Nerding for Economic Justice

Via Game|Life, I just learned of a charity video game. It's fairly simple; the game's a vocabulary quiz, and for every question you get right ten grains of rice are donated to the UN to feed the poor in underdeveloped nations. It's like a walkathon, but with words. The site itself donates the rice, which it pays for through sponsorships from Time Life, Apple, and other companies. The game can be found here.

. . .Of course, this game isn't really a viable solution to world hunger. It's a nice way to waste otherwise unproductive time, but the amount of time and effort you put in is far out of proportion to the amount of good you get out of it. I just spent about 30 minutes answering the 100 questions required to get to 1000 grains of rice. 1000 grains of rice is equivalent to about 1 cup. There are about 2 1/2 cups of rice per pound. You can get, at retail, a five pound sack of rice for $6. That translates to half an hour of work for 48 cents-worth of rice. Of course, it does add up over a lot of people, and chances are the 48 cents of rice I caused to be donated is more than I would have donated myself in the absence of this game. It does help, and it's important to spread awareness about global poverty issues.

February 2012
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
      1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8 9 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29      

Contact Zach

Friends

Webcomics of Which I am a Fan

Sites I Read Daily: Politics

Sites I Read Daily: Video Gaming

Sites I Read Daily: General Miscellany

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by Zach published on November 13, 2007 11:28 AM.

Food History was the previous entry in this blog.

Go Bears is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

Powered by Movable Type 5.04