Life has always been an enigma for us. We have wanted to understand where we come from and where we are going — what we are made of, and what truth is; what is good and bad, moral and immoral, ethical and unethical, and so much more. We have tried to satisfy that curiosity through the tools of different realms: science, religion, philosophy, spirituality. And yet the same questions remain unanswered, or the answers we have gathered still don't satisfy. Although we have learned a great deal about humankind and the world, and enormous technological progress has changed our lives for the better, some genuine things have never changed. We may have forgotten, or set aside, our emotions, our feelings, our innate altruism. Today we are realising once more that humans have emotions — that we are not always profit-seeking or utility-maximising. As Ernst Fehr and Urs Fischbacher write in The Nature of Human Altruism, experimental evidence indicates that human altruism is a powerful force, unique in the animal world (Nature, vol. 425, 23 October 2003). Yes — we do things without seeking any profit, and it is in our nature.
The discrepancies are still here, perhaps more flagrant than ever. Seeing the whole picture can be overwhelming, because it shows how stark the asymmetries in living conditions really are around the world. On one side, developing and under-developed countries where people lack the bare minimum: housing, food, sanitation, electricity, health, education. On the other, developed countries with stable economies and high welfare, where a decent standard of living is relatively easy rather than a matter of life and death. And yet this absence of daily struggle — an undeniable privilege — does not always mean happiness. Our brains are biased; they love to take things for granted, and so we appreciate what we have less and less. There is a flaw in the equation that ties happiness to utility maximisation, and what we have been slowly losing is exactly what it leaves out: human contact, emotion, feeling, even creativity. You can meet many people in the first world who live comfortable lives and still seem profoundly bored. Some fill the void with things; some identify with a persona — the workaholic, for one. This, I believe, comes from the absence of a real meaning of life: living like a human being rather than a formatted machine, embracing our nature so that our altruism has room to show itself.
Helptourage gives humanity a chance to save itself — by letting people fill the void through helping.
There is, undeniably, already a flow of resources from the developed world to the rest of it. And although in the West we still argue about the limits of helping others, the need only keeps growing. I meet more and more people who want to take part in altruistic work — in helping — but who are put off by the rules and the paperwork that come with it, in volunteering and beyond. We owe a real debt to the NGOs who have carried humanitarian work through modern society. And yet, bound by their institutional structure, they are unlikely to absorb all the potential that is out there. I am convinced there are more ways to meet more needs — through a more open approach: fewer burdens, lower financial hurdles, more creativity. In the same movement, the very spectrum of humanitarian work would widen. These ideas already exist, waiting to be heard, shared, and put into practice. The shift has already begun — there are platforms that help elderly people with everyday tasks like grocery shopping. That is not merely help; it re-establishes human contact, which has been fading fast over the last decade. Helptourage exists to accelerate ideas like these. And a shared, one-platform approach would lower costs for the organisations, while for fundraising the cost per donation would fall — letting a greater share reach the people who actually need it.
Helptourage is about the transmission of new ideas — answers to the new problems that arrive with each wave of technology. We all carry views and ideas about these new ways of doing and living. But only a few of us ever find the right place to let an idea become a candidate for a real solution. So Helptourage acts as a catalyst, giving your ideas a chance to be shared. There are no limits to our creativity, or to what we can build — only the ones we place on ourselves. We can live happily alongside technology without the dualism that files it under "good" or "bad," simply by using it as a tool to leverage our altruism. And to experience, even once, the joy and the enchantment of doing something without expecting anything in return — that is what reconnects us to each other, gives hope, and restores a little faith in humanity.
Written in the early days of Helptourage, and lightly edited for readability. Its heart is unchanged — and it is still beating inside everything that came after.