I'd never heard of the "drowning child" scenario until I edited a story about the bioethicist Peter Singer this week. He has just won the $1 million Berggruen prize for his groundbreaking work on altruism.
The scenario, which is well-known in charity circles, goes like this: Say you pass a shallow pond and see a child drowning. Would you try to save the child?
The answer would be: Of course! Maybe you'd get wet and muddy, and you'd have to change your clothes. But those are minor costs when a life is at stake.
Singer's point is that we are all exposed to many "drowning child" scenarios -- when we hear of people around the world facing a difficult situation.
He argues that if it doesn't cost too much for you to "prevent something very bad from happening" — no matter where it is taking place in the world — you are obligated to do it.
"It makes no moral difference whether the person I can help is a neighbor's child ten yards from me or a Bengali whose name I shall never know, ten thousand miles away," he has written.
That interview with Singer made me think of another story we published this week: on people pushed into food insecurity by the pandemic. They are not quite drowning children but they are having a difficult time putting food on the table and often skip meals.
Yet some of them said if they see someone else in need, they'll share what little they have -- like Salman Khan Rashid, pictured above, who lost his job as a golf coach at a Mumbai sports club during the pandemic. Some nights he only can afford one egg for dinner, yet he gives food and money to beggars on the streets.
"I believe in giving to people who have nothing and are destitute," he says.
That's a lot to think about. And one thing that impressed me is the way readers responded to our story about people facing food insecurity. Dozens of requests came in to help those we'd profiled, including Rashid. While we're not able to connect you directly with individuals, our sources all agree that local food banks are a valuable resource in need of support.
Rest of World shares their recommendations for international streaming shows (including a Filipino anime, a Senegalese supernatural drama and a lesbian love story that had been banned in Kenya -- and was the first Kenyan film shown at Cannes).
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