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Today's Top News
09.09.10 - 4:52 PM
Free Rice
One word and ten grains of rice at a time, the U.N. World Food Program's Freerice.comdonates food to over 50,000 hungry people a day via an online word game: define a word correctly, and they donate rice. Now they're expanding their reach via Twitter and Facebook. A click of a mouse, and the hungry get fed. Is it miraculous, or dismaying, it can be done so simply?
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32 Comments so far
Show AllI think this website is absolutely terrible, beyond disgusting really. 'Oh, you rich first-world people in your air-conditioned condos staring at your Macbook pros, answer a couple of questions correctly so some people in Africa or Asia or South America can get a couple of grains of rice. Let's band aid the problem with the U.N. World Food Program, another bureaucratic entity that doesn't even come close to a solution. Let's not harness the power of the people to reclaim their land, their governments, their natural resources. No, let's get rich first-world people to sit around and answer questions on their computers and make them think they actually have some say or some part in eradicating hunger. Fighting poverty and starvation is now super cool!!!!'
Yrsa, while I can understand your feelings on this, I don't know why it isn't a good thing to help those in need now, while also coming up with a better solution. I believe both are possible. And if someone isn't doing anything else to help, then this may at least let the most vulnerable survive until there is a solution.
If only a better solution were actually being formulated...but it never is! The problem I have with this is that it sugarcoats a serious problem. People will just go to this website, answer their questions, think they've done good and then move on, not thinking again about the billions who suffer everyday.
Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.
--Edmund Burke
give a man a fish, you feed him for a day,
teach him to fish and he can feed himself every day.
sometimes though you gotta give a man a fish.
If the above freerice was ALL you did I would heartily agree with Yrsa. But there is much to do. locally as well as globally.
Try feeding the 30% of americans that have hunger and poverty issues as a start.
Buy Fair trade.
Learn and read.
pax
"But there is much to do. locally as well as globally.
Try feeding the 30% of americans that have hunger and poverty issues"
Very well said!
I like this site because it does make you smarter, and it does help you to learn about language and how Latin and the Romance languages are so related. Once you start thinking about that, then you really start to wonder that if languages can be so interwoven and accepting, then why can't people?
I do think that it's wonderful too, that you can help yourself and the rest of the world at the same time. It's a great idea and it works too. Yes, a simple idea can do a lot of good for everyone.
You should all try it because it really does help. If you miss a word, and there are so many new and wild words out there, then it's set up to give you a chance to correct it when that word comes around again. There are higher and higher levels too, and that makes the words fun and challenging.
I don't so crossword puzzles, but those people who do would really enjoy this site. Please don't be cynical, because this really is a wonderful idea.
Stardust, do you work for the UN? This website is disgraceful.
Dear Yrsa:
That was funny. No, I don't work for the U.N. I'm not working for anyone at the moment. Like many Americans, I am working on gathering enough itty -bitty, p/t "anythings" before my itty -bitty unemployment runs out!
I am running into that 1099 problem, ( employers fudging and trying to make you think everything is an independent contractor job, so that you will pay all your own taxes!) I eat LOTS of rice though. Reading ideas from all over and eating rice pretty much sums up my current existence!
One simple question:
If the rice is available for distribution, why not just give it to them (the poor/starving) instead of making a pathetic reality game out of it where smug a-holes in A/C condo's sit and click for a few grains - sort of like the rats in a box which get a food pellet if they tap the right shaped figure.
This entire concept is a disgrace and could only be thought up by 1st world sadists.
The rice _isn't_ available!
Like anyone else in a market-capitalist economy, the UN must buy the rice. To buy the rice, they need money, to get money, they must collect revenue, and after all operating expenses are covered, have a surplus (profit) to buy the rice . Revenue is collected by selling something that people will buy, or if a government, charity or the UN, impose taxes, fees or get donations.
The UN mostly relies on fees and donations from member countries, and also from some private giving. But after all that is done, if they want more revenue for food programs, they need to go to the "sell something people will buy" method. That is where freerice.org comes in. In this case they use the private media model - entertain people (in this case, a word game) for free, while selling space for advertizers who buy advertizements or product-placements to put into the media (in this case, a web page).
If the UN version of this site is like the original private verson of this site, it works like this:
1. Freerice lines up advertizers for the site.
2. Every time the website records a hit in the form a word quiz being solved, the site earns fraction of a cent advertizing revenue - enough to buy a grain of rice.
3. Get many thousands to play the game, earn thousands in ad revenue, buy lots of rice.
Yes, this seem artificial and contrived, but that is how capitalism works. Just be thankful the UN doesn't finance its food programs with vastly more byzantine capitalistcana like credit default swaps.
Yes, I'm, a socialist and I'd prefer the simple system of "from each according to their ability, to each, according to their needs'. But unfortunately we are far from that at present, so we unaviodably must play the current game.
You didn't actually respond to a single one of my remarks!
You also appear to know almost nothing about the UN aside from ignorant John Birch/Tea Party-like caricatures.
The US left will never make any progress when it cannot even make the effort to learn the organization of the institutions it criticizes!
The UN is a very big and diverse organization and isn't an "alliance" at all! It is the Secretariat (head executive) and two deliberative bodies - the somewhat democratic General Assembly and the somewhat un-democratic 15 member Security Council with its 5 powerful permanent members. But most of all, the UN is dozens of various UN programs and agencies, many of which ARE in fact organized exactly like charities - UNICEF, UNESCO, UNWFP (subject of this discussion), and many others. Most even run mail solicitations for donations. Don't you ever get UNICEF appeals in the mail?
I agree. It is a game that techie people can play with the poor until they get tired of it. It has no dignity and does nothing to pave the way for a sustainable future.
I participate in things like fund-raising fairs for schools, and give $ to some things, knowing full well the limitations of charity. It is unreliable, paltry, temporary, not empowering to the recipients. Much of it gets lost along the way and goes into the hands of thieves and administrators. It does more for the giver than the recipient in some ways. It is something that should be done with regret that it has to be done at all. When you are talking about life and death matters, making it into a game seems sadistic and just plain strange.
We can and must give relief for hunger through the most reliable channels we can find. One hungry day is a long time for a child. But really, while that goes on, ingenuity should go into helping people become self-sufficient through correcting land grabs and the industrialization of agriculture that has shut out traditional farmers. The third world is going through a replay of the Land Enclosure Act, layered over a few centuries of colonialism and concentration of wealth. Trivial approaches show a lack of understanding of the gravity of the situation and capitulates to the market approach to everything.
Joe
kalkiredux, thanks, I was going to say that, and you saved me the time typing it.
Peace.
Stardust-
You COMPLETELY missed the point here - it is NOT about educating YOU and making YOU feel better about yourself.
Your entire post was a self-congratulatory jerkoff and primarily about YOU!
People and kids are dying while you bathe in self-adulation.
Get real.
It sounds like a promotional campaign for a box of cereal - "For every box of Cheerios sold, General Mills will donate $X amount of dollars to XXXXX good cause."
Real change cannot happen this way. General Mills makes this claim based on how many boxes of Cheerios they are going to sell. If 5 billion people clicked on the rice website, they couldn't meet the commitment. It is truly not really about your click at all.
If this is what is required for education about hunger, what a farce. Education does not require phony clicks to donate rice.
i don't doubt they are sincere. But that is not how we change the world.
You're so right...this freerice game reminds me of all these stupid promotions companies have here in the States. Snickers has one where you can help give meals to the hungry in the U.S. by buying a Snickers bar and typing the code you find inside the wrapper online at their website. Or Pepsi's Refresh campaign...same sort of premise. Buy Pepsi and they'll give money to help 'refresh' communities across the U.S. I think my favorite has to be a full-page ad I saw in the New York Times a couple of weeks ago. It was from Coca-Cola...something about how they had invested all this money to upgrade hiking trails in national parks across the country and how we all should be happy they did this, blah, blah, blah. I guess it's not really the same as my other two examples, but it feels that way, at least to me. Cuz the first thing I feel like doing after drinking one of Coke's lethargic-inducing, pancreas-numbing beverages is going for a hike! Oh yeah! I love corporate capitalist philanthropy!!!
Why should you need to play a trivia game in order to feed people?
If no one plays the game, do the people get fed?
This is absoutely disgusting.
Unfortunately, it seems that too many CD commenters are as uneducated in economic matters as they are of scientific or technological matters.
Please read my 1:35 pm post.
I believe SaboCat was just pointing out the way the UN works. As to the Website, I noted he said "if" it works as the private version does then...
I think you guys are on the same side here.
And look at that beautiful description of the game of "credit default swaps"... "byzantine capitalistcana! Definately on the same side my friend.
I was also pointing out that the freerice game also DOES make rice available to the needy that otherwise would not be available with existing funding. Whether it is enough is another matter, but when you play the freerice game, you ARE helping the UNWFP buy rice for the needy through the web-advertising scheme i described earlier.
I don't have a problem with this. Learned a few new words. Many websites make it on advertising clicks - it's great that a hunger program is capitalizing on that and feeding people. If you think it's so disgraceful, then donate cash. Thought so.
My wife and I spend cash each month to sponsor a child. We have been doing this for years.
I volunteer in a food pantry that helps the needy. The food pantry also has a two acre garden that we use to raise fresh vegetables that are given away each week to our customers. I work many hours each week tending this garden along with several other people. Some of us do give money and time to help feed the needy. I still think playing a trivia game to give away food is not the way to help.
Ah, such passion! It would be so much better if rich @#%#s
didn't piss around with futures contracts and drive the price of food up, and it would be so much better if rich contries didn't make poor countries grow tobbacco, sugar and coffee on dirt they need to grow food to pay off debts on mega projects that didn't help in the first place. There are an endless amount of things that need attending to. This little project does no harm and is even sort of entertaining. I really doubt if anyone who plays thinks this is the solution to world hunger but it certainly isn't causing any damage. I even clicked on a couple of sponsor links to help pay the rent.
Free Rice ?
From the story title I though for a moment Condoleezza Rice had been arrested in the start of an ongoing return to sanity.....
WOW! Lots of anger here. Look, I first read about this site on the Christian Science Monitor, almost 2 years ago. I went to it to improve my vocabulary. When I found the rice part could help people, then that was cool too.
I don't think that this site is trying to make people feel like they saved the world just by playing a game. It's a vocaulary site that does "some" good."
It won't change the world, but maybe it COULD make more Students and Americans find that,in general, playing this will help them to understand where words come from and it might even help improve the LITERACY in this country , even of the college educated.
Oh yeah, I don't have a condo, or air conditioning, or think that this site makes people think that's all they have to do to be involved with the planet. I don't think it sugar coats anything; it's a fun site that draws more students than anyone else.
MAYBE, just maybe, it could be the beginning of understanding that there's a problem out there and that this could spark someone's interest.
If you're 100 years old, then maybe this site seems stupid or mean, but I think that this site was also meant to find people who DON'T know, and isn't that the point? Without knowledge, there is no action.
"Launched in 2007, the online game has already raised enough rice to feed more than 4.2 million people for a day in countries including Uganda and Bangladesh, and is now trying to help victims of the torrential monsoon rains in Pakistan."
From the article. I really don't see what is so wrong with this. I have to agree with stardust on this. It is a complement to whatever else I can do with my small resources.
I can't save the entire world with one knitted hat, blanket, prayer shawl, or anything else I might make and send off to someone. It seems like such a tiny gesture, doesn't it? My one items added to hundreds of others makes a difference. Is it bad that I also get pleasure out of these skills that I possess, and God forbid if I might learn something, too, in the process of helping someone.
I come onto common dreams for the current events and to read the comments of other readers; like all of you above. I have noticed some possible hindrances I would like to bring some focus to. Generally we acknowledge,"the complications and repercussions of human development as a whole, have created these trans-generational issues," spanning from wealth distribution to industrial impact, environmental devastation, power-centralization and everywhere in between. I dare say there are no easy fixes, that is apparent.
I want to impress that,we all have adopted various perspectives, in regards to these controversial issues, which was a battle in-an-of-itself, but should we clash so often? I agree that healthy debate is very constructive, but I see many intellectuals, throwing eloquent insults at one another.
I understand the feeling of hopelessness, of deep bitter rage, I understand the stance of working with the system to create an alternative future. I myself border anarchist, but I choose to see the merit in diverse views.
"from each according to their ability-" is it not a valuable ability to take the time to read, think, and become passionate about the world?
Respect Diversity; one thing I aim for, we are on the same side you know.
Eljiah Z
After reading all these comments I felt like sharing one video with everyone here This film is about the hunger and poverty brought about by Globalization.
watch
http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/1081