this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
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Maybe I don't feel like enabling a total stranger? Maybe I want to make sure I'm helping a problem with food and clothes rather than making it worse? Call it whatever the fuck you want Imma keep doing it and I don't think there's anything wrong with it
The best thing you can do is donate to food banks. Either with actual donations of food or money donations.
It's actually a good idea to give food banks money because they get no end of cookies but no fruit or vegetable.
I volunteered a food bank occasionally and we have enough pasta to survive the apocalypse. And every week people bring us even more bloody pasta. We could probably give it people to build as a shelter for themselves and still have more than we knew what to do with.
Also we have 40 bags of kale. Which I don't think anyone wants to eat even if they are starving.
Not to mention money to the homeless is subject to sales tax. Your dollar goes farther in non-profits.
I’ve never heard of a drug dealer charging sales tax
Missing out on profits. Extra 5-10% on top in "sales tax" is the greatest marketing a dealer could ask for.
Smart dealers know they can shake the police of their back, but the IRS? Hell no, once they're after you - game over.
I'll eat the kale.
Then don't give them money directly. You can't control how they spend it.
But if you just offer to buy them food, then people on the internet will complain at you denying them agency.
Can you provide an example of such complaining?
There's people in this thread saying a gift card isn't a gift because it has stipulations on how it can be spent. They're not being super aggressive about it, but still. If you want to find that comment chain check my last post.
Okay? That has absolutely nothing to do with buying someone food.
I mentioned it on a Discord server and got such responses as "Oh shut up. Let people have agency." and "It's just restricting more control from societies most vulnerable group."
So a couple of people on a Discord serve said that and you extrapolate it to the entire internet?
Let's take an informal poll. Who here would criticize someone who offered to buy a homeless person a meal? Please speak up.
Yeah, I don't think I've seen anything that aggressive about it outside the Discord server, and it's the only one that really sticks in memory, but I've also seen a few comments in threads here and there sharing the sentiment less aggressively.
But it's also worth noting that any time you talk about doing something selfless, there will be people trying to poke holes to diminish it.
Without the xkcd I wanted to downvote... Lol...
I refrained from voting at all instead
Fair enough.
I mean mwahaha, I can use xkcd as a shield!!!