What do you think about 'kids are starving in Africa” argument?

It is unfortunately not a fallacy. Malnutrition problems in Africa are well known, although their prevalence varied with time, and also the exaggeration or dissimulation by the media. The worse case was the Biafra war, but it was exceptionnal. read more

Perhaps really we're talking about 'single action item fallacy' the idea we can rank problems and then totally ignore anything below some high threshold. So the 'starving children in Africa' responded is about setting the threshold very high. Problems like, 'daddy bought me a cheap sports car' are problems of attitude. read more

Some of the detractors of Shane Koyczan's anti-bullying "To This Day Project" have been guilty of this, by claiming that the issue of bullying doesn't deserve attention when there are children starving in Africa or warring in trouble spots around the globe. read more

1. we should think of starving kids everywhere anyway. 2. if we thing of starving kids we'll realize how silly out problems are. 3. it may make us do something about it. read more