Vikram Bath charges that most people in the developed world – including himself – simply “disbelieve” in the reality of poverty:
If you actually believed that you could save a human life for $2,500, how would you act from now on? Let’s make it a bit more explicit: Some sort of deity who is able to demonstrate his powers to your satisfaction tells you that from now on, every time you fail to find an opportunity to save to spend $2,500 on mosquito nets, you will find the corpse in your bedroom closet of the person you failed to save. The body will vanish at the end of the day without inconvenience or legal issues. You would nevertheless endeavor to avoid finding corpses in your closet.
If that were to happen, your creativity in finding $2,500 would become unbounded. You’d scrap most expenses, trade in your collection of crap, negotiate a higher salary, and get a second or third or fourth job until you stopped finding corpses. You would start companies in your time off. You would structure your whole life around your knowledge of poverty.
Previous Dish on philanthropy and moral obligations here.
The Dish 