The Handwriting on the Wall

Rank idiocy.

A nation that exceeds its natural carrying capacity (like Japan) has to trade for food, or the deficit will result in hunger. Yes, giving them food will temporarily work, but it will make the situation worse through time--which is exactly what many people want, as it perpetuates foolish aid habits, to preserve their do-gooder non-profit jobs.

The correct answer is hanging the King.

One wonders why "we" have the $30,000 a year to give in the first place. Perhaps if there was no food at all we could all starve and morality could be had by all.

That is totally bogus and is a huge part of the problem in today's society. Instead of blaming the true culprit (the king), we expect the innocent to sacrifice themselves. Injustice occurs when sacrifice is demanded, not when truly free trade is in place. By buying that widescreen TV, I'm giving all those people who build that TV a job. Doesn't that help to end world hunger?

If anyone is inspired by this to give people the opportunities we take for granted, I think Acumen Fund (http://www.acumenfund.org/) has the best plan for using money wisely to help long-term solutions for the world's poor.

The correct answer: The king is wrong, but his actions are his responsibility, not yours so you are not guilty of murder nor should you sacrifice yourself.

Anybody who buys into this needs to do a self-check on their critical-thinking skills.

First, as others have pointed out, the King is responsible for his actions, not you. That means in every one of those scenarios, it's better to just take your stuff and keep it. Any King that set up such a cruel situation is not likely to keep his word anyway.

Second, it might be reasonable in the abstract to make some kind of concession to help other people, but that's in the abstract. Look at it this way - I might choose to give 20 bucks to a bum on the street, or I might not. There are lots of factors that come into play, and there is no universal rule involved.

Finally, there's a neat bit of jujitsu that happens, he switches from asking a question about what _you_ might or might not do in a weird situation to a general principle about what _others_ should do. Last I checked, we aren't in the business of ganging up on our neighbors to impose our morality on them. It's perfectly fine to save your life and let the others die. It might be immoral, it might be bad, disgusting, shameful, sinful, yucky -- pick your adjective. But that's the beauty of freedom. Without that ability to chose, there's nothing moral in the choice anyway. If you start adding up and subtracting lives here and there, you can justify about anything you want to.

It's just a dishonest story. Hunger does not exist because I choose to live a free and productive life. It exists because political systems are broken. The fact that we feed people by acting selfishly is a tough thing to grasp, but once you get it, you realize that it's about a billion times better than just giving a guy a fish.

Did Aaron really have to lie to us? If he has such a good cause, won't the truth suffice?

Also the reason so many people starve to death isn't really lack of money. It's more political repression keeping money away from them, socialism, barriers to free trade, that kind of thing.