TSSTWP questions and 4 generations video response

After reading and briefly discussing "The Singer Solution to World Poverty" (TSSTWP for short), there were quite a bunch of questions I thought of. However, they could be condensed into these two simplified questions. They are pretty much the same though. It is a variation of the two essential questions we are asking ourselves in our English class (What kind of world is this? And how should we live in it?). If TSSTWP is about our moral obligation as human beings to donate large sums of money to overseas charity organizations, then maybe using Singer's two scenarios as a basis for this question we can start asking ourselves how does living in this world affect others? Should we try to affect others in this world?

Singer threw in those two scenarios about Dora the retired school teacher and Bob the Bugatti man to create parallel situations between our potential relationship with people who need overseas aid. In a nutshell, behind Singer's overly demanding and condescending tone of voice, what he really seems to want is peoples care and support for others who need it direly. I mean just imagine, $200 can almost safely guide a child for the four most vulnerable years of their life. You can be a guardian angel. You can provide care and support. You can affect this child's life in ways that you will not be able to phatom (Am I being overly dramatic? I hope not). However the means that a person might go around influencing other people's lives, whether by running them over by a train (pray you don't), or sending them overseas aid, we have the potential to effect people we don't even know more than we think. I could be really hippy-dippy and say "we're all connected…dude" (Am I being too informal? I hope not x2); but I digress.

Now, getting to the video, it definitely relates to TSSTWP and their shared topics of charity and all. So how does it relate to my personal essential question? Well, it just goes to show how seemingly small contributions can make a world of difference to some. I mean really, my iPod cost about $250. Oh! About the money I need to buy a water buffalo in China! What I'm saying takes on somewhat of a Singer standpoint; that's $250 that isn't being sent overseas, and that's another child dying at the age of two. Maybe by living, other people are dying.

Taking the totally opposite view that my second question posed: should we be trying to affect other people in this world? or shall we "Let it Be" as sang by John Lennon? Well I mean, who are we to be walking around giving free water buffalos away. At the very least we probably shouldn't be going around looking for more Bobs to run over little kids with trains. But anyway, as far as duty goes, we aren't obligated to help anyone according to the U.S. constitution. But Singer is right to a certain extent that we have the means and capable of the moral integrity by which to help others.

But the point is that whether you are more in the unsuspecting Dora's scenario or Bugatti Bob's intentional killing of a child, all of our actions, or lack thereof, have an effect on the world. In this we find truth to the law of action-reaction in life, and what brings light to Singer's main point; that by doing nothing we are really hurting people the most.

Obviously it is the people that we have close relationships with that we affect first and foremost: namely our friends and family. These are people that we live with, laugh with, and love, and the value of the effect our lives have on each other cannot be weighed or measured using money or other physical means. I know that my family, friends, and teachers helped to shape my charachter into the person I am now, the subtleties of which cannot be discussed without a great deal of tedious self-reflection. However, I am even more unsure of the subtle ways I might effect other people. This question is essential to me personally, because I feel that a person should have an idea of what their individual life might mean to the world.