• chiliedogg@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    29
    ·
    3 days ago

    Poverty tourism is a fascinating industry.

    It really can teach empathy to young people, but it’s also an extremely inefficient use of resources. People will spend 3 grand to travel across the world to provide aid worth about a hundred bucks.

    • bleistift2@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      3 days ago

      From what I’ve heard that empathy lasts about a week before the day-to-day in your home country lets you forget the third world.

        • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          2 days ago

          They don’t keep in contact with the people, but it can help them empathize with people they don’t know and change their outlook on “foreigners.”

          • FerretyFever0@fedia.io
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            2 days ago

            I mean, I guess. But it’s pretty easy to forget about other people when you aren’t really reminded of them, especially when you never really knew them that well.

            • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              4
              ·
              2 days ago

              I can’t speak for everyone, but when I went to Bolivia with a medical team in 2000 as a high-schooler my life was changed. I don’t keep in contact with anyone from those days, but the experience made me a better, more empathetic person, and I better recognize my privilege as an American.

              Am I perfect? No. But it still gave me a different perspective on the world than my experiences in the marching band as a middle-class white Texan kid. I went into it brainwashed as a hard-core Republican. That didn’t change in my few weeks in Bolivia, but the impressions it left on me were a large part of how I came to re-evaluate my social, spiritual, and political beliefs in college.

    • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      3 days ago

      There’s a whole lot of empathy that could be learned in the US too, we aren’t as open to converting though.

  • FundMECFS@lemmy.cafe
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    2 days ago

    “The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.”

    Leviticus 19:34

    If only they actually took the bible seriously.