John's Blog: The Hunger Site

The Hunger Site

If you've never stumbled upon The Hunger Site and its affiliates, you should give it a look. It's a very interesting idea. You just click a button, and a certain amount of money is donated by the site's advertisers to non-profits that deal with that issue, such as hunger. It doesn't cost you anything, and there's no registration. It basically just sells space on the site to advertisers and passes the money on to the cause when you click. It even tells you that "your click contributed such-and-such cups of food".

When I first found this, I made it a point to click every day (it only counts once per day). I'm not quite as obsessive about it anymore, although I still try. (I have all the pages set up as "rotating home pages", using a script I developed to start up a different one each time I start a new browser.)

One reason I'm not as obsessive about it anymore is that I have developed a few misgivings about the whole concept. I'm still trying to figure out how valid these concerns really are, or how much it is just me. Maybe you can let me know what you think.

My misgivings run along two lines. First and foremost is the basis on advertising. True, it's advertising "turned to good", as it were, but it's still advertising. The older I get, the more the marketing profession overtakes the legal profession in my mind as the most reprehensible. At least the legal profession (criminal defense, anyway) is based on a valid humanitarian principle: Innocent until proven guilty, and everyone deserves a fair trial. (Okay, so maybe divorce lawyers are slimier.) I suppose the basic *marketing* principle could be stated most favorably as "everyone deserves to be aware of their consumer choices", although that sounds a little highfalutin' to me. More often, in my opinion, it's simply a matter of creating demand where no real need exists, especially in our American post-industrial capitalism. I have real problems with this, in terms of environmental sustainability and financial stewardship. So when I see, alongside the ads for useful things on The Hunger Site, ads for stuffed animals, nice clothing, and jewelry, the whole thing doesn't seem quite as pure as it once did. Is it a contradiction for a site dedicated to improving the world to also promote such materialism (especially the rainforest site)? Is it a morally valid business plan for such a site? I just being a starry-eyed idealist?

Apart from advertising: What does dropping a bomb on someone from 10,000 feet and using the Hunger Site have in common? Answer: In both cases, through the mere push a button, you are anonymously effecting someone you'll never meet, in ways you'll never know. In very different ways, of course, but the similarity in mechanics and anonymous nature of the act bothers me a little when I think about it too much. You are completely removed from the direct effects of your action, and unable to place it in a human context. It is yet another way in which online transactions are slowly replacing face-to-face human interaction, all with a push-button video game interface. If I click at the Hunger Site and all of its affiliates without fail every day, maybe that will make me feel less guilty that I'm not volunteering at the local soup kitchen, or that I ignored that guy who jangled a paper cup at me yesterday, or that I'm working late again tonight instead of spending time with my family and getting to know my neighbors.

And the power: By giving or withholding one simple free button click, am I really deciding whether someone eats tonight or not? Do I really have all that power? Do I WANT to? How would I even know whether I really do or not?

So, am I being an insightful cultural commentator, or a Luddite? You tell me.

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