I'd dump a bucket of water over your head to raise awareness for NFA...

What's wrong with raising money for a very good cause and giving yourself the proverbial 15 minutes of fame? It's giving people, although possibly somewhat envious, incentive to donate money. I have no problem with it. My wife did the challenge and donated her $10. Besides, the ALS ice water challenge fail videos are pretty funny.








 

And I'd grin ear to ear while you did it.

Bill Gates, Lebron James, and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker don't ostensibly have much in common. But they've all recently poured buckets of ice on their head in support of ALS research. Yes, members of this motley crew -- alongside hundreds of your Facebook friends -- have posted viral videos of themselves shivering gleefully in order to raise money for a good cause. And while their videos have been unquestionably successful in terms of raising awareness (1.2 million videos uploaded) and funds ($13.3 million contributed) on behalf of an intractable disease, they have overlooked the most important message of all: vote.

According to Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, his agency has lost 25 percent of its purchasing power over the last decade due to draconian federal budget cuts coupled with inflation. Why does this affect ALS? Because according to the ALS Association, the NIH is the single largest source of ALS research funding in the world. But in 2014, the NIH has seen their funding slashed 5.1 percent, and their total budget is now $30.15 billion, down from $31.2 billion in 2010.

Let's put this another way: A month-long viral social media campaign consisting of billionaires, media moguls, and celebrities alike has raised $13 million, while a seemingly trivial percent cut in NIH funding means billions of dollars.

"We are throwing away probably half of the innovative, talented research proposals that the nation's finest biomedical community has produced," Dr. Collins told the USA Today. "Particularly for young scientists, they are now beginning to wonder if they are in the wrong field. We have a serious risk of losing the most important resource that we have, which is this brain trust, the talent and the creative energies of this generation of scientists."

So what should celebrities, billionaires, and your Facebook friends really start banding together around? Voting out politicians who cut funding for medical research...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-segal/the-ice-bucket-challenge_b_5688100.html

A few Impolite questions about the ice bucket challenge

Is the ice bucket challenge the best way to decide where to put your charitable donations? No.
Despite the ice bucket challenge, ALS is not our leading health concern
The ice bucket challenge may be diverting needed dollars from worthier causes

Americans are probably not unique in the world in treating philanthropy as a sort of game, with the goal of making it go down painlessly.

The ice bucket challenge sweeping the nation--or at least those parts of it accessible by Facebook and Twitter--is another example of how that system works. It's a system that includes credit card companies making a Christmastime donation to a charity every time you charge a purchase, or shoe companies sending a pair to Africa every time you buy one for yourself, or your pledging some money for every mile that someone else runs or swims to support research into a disease cure.

On the surface there's nothing wrong with any of this, since every dollar donated means one dollar more. But deeper down, there are lots of problems with it, and the ice bucket challenge illustrates why.

Ice Bucket Challenge raises over $10 million for ALS Association
The challenge, as you may know, benefits the ALS Association, which supports research into the degenerative condition ALS--amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease.

As described by the association, the challenge "involves people getting doused with buckets of ice water on video, posting that video to social media, then nominating others to do the same, all in an effort to raise ALS awareness. Those who refuse to take the challenge are asked to make a donation to the ALS charity of their choice." (The commonly suggested donation is $100.)

Plainly, there's something of a perverse incentive here. Those pictured on Facebook or Twitter dousing themselves with ice water are ostensibly people who refused to donate.

But since dozens of celebrities have made videos of themselves getting doused--Matt Lauer, Mike Trout, Martha Stewart, etc.--we can assume that the principle has been turned around. The challenge has morphed into a device for increasing awareness and therefore fundraising for ALS research. It appears to be quite successful, since the association says it's received $15.6 million in donations since July 29, compared with $1.8 million in the same period last year.

The first issue raised by the ice bucket challenge is whether this money is being put to its best use. That's not a rap on the ALS Association, which appears to get good marks on philanthropic efficiency. Nor is it about whether ALS warrants this level of attention and charitable giving. It's whether ALS warrants the attention, compared with other possible causes.

The most successful charities will be those that are best at soliciting funds, not those that are best at making the world a better place.
- British charity organizer William MacAskill, on charity stunts like the ice bucket challenge
Let's stipulate that ALS is a devastating condition for those who have it. It's almost invariably fatal, with most victims living two to five years after symptoms first appear, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Researchers are still struggling to understand its causes.

But ALS is also, by any definition, a rare disease; the threshold specified in the federal Rare Disease Act of 2002 is a nationwide incidence of 200,000 patients. The CDC estimates the prevalence of ALS in the U.S. at about 12,000 persons. The ALS Association says 30,000, but hasn't responded to my inquiry about the discrepancy.

Even taking the ALS Association figure, the disease is rare, far outstripped by many other conditions requiring research funding. These include Alzheimer's (an estimated 5.2 million patients in the U.S.), and diabetes (25.8 million).

Stunt philanthropy like the ice bucket challenge doesn't accommodate these sorts of distinctions and comparisons--it just feeds whatever charity hits on a catchy device and treats all causes as essentially equivalent, distinguished only by their claim on public attention. The result is that "the most successful charities will be those that are best at soliciting funds, not those that are best at making the world a better place," as the British philanthropic organizer William MacAskill puts it.

It's a fair guess that most people prompted by ice bucket publicity to make a donation don't know much about ALS beyond the fact that Lou Gehrig got it (maybe they know about Stephen Hawking, too). They may assume that it's a major public health problem, though the numbers say it's not.

That would be all right if new donations to ALS added to the total of charitable giving. But the evidence is to the contrary. The concern  of philanthropy experts is that high-profile fundraising campaigns like this end up cannibalizing other donations--those inclined to donate $100 to charity this summer, or this year, will judge that they've met their social obligations by spending the money on ALS. (See this piece by MacAskill for an explanation.)

The explosive spread of the ice bucket challenge could even end up hurting ALS fundraising in the long term. The challenge is a fad, and fads by their nature burn out--the brighter they glow, the sooner they disappear.

The hard work of philanthropy always lies in creating a sustainable donor base. But the ice bucket challenge has all the hallmarks of something that will be regarded in 2015 as last year's thing.

Even today the connection between the ice bucket videos and ALS seems tenuous--think about how many times you heard about the "ice bucket challenge" or saw the hashtag #icebucketchallenge on Twitter before you had any idea that it was associated with ALS. The ALS Association may be very pleased with its haul of donated cash this summer, but here's betting that next year's collections will be closer to last year's than this year's.

So, sure. You want to contribute to the fight against ALS, great. But if you're doing it just because you saw or heard about Bill Gates, Jimmy Fallon, Justin Timberlake or Ethel Kennedy dumping ice water on their head, maybe you should give a bit more thought to where you donate your money.

It's like the vine videos crossed with an email chain letter bullshit.

they should just donate money or volunteer if they want to help.

The narcissistic "ME" generation wants the world to see them doing something....anything

My expression...



Hand the person $10.00... "Now get the fuck away from me with your frat house/locker room nonsense"

If its stupid and it works its not stupid.  And it does work, ALS contributions are way up over last year.

Last I checked this was America, and the people with the post-tax dollars get to decide where those dollars go.  Your liberal whine piece belongs on DU.

Well, it is obviously working.  I have no problem with it, and FFS it is for charity to try to help those in need with a terrible disease.  Some folks around here are just some crotchety bastards who hate everything.

Charities have been pulling all sorts of stunts to raise awareness for a looong time.  So what?  Does walking 10K help people i need, I mean the actual walking?  No...the attention it draws does.  

This took off because it is stupid, easy to do, and encourages you to name others.  As someone pointed out, they took the concept of a chain mail letter and applies it to something useful.  

Instead of bitching about the ME generation, instead I'll applaud the people who thought up something that actually went viral and raised more money than would have otherwise.

ok I donated 10 bucks to ALS,will you bucket dumpers stop throwing rocks at my house?

Very stupid

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

Meh.  I was challenged yesterday.  


I'll probably do it after work today, and donate too.

For a good cause I'm behind it; though I personally would just donate some money.
They showed kate upton doing it wearing some brown shirt my Grandma would wear and they cut it off right after the water was dumped on her.


 

I think we should combine the ice water challenge with the mag dump challenge, that ice water wouldn't stand a chance

that other ice water challenge should include more tits wrapped in white t-shirts and nothing else

I bet you are a blast at parties.

This.  Jason Zucker (MN Wild) was the best one I have seen.

Well, that's ironic.

His was pretty good.  Bissonnette's was the best one I've seen.

If it's stupid and raises millions of dollars for ALS research is it really stupid?

My take on it.  It has cost me money (my water/ice) as my kids decided to do it and put it out on FB/Twitter/Etc.

Then I looked at them and said aren't you supposed to donate too?  Soooooo yeah.

This bothers people, really?

Next years fad, the "Bucket O' Lava."

I quit donating to everything but my favorite charities the day the United Way ran with the  "Your Fair Share" guilt trip campaign attempting to make people feel bad if they didn't give a portion/percentage of their earnings to them because it was somehow "owed" to society. Even worse, they used employers to coerce employees into giving even though they [employees] may not have felt it was the best use of their charitable dollars.

You guys do understand the people dumping water on their heads are doing it so they don't have to donate money, right?  

Let me put that another way for you.  You are challenged to donate money or dump water on your head.  If you don't donate the money, you are required to dump water on your head.  

When people show videos of themselves dumping water on their heads, they're saying they decided to do that instead of donating money.

+1

Some of you fuckers will get worked up about anything.

I propose a motorboat challenge.

My problem with this is that people are doing it because it's trending as show for FB and IG and very few if any are actually donating anything. They should just cut a check for the amount that a bag of ice costs them if they really want to make a difference.

I am with you on the misuse of funds, I don't donate to the charity industry.

Since this is voluntary I have no problem with it.

I like how that quote about diverting money assumes that all those people would have donated money to something else int he first place.  I bet not even 10% of them would have without some silly gimmick challenge to motivate them.

If you were serious about it, you could probably make it work quite well. I remember a boobie challenge of some kind for the Susan Komen breast cancer foundation a couple years ago. It involved touching or showing boobs.

Yep, kinda sad really.



Give money, or post a self grandizing video of yourself online about how you are doing something for charity.  Call out friends to give money...



They make a video and call someone else out...
pointless, self-fluffing, accomplishes nothing and requires no actual commitment or sacrifice, which is why you see celebrities and every other me-too jumping on the bandwagon.





Next year I am going to start one.  Give $100 to the Testicular Cancer Society, or film yourself taking it up the bum and calling out two of your friends to do the same.

That is true, but ever since this thing got going (according to the CBS news last night) there has been more than $10 million donated.  So it's working out pretty damn well.

I got called out to do it by a friend yesterday on FB...not going to happen.  I actually spend a little bit of time and donate to a local ALS charity for a friend with the disease but this whole thing is stupid.  I have ignored it and will continue to ignore it.



 

yep, very much so.  glad i'm not on facepage so I don't get "challenged"

Meh

I'm letting that bandwagon pass me on by.

the raising money is a good thing...but I kept seeing these and wondering how long until somebody got hurt trying to outdo the next....

http://huzlers.com/teen-dies-instantly-neck-injury-ice-bucket-challenge-falls-head-watch-video/

http://abcnews.go.com/US/viral-cold-water-challenge-linked-teens-death-injured/story?id=23679865

and ouch

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Congratulations, now you can join the likes of Obama's chief cheerleading cunt, Andrea (SKELETOR) Mitchell, and get dunked!!!  w00t!!!

I don't know what it is. It must be on tv. I don't have tv. Sounds again like I'm missing nothing valuable.

Cheers!

-JC

look at me!!  I am wanted and needed!!

Harmless.  People could be doing worse things.  Live your life.  

I wouldn't do it myself, but that's me.

People having fun and rasing money for charity? Sorry that's so bothersome to you guys.

It's official. Arfcom will complain about ANYTHING