Donations for Macmillan Cancer Support

It's that time of the year again: I'm running the Oxford Half Marathon. This year I'm collecting donations for Macmillan Cancer Support.

See my donation page here: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Istvan-Zoltan-Zardai

If you happen to have a spare coin please donate. Every donation is appreciated!

Macmillan are doing a lot of good work for people with cancer, and they are also supporting their families through what is undoubtedly some of the hardest periods of their lives.

It is a service that can make a huge difference to anyone's life. As nowadays there is a very high percentage (above 45% percent for most of us) that one gets cancer, this is vital. It is these sort of community solutions to problems that we need to foster and maintain. The government can't do everything and we need to get together as a large community of people caring for each other.

A nice initiative

This is a nice initiative (updated):

This was a good idea. But as I see now - a month and a half later - it died quickly. Sorry about it. I'll leave the original post still on.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/i-support-philosophy

Philosophy and projects in philosophy are definitely ones that are worth funding. You may cite as reasons for this things like 1. philosophers are usually quite useful, clever and nice people, 2. who do not cause much harm in the world contrary to so many other profession (some jobs simply cause harm by creating certain demands for natural resources, or environmental harm, etc.), 3. and they are interested in issues connected to how we conceive ourselves as humans, living beings here on Earth and what values we should endorse. The question of values is of course terrifyingly complicated - just as almost anything about humans starting out from their chemical composition, through their hormonal workings and brain functions, to their vision.

But somehow these questions have been lost from sight: in an age of pluralism and globalization most people choose the easy way of becoming skeptics or egoists who claim that we cannot answer questions of values or we shouldn't care about them since it's perfectly okay only to care about our own interests (including of course the well being of those close to us).

Of course people who opt for these ways out of confusion are objectively wrong: they do have moral views, just bad ones. When it comes to their lives they suddenly do care a lot about rights they have as humans, as people, as citizens, as parents, as taxpayers, etc. This means they should also care about them when others have problems.

Also, it is our common interest to make life as good as possible on Earth for as long as we can. It is absurd to shop for expensive foods with a clear conscience while people are dying of hunger or simple diseases which could be prevented with a small donation from richer people.

The point is: do donate, do help people who are trying to focus on topics that are important to how we see our world and our place in it. Without such a picture it is hard to ground, found and make work a great system of values.