Giant Bomb For Haiti

i just noticed there wasnt a dedicated Haiti thread and i just thought i'd start one.
 
we gamers live a pretty privilaged life. it's a heavy release season and we're all buying lots of shit we dont actually need.
 
i'd implore you to skip out on one of the releases you planned on picking up, and give the money to one of the various Haiti Relief funds.
 
for Giantbombers in the United States 
www.hopeforhaiti.org
 

for Canada
www.worldvision.ca
 
for the UK:
http://www.google.com/relief/haitiearthquake/index.html
 
giving what you can is always appreciated and every little bit helps. 
 
 

Yeah. . .no offense, I think what happened there is tragic. However, as a college student who needs to focus on his own life, I'm not going to start becoming all saint-like every time a natural disaster occurs in a third world country :/

If I had the money I would donate, but I'm a jobless fat bastard with no money right now.

Tragic what happened, but I'm an unemployed university student.

i'm a jobless high school student, so i can't donate

No. 
 
There have been a bunch of threads about this.
 
No.

 i'd implore you to skip out on one of the releases you planned on picking up, and give the money to one of the various Haiti Relief funds.

I've already given my obligatory five dollars to charity this year. I sympathize, but they really should have had the earthquake earlier so that it would be more convenient for me.

" i'm a jobless high school student, so i can't donate "

" i'm a jobless high school student, so i can't donate "

That earthquake in Haiti is - like any other natural disaster - a terrible, terrible accident.
 
...but I really don't understand why the whole world have gone bananas and wants everyone to donate something. They could use the money, sure, but why this time? Why not at the billion other earthquakes?

Title is a little misleading. Anyone see it?

Maybe if you'd have donated to Haiti before, they'd have had re-enforced buildings and the tragedy wouldn't have reached this magnitude.

" Title is a little misleading. Anyone see it? "

Donating money is cheap and easy, they also need every penny that they can take due to the whole: Our country is kinda destroyed, it's estimated that we've lost 200,000 people lost our lives, and don't ask us how long it's going to take to rebuild, thing.
 
If you own a cell phone you can donate by sending a text to 90999, with the msg "HAITI". When you do this, ten dollars is donated directly to the red cross, the amount is simply added to your cell phone bill. 
If you're too young, don't have a job, or "insert-your-situation-here", someone is probably spending money on your cell phone. It might not exactly be your money, but I doubt anyone would be up in arms giving ten dollars to this situation. 
 
Remember, you don't have to donate a bunch. It's good if you do, but if you can't it understandable.

I already gave some money, and so did the rest of my family 

I really wish I could donate some of my own money but at the moment I didn't even have any plans to spend any of my own money on video games, I just can't afford it. I'm a university student who is already having financial difficulties and is having to remain unemployed because my course is so demanding there isn't time for a job.

Our fantastic government has BILLIONS saved up for events such as this, i'm sure they'll do a BRILLIANT job.

lol ill be honist even if i did have the money i wouldnt but right now i dont no if ill have a job tomorrow so no games for me for a good wile 

Nope, not donating. Let the celebrities with a shitload of money donate, they're always acting about how much they care.

Donations like these are very 'grey'. It always seems that countries wait until something bad happens before helping out.

Wife+Kid=broke as a joke. But all those affected by the quake have my deepest sympathies, for whatever it's worth.

"we gamers live a pretty privilaged life."

" @vidiot: But that five dollars can go towards a bottle of coke. Or that 10 dollars towards a pack of cigarettes. We got priorities man. "

" @pakx said:

"we gamers live a pretty privilaged life."

Now that's an assumption if ever I saw one. "

rather keep the money that i worked for, and to be even more clear i have plenty of spending cash and still would never donate to Haiti relief.

I know I might sound like an asshole, but I really don't care. Especially since I don't have money to spend on myself, so I'm not certainly going to donate money to another country. Sorry, you can't expect much from an unemployed high school student. I have much more important things to worry about than Haiti.
 
Tragic and terrible? Absolutely, but I'm not obligated to either care or donate.
 
Hell, I don't even have a cell phone, so I couldn't donate that way either. Even if I had money to donate, I wouldn't.

" @ahriman22 said:

" @vidiot: But that five dollars can go towards a bottle of coke. Or that 10 dollars towards a pack of cigarettes. We got priorities man. "

You made me face palm, in real life.
 
@Binman88 said:

" @pakx said:

"we gamers live a pretty privilaged life."

Now that's an assumption if ever I saw one. "

Nitpick: You took out his context of the release schedule, which is a generalization I don't agree with. 
But, if were going to argue over that we live a privileged life over let's just say, the people of Haiti, I would disagree. You are privileged.    "

" @AjayRaz said:

" i'm a jobless high school student, so i can't donate "

"

" @vidiot said:

" @ahriman22 said:

" @vidiot: But that five dollars can go towards a bottle of coke. Or that 10 dollars towards a pack of cigarettes. We got priorities man. "

You made me face palm, in real life.
 
@Binman88 said:

" @pakx said:

"we gamers live a pretty privilaged life."

Now that's an assumption if ever I saw one. "

Nitpick: You took out his context of the release schedule, which is a generalization I don't agree with. 
But, if were going to argue over that we live a privileged life over let's just say, the people of Haiti, I would disagree. You are privileged.    "

So in context of the release schedule, the OP thinks I live a privileged life because lots of games are coming out? That doesn't make much sense, so I'm pretty sure I got what he meant by 'privileged'.  I just it hate when people compare people's lives to others, and then make assumptions based on those comparisons. By that method, I could say a homeless person living on the streets of Dublin lives a privileged live compared to the Haitians. It doesn't mean they don't have their own problems that take priority over the tragedy in Haiti. Although that's an exaggeration and I'm fortunately not homeless, no one knows what's going on in my, or anyone else's life, nor what personal commitments we have to take care of. I'm all for people just straight up appealing for support, but appealing for it with a statement that pretty much says "I know you can afford it" is really off putting, and kinda rude. "

As someone in high-school with no job, I can't really donate much but I did give a bit to my school's local funds for Haiti. Since I don't have much money, I'm thinking about trying to raise some through some musical performances (and by "musical performances", I mean "playing guitar around the table where they take donations and hoping for the best'), but I don't think they'll have the funds still going by the time school is back in session.
 
Terrible event, but it's good to see people doing what they can do help out.

" i'm a jobless high school student, "

/opinion warning!/  We have enough problems other places! I am very pissed we even considered helping them!!  Don't get me wrong it is sad but WTF?!  Your own country?  Hello?!  Were not in debt enough so lets go throw money at other countries, shows how smart America is.  As for other countries go ahead and do whatever. /opinion ends/

It makes me laugh that a corrupt country has a disaster everyone wants to send relief, money and help. Why doesnt anyone offer help before a disaster? The country is run by machete wielding gangs, poverty is about 90%, and the gov is nothing more than a bunch drug lords. You will get no money, or sympathy from me.

" c'mon guys this isnt gamespot! you guys know u can spare 10$ "

I've been searching for an appropriate venue to bitch, and this seems perfect.
 
Charities are admirable; they are usually non-profits who spend time and money helping others who aren't fortunate to be able to help themselves. 
HOWEVER, my issue isn't with charities, it's with government. In a time of crisis (Haiti, Indian Ocean earthquake), help is needed immediately, which both government and charitable organizations (the Red Cross counts, right?) provide. The difference between the two is the percentage of resources used: based on the numbers we see the US use on the war in the Middle East (trillions), a few million is barely a dent in the overall budget. I'm not sure what the budget of the Red Cross is, but I imagine it's significantly less.
 
My point: Charities exist because they deem the problem bigger than the aid offered. The question is, why the fuck is this so? There shouldn't be a lack of funding for cancer research, AIDS research, malaria research, ETC ETC ETC when it's so clear that the funding exists, it's just misappropriated (IMO). As a US citizen, I can't speak for other countries, but I feel that the priorites of the US government are extremely skewed (example: the French are accusing the US for 'occupying' Haiti). Referring to a futurism book I've read, there are multiple stages of civilization, based on efficiency of energy use. The writer said that the hardest step to take is between the first (similar to ours) and the second stages (the civilization uses all of a single sun's energy efficiently), because of local disputes between nations. Either we overcome our dumb-ass issues like money and superiority, or we basically go into a self-destructive spiral and annihilate ourselves along with the planet. 
 
Pardon for going on such a weird tangent, but I needed to speak my mind: apparently, no one I know gives a shit.

" Donating money is cheap and easy, they also need every penny that they can take due to the whole: Our country is kinda destroyed, it's estimated that we've lost 200,000 people lost our lives, and don't ask us how long it's going to take to rebuild, thing.
 
If you own a cell phone you can donate by sending a text to 90999, with the msg "HAITI". When you do this, ten dollars is donated directly to the red cross, the amount is simply added to your cell phone bill. 
If you're too young, don't have a job, or "insert-your-situation-here", someone is probably spending money on your cell phone. It might not exactly be your money, but I doubt anyone would be up in arms giving ten dollars to this situation. 
 
Remember, you don't have to donate a bunch. It's good if you do, but if you can't it understandable. "

I donated ten bucks via paypal. Not much, but I do want to be able to look back on the situation and think that I helped out in some way.

I donated 98 cents, I think thats enough 0_0

I lack the ability to care, otherwise I might of donated.