Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: tuubiAnd how much thought have you put into your "common sense" for it to trump the decades of research that organizations like Unicef, the Red Cross or Médecins Sans Frontières have put into their relief efforts around the world? You're just that much smarter?

Research by organizations that could not be more lined with agenda.

They've even got the balls to publish their sinister agendas for all to see!

Quoting: TheSHEEEPI'm not saying those organizations are bad or only doing bad. That would be absurd.
However, a research with an expectation will - if in any way possible - try and reach that expectation. Results in almost all cases can be interpreted in a way that supports the expectation. The cases in which such behavior was later found out and researches turned out to be false or willfully misinterpreted is long. One can only guess how much larger the amount of researches is in which the fraud was not detected.
The last thing I'd do for the sake of argumentation is to trust in research funded/initialized/executed with such clear expectations on their outcome in mind.

You're absolutely right. A lot of research is invalidated by a bias (sometimes obviously so), and no single paper or report should be blindly trusted without proper peer-review. But we need to remember that claims of invalidity are just as often similarly biased. I'll still take scientific research any day over uninformed opinion thank-you-very-much.

Quoting: TheSHEEEPShow me a non-agenda-fueled research that clearly and unmistakably shows all those "relief efforts" actually do end up doing more good than harm and I'll shut up on the matter.
I'm pretty sure you won't be able to.

Would it help if I found you lists of preventable diseases Unicef has helped eradicate through massive immunization campaigns in third world countries, like polio in India and in most of Africa? How about if I brought you a list of conflict or disaster torn regions where the doctors of Médecins Sans Frontières have indisputably saved countless lives? Maybe numbers of children that receive a basic education and health care due to Unicef's programs.

No. You'd call these statistics biased, or you'd point to some corruption case (I don't doubt you'll find skeletons in the closets of any of these huge international organizations) as if that discredits the good they do. But yeah, I think the burden of proof is on you, seeing as you haven't brought any facts to the table.

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Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: TheSHEEEPI don't think common sense means what you think it means.
I will help you:
Common sense

Sure, it would be fine and dandy if that actually meant something, but the general usage is "I don't have proof but this fits what I know, it's just common sense." Common sense, in any meaning of the expression, simply does not trump proven fact or real science.

So, when confronted with clear definitions of what something I say means and how I use it, you just chose to ignore it and say "but that's not what everyone does!", just so you can continue debating? :D
I really don't care how "everyone" uses it, even if you were right (and I don't think you are). I use it by its defined meaning.

I can call any opinion of mine common sense. I can even call it fact and show you a definition of the word when you disagree. Without data to back it up it's still only an opinion. It might even be a common opinion but the sense part is debatable.

Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: tuubiAgain, why do you think anything that isn't a spectacular success is a failure and not just a less than perfect result.

I do not think that and neither did I say it. You are just trying to project something onto me, and I don't know where that comes from.

It comes from what you write. I'm not projecting anything but I might have misunderstood your meaning. If you actually do believe that the absence of total success isn't the same as failure then I stand corrected.

Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: tuubiAnd why would failure be more likely than some level of success when specifically talking about philantrophic endeavours or trying to do good? Cynicism?

It does not matter what you do. Do it uninformed and naive and you are more likely to fail than to succeed. There isn't a single kind of endeavour that would be exempt from this rule.

Oh if it's a rule it surely can't be wrong. Except that I'd really want to know what makes it a rule. Is there some data to back this up? I mean, it sounds reasonable, but that doesn't quite make it a rule.

Quoting: TheSHEEEPI'm talking about bigger decisions like that African charity stuff. Something with a larger scale impact that requires more thought to understand the implications.

And how much thought have you put into your "common sense" for it to trump the decades of research that organizations like Unicef, the Red Cross or Médecins Sans Frontières have put into their relief efforts around the world? You're just that much smarter?

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Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: TheSHEEEPAnd naive and uninformed actions rarely to never lead to a positive result.

You base this guesstimate on what?

Logic. Common sense.

Common sense as in "many people think so." Where's the logic in that? It used to be common sense that the Sun orbits the Earth.

I don't think common sense means what you think it means.
I will help you:
Common sense

Sure, it would be fine and dandy if that actually meant something, but the general usage is "I don't have proof but this fits what I know, it's just common sense." Common sense, in any meaning of the expression, simply does not trump proven fact or real science.

Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: TheSHEEEPIf you don't know what you are doing, how likely are you to achieve what you want to achieve?

Who knows. The scope or your question is too vague and there are too many variables. Sure, the result might be negative, but isn't it more likely it has no profound effect at all? That's not the same as negative. It's just insignificant.

You wasted your (and more than likely someone else's) time.
Time is the most important resource any non-immortal being has.
I'd call that quite negative. And that is the best case scenario - of the failure cases, which are more likely than the success cases.

Again, why do you think anything that isn't a spectacular success is a failure and not just a less than perfect result. And why would failure be more likely than some level of success when specifically talking about philantrophic endeavours or trying to do good? Cynicism?

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Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: TheSHEEEPAnd naive and uninformed actions rarely to never lead to a positive result.

You base this guesstimate on what?

Logic. Common sense.

Common sense as in "many people think so." Where's the logic in that? It used to be common sense that the Sun orbits the Earth.

Quoting: TheSHEEEPIf you don't know what you are doing, how likely are you to achieve what you want to achieve?

Who knows. The scope or your question is too vague and there are too many variables. Sure, the result might be negative, but isn't it more likely it has no profound effect at all? That's not the same as negative. It's just insignificant. In the end, trying to do good is always preferable to trying to do bad. And trying is usually better than not trying.

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Oh Uridium... I spent so many hours of my childhood horribly failing at it. Same goes for Zaxxon.

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Quoting: TheSHEEEPAnd naive and uninformed actions rarely to never lead to a positive result.

You base this guesstimate on what?

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Quoting: Whitewolfe80when it comes to dx9 games though if it doesnt run now, it never will they have long since moved on. Still a list of dx9 games that are either platium or gold.

Even if nobody was working on d3d9 anymore, problems with these games can be completely unrelated. And projects like VK9 might prove you wrong as well.

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Quoting: TheSHEEEPIf the Panterra people after long years of trying to teach them turn out simply incapable of self-defence, there is no reason to further waste your resources on them.

Oh, if this was about literal defence (the military kind) and not something you'd associate with the kinds of people you call do-gooders, we actually agree. Sending soldiers and weapons into a conflict zone has rarely had a lasting positive effect.

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Quoting: TheSHEEEPIf I actually did go out of my way to defend the poor and downtrodden Panterra people, and believe I am doing good, I would be a do-gooder.
Because that would only lead to the Panterra people never learning to defend themselves and always require someone to do it for them, it would actually be a bad result.

And what if those poor and downtrodden Panterra people actually need help to achieve basic necessities that would allow them to "learn"? I know the oft-repeated adage that "what does not kill you makes you stronger", but sometimes what doesn't kill you very effectively keeps you from getting up and helping yourself. Or ends up killing off most of your community, delaying recovery and learning by generations.

Someone struggling to scrounge up basic sustenance or to protect their children from preventable diseases isn't in a position to "defend themselves". This is another example of black-and-white thinking from people with a superiority complex. We are talking about human beings here.

Call me whatever you want, but I firmly believe that if most of us were just a tiny bit less selfish, many of the world's problems would be trivial to solve. And this goes for every nation and every creed of people equally. It's perfectly natural to concentrate on your own needs and those of your own community, but the world has changed too fast for us to rely on instinct alone.

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Quoting: TheSHEEEP2. I am not your friend and your condescendence is not required to get your point across. You can go on, though. In contrast to others, I am not so easily offended ;)

I did sound condescending there. Sorry.

My point was, sure there are total dickwads who act nice, but they're not dickwads because they act nice. There's simply no correlation in that direction. However, it's a fair bet that a person who enjoys conflict and being a dick towards strangers turns out to be a self-centered bastard or simply suffers from ego issues.

Blindly dividing people you don't know into "do-gooders" and "actually good people" is just plain counterproductive.

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