Monday, September 30, 2013

Extra Life 2013

I know this isn't a very popular stance to take, but I am against the concept of a charity. Ok, not that I think being nice to people is a bad thing, or that I think money and time shouldn't go from the haves to the havenots. It's more that I don't like our current system for charitable donations. Or maybe it's that I don't like our whole economic system and this is just a consequence of it? It's hard to say. I do think we'd be in a better place with higher tax rates and with the government in charge of distributing money to the places it should go. Assuming we could get a benevolent and corruption free government to make these decisions, anyway. (Robb really needs to get on his dictator plan.) The current system with tax incentives for donating and with lots of small places where corruption can spring up is the thing I'm against.

Anyway, we do live in the current system. Which means charities exist, and they need to spend time and money on raising more time and money. Extra Life is an organization that tries to get people to donate to the Children's Miracle Network Hospitals by having people play games for 24 straight hours. (25 hours this year because they're running it over the end of daylight savings time.) As far as charities go, ones that help sick children are way up there on the list that I'd hope Robb would fund with my tax money. And as far as silly things to do to encourage people to donate, playing games for a day is something I can get behind. Really, that's a normal day for me if I stay up a little longer than normal! The rough part, if you can call it that, will be being around (eventually) overtired people for 25 hours.

I don't know what the plan is, but I joined Sara's team and I think they're going to be playing board games for the 25 hours. As far as I am aware the more the merrier in the group, or playing the games, or donating the moneys. It's November 2nd at 8am until November 3rd at 8am. With 25 hours and other people around to play games with after an elimination I feel like maybe Titan could be dusted off... Or maybe World of Warcraft the board game! Or maybe 13 games of BSG back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back...

1 comment:

Sthenno said...

Damn straight charity sucks! It's one way that our society is one-dollar/one-vote instead of one-citizen/one-vote.

Not that one-citizen/one-vote produces the best results either, but since democracy's greatest fault seems to be its tendency to turn into plutocracy, there's not much point in going to plutocracy as an alternative.

Anyway, as you say, since we do live in the society we live in, hooray for charity.