When I go to Starbucks, in addition to satisfying my consumerist needs, by paying an additional $0.20...

When I go to Starbucks, in addition to satisfying my consumerist needs, by paying an additional $0.20, I will also fulfill my social duty to the starving children of wherever. Putting my aluminum cans, papers, and plastics into the recycling helps me to feel good about myself, despite household waste constituting a small fraction of the contents of landfills. Is pretending to care about the world pure ideology, or a mere spook?

Spook,mainly,though if you know you're helping the children and recycling due to your own egoist nature,then it's not a spook.

Spaces go after commas, my friend.

Punc,tuation is a spoo.k

Timothy pls go

No one admits they do those things to satisfy their ego. Most people are not aware of it, as becoming aware would serve to shatter how they see themselves.

Pretending to care, or thinking it is everybody's job to take care of the Earth is a spook.

Willingly going out of your way to recycle, or buying from non-profits and such consciously is not a spook because you know exactly why you are doing it.

Your own existence is a spook. t. Buddha

>Willingly going out of your way to recycle, or buying from non-profits and such consciously is not a spook because you know exactly why you are doing it.
You don't understand. The point is that doing those things has little impact on the world beyond making you feel good. Recycling, for instance, is insignificant because most of the waste in landfills does not come from households. Even if you manage to recycle every coke can you get your hands on. every scrap of paper, etc, it still won't matter. Even if everyone in your neighborhood or in your whole country recycled with perfect efficiency, that would only divert like 5% of recyclables going to landfills. Charities should be obvious; charities actually helped the poor starving African children with the flies on their faces, we would see a reduction in charities of this kind indicating a reduction of poor starving children with flies on their faces. That is obviously not the case, and unless you pack up your shit and go to Africa to help the little children, you ultimately have no control over whether or not your money actually goes towards helping them. You may as well just throw a coin into a fountain and wish good fortune for little Mbembe because it will ultimately have the same effect. The failure of Kony 2012, which no one ever mentions anymore, is a shameful reminder to many that slacktivism does little beyond inflating participants' egos.

That raises a larger question than whether or not charity is a "Spook", and moreso focuses on Ethics. If someone honestly believes that a 5% recycling efficiency is worthwhile then they are not driven by a "spook". Now if someone believes their extra pair of Toms helped some African child who is starving, then yes they have been "spooked". But a person who conscientiously goes out of their way to try to help without pretending to be the next Jesus is not believing a spook, they are simply trying to help.