Google Donates €1 Million To Help Refugees In Need

Mark Wilson writes: The on-going refugee crisis in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East has grabbed hearts and headlines around the world. As European governments argue over who should take in the thousands of desperate people, European citizens have criticized the speed and scale of the help offered, whilst simultaneously donating money, food, and equipment to help those in desperate need. Now Google has stepped in, offering €1 million ($1.1 million) to the organizations providing help to refugees. In addition to this, Google.org (the branch of the company 'using innovation to tackle some of the world's biggest challenges') is setting up a page to make it easier for people to make donations, and says that it will match any money donated by Google users.

Comments

That's nice

[Anonymous Coward]

but it's a drop in the bucket of resources needed for this migration. What I'm wondering is, where's the U.S pledge to take in migrants? After all, it's the U.S who is dropping bombs and seeding weapons into the regions these migrants are fleeing from. Or maybe they're just not interested because you can't have any cherry-picking under these circumstances?

Re:That's nice

[WORLOK]

Where is the Saudi and other muslim duty to take in their islamic brethren?

Re:That's nice

[buchner.johannes]

This comic claims that climate change is one of the triggers (combined with the authoritarian regime, of course):
https://www.upworthy.com/tryin...

The UN has warned for years that climate change will lead to water and food shortages, and therefore political instabilities. This seems to be the first clear example, with probably many to follow as deserts expand.

Re:That's nice

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Muslims don't view non-Muslims as "brothers and sisters." We are "Kafirs" to them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Re:That's nice

[drooling-dog]

I'm non-Muslim and have friends who are Muslim. This may come as a shock, but they are not all the same, any more than all conservative Christians are ignorant xenophobes. They're not all ignorant xenophobes, right?

Re:That's nice

[fustakrakich]

Had the US followed a policy of reconciliation and inclusion, none of this might have happened.

It's hard to sell mass quantities of weaponry that way. If you want them to buy more, they have to use what they already have.

Re:That's nice

[thegarbz]

Yes climate change is what is making people flee to Germany. Not Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia, Hungry, Slovakia, or the Czech Republic, but Germany (give or take a country depending on the path to German). Clearly Germany is the only place left in the world with food and water. This is all about climate change and they couldn't possible get food, water, or even a life free from war in any of the other countries they are passing through on the way to Germany. This has nothing to do with the almighty Euro at all.

Re:That's nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Moreover, all the big help we offer to them as 'human beings' eventually turns Europe to a big fucking Caliphate with Sharia law, where there may be some white people in the countryside working the land, and a white minority in the cities. Europe is surrendering its territory to the Arabs and other muslims under the banner of humanitarian help.

Re:That's nice

[PolygamousRanchKid]

A long time ago, the folks in a country ruled by a formidable Imperialist Empire got up the courage to fight against them. The folks will ill-armed, untrained, and just country bumpkins, more or less. You can fight tyranny. But the will of the people needs to be there.

Islamic countries tolerate persecution of females wanting to get an education . . . because that is what Islam says. Get rid of Islam, and then your girls can go to school safely. Otherwise, don't bother me with your own problems.

Re:That's nice

[ultranova]

Up to a point, presently Europe is being driven into a situation where a future civil war with ethnic cleansing on a scale unknown in history is on our doorstep (regardless of who wins). Giving migrants more aid and convincing more people to try their luck in Europe is a dangerous game, easy to play for American liberals though who at worst have a bunch of Catholics with a few drug problems on their doorstep.

The threat to Europe comes from nationalistic forces who would love to see EU dissolved and are using the migrant crisis to drum up support. While that's understandable - nobody likes taking orders from a faraway central government - without EU the endless cycle of European wars will start again, and probably fast due to those very same nationalistic forces. I don't particularly fancy starring in live-action re-enacments of my grandfather's war stories, especially since their epilogy was being invalid for life. Also, does anyone want Putin to gain a stronger position, as he inevitably will if his main regional opposition collapses?

On the other hand, population boom could cause a corresponding economic boom, and we could certainly use one right about now. Islam itself opens new possibilites to kill off the remaining vestiges of authoritarian religion in politics by forcing people to confront the possibility of having to deal with someone else's religious bullcrap rather than merely forcing theirs down everyone's throats. It's even conceivable people might not be quite so easy to hoodwink by demagogues of the future if they're used to dealing with heterogenous societies, though I'm not holding my breath on that one.

So it seems that the cost/benefit analysis leans to the side of bleeding hearts in this one.

Re:That's nice

[Rei]

People who complain about people from other countries having cell phones and stuff like that have a strange concept of what life is like in poorer countries, As if everyone either lives like they do in America, or they're a mud farmer who sleeps in the dirt every night.

Travel to a poorer country some time and see how people live. You still find things like smartphones, TVs, washing machines, etc. They're generally lower quality or older, but most definitely present. You find a lower average number of "modern conveniences" per household, but that number is certainly not "zero". Buildings aren't built to as high of standards, but they're still fine for getting a night's sleep. People still have cars, even if the number per capita is lower and they average older/cheaper models. People in countries with ~$5k/yr per-capita GDP are not mud farmers. And that's exactly what Syria's per-capita income was before the civil war.

Different refugees have had different levels of luck. Some have lost everything they had, such as shells hitting their house. Others are simply in areas about to be overrun, but still have their possessions. When a person flees, they sell everything they can't take with them, and take with whatever they can. In a country where so much has been destroyed, there's always a market for replacement possessions - as well as a market for opportunistic groups to get goods for cheap. The money from selling whatever they couldn't take with becomes their funds for their trip. Small, important things like phones are one of the least likely things a person would sell. The biggest worry of a fleeing family is of becoming separated. The ability to get information is also critical. We live in a modern era.

Re:That's nice

[Anonymous Coward]

We in Europe (the vast majority of the people, not the politicians) do not want these people here.

Please speak for yourself.

Re:That's nice

[KeensMustard]

You're talking about Iran, right?

cheap pr, not real help scaled to google revenue

[Anonymous Coward]

Google yearly revenue is about 55 billion dollars
Google yearly profit is about 12 billion

so, by my math, 1 million in charity is less then, roughly, doing the math in my head, 6 hours profit ??? and it is probably tax deductible ?
and they are getting lits of great PR like this slashvertisement ????

another way to look at this would be to take the total salary of the top 100 google employees and ask what % of that google does in charity

Re:How is this news for nerds

[radja]

clearly, they are fleeing from war to another country. That makes them refugees.

Re:How is this news for nerds

[amiga3D]

Exactly. They are on the losing side in a civil war. That's just what you want to take in, an army. The problem with this group of refugee's is the political makeup of the group. The last thing anyone wants is importing a few thousand ISIS followers. There are a lot of military aged males in these groups. The media shows women and children suffering but I watched mostly men of military age boarding the buses for Europe. It makes you take pause.

Re:How is this news for nerds

[Rei]

Have you seen how Turkey treats them? Has Hungary exactly rolled out the red carpet? It should be obvious why they move on.

Europe needs a common policy to spread the load around on this issue. Heck, it needs such policies on a lot of issues.

Re:How is this news for nerds

[Hognoxious]

clearly, they are fleeing from war to another country. That makes them refugees.

A migrant wants to get to place X. A refugee is just desperate to get out of Y.