Hello users of hexbear:
Due to recent meta posts in our mutual aid community we wanted to open up discussion about the community !mutual_aid@hexbear.net
We will never require explanation or justification from a user asking for aid in the community, and the mod and admin team continue to commit to not featuring an individual’s mutual aid request to prevent unfair exposure.
In addition, we will maintain a strict “No critical comments or meta comments” on a mutual aid post.
This post is to discuss the mutual aid community’s rule of allowing meta posts: mutual aid as a community, those making posts in it and those commenting on posts.
We are considering removing the exception allowing meta posts but wanted to involve the userbase before committing to a change.
Please comment with any thoughts, feelings, or suggestions regarding this change.
Thank you
You know what, I will chime in here too. I was facing homelessness and begged for cash on mutualaid and I watched as someone asked for money for a vehicle and received $4,000. Then they bought drugs with it.
$4,000 is 8 months rent for me. I went homeless.
I won’t otherwise make value judgements on anyone involved, but I don’t think you’re shitty for calling it out.
I did not blow it all on drugs. Hell, I spent at least a quarter of that, in other words a whole entire rack, on other people in need. In other words, giving it away to my homeless friends. I sent one friend alone $400. I sent $200 to another.
I’m not saying I didn’t buy drugs with it. But it was not even a quarter of that $4K.
You know what I did blow it on? DoorDash. I spent maybe $1,000 on DoorDash.
I’m ashamed of how I squandered that money either way and I’ve learned from my mistakes but I know nobody fucking cares so why the fuck should I bother.
Well, I’m sorry if I misrepresented the situation. It just really sucked to watch play out. I’m glad to hear you learned something from it and I hope you’re getting by okay.
I was totally expecting you to double down and insist that I’m lying, etc., because that’s what I’ve come to expect in arguments like this one. Thank you.
Yea i normally wouldn’t have said anything if that exact person wasn’t the one complaining about other people dping that now.
what the fuck. $4,000? WHAT THE FUCK THAT COULDVE DONE SO MUCH GOOD.
Please tell me that at least that user was banned
Nah, still a regular here.
Removed by mod
Hopefully. This is reactionary liberal bullshit. What’s next, you gonna get mad someone on Mutal Aid has a smartphone?
Yeah fair. No investigation, no right to speak. I took that comment stating they asked for the money for a car then spent it all on drugs at face value and didn’t investigate further. Now that I’ve seen the real story my comments are awful
Even if a person spent it all on drugs, who cares? Why are you joining the War on Drugs on the side of feds?
That’s not what I said. The comment I was replying to (incorrectly) stated they had lied by requesting the money for car repairs then spent it on drugs.
My issue was with the lie itself (that didn’t actually happen).
Shut the fuck up. She did not scam 4000$ If you’re going to misrepresent the situation, how about you fuck off? You’re the one being disgusting. I was the one who gave her 4,000$ and maybe read what I said here. https://hexbear.net/comment/6174872
Fuck off
Just answering the question. I don’t think they should be penalized for having needs.
Okay, sorry for telling you to fuck off, I thought you were with the others trying to keep these old things going, that really need to be let go and to stop being reactionary.
I think it’s neither here nor there. I’m not trying to start a witch hunt, or worse yet - a struggle session
America is a fuck. Drug addiction is a fuck. Needing to beg online to survive is a fuck.
Still a regular in mutual aid
Amazing
What’s more is we aren’t even allowed to talk about it but that user can be defensive out of nowhere and call names.
Plenty of people talking about this here, how about take your shit snide comments elsewhere?
Where should I take it?
Up your asshole because none of this shit is your business to begin with.
Oooohhhhhhh ok. I’m gonna block you now
That is disturbing to read, I’m sorry you went through that and I hope you’re at least okay now.
I feel like there could be more emphasis on a hierarchy of needs in this comm but idk how to implement that without opening the cans of worms that come from basically means testing. That would go against the purpose of the comm. But maybe at least some feedback system that allows people who want to donate to understand whose requests are being ignored or whose requests still need to be fulfilled.
I don’t know what the answer is. The disturbing part to me is that the one who bought drugs with their “car money” still needs help. I mean that earnestly.
Drug addiction is an absolute nightmare but it can’t even be compared to sober homelessness.
I think the answer that sums up this whole chain is that it is necessary to set boundaries with people, even if the person is having a rough go. We’re kind of over-correcting the other way because everyone is scared to be paternalistic or patronizing or enforcing capitalist work ethic. Under communism we’re still going to have set boundaries with each other. It’s just part of human interaction.
You’re assuming something and presenting it as fact.
I think from the perspective of competing needs the more likely issue is that some people get more because they are more popular / appealing than others which is another form of market logic of its own. I think that’s a fair criticism, but it’s still a criticism of those who choose the allocation of resources rather than a criticism of those who need them.
My point is that being the arbiter of competing needs on a person to person basis is morally fraught (and typically on some level dishonest) which is why real mutual aid is a communal and social function rather than a peer-to-peer market function. Also that enforcing a system of account on those who are in need is just opening up a can of worms for petty sectarian moralizing that is going to wind up with harming more people than preventing scenarios like this.
There’s also just a lot of unverified, unknowable information to make a call here, and digging thru the post and user histories that started this thread it’s incredibly difficult to tell what the truth of the obvious off board drama between the involved users is.
FWIW you shouldn’t have gone homeless, that’s a failing of society on multiple levels that should be eradicated.
I’m not trying to call you out, I just really related to Adkml’s comment. I stopped begging for cash when I saw that the posters above and below me were victims of genocide.
I’m absolutely against means testing of any kind, but I think that it is up to the poster to determine if some amount of a limited pool of resources should be allocated toward them, and failing that, it is up to the donator to determine if their donations are going to someone in dire need.
We’re all just trying our best to keep each other alive.
I wasn’t taking it that way. I just think that your POV matters, but should be treated different than the POV of someone giving.
I think this is very noble of you.
Yeah I agree with this, the best we can do is caveat emptor.
I just think that adjudicating it before/after the fact or debating whose rules are more moral is pointless and harmful. There’s already calls for the user to get banned, from people who likely only read scenario as presented by Adkml which is not productive. I think there are scenarios where the $4k/car/drugs thing could be extremely shitty sure, but I don’t have all the information to judge, I don’t want the user to provide it, and it’s not my place to judge to begin with.
This is a message board, meaning it’s already a suboptimal way to distribute aid. At the end of the day this wasn’t someone pretending to be in need, they did get a car with the money, this person is still homeless. People should just live and let live.
Well, if I recall correctly, it was a person in need but they did not buy a car with the money. They bought drugs instead. Later on they asked for more money for a different car.
But I do agree with you, at the end of the day we are all just trying to get by. I shouldn’t be pointing fingers.
And then were also donated a car. And then got it impounded within a week because they were intentionally antagonizing the people living in the house they were staying in front of.
Lol no.
You are talking an awful lot about a situation you clearly don’t know.
You are 100% correct, and it is 100% none of my business to find out.