My take on the NKF saga.
A MORE ULTILITARIAN PERSEPCTIVE.
i'm not a person who's found of reading the morning papers, and of all things the strait times. i guess when juxtaposed to the alternatives, its seems to be over-simplistic and lacks any form of insight into issues. magazines tend to provide that, albeit biased at times, but at least it provokes the reader to think. and thus, for many days i ahve been left in the dark about the entire NKF saga until KK gleefully told me abt it and adding in that he had criticied this before, and in his very face. but i tend to differ with the general rhetorical and easily charged-up (whcih is good for newpapers) reaction of society.
the underlying gribe that most people have with whatshisname is the issue of morality. but than again, what is morality? how do we decide something is considered immoral? (to put it in ben's words) is there some kind of omniscient body that can pen down right from wrong?
technically, there isn't. at least not on a universal level. what we can say tho is that man's freedom ends when it impinges on another's. so does using the money intended to help the kaidney patients imfringe on the rights of donors?
maybe. and than again, perhaps only the surface.
the one thing we can assume in our study of economics is that people are generally profit-motivated. and sometimes inevitably, this can overlap into charity-based organisations. but while ppl can condemn the greed of money as a bad thing in itself, profit-motive (to put it euphemistacally) is the main driving force of any capatilist (aka 1st world) country.
in context of charity funds, the gold taps that people complain of could well be the incentive for the ceo to make money. more donations equals more money to charity plus more money to self. wihtout such an incentive, for all we know, NKF might remain a small contributor to aid given to the patients. moreover, running such a large-scale organisiation is no easy job, (we ourselves are suffering under the yoke of pw and cant even organise the 4-5 of us properly and efficiently). giving the top position of NKF a high pay than attracts a greater talent pool to rise to the challenge. the best survives the competition and we get the ideal person to run the organisation.
th point i'm trying to hit home (and failng quite miserably i know) is that it is highly likely that with such a high paying job, we are saving significantly more lives than we possibly could if we gave a lower pay, got a less qualified director, with a lesser impetus to raise money.
it is thus therefore when considering such circumstances that the TRUE moral thing to do is than to give him the money, because we are than saving the maximum number fo lives within our capapbilty as a society.
BUT but but... some people think it is not a question of morality. all we really want is transparency.
given that all that i have said above is true, i would qualify golden taps as a necessary evil than. you see, the entire notion of 'embazzling' donations for luxurious utilties oft contradicts the morals or the mores of the layman. evident enough by the natin-wide knee-jerk reaction and evident by virtue of the fact that i have to dedicate an entire entry to explaining otherwise.
even when what i say is true about profit-motivation and all, the public will never fully understand this. for two reasons. firstly, we are all generally and inhernetly short-term based. the Singaporean that is supposed to be ept in ciritical thinking does not exist and will not exist. not if we continue reading the innane content of Strait Time's (and if you are from the strait times, please dont sue me) and continue running thru the 'highly knowledgeable' education we are spoon-fed with. (in this, the moe cannot sue me. they'd lose.) but aside from Singapore and the fact we get easily outraged evrytime something like this or when some teenage girl posts her own nude pictures on her private blog happens, man in general just tend to be easily edified by what seems most direct. (but seriously, the media will try to make you believe it becuase its the easiest to charge-up and works on the intuition of lay-reader) the second reason why we cannot be transparent (or the second reason i cld think of) is because the comparison of whether a big fat salary would actually make a difference in the number fo lives saved is impossible to make. it is a hypothesis that will remain a hypothesis because there are no real life instances to test it. i may well be wrong. there may be other theories that can nicely prove why i am right, but for other reasons. all i am trying to say is that there is a propensity that it might be true, and unless proven othewise, we ought to think a little bit (puts on vs accent) more before we start jumping up and dwon furiosly infuriated.
of course there's the argment that its not really where the money goes, but the thought that counts. but i guess that might be a rather selfish stance, because it innately implies that we are than giving to fulfill some inner-desire to be a better person rather than concretely saving more live, which i really the ultimate aim of all this.
thus the ultilitarian stance - that we'd give any cost, for maximum benefits.
i'm not a person who's found of reading the morning papers, and of all things the strait times. i guess when juxtaposed to the alternatives, its seems to be over-simplistic and lacks any form of insight into issues. magazines tend to provide that, albeit biased at times, but at least it provokes the reader to think. and thus, for many days i ahve been left in the dark about the entire NKF saga until KK gleefully told me abt it and adding in that he had criticied this before, and in his very face. but i tend to differ with the general rhetorical and easily charged-up (whcih is good for newpapers) reaction of society.
the underlying gribe that most people have with whatshisname is the issue of morality. but than again, what is morality? how do we decide something is considered immoral? (to put it in ben's words) is there some kind of omniscient body that can pen down right from wrong?
technically, there isn't. at least not on a universal level. what we can say tho is that man's freedom ends when it impinges on another's. so does using the money intended to help the kaidney patients imfringe on the rights of donors?
maybe. and than again, perhaps only the surface.
the one thing we can assume in our study of economics is that people are generally profit-motivated. and sometimes inevitably, this can overlap into charity-based organisations. but while ppl can condemn the greed of money as a bad thing in itself, profit-motive (to put it euphemistacally) is the main driving force of any capatilist (aka 1st world) country.
in context of charity funds, the gold taps that people complain of could well be the incentive for the ceo to make money. more donations equals more money to charity plus more money to self. wihtout such an incentive, for all we know, NKF might remain a small contributor to aid given to the patients. moreover, running such a large-scale organisiation is no easy job, (we ourselves are suffering under the yoke of pw and cant even organise the 4-5 of us properly and efficiently). giving the top position of NKF a high pay than attracts a greater talent pool to rise to the challenge. the best survives the competition and we get the ideal person to run the organisation.
th point i'm trying to hit home (and failng quite miserably i know) is that it is highly likely that with such a high paying job, we are saving significantly more lives than we possibly could if we gave a lower pay, got a less qualified director, with a lesser impetus to raise money.
it is thus therefore when considering such circumstances that the TRUE moral thing to do is than to give him the money, because we are than saving the maximum number fo lives within our capapbilty as a society.
BUT but but... some people think it is not a question of morality. all we really want is transparency.
given that all that i have said above is true, i would qualify golden taps as a necessary evil than. you see, the entire notion of 'embazzling' donations for luxurious utilties oft contradicts the morals or the mores of the layman. evident enough by the natin-wide knee-jerk reaction and evident by virtue of the fact that i have to dedicate an entire entry to explaining otherwise.
even when what i say is true about profit-motivation and all, the public will never fully understand this. for two reasons. firstly, we are all generally and inhernetly short-term based. the Singaporean that is supposed to be ept in ciritical thinking does not exist and will not exist. not if we continue reading the innane content of Strait Time's (and if you are from the strait times, please dont sue me) and continue running thru the 'highly knowledgeable' education we are spoon-fed with. (in this, the moe cannot sue me. they'd lose.) but aside from Singapore and the fact we get easily outraged evrytime something like this or when some teenage girl posts her own nude pictures on her private blog happens, man in general just tend to be easily edified by what seems most direct. (but seriously, the media will try to make you believe it becuase its the easiest to charge-up and works on the intuition of lay-reader) the second reason why we cannot be transparent (or the second reason i cld think of) is because the comparison of whether a big fat salary would actually make a difference in the number fo lives saved is impossible to make. it is a hypothesis that will remain a hypothesis because there are no real life instances to test it. i may well be wrong. there may be other theories that can nicely prove why i am right, but for other reasons. all i am trying to say is that there is a propensity that it might be true, and unless proven othewise, we ought to think a little bit (puts on vs accent) more before we start jumping up and dwon furiosly infuriated.
of course there's the argment that its not really where the money goes, but the thought that counts. but i guess that might be a rather selfish stance, because it innately implies that we are than giving to fulfill some inner-desire to be a better person rather than concretely saving more live, which i really the ultimate aim of all this.
thus the ultilitarian stance - that we'd give any cost, for maximum benefits.