hospital in the nearby town of Mirebalais. But it soon became clear that Rosemond’s sickness was the worst. Pain gripped his gut, and heat rose in his head and cut his intestines as if he’d eaten a stick of thorns. His stomach became a rejecting vessel. The water he drank would come back up or go straight out. Rice did the same. Even the garlic tea and cotton leaf that the women in the village gave him to settle his stomach ended up vomited or run out onto the ground. The diarrhea kept flowing; Rosemond became thirstier and thirstier. Neighbors whispered that it must be a spell.

The family looked for money to send Rosemond to the hospital too, but it took days to find enough. The day after his father returned home, weary but alive, Rosemond’s brothers put the slumping young man on the back of a motorcycle taxi to go to Mirebalais.

Under an arid sky, arms carried Rosemond into the little hospital with green-painted walls. A voice cried out in the room. Struggling for air, Rosemond closed his drying eyes and never opened them again. It was Sunday, Oct. 17, 2010.

Getting the team mobilised to help the school

So the project is slowly spinning up. One of my close friends put me in touch with this school which requires fund-raising and other assistance. This is a fascinating place, a school associated with a madrassah providing secular information in a poor area of Delhi. The key element of charity and institutional building is sustainability. Its too easy to just give money, but to make the charity self sustaining, to make it work long term, to have proper governance, that requires people, time, money, energy and direction.

So what I did was to introduce the Enactus team at LSE to them. We have some great people in here. Very smart and intelligent chaps. Very driven and full of passion and enthusiasm. They have created a project team and are now in contact with the school.

By the way, the school has a new website, do check it out. Very good work that these brilliant chaps are doing.

Getting the team mobilised to help the school

So the project is slowly spinning up. One of my close friends put me in touch with this school which requires fund-raising and other assistance. This is a fascinating place, a school associated with a madrassah providing secular information in a poor area of Delhi. The key element of charity and institutional building is sustainability. Its too easy to just give money, but to make the charity self sustaining, to make it work long term, to have proper governance, that requires people, time, money, energy and direction.

So what I did was to introduce the Enactus team at LSE to them. We have some great people in here. Very smart and intelligent chaps. Very driven and full of passion and enthusiasm. They have created a project team and are now in contact with the school.

By the way, the school has a new website, do check it out. Very good work that these brilliant chaps are doing.

bravery, this is the quiet bravery which makes Britain Great Britain.

Here’s the group of our volunteers holding their certificates and the staff members & trustees. Every year, we celebrate the awesome contribution they do. And at the back is the Lord Mayor of Hillingdon, who very kindly agreed to felicitate the volunteers.

Each of them have worked with a family with young children in distress over months and in some cases over years. They have recovered the family in distress, helping them over issues ranging from alcoholism, ill-health, unemployment, mental illness, etc. etc. all on their free time. Despite them having their own families who need them. Amazing. And they volunteer for this. Can you imagine devoting a huge proportion of your week? day in day out, week in week out, knowing that you have to manage your family as well as try to recover another family which is falling apart?

bravery, this is the quiet bravery which makes Britain Great Britain.

A heartfelt thank you.

Celebrating Volunteers at Home Start Hillingdon

So we had the annual summer celebration of our volunteers at Home start Hillingdon. Its a wonderful occasion, we see the amazing ladies and gentlemen who have their own children but also take time out of their busy lives to help families in distress. More interestingly and very thankfully, we had the Mayor of Hillingdon who popped over to give the certificates to the volunteers. Along with his utterly delightful and fragrant lady wife, Mrs. Mayor who was wonderful. She just made sure we were all comfortable and both went around to each table making them comfortable.

As soon as I get the photo’s, I will post them. The stories they tell about the families we support. Wonderful people, all. Here’s a great story by a volunteer. We also celebrated the 10 year anniversary of our charity administrator. Wonderful lady, she is a quiet lady, but everything else is well managed and runs and hums smoothly. She is amazing, very impressed. We are going through a spot of recruitment for the charity. Are you interested to become a trustee? Let me know.

In other news, popped over to Manchester to lecture a wee bit. Also working on bits and bobs with Essex and Swansea. I realised that I didn't do much with Disha for some time now, but have asked Ma to find out if they need something, perhaps a library? that would be good. Also attended a mentoring session for start-up technology companies wanting to sell into the financial sector, I'm most probably going to end up mentoring couple of companies. What else? Mentoring of students from London, Essex, Manchester and Swansea goes on.

And I'm hoping we can do something with the abandoned animals at the Mayhew with the firm…lets see if I can arrange for a bit of a fund raiser at work..And here’s a great post on the Mayhew blog. See the eyes of this little doggie.

This is her story

Help Us Stop the Cruelty

 

It is generally said that Britain is a ‘nation of animal lovers’ but, sadly, The Mayhew feels we must question this claim in the face of growing levels of animal neglect and abandonment.

Instead of more animals finding happy homes we are admitting more stray cats and dogs, receiving more calls about animal abandonment and finding only a few microchipped animals that can be reunited with a caring owner.

Our Animal Welfare Officers and Clinic staff are helping increasing numbers of pet owners whose personal or financial circumstances have left them unable to care for their cat or dog and who need assistance with basic, preventative care.
This country’s financial difficulties touch all areas of everyday life and this is affecting innocent animals, with pets increasingly being considered ‘non-essential’ when it comes to spending money. The Mayhew strives to help both animals and their carers without judging their circumstances. We encourage owners to come to us for assistance to try and avoid devastating cases like Deirdre and Buddy; two animals who learnt first-hand exactly what it means to become surplus to requirement.

Make a one-off donation to help us fight animal cruelty

Set up a small monthly donation to The Mayhew

Deirdre’s story
Deirdre arrived in late April after she was found struggling and alone on the streets of London. Our vets estimated that she was around 13 years old and in dire need of medical attention. Without identification, there was no one around to provide this elderly girl with the care and treatment she needed. Deirdre was very malnourished, extremely weak in both her back legs and reluctant to stand up or move around. She was distressed, confused and clearly in pain. Even after pain relief medication, some tempting food, a warm bed and plenty of TLC, she was still at rock bottom.

Our charity’s ethos is to help every animal we can and so, regardless of her age and poor condition, our vets carried out a thorough health check and tests to see if we could give this girl a second chance at happiness. Sadly, in addition to a range of other debilitating illnesses, Deirdre’s tests indicated that cancer was likely. Despite the security, safety and comfort she was given at The Mayhew Deirdre simply refused to eat. Already withdrawn she shut down even further and it became evident that she no longer wished to face the life that had treated her so cruelly.

Our round-the-clock care ensured that Deirdre was comfortable and given the palliative care needed for her condition. However in the face of her mental and physical deterioration and, with recovery no longer being an option, our vets took the decision to give a peaceful and dignified end to a life that had become engulfed in suffering and misery.

It is always hard for us at The Mayhew when we see cases like these and even harder to tell our supporters about them, however these are the realities that we are dealing with on an increasingly frequent basis. It is vital that we continue to be there for those who cannot help themselves, who need us right at the end in order to bring them peace and relieve their pain.
But it is not only those at the end of their lives that need our help. We must also be there for animals who have hardly been in this world longer than the blink of an eye but who are already struggling with debilitating pain.

 

criminal!

Is Giving the Secret to Getting Ahead?

Kannu

Here's an interesting take and I agree with it. To get ahead help others. More you help the more you get better. 

I'm not talking about a Mario Puzo style godfather help in terms of 'I collect favours' son but just helping out. 

Do read that book if you get a chance son

Really is good strategy :) 

Love 

Baba

Is Giving the Secret to Getting Ahead? - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/magazine/is-giving-the-secret-to-getting-ahead.html?&pagewanted=all

---

Just after noon on a Wednesday in November, Adam Grant wrapped up a lecture at the Wharton School and headed toward his office, a six-minute speed walk away. Several students trailed him, as often happens; at conferences, Grant attracts something more like a swarm. Grant chatted calmly with them but kept up the pace. He knew there would be more students waiting outside his office, and he said, more than once, “I really don’t like to keep students waiting.”

Grant, 31, is the youngest-tenured and highest-rated professor at Wharton. He is also one of the most prolific academics in his field, organizational psychology, the study of workplace dynamics. Grant took three years to get his Ph.D., and in the seven years since, he has published more papers in his field’s top-tier journals than colleagues who have won lifetime-achievement awards. His influence extends beyond academia. He regularly advises companies about how to get the most out of their employees and how to help their employees get the most out of their jobs. It is Grant whom Google calls when “we are thinking about big problems we are trying to solve,” says Prasad Setty, who heads Google’s people analytics group. Plenty of people have made piles of money by promising the secrets to getting things done or working a four-hour week or figuring out what color your parachute is or how to be a brilliant one-minute manager. But in an academic field that is preoccupied with the study of efficiency and productivity, Grant would seem to be the most efficient and productive.

A father of 37

When I first read this, I was a bit taken aback…but more I read about it, the more fascinated I became..

I quote:

Sudarsan is a man I met at a skills training center for below-poverty-line Muslim girls in Southern India's Nizamabad district two weeks ago. He is a 55-year-old government clerk, who has with his wife over the years adopted 37 children. Some are orphans; other fled or were abandoned by their families. He is the area's unofficial contact point for — and caretaker of — lost children.

But Sudarsan now faces a problem. His girls and boys are growing up and some are already over 18. Having stretched his income as far as he can to raise them, he must now help them transition to adulthood, to ensure that they are educated, employed and financially independent. To do that, he needs to negotiate with members of the community, local politicians and visitors who might give his children opportunities.

His strategy, which I saw first-hand during my visit to Nizamabad, involves a delicate balance of authenticity and persuasion — and it's one from which anyone who needs to negotiate in professional life can learn. Here is how Sudarsan advocated for his children, in three steps.

You can go read the article about how the man negotiated, but gosh, what a great man! he adopted 37 children! wow, very impressive…

Your empathy isn’t empathy on my money

I loved this quote:

I’m all for empathy as it affects your desire to do nice things for others with your own money. I’m less impressed by you acting on your feelings of empathy by forcing me to do nice things for others. I believe the appropriate term for those who act in the latter way is manipulator.

Did you hear this, politicians and other people who love to decide what to do with my money? you are basically a hypocrite and untrustworthy, lack of principles and frankly a thoroughly bad egg. So since I have managed to piss you off anyway, here’s a letter from the same site..

Alan Blinder writes that Barack Obama is “a gifted orator, and empathy and fairness are in his bones” (“The Case Against a CEO in the Oval Office,” Oct. 2).

Assessments of Mr. Obama’s oratory are matters of subjective tastes.  But the assertion that the President is suffused with “empathy and fairness” can be questioned by pointing to objective facts.

Where, for example, was Mr. Obama’s empathy and sense of fairness in 2009 for Chrysler’s senior creditors – people he bullied into accepting fewer cents on the dollar than they were entitled to receive under long-established tenets of bankruptcy law?  Mr. Obama’s “empathy” for the UAW – junior creditors (and political supporters) who gained what was stripped from the senior creditors – hardly excuses his lack of empathy for the senior creditors (and, by the way, also U.S. taxpayers) victimized by his political opportunism.

Much worse: where is Mr. Obama’s “empathy” for the hundreds of innocent Pakistanis killed – and the thousands daily terrorized – by the drone strikes that he authorizes?  As The Atlantic‘s Conor Friedersdorf now-famously explained, “Women cower in their homes.  Children are kept out of school.  The stress they endure gives them psychiatric disorders.  Men are driven crazy by an inability to sleep as drones buzz overhead 24 hours a day, a deadly strike possible at any moment.  At worst, this policy creates more terrorists than it kills; at best, America is ruining the lives of thousands of innocent people and killing hundreds of innocents for a small increase in safety from terrorists.  It is a cowardly, immoral, and illegal policy, deliberately cloaked in opportunistic secrecy.”*

What’s in Mr. Obama’s bones isn’t “empathy and fairness.”  Instead, the only motive forces seemingly operating in his bones are those that infect nearly every politician’s marrow: a disgraceful lust for power, pomp, and office.

June 12: When the buttercups walked for charity

It was a strange day, weather wise, that day in June when I popped over to RNOH for their annual charity Buttercup day.

An old old old broken down clock on its own clock tower…

The grounds are full of lovely majestic old trees. This one obviously lost its head

Somebody taking it easy before the race starts

Old gnarled trees

I reached the top and saw this banner stretching out across the road. The walk is from one end of the hospital to the other and back. About 1 mile in total.

A member of the radio Brockley team

People started collecting around in the start finish line

Even teddies got into the act.

Some of the very brave adults and children and their carers all who came up to support this very worthwhile charity

Smiling at something

You can almost see the determination on the face

I don't care if I need walking sticks, but walk a mile I will.

The little girl in the middle, she is from St. John’s Ambulance. there was a celebrity there to help wave off the walk and these two girls were going nuts about him.

With face painted.



Loads of people clicking away.

Its very very near starting time…

This is the celebrity. To my eternal shame, I have no clue who he is

And we are off, this girl was skipping to the end

While I was on my wheelchair, and face painted!

And with my walking sticks.

Now for some faces in the crowd.

But the weather turned and the rain started to come down.

The brollies and jackets started to come on as the rain started to come down.

But Mamma, I dont want to get out of the rain, I want to go for the walk…

But I wont let a little rain stop me, I will wear my jacket, I will hold hands. But I was again humbled by the sheer courage of the various patients who, despite their infirmities and disabilities and illnesses and challenges and the disgusting weather, had shining eager motivated faces. What an amazing display of courage. Hats off to you.

I went and took refuge inside a ward

Orthotics Department..

The first returnees..

I have no idea why there is a barbie doll here…

Some pallets

An old entrance to some storage site

Then as the race was over, we all made our way to the fun place, and passed this posh loo

A Bus Fund got this? But enough of all this, I noticed a cake stand..and made a bee line for it…

A most extraordinary set of delicious cakes and muffins and and and..beautiful.

Unfortunately, the rain came down again..

People sheltering under the marquee on the left..but the rain then went away..to Spain's plains presumably…

Then we had some kids from a Church group dancing..

Nice

The spectators thought so as well

Very nice….taking the final bow.

A stuffed toy shop..

The two girls from St. John’s Ambulance..

A climbing wall…I think I will avoid this..



I dont want to show my face

Wet hair and chewing on a burger

Waiting for food

This burger is good, just smell the smoke

What are they doing?

mmmm, I love icecream

Couldnt take it any more and haired it to the burger stand for a burger and then left..

As I said, it was a lovely day and the grounds have wonderful trees..

Old ancient trees

Mr. Crow has found something nice..

Hmmm, an old abandoned building in a hospital, I mean, this is perfect Horror Movie material



A crimson tree

Sunbeammmmmmmssssss

A creeper going up a tree

Another road into the abandoned ward

the sunlight dappled leaves

A calm weeping willow?

An excited weeping willow?

the tree is leaning over…

Some ferns



I think they are weeds…

 
a container next to where I was parked.

A lovely day out indeed.