• @[email protected]
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    61 month ago

    I think anyone trying to buy the domain and redirect it as some kind of joke is dumb and I don’t support that.

    But I’m curious how the vetting process works for c/mutual aid. How can you be sure that the money is going to people who actually need it, as opposed to people who are playing a part to garner your sympathy?

    I’ve poked around hexbear from time to time and I remember a certain Palestinian family that was receiving fairly substantial aid. That appeared fairly legit to me, although it’s still extremely difficult to be sure.

    But the people who need help with rent, or help paying their phone bill, or whatever random sob story they might come up with, I view with inherent suspicion.

    Have you ever considered that it might be a much more efficient use of your resources to actually walk around wherever you live and give food and blankets directly to the unhoused? To volunteer at a local soup kitchen or homeless shelter?

    Sending anonymous strangers money over the internet has a very large chance of going to the wrong people who are adept at manipulating others but not actually in the most need. It has a very large chance of funding self destructive behaviors of mentally ill people that ultimately drive the individual further into poverty and misery. Just something to think about.

    • @[email protected]
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      141 month ago

      The mutual_aid comm literally saved me from being homeless and losing my pet cats that I’ve had for 10 years.

      It has a very large chance of funding self destructive behaviors of mentally ill people that ultimately drive the individual further into poverty and misery.

      Fuck you Nancy Grace. “Don’t give that homeless man money! He’ll use it on drugs

      What’s the worse problem? Someone getting something ‘they don’t deserve’ or someone not getting something they need to live?

      • @[email protected]
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        30 days ago

        That’s great, good for you.

        I think drugs are great, but they can be very harmful for people who are already mentally unstable. I deal with homeless people frequently, and in many cases, abusing drugs is a major problem for them and giving them money just perpetuates a self destructive cycle that eventually ends with them dying before their time.

        Someone not getting something they need to live is the worse problem, which is why sending your charity off into the interwebs with hopes and prayers that it has a positive impact is a very naive and lazy way of doing things. You should be making sure that it helps those who are most desperate, and the only way to ensure that is to do your giving IRL.

    • Deinonych[they/them]
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      91 month ago

      For your point on trust, hexbear users mostly just have to trust that the user is acting in good faith as there isn’t really any way to properly verify if the person is telling the truth without forcing them to reveal personal, and potentially identifiable, information. And for your point on funding destructive behaviours, if we assume that this individual is telling the truth about their situation, then you aren’t funding their drug addiction by helping them pay rent or buy food.

      • @[email protected]
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        1 month ago

        That’s fair and I respect it, we need to have the courage to trust other people and I’m sure people have received much needed aid from that community.

        But at the same time we have to recognize when a system is vulnerable to abuse, and consider ways to prevent that abuse from happening, or at least limit it. Sometimes, people aren’t going to tell the truth, and sometimes they may not know how to help themselves. It’s very hard to recognize those scenarios when your only context is an anonymous username on an internet forum.

        • Deinonych[they/them]
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          91 month ago

          In that case, you simply just have to take the risk. A well-off person giving money to another well-off person pretending to be poor isn’t as harmful as a well-off person not giving money to a poor person because they think they are a well-off person pretending to be poor.

          • @[email protected]
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            230 days ago

            Giving money to a person pretending to be poor instead of a person who is actually poor is harmful. You only have a finite amount of money to give away and you would be wasting it.

            Very interesting way of rationalizing it though. B+ for mental gymnastics.

            • Deinonych[they/them]
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              429 days ago

              2/10 for reading comprehension, i never said that giving money to somebody who doesn’t need it isn’t harmful, i said it wasn’t as harmful as not giving money to somebody who does need it. Please go back to school and retake your english exams

              • @[email protected]
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                29 days ago

                You’re comparing giving money to not giving money, that’s apples to oranges. And it’s wrong anyway.

                You’re telling me that giving money to Elon Musk (someone who doesn’t need it) isn’t as harmful as not giving money to me (someone who does need it)?

                Lol it’s such an incredibly dumb phrase that I could pick it apart in any number of ways. You actually confused yourself with the double negatives in order to convince yourself of your own flawed logic lmao

                But seriously, send me some dough 😉

                • Deinonych[they/them]
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                  429 days ago

                  You are doing a terrible job at twisting reality to push a “fuck the poor” narrative and im fed up of trying to be civil towards it. Please learn some empathy and stop trying to make giving homeless people money seem like a bad thing.

                  spoiler

                  Also making a rich person marginally richer is objectively not as bad letting somebody starve to death you worthless fascist.

                  • @[email protected]
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                    129 days ago

                    I’ve done infinitely more to help poor and homeless people than you ever will. Don’t try to lecture me about empathy.

                    Sending money to other hexbear users isn’t helping the poor. You can lie to yourself about it, but if you actually wanted to help poor people, there are much more impactful ways to do it.

                    You pretend that you care about marginalized people just to make yourself feel better. Just like billionaires who donate to charity and think that makes them good people. You’re a poseur

    • @[email protected]
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      31 month ago

      It’s like giving money to the guy walking about the gas station with a story

      You’ll see that same guy again and again, and he never seems to put any gasoline in his can