How to save lives in other parts of the world

This week’s episode of Radiolab presents an interesting hypothetical that in turn presents some bigger-scale questions.

The hypothetical is this: you are wearing a thousand dollar suit. You are walking along the edge of a lake and see a girl drowning nearby. She screams for help. If you jump in to save her, you will ruin your thousand dollar suit. So do you save her? Common morality says yes, right?

Skip forward a couple days. You are now walking downtown and you pass a man at a booth saying that, for a thousand dollar donation, you can save the life of some girl you don’t know in another part of the world.

My guess is you’d be less likely to donate that money. But why? Because she’s not an immediate, tangible concern? Because, if you didn’t save her, nobody would judge you negatively for neglecting a child?

Radiolab goes on to discuss how this difference in thinking is due to a long-standing human mentality, that we have evolved to the point that emergencies in our physical location are those of importance and all others are easily ignorable.

What does it take for humans to evolve to the next level? To be aware that there is always an emergency somewhere? To gain a global consciousness?

Certainly the resources are there. Despite our recent economic crisis, America still has most of the world’s money; a small fraction of it could end the plague of starvation, ensuring every man, woman and child on earth did not go hungry. If only we’d think globally instead of locally. (That said, why do we buy burgers for homeless people when our local homeless shelters seem to be able to feed them just fine? Why not donate the money to fund relief in Africa?)

So the growing pains are there. People are making attempts at solving this, at pushing forward to encourage people to think about emergencies globally. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Is this a sign of mental evolution? How much longer until people react together to solve any emergency in the world? My guess is that we’ll get closer, but never quite there.