“Philosophy is the luxury of the rich” and similarly knowing about #icebucket or having an opinion on it means most of all “Congratulations! you are in the top 5% of the world”.

Now, there’s enough rant about it including important CA opinion makers taking a negative stance on it — which is very fashionable in certain SF circles, to take a highly positive stance to what people find insanely over-valued (Yo, Snapchat etc.) or take a very negative stance to what everyone finds really popular.

Lets examine some reasons — why ALS #icebucketchallenge is awesome:

A. It’s cooler than lists: 17 reasons why you are dumb, cat videos, baby videos, #selfie or stupid “candy crush saga”: Digital social networks have given birth to a lot of stupid content and people share a lot of really dumb shit. #Icebucket shows how one can leverage the same principles of network effect, virality, self obsession and sheer boredoom of masses for a good cause and that’s awesome. It leveraged the concept so well, that they raised 100 million$ in less than 3 months. And before you criticize, go through your facebook and tell me the other constructive thing that you did on facebook — where you spend half of your time spend on the internet — which is all the time.

B. Mass Altruism: Altruism and more in-vogue terms like CSR, Foundations, Charity Dinners etc have always emerged from the elite and has a sense of narcism about it, #icebucket just took it to the masses and made narcissistic altruism uber cool and reach everyone. You can’t afford a 10,000$ a plate charity ball dinner to help poor kids in Africa, no problem! just sit at your home, pour #icebucket on your head and/or donate as little 10$ and you feel the same sense of goodness. Your good deed is done and everyone knows about it. Don’t big charity functions work the same?

Yup, you may question the real motivation of people to donate, but thats a freudian argument and even the love for your mother can take twisted dimensions in those dark alleys.

C. The cause has become secondary argument: I know people say dumb things all the time, but this just beats my imagination. 3 months ago — you did not know about the disease ( forget its difficult to pronounce and spell full-form) and neither did anyone in your network. Today all of you know about it, have a very vague sense of what it is — in 3 months that’s massive awareness for the cause. And last I checked the cause won, the scorecard looked something like this

Awareness Growth Rate: Faster than Instagram, Snapchat, facebook and twitter combined | Donation: fastest non-calamity based donation drive ever| Knowledge on disease: Conservative estimates say 1 of 10 people know about the disease, that’s 10 million more than 3 months ago | Overall: success thats sets benchmarks.

D. If health care causes were start-ups, START-UP won: Lets assume health-care causes like cancer, AIDS, obesity are all corporations ( not far from reality) then they are the large multi nationals with strong lobbies, access to government policy makers and strong brand-name recalls and large scale acceptance and massive eco-systems. Then there are causes like ALS ( crica May 2014), kidney disorders, etc. which get little media attention, no investment ( donation) , don’t attract the best talent and other typical start-up problems. People don’t wear pink crosses, or run marathons wearing their brands. ALS showed that a little kid from the other part of the town can win, that a start-up can beat the big boys and causes just like start-ups like Google, Facebook etc. can scale that fast. That the principles of silicon valley success can create boon for health care. Its a huge win. HUGE. Its massive, I feel fortunate to witness this and be a part of this with my start-up.