Although this post does not have anything to do with fitness or bodybuilding, I thought I'd just blog about it since Joseph Kony 2012 is trending.
For those who live under a mushroom and is thinking "What the f*ck is Joseph Kony 2012??", watch this video, which has been hugely viral over the net and Facebook for the last week and it'll explain everything.
And if you don't have half an hour to spare, here, watch this summary video.
(Oww crap, the video was removed. Never mind. Just Google it.)
Got the drift already? Alright, let's get down to business then. My first thoughts after watching the video was, "What does this have to do with the rest of us?". Yes, I'm against evil acts against humanity. However, this video has probably reached tens of millions of people by now, but so what? Are we all gonna arm ourselves and hunt down that bastard? Maybe some of us would if the message was "$1 million to the person who captures Joseph Kony".
With such a rapidly viral campaign, there are definitely loads of debate over its effectiveness, accuracy, finances and credibility (especially since the organization's finances have shown spending of millions over frivolous cost centers). However, I shall leave it to you to Google the technical debates, which are popping up on various blogs and news sites.
What I will blog about now is my view on the matter as an NUS Business School student - the economics and opportunity cost of this campaign, along with a lil of my personal thoughts and philosophy.
Firstly, I think that this campaign is a huge inefficient use of resources. Imagine a company's marketing campaign to a huge, un-targeted market (like selling bodybuilding supplements to a typical Tom, Dick and Harry). As I said, 99.999% of us probably won't take up guns and hunt Joseph Kony down. Aside from that, imagine how much time we have wasted watching the KONY 2012 video. As of now, there video has 42 million 46 million views on Youtube! That's bloody 23 million man hours wasted!! I think if every one of us spent those hours studying/learning/practicing/training/working, by aggregate, we could make a bigger and better difference in this world!
Secondly, I think this campaign is giving everyone who is sharing it a false sense of warmth and pride of giving to charity. I'm sorry guys, but unless you're an American, I highly doubt that Obama will a crap if you share the KONY 2012 video or not. And even if you are, there are already a huge group of youngsters physically campaigning for KONY 2012. Isn't that enough to persuade the US government to not retract its troops (and funny enough, the video did not mention anything about the government INTENDING to pull back its troops. Hmm..)? And I think it's fair to say that as of now, Joseph Kony's inhumane acts are only contributing to a tiny part of Uganda's suffering. Why are we just campaigning against him? Why not against corruption, corporate capitalism, etc? Even if Kony is caught, others will continue to do more evil and in aggregate, far worse than Kony.
This reminds me of a book I've once read. And this is real. A pastor once brought some American teens to an African country to help out at a soup kitchen. But rather than letting them feed the African kids and feel all good, warm and proud about it, he gave them another job. He made them refuse and turn down the children who came to the kitchen late when there's no food left. Needless to say, the teens' hearts broke and they were drowned in tears as they sent the African kids back home, hungry starving. It was then that those teens knew how little they were actually doing and how these kids are still immensely suffering. A number of them now devote themselves full-time to improve the lives of these malnourished children.
So, in conclusion, to the people who feel good about sharing the KONY 2012 video, I'm glad that you guys have good intentions. But if each of us do good in every part of lives instead of just once in a while, we can definitely make a much much bigger difference in this world! And if you agree with me, feel free to share this post with your friends. :)
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