Originally Posted by
Malkiah
i kind of think that might be the start of the problem - charities aren't meant to cure anything, they're a desperate scramble by empathetic people to react to a systemic problem that is embedded within the fabric of human civilization.
if you look at it as purely an input/output equation, the human race has reached a point where the incoming resources generated by the species vastly outpaces the resources needed to be able to be distributed to every single human being alive and provide them with a safe comfortable living for their entire existence.
(and by 'resources' i mean both tangible like food and fuels as well as intangible like profit and economic activity)
as of right now, the only reason that every single human being alive on this planet isn't having a stable 1st world life is because we've chosen not to.
the resources are available, it's not like we can't produce enough food in the world to feed everyone, it's not like we can't produce enough wood and fiberglass and labor costs to build everyone a house and give everyone running water and electricity... we just decided as a species "nah, don't wanna."
everything that charities work against are things that are features of civilization, not bugs.
poverty and homelessness is allowed to exist because it's a gun to the head of the working class that says "this could be you at a snap of our fingers. don't ask for too much. don't complain too loud. don't think too hard about the fact that over 90% of your life on this planet is spent making someone else money. if you get too uppity we'll take away your job and you'll be a bum on the street like these other bums"
disease is allowed to exist untreated because there's no way to make giving everyone access to medical care profitable to private companies, so we just shrug and let people die and be sick and miserable and left untreated because we can't effectively monetize the process of curing them.
charities are there so that 'the people' can scramble to try to address problems that society (ie, government) should fix but doesn't.
nothing that charities work for could ever really be solved, it's not a straight path from A. there's a problem, to B. the problem is solved - charity is an endless, infinite money suck that just devours what little excess the poor-but-sympathetic can mange to scrape together in order to either give something to the even less fortunate for one day or one meal, or to funnel that meager excess to the hands of the rich.