Mutual_Aid discussion post

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

245 comments

A lot of scratched liberals in this thread. Some of you really couldn't help yourselves, could you?
A user spent the money on drugs!
Who gives a shit? Would it matter if some of the Palestinians in Mutual Aid wanted to get high after seeing their families murdered? No, it wouldn't. You're just means testing based on location and circumstance. If anything, I appreciate the honesty and transparency. But rather than trying to help people deal with addiction, some of you saltine-looking motherfuckers would rather wag your finger at vulnerable people as you pearl clutch over """"crime"""" the way your fellow liberals think drug addiction deserves jail time.
A user got too much money!
Again, who gives a shit? If you think someone got too much money, then don't donate to them. It's as simple as that. Nobody is making you give money to anonymous strangers.
Someone is scamming!
Yeah, no shit? You're sending money into the void. It's anonymous. Nothing you see on the internet is real, even when people have their real names and photos attached to a profile. That's the risk you take when you contribute to Mutal Aid. Donating to someone, then finding out it was a "scam" is on you. Do you go around telling people your social security number? How about your debit card PIN? Because I do. I tell medical professionals and social services my SSN when I think I can trust them to use that information appropriately. If I get a scam call, I don't tell them shit. I hang up. Mutal Aid is similar: either you trust the person on the other end to use their discretion or you don't. If you don't trust them, then why are you giving them money? If you do trust them, then why are you getting up in their shit over how it's being used? You're not donating to improve the material conditions someone lives in. You're donating to have power over them. Fuck you.
They didn't spend the money on what they said they would!
You sound like the reactionaries who piss and shit all over themselves because poor people have smartphones and refrigerators. That's you, except you're saying it to people treating themselves to a nicer meal or having a Netflix subscription they can watch while they live outside in a fucking tent while it rains. If you want to have it be for a specific thing, then be upfront about your means testing. You can DM the user about getting them a gift card for a specific thing or call the place the person is going to be buying their $200,174,192 doodad and pay for it electronically. But don't do this shit where you give them money with no strings attached, then try to attach strings after it's been handed over.
Seriously a bunch of you cracker liberals are just mad the filthy poors don't kiss your feet and wipe your ass. The fuck are you even here for? LARPing-ass poser leftist dipshits who want to maintain unjust hierarchies that benefit them.
- People who are posting stupid shit in this thread deserve this level of abrasiveness and calling out. I had to disengage last night because there's an entire 10 replies deep thread complaining about the fact that the online message board gossip they just heard about hasn't resulted in a homeless person getting banned from one of the only places allowing them to access survival funds. That level of hate is vile. Frankly this site would never allow that kind of dog whistle and concern troll style posting against our GSM and POC comrades and we shouldn't tolerate it against homeless ones.
  Pretending that some kind of rules lawyering and virtue signaling on an online anonymous message board is going to "more efficiently" solve mutual aid problems is equally as stupid as thinking that we're going to start the next communist revolution or "get Bernie elected". Grow the fuck up.
  We're ships passing in the night. Some of those ships need money. Other ships want to help. Leave it alone. It's not the community's business to get into this drama. It's the business of the users involved and the mods/admins on how they want to run mutual aid. Making this the communities business is going to be a good way to fuck up a unique and unabashedly good part of the fediverse permanently over some petty Hasan vs Ethan style bullshit. These aren't podcasters mining drama for clicks, they're real people.
  
  10 replies deep thread complaining about the fact that the online message board gossip they just heard about hasn't resulted in a homeless person getting banned
  Exactly. They're being classist scumbags and if anyone should get banned, it's them for being reactionaries. We all know the War on Drugs is a sham, yet here these fucks are wanting to wage it against other users over some bullshit.
  
  Honestly disgusted by that thread and the wider chilling effect this already seems to have. I understand people want to feel like they're doing the most good possible, but that doesn't give anyone the right to dictate how aid gets spent. These are systemic problems that cannot be fixed by wiring someone cash.

245 comments