How do you put your mind and conscience at rest knowing that there are people living right now that are starving and or inescapably miserable???
All you have to do is remember that they are not you!
j/k
Copious amounts of alcohol, followed by bouts of denial.
Eventually the pain becomes like a background hum, annoying but relatively harmless. Just find someway of doing your little bit to help who you can help and take solace from that.
This world is designed around pain, it makes us function, a call to action. We do things because it hurts, so all we can do is address our own pain. Meaning your pain is that you care for others. Two possible solutions: 1. Stop caring. 2. Help them so they’re no longer in pain, thereby removing your pain.
But here’s the question… Are you being selfish in wanting them to be happy, as all you’re really worried about is your own piece of mind!?! Would you have even written your post if you were not affected by the pain of having a conscience?
I say stop worrying about it, in a sense that I will make more precise below.
In What Would Aristotle Do? Elliot Cohen suggests that one of the counterproductive psychological rules that people commonly hold is “thou shalt upset thyself.” This rule means that if one comes across a fact of life that is undesirable, something that one would strongly wish to change, then one must become emotionally upset about the fact and ruminate about it frequently.
One hopes by maintaining this rule that if he gets upset, he will be more likely to act decisively to change whatever is upsetting him, thereby righting whatever the undesirable situation is. The problem with this analysis is that in practice, the rule often obstructs its own aim of rousing the self to action. The sadness, anger, or grief that the rule inspires can trap a person in a paralyzing habit of brooding over these emotions rather than motivating the person to change whatever they have chosen to get upset about. When this happens, it helps to step back and realize that getting upset isn’t doing you any good, and further that you can choose to stop getting upset and find other motivations for action instead.
For example, I would suggest that the proper motivation for helping poor and suffering people is not “compassion” in the sense of getting upset over their sufferings. The motivation that will get you in the right spirit and help you do the right things is love. If you love your fellow man and understand that making him better and happier will make you better and happier as well, I submit that you are more likely to make a positive difference in the lives of poor and suffering people.
Help the poor and suffering, but not to salve your conscience. Help them because you want to, because it will make you happy to see the difference you made in their lives. And if you are truly honestly too busy with other important pursuits to do this, don’t get upset; it’s unrealistic (you aren’t the sole savior of the suffering) and it does nobody any good.
I think Pax’s wry comment about “copious amounts of alcohol” describes exactly the sort of self-defeating attitude that “thou shalt upset yourself” can bring. 
i would throw half of the careless people half way accross the globe to starve with them and see how they can barely hang on day to day without food a roof over there head or not even a family left only people like that can lie that’s how religion started,someone had a belief it was a lie but once he/she noticed it’s power of humanity then it only grew to become known as our present god and as the religion grew stronger he/she also grew in her/his rank.
That reminds me of the “Ought, implies Can†proposition to all things that are beyond our control or ability. Now this is just a logical way of trying to dealing with emotions, as you can’t tell yourself not to care. I’m lucky enough (debatable) to have reached the point with logic to remove almost all emotion from my persona. Meaning I’m clinically a psychopath because of philosophy. If we can help someone and don’t, then we have a reason for conscience to kick in, otherwise what can we do to solve the problem?
A good piece of ass can cover up a multitude of sins.
So we need to go fuck poor people?
It is by understanding what can one person do.
I cannot by myself save the world, a people,
or even thousands of people. What I can do is
try to save who I can. It grieves me that millions are without,
but I cannot save them no matter how much it grieves me.
I cannot. I can help those that my limited resources can help.
Which means I must walk by many who have needs,
but I cannot help them. I give to charities and at christmas, every
year I give a few turkeys who I call tom, but my ability is limited.
And for that I grieve because I wish to help those in need.
But I cannot.
Kropotkin
…do you Recycle? 
I live in a condo complex and I am in charge of recycling here.
Every mon. night I take the 6 bins out for the recycling guys
and on tues. I take them back in.
At least I did until I hurt my back. Now I am sidelined for months.
A lady in the building now does it. But someday, I will do it again.
Kropotkin
Aporia
Not necesarily. The shape of a well rounded behind is not the same as a dollar bill so consequently the poor is not the issue.
However, if you look at what the vast majority of advertising is directed at, you will see that a primary driving force is a good piece of ass. That being the case, it is obvious why it covers a multitude of sins designating other more altruistic concerns to the land of tomorrow.
Stoic undertones on Aporia’s nice explanation of Cohen’s. I like it.
aporia
I think I will read that book after all. Thanks.
Arendt
Not sure if it counts as ‘stoicism’. At least I would not think of myself that way (re: especially what Foucault says about the Stoics). But I can see the link.
James
Something to keep in mind,
We did not ask (insofar as I know 
) ‘Hey… dude you wanna be born in North America, or in Europe, or in Haiti?’ It just happens, it’s easy to say ‘You don’t appreciate this or that, there are people starving right now’. But this world is all we’ve ever known, and so the vast majority of people cannot really do much beyond sponsoring a child without possibly compromising their position in said enviroment.
We can take some comfort in knowing that for alot of the places, it’s not like they live in some Middle Earth ‘tainted’ place or some shit like that. The powers that be want these areas to be exploited for whatever reasons… and if we as a populace can decide to change things for the better… things like ‘people simultaneously blasting back a few lines of coke off a crystal prostitute, and becoming a prostitute to pay for your bottle of coke’ may become a historical darkperiod, instead of the most civilized society to date.
I think the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’ is quite trite these days. But there’s certainly some utility and truth to it (aside from its usage in the Darwinian sense, that is) else it would never have become trite in the first place.
All of life - all its forms, human or otherwise - is one gigantic struggle. I don’t know it’s entirely healthy to pity all that can be pitied. I don’t know if it’s healthy to pity at all. At one level or another, all can be pitied. Where is the line drawn?
There is something so mechanical about Recycling, most people do it without thinking, they are out to save the planet. Around here, if one chooses to recycle, say, plastic it has to be rinsed clean before placing in the recycle-tub, for the recycle-guys, on recycle-day. It’s one thing to choose to participate, but to have to clean the trash before setting it out is a curiosity, yep, in-and-of-itself. They also refuse to take plastic containers (with the recycle symbol stamped on the bottom) that plants come in. But, they will take rubber gloves with mud all over them.
What does this have to do with virtual starvation and suffering in Mundane Babble…one might ask.
…stay tuned
right… as Jello says:
Efficiency and progress is ours once more
Now that we have the neutron bomb
It’s nice and quick and clean and gets things done
Away with excess enemy
With no less value to property
No sense in war but perfect sense at home…
The sun beams down on a brand new day
No more welfare tax to pay
Unsightly slums gone up in a flashing light
Jobless millions whisked away
At last we have more room to play
All systems go to kill the poor tonight
Gonna
Kill Kill Kill Kill
Kill the poor
Kill Kill Kill Kill
Kill the poor
Kill Kill Kill Kill
Kill the poor
…tonight
Behold the sparkle of champagne
The crime rate’s gone
Feel free again
O’ life’s a dream with you, Miss Lily White
Jane Fonda’s on the screen today
Convinced the liberals it’s okay
So let’s get dressed and dance away the night
Gonna
Kill Kill Kill Kill
Kill the poor
Kill Kill Kill Kill
Kill the poor
Kill Kill Kill Kill
Kill the poor
…tonight
-Imp
Try to help one of them.