Kony 2012

[Jake]

There has been a lot of debat over this topic and I am interested to hear any thoughts you all may have.

If you have not heard about this, watch this video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc

Apparently a man named Joseph Kony has been capturing children, killing them, raping them, or having them serve in his army in Africa. He has recently gotten a lot of attention from people who want him stopped. Other people are claiming that the United States should not do anything because it isn't our problem while others are saying we need to stop him.

[sparkart]

That's actually pretty interesting.

First, I think that everyone's opinion is completely valid. Whether the United States should interfere or not is really a matter of opinion... but as I said it's interesting to think about.

I wrote this paper about apathy and we read this story about a train full of people suffering to unbearable heat because the conductor set the heat up, too high. Everyone was too afraid to make a commotion about it and so everyone simply suffered the heat. Basically it was a paper about how detrimental apathetic behavior can be.


Don't quote me on this but I was always under the impression that if someone found someone on the street needing help the common reaction would be to help. Whether someone would realistically react to that or not is a different story (e.g. are you trying to stop a mugging? did the person just get a heart attack? do you hate that person? etc. etc.).

This is the same concept.... I think most people would agree that this isn't acceptable, but whether something should be done or not is a different story.


Whether it is our problem or not can actually be argued upon. What I mean is you can actually go into a never ending debate on whether it is our problem or not. Maybe what people mean is, should we focus more resources on our other many problems that need addressing and hope for the best for Uganda? Or should we help them and add that to our many other problems. "Global affairs" is actually an important part of running a nation. Contrary to what some people think running a country IS rocket science. Ever played Civilization, Starcraft, Age of Empires, etc...? Think of it like that but with way more complicated variables and no retry button.

Idealistically, I kinda feel like everyone agrees that we should help. But I think the only thing people can do is voice their opinions, whether it's helpful or not, it's hard to say. We don't know how capable or incapable the US is to help. Lots of things are involved. You can't just cook up an idea and wing it. You just have to hope management know what they are doing and do your part to make sure you choose the right people. Realistically you can only speculate whether its under the United States' best interest or not to help.


Whether to help or not, I am not properly equipped to make such a difficult decision (because realistically, it's more difficult a decision than one would think). Ideally, I think we should help. In the long run, apathy will mostly result to failure. A couple of examples from the top of my head: holocaust, martin luther king. Remember WW2?

Very, very debatable topics and the only way to find out the right answer is to let life lay things out, then you can start pointing fingers.