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Donations are always tricky and effectively allocating resources to aid is hard … but can you at least recognise that similarly sized catastrophes get much more attention and money?

More than 3,000 people dead, potentially more, and many of the affected places don’t have enough resources to deal with it in a satisfactory manner. That’s the situation here. This could have been controlled better, probably.




Recently an arsonist alledgedly set fire to a dog shelter in the UK.

They raised over £1m in a few days.

> The blaze, which was tackled by more than 30 firefighters, killed about 60 animals.

> Within 24 hours, more than £1m pounds had been raised to help around 150 surviving dogs.

This happened while Ebola was happening.


Dogs are both cuter and easier for us English to relate to than Africans.


So what? Those are completely different situations. One is a human doing intentional harm to a bunch of innocent creatures. The other is mother nature vs. mankind. One tugs at the heartstrings, fills us with protective emotions for the poor doggies. The other is just another natural disaster. "Thank goodness it didn't happen to me", we think. I don't find this surprising or depressing.


> I don't find this surprising or depressing.

What? It might not be surprising, but how is it not depressing?


I don't see it as depressing or heartening—it's just the way we humans tend to react to things. Why do you find it depressing?




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