Which is Worse: Poverty or Disease?

I'm pretty sure absolutely no one is reading this blog, considering I haven't told anyone about it. But that's fine for now. Eventually I'll get around to getting my friends to read it, and then I'll get some other people to read it. And then I won't be able to write the same things because everyone will expect something, and I can't be experimental anymore.

But I have a question for anyone who does eventually read this. And I ask this question of everyone in the future because I don't think it's going to be resolved anytime soon.

Let me set it up first:

I was talking to some people, having a conversation, and I told them about how I wanted to go ahead and do a bicycle trip across Canada. I've seen people do it in the news, and I thought I could maybe pick a cause and go for it. But I still don't know what cause I really should be supporting. Someone said to me: "why not cancer, or heart and stroke, or Alzeimer's?" Those are good causes, but my initial thoughts had been to raise money to fight "poverty."

"Poverty?" They asked. "We don't really have poverty in Canada. Or we do, but anyone who's poor, it's their own fault, and raising money isn't going to help them anyways. Give money to poor people, and they'll just stay poor."

Those are solid arguments. I agree with this person. I do think that it's the poor's own fault that they're poor. And I don't think throwing money at them will help them. However, I'm also a believer in the "little things" principle. How can I put this? You know that saying "Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he'll eat for the rest of his life." Well, disregarding for the moment that I've never caught a fish in my life, I'll share my worldview on this: This doesn't mean we shouldn't give fish to anybody. Sometimes people are just plain hungry Now. Yes, they screwed up, and yes, it's their own fault they're left with nothing. But they're still human, are they not? It being their own fault doesn't change the fact that they're hungry and there are other people out there who could easily spare a fish or two.

Or can they? Shouldn't they be focusing their efforts on raising money for research that might actually save their own skins in the future? When faced with a multitude of possible charities to support, and only a finite amount* of money to donate to all of them, wouldn't it be the self-interested thing to do to support the one that might pay you back later on, by curing you of cancer, or something like that?

*I'm talking about lower-middle class people here. People who work for wages on an hourly basis. People who have mortgages and car payments. People who have kids to put through school. (But not college, because the burden for that has shifted from the parents to the student himself in his later life.) They're not rich by any stretch, but they do have a little bit left over at the end of the day to spare for a good cause, if they have any sort of conscience. Still, the argument applies to anyone, because there is no such thing as infinite money.

Poverty is a black hole you're just throwing your money into, and you're just making the hole wider by throwing money in. Cancer research is an investment.

However, once cancer is cured, and we live an extra year or two, the next disease becomes prominent. Everyone has to die of something. So in that sense, the cancer money pit is just the first in a series of pits along the road of life, which becomes increasingly pitted as you get toward the end of it.

So what was the question? Given a choice between the two, which charity would you support: Cancer Research or Poverty Alleviation?

I ask this because I'm actually curious if I was to start trying to raise money via a cross-Canada bike trip, would I raise significantly more if I chose one or the other? If what ultimately matters is my own conscious, then I'm forced to conclude that I'd prefer to raise money to fight poverty, but I worry that that might prevent me from every getting the project off the ground.