causes: table of contents
the big picture
- First, I endorse almost everything of Jeffrey Sachs' simple plan to save the world.
- Convinced by articles like this
one, I think top priority charities are those that save humans
from intense suffering. I used to prefer Oxfam America exclusively,
but their rating has been slipping, and now I also favor FINCA.
- More and more these days, I think supporting the work of groups
like the American Civil Liberties Union is
important.
- I stand behind The
Brights for defending the rights of those with a "naturalistic"
worldview.
- I also like Unitarian Universalists for
the way they sever the dependence of spirituality and meaning on
supernatural beliefs.
- I'm a signatory to the National Center for Science
Education's Project
Steve. (I count as a "scientist" in virtue of my cognitive
science background, I think - but also, I think informed philosophers
of science are in just as good position to evaluate the claim at
hand.)
- To choose your own
charities, you might use these helpful watchdog sites:
technology
- I am a firm believer in the good that free ("as in speech") and open source software can do.
(See more of my thoughts on my hobbies page.)
- The internet equivalent of the
ACLU is the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
- I like the attitude toward intellectual property of Lawrence
Lessig (see his book, The
Future of Ideas, for explanation) and his group at the Creative Commons site.
- Against internet censorship, there's Amnesty International's irrepressible site. Among other
things, they give you the chance to post snippets from other
websites that have been censored:
You can click on it to see the
source and the censor.
- Tor can also
help fight internet censorship.
- I also wish more people would use the free, strong encryption
out there. Currently, sending an email is like sending a postcard -
anyone in between can read it if they care to. A free
program like GnuPG
integrates nicely with email programs (like Mozilla's excellent and
free Thunderbird,
through the
Enigmail extension), and
provides powerful encryption and verification. The more
commonplace such encryption is for everyday email, the less anyone
needs to feel under suspicion should there be a time they'd really
like to use it. (My public gpg key is available at typical
keyservers or here.)
other causes
- I hate telemarketers, and have successfully sued them for
about $20,000 so far. You can too! Just search
Google with a phrase like "sue telemarketer". It's
enormously gratifying! If you're successful, let me know, maybe use
some of your awarded damages to buy me a present in thanks ...
- I agree with NORML that
the US economy, prison system, and population at large would gain
large net benefit from the legalization of marijuana.
