Are you OK? Do you need some financial support? Can you afford to eat? I can offer to buy food and have it delivered to you, or a near by shop (or something) if need be.
I find the entire thing annoying in the extreme because I have a Patreon account to help fund my blogging and I completely suck at promoting that. I also do freelance writing and resume editing and I can't get traction with that.
I sincerely appreciate it anytime anyone actually kicks a few bucks my way when I am in crisis. But I would much prefer that people take me seriously, fund my Patreon and/or hire me for paid writing so that bitching about my shit life on the internet can stop being one of my more lucrative skills.
> I sincerely appreciate it anytime anyone actually kicks a few bucks my way when I am in crisis. But I would much prefer that people take me seriously, fund my Patreon and/or hire me for paid writing so that bitching about my shit life on the internet can stop being one of my more lucrative skills.
I have no idea who you are. I've never heard of you. I've never seen your blog, YouTube channel, Twitch streaming account, or whatever else it is you have. I didn't read your profile or historical comments here in Hacker News to try and track you down or identify you because...
> People genuinely looking to help have zero problem finding my PayPal account or emailing me.
... I'm not going to run around the Internet looking for you.
I think I was well within my rights to offer you assistance using the most direct communication means that was available to me at the time of offering it: the comment box directly under your post. I made a safe assumption, in my opinion, that this would (and it did) reach you directly and now I'm being hosed down in public for trying to care about another human being.
I don't care about magical karma points. I'm 33 years old: I don't have the time, energy or the f--ks to give with regards to some magical Internet points that amount to sweet F/A.
I'm being sincere in my offer and it still stands. I'll email you to get further details from you about how you might want the money, if any, being sent.
Good luck.
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions." It isn't enough to mean well. Some ways of handling things simply do not work well.
I only want people to see the human in the suffering. The helpers are human too but are in a position of power and also have a more stable life and ability to cope. When I was working and being yelled at and unappreciated by people in severe distress I worked to never take it personally and did my very best for them. It was never about me..they had simply lost their ability to cope and needed help back to normality. It's terrifying to think about but can happen to anyone, any time.
I've got nothing for or against either poster, but so many assumptions were made about someone who may have been just trying to help. Why is that fair? Why try to help anyone if you're gonna get treated like that?
It puts me in an incredibly awkward position because there is absolutely no good way for me to respond to it. If I publicly say yes and they actually help, there is a danger that this will become a running theme on the site. This would be a serious problem for me and for the moderators.
It's an inherently disrespectful way to handle the problem. The lack of real respect is one of the things that keeps certain classes of people trapped in poverty.
I have been commenting on my poverty on this site for years. I get lots of compliments on my writing here. I also get consistently told that trying to make a middle class income from my writing is a batshit insane deluded unrealistic desire.
If people genuinely respected me and genuinely cared, they could help me figure out how to turn my writing skill into a middle class income. I am not asking for charity here. I am asking to be taken seriously as someone who has a valuable skill that I would like to make a career out of. I can get no traction on finding a means to turn that into a middle class income. I have zero desire for my participation here to turn into some circus of me begging for money publicly. I see that as counter to my goal to get taken seriously and establish a career.
I also see that as a development that the mods would be fools to not ban me over. I have spent time as a moderator. That's a shitshow I would not tolerate in a community under my care.
Consider video. It's out pacing written material by a long shot and fast becoming how people consume knowledge. Not everyone is suited for it, but it's worth considering. The systems in place for publishing video content are also better and have a much bigger reach (without any work)
Open discussion will not necessarily reinforce anything, people have the ability to draw their own conclusions. Personally I would rather that OP stated their opinion explicitly.
Also I actually don't know what the stereotype was that was being implied.
I think that welfare in the US is about philanthropy, charity and "good will", and not about "social rights" as in Europe.
And that comment showed exactly that attitude: the guy is kinda confused on why that woman refuses his "good will". She is asking for rights, he is offering "good will".
In my opinion, her answer created a cognitive dissonance in his mind, and that's why he answers back so angrily. I find that attitude to social welfare super American.
I think that the American approach to welfare has ethical and practical limits. Welfare based on philanthropy and good will is not an efficient welfare: it won’t change much. It also adds a moral dimension that (imho) shouldn't be there…
Sorry for the late answer!
More importantly, people like us need sustainable situations, not a wad of cash that will be gone with next month's expenses and leave us right back where we were. We need to be helped get a base under our feet to grow from as the muddy pit we live in just keeps collapsing, we also need to "learn how to fish" as the saying goes and be reintegrated into the whole. Not have scraps of fish thrown at us, no matter how well meaning the thrower is.
And goodness forbid you need more than the bare essentials, like a car, home, etc.
And it's like, hello? 2+2=4. Can you not see how these issues are related? Geez.
* My apologies to the generous souls who have compassionately given me money at times so I could eat. But the reality is I would not need such gifts if I had enough regular income, but all efforts to establish an earned income fall on deaf ears.
I would rather be at the beach, but instead I'm stuck here in an office.