
Make-A-Wish Foundation Turns San Francisco Into Gotham for 5-Year-Old Batkid - nrayamajhee
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/11/san-francisco-batkid-wish/
======
mark_integerdsv
I really felt some strong emotions while reading through this.

It's amazing.

The news spot just has to the the cherry on top. So happy for this kid that he
had an awesome day.

It does restore some faith in humanity to see things like this.

...however...

I hate myself for being the contrarian in this case but as a South African and
having worked with one or two NGOs that work with sick people in general,
including kids with AIDS I can't help but wonder how far the budget and effort
put into this could have been stretched.

Granted, there are plenty aid organizations and shit tons of money (much of it
dollars) that are pushed into Africa but if you've seen what's happening here
first hand it's very hard not to think about what could be done with every
single cent and every ounce of human energy.

I remember coming home one day after seeing some particularly gut wrenching
stuff and not even being able to look at myself. The food in my plate. The
clothes on my back. My kids. A room full of useless fucking toys...

It's the wrong lens through which to view these things. I know that in my head
but my heart is breaking all over again as I types this on several fucking
thousand rands worth of smartphone.

~~~
cwilson
The money that went into this endeavor was nothing compared to the compassion
and outreach completely fed by the people of this city. All of the media and
news you see is a result of grass roots movements, social media, and general
kindness. Not some corporate sponsor.

My point is, this is hands down an act of kindness by an entire city. There
isn't an evil plot behind it.

This makes me very happy, and it should make you happy too.

~~~
timr
Intentions of kindness, sure. Grass roots movements, perhaps. But also more
than a little wasteful. All of these things can be true at the same time.

I'm happy for the kid, but I wish a fraction of the human effort directed into
this one sweeping act of altruism could be put to more productive ends.

------
frank_boyd
It's nice to help suffering people.

The recurring pattern I see, however, is: We single out 0.001% of all cases,
do something extraordinary, and make a big fuss about it in the media. All
this to make us feel good about ourselves. What we don't want to fix though,
are the real causes of the problems, because that's way less pleasant to do.

~~~
cududa
What are you talking about?

"What we don't want to fix though, are the real causes of the problems"

I'm pretty sure a crap ton of people are working on solving "the problem" aka
cancer. The world is filled with shitty things, can't people create the
occasional extraordinary experience/ scenario just to make people feel good?

~~~
hershel
If you look at statistics for access for cancer care for people with low
income, you'll probably find enough places to put this money and effort into
with better impact.

But that's boring.

~~~
cududa
People are also working on bringing cheaper care to people who can't currently
afford it. Plus, this event was organized almost entirely for free.

------
aaron695
Sigh. Since when did HN become Upworthy and the glurge that went with it.

A child life is probably worth less than $1000, rather than that new TV I can
assure you the money to an average charity will save a childs life.

Yet throw in Batman and a whole lot of Redditors and we've saved the world.

Hey it's better than a normal street parade / pissing it up at a pub. But lets
get a grip on reality.

~~~
rschmitty
If this angers you so much perhaps you should organize with other like-minded
readers and do something about it?

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8ig8
Shared the photos and story with my wife. We both had tears running down our
face. We both pictured our son as batkid. People are good.

~~~
geedy
People are good, and sometimes we don't give enough credit. :)

~~~
enry_straker
FTFY People are good sometimes, and we don't give enough credit when that
happens.

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ck2
I can't help but think this is mostly for the adults watching, just like
setting up "santa".

I suspect the kid would have been just as happy running around a yard or his
block with "batman" for a whole afternoon.

It seems like he didn't even have enough time to take in each event.

Still, I hope it gives him great memories instead of being ill and in the
hospital.

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pshin45
Make-A-Wish Foundation, doing things that don't scale :P

~~~
sdoering
Why does everything has to scale? Why can a good deed not go unpunished (like
in some comments here)?

Your comment reminded me of one famous quote from the ring, the yews gave
Oskar Schindler[1]: "Whoever saves one life saves the world entire."

Some people (ok, a lot of people) just made the miserable life of one little
child a lot better. And they made their own lifes better, by showing what can
be accomplished together. What is so bad in that, that it warrants these
snarky remarks here on HN? That I really do not understand.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Schindler#After_the_war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Schindler#After_the_war)

~~~
jaredsohn
Why do people make assumptions on the motive behind other peoples' posts :)

I don't think the GP is making a value judgement on the fact that Make A Wish
often does things that do not scale. Rather I took it as a way to partially
describe the Make A Wish organization in the language used to describe
startups.

~~~
sdoering
If I have misunderstood the OP, I apologize. I know of the 15 to 1 ration of
the possibility to misunderstand in every communication.

So I should have given him the benefit of the doubt.

------
cia_plant
I clicked the comment link for this story just to see how HN readers would
make this simple feel-good story into some cynical circle-jerk. Was not
disappointed.

~~~
mark_integerdsv
My comment would almost certainly be one that you are referring to.

I think you need to justify how it is a cynical comment please?

To me, the truly cynical thing here is that you can't seem to understand that
Batkid's entire life is a lot more comfortable and pleasant than that of a
great number of sick children around the world.

The fact that so much that could have gone so far was spent on making an
already (relatively) privileged existence fun for a day because of the air
time it generates - is hideously cynical.

I really do not wish to be overdoing the guilt trip here, I'm just a little
baffled by your definition of cynicism.

------
bsandbox
Making endeavors like this scale is an interesting problem. On the surface,
this is inherently unscalable, but it does prove that a novel idea can spark
latent compassion to create something truly awesome. The obvious thought is
applying something like Batkid to third world cases, but it would end up
helping out a few cases in the millions that exist. A cynical view is to look
at this as an example of first world individualism triumphing over the greater
need of larger populations, but I think it's worth thinking about it the other
way round - how might it be possible to use compelling stories like this to
solve a larger population of problems.

------
kenrose
Buzzfeed has a lot of pics of today's event.

[https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/everything-you-
need-t...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/everything-you-need-to-know-
about-the-make-a-wish-foundation)

------
codezero
How much did this cost the city? It's adorable but blocking streets off and
crowd control costs money.

~~~
chris_wot
Bruce Wayne had it covered.

~~~
alan_cx
Perhaps "Bruce Wayne's" money might have been better spent in providing base
line care and medical research to the benefit of many, rather than spending it
on a big PR stunt.

~~~
imroot
I think you're totally missing the point of the Make-A-Wish foundation -- the
MAW foundation isn't for care. It's to make the life of a child who's been
affected by a life-threatening disease a little bit better so that they can
enjoy something magical in their life.

------
spiritplumber
Emperor Norton would likely approve.

------
gulfie
So how can we get the same people motivated to work for a cure?

~~~
Aloisius
Out of curiosity, exactly how would these people work for a cure?

It can't be money, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is shockingly well funded
to the tune of a quarter of a billion dollars in 2012 and that's just one of
the dozens of nonprofits not to mention all the leukemia research
organizations. Surely you can't mean for them to drop what they are doing and
get a Ph.D. and go into research?

~~~
dnautics
Don't bother with the pH.d. I only made 40k with that degree trying to cure
cancer. On the one hand, where is that money going? On the other hand, I
wouldn't pay most PhDs half that.

------
yetanotherphd
I think one issue with this sort of thing is people feel like they either have
to feel warm, positive emotions about this, or prove that it is somehow
harmful or at least not beneficial.

I assume there is some small benefit to this kind of action, but I don't have
any emotional connection or interest in it.

------
twoodfin
It's a good thing this was posted to hn, otherwise I never would have heard
about it.

------
codex
Compassion begets compassion. For this reason alone this event was beyond
price.

------
negamax
This is the only article I am going to share on social media in a long time.

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sinan
But what would other kids think? Wouldn't they get jealous?

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tertius
[http://vine.co/v/htbdjZAPrAX](http://vine.co/v/htbdjZAPrAX)

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iamkoby
made my day :)

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groupthinker
This submission is off-topic and is not "Hacker News". Moderators, please
delete.

