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Exactly. They do have a lot more time to work on an online marketing strategy than people who are actually struggling to survive.

You'd be right, too.

we cannot mutual aid our way into eradicating or even controlling malaria. Argue for a different system like state communism if you want - the USSR was crucial to the eradication of smallpox - but don’t lie to me

However, vulnerability criteria were generally things the community already knew about beneficiaries. For example, pregnant and lactating women, women-headed households, the elderly and/or disabled, and other criteria included in the IPC criteria (FEWS.net is a great resource for this).

It really is a bit like buying and selling indulgences

pretty slippery slope toward criticizing GoFundMe’s legitimacy as a healthcare financing system if you ask me

bsky.app/profile/fain...

...and 0.5% was "how we do better" (other than don't do nonprofits). It was very frustrating, and I do *not* think this was really all that Spade had to offer on the subject, but it was what he chose to focus on so completely that it made the talk nearly useless. (2/2)

Popular people should be rewarded with excess and unpopular people should die. But leftishly!

But then the people giving money wouldn't get the same dose of dopamine by getting to choose who they deem worthy.

I’m liking universal basic income…

they would steal from it to pay for other things

They remind me Evangelicals who say we decrease welfare because their Church is all about charity and giving to the poor

Agreeing with what Herbert Hoover would have wanted is pretty much always the wrong answer and I wish more people realized that.

Over-reliance on mutual aid (in US), iirc wealth studies, was one of the reasons it was exceptionally difficult for the poor to build any wealth. As taxpayer/etc based organized aid was removed they were the only ones doing it among themselves, informally/mutually.

that was the argument that conservatives made for why gov't assistance should be gotten rid of because they pushed that charities would be able to take the place of the gov't.

An informal non-system isn't *better*, but it's *what's there* when there are no organized systems to help

No, thank you for inspiring it/starting it!

It’s almost like Robin Hood was a hero for a reason! But sincerely, #WhatIfDems efficiently pool resources to help people via government, rather than relying entirely on less-efficient ad hoc systems.

The other thing that individual appeals for aid can never benefit from are economies of scale - when entire communities need help, pooled and distributed donations can go a LOT further with centralized logistics and buying power

Don't forget scale. As good as mutual aid may be, it's orders of magnitude smaller than government programs. Even quality/targeting/politics/modality is better, it's small.

I wrote my college entrance essay about USAID 😭

I’ve always thought if mutual aid as being something meant for neighbors and/or acquaintances or friend of a friend type thing. I’ve given money to folks I feel like I know well enough to know they’re a real human. Like giving money to a guy on the corner. Not a replacement for aid orgs.

I once gave a few dollars to someone who was asking because they just wanted to make a specific meal they didn’t have enough for. And I gave partly because it didn’t follow the script that one worries is exploited by scammers.