Scott’s Tots
And I can’t even help myself as much as I need 🥲
I still try you know. Organize, advise, sometimes join a cookout. We survive together you know.
The irony is that most positions to help the poor make you poor. Social work pays terribly. Nonprofit salaries are low. They entice young people into volunteer positions when they’re drowning in student debt and have barely any personal savings. You really make a sacrifice.
The grifters who only act like they help the poor, tho. They’re rich AF.
This is basically the central concern of David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs theory, though he focused more on the other side of the issue, how the most meaningless jobs tend to be the most compensated.
Help the poor -> Help I’m poor
Working as intended
People ranting over a meme… some dude said join a communist party lol
Tankies gonna tank. Unions are fine, but there’s never been a communist party that didn’t just turn into a dictatorship
Not that I am in one, but I’m sure there must be a communist party somewhere in the world that is doing fine on a local level. I can’t imagine how those even could become dictatorships with the powers of a mayor alone, surely those count?
The poorest are those who help. Teachers, nurses, care providers, child care, service workers, retail employees.
If you want to be helpful you’re gonna pay for it.
Almost all these people make more than I did in my career, they are not the poorest by a long shot
Teachers make $40k-$60k a year depending on the region. They aren’t rich your job is bad.
Must be an American thing. Where I live, teachers make 65k-110k depending on experience and position.
Must be an American thing
Yup. The world headquarters of capitalism is notorious for shortchanging anyone who’s passionate and/or idealistic enough about their profession to put up with it.
Plus the obscenely rich and powerful want to discourage learning, since a well informed and engaged populace would spell doom for everything that enables their excesses and abuse.
It’s also a thing in (parts of) Europe, too, unfortunately. Only college professors were paid decently. “Were” because I don’t have up-to-date info.
*in the US
All I ever hear is “oh the poor teachers” when they get paid more than me, get way better benefits, and get away more time off. Fuck the teachers.
Someone out there is even worse off than you, and they might be saying “Fuck agingelderly.”
Unless they understand the actual problem, then they would be saying “Fuck billionaires” or maybe “Fuck Regan”.
Resenting other workers because they happen to be better compensated than you is the opposite of class consciousness.
You’re directing your hate on a group of people largely working overtime and underpaid to provide an essential service, and not the system that put both of you in a place to where you are contributing to society but not adequately rewarded for that hard work.
You had it even worse, by your standards they are rich, it’s a lavish lifestyle you were very poor your career was so bad
What career did you do?
Remember Statler and Waldorf from The Muppet Show?
Successfully suing Jim Henson for using agingelderly’s personality without permission is the only paying gig they ever had and it wasn’t a big payout since the case took place immediately after the 1975 pilot, long before the show became a success.
Uh… are those two the hecklers on the balcony? Or is that Sesame Street?
Yup, those are the ones!
Help yourself and other poors: join a union and a communist party!
Our unions and parties over here want money to join.
The Bolsheviks in 1917 were a dues paying organization! If you’re building a serious revolutionary party under capitalism, you’re going to need a place to meet, organizational infrastructure, a paper, etc, and all of these things need dues. Check out Lenin’s Where To Begin (1905) for a quick read that will help put the task into perspective!
We have nothing to lose but our chains, and a world to win! Workers of the world, unite!!
To be fair, Unions require people working for them, kind of need that money to pay those people.
Make your own then
Oi for that I’d need the time I spend at work to get the money I need to live.
Help yourself then, it’s not like only others deserve it
I’m not even poor. But by god, it’s hard to find hours in the day or money in the bank to do anything that feels material and meaningful.
That’s being poor
You can sustain yourself (very comfortably) without having the industrial scale resources to affect your community in the aggregate.
If you don’t have time for life, then you’re poor. The French would have burned down a hundred cars by now
I feel this. I help where I can and it feels like an infinitely deep abyss of need unfillable by what resources I can provide. In times past I’ve been able to come up with $1000 to help someone and before its been the difference between life success and failure. Now $1000 may only fix a single problem for the person and they have 3 to 4 other problems of equal weight with equal consequences. So fixing the one still causes their lives to go off the rails from the other remaining problems.
It makes me feel helpless to not be able to do anything meaningful.
i’m in a similar situation, not poor, but not making enough to get ahead or do anything.
that’s not poor. i’ve been poor. this isn’t that
I’ve got great news for you! Even with little money (from a Western point of view) you can still have a huge impact on people in poorer countries
you can still have a huge impact on people in poorer countries
You can pay someone else to presumably benefit from the strong dollar relative. But you’re still playing a trust game with a lot of unknowns.
The “nets for malaria” charity is a great instance of people trying to moneyball the short term pay-off without thinking about long term and second order consequences. Most notably, use of malaria nets for fishing. Counterintuitively, you’d do better supplying a community with fishing nets. Because then they won’t use the malaria nets improperly.
That’s not even to say “don’t send these charities money”. Please do. But chucking money down the “Charity” hole and hoping it lands where it needs to is an act of faith as profound as any religious belief. You are, at the end of the day, playing a game of telephone with everyone between you and the intended recipients.
You rarely, if ever, get to meet the people you’re supposed to benefit. You never get to see the long-term social returns on your investment, particularly when it is happening on the other side of the planet. You don’t build community with any of the people you’re aiding and you’re not anticipating any kind of reciprocal aid in your own time of need.
The impact you have is ultimately invisible to you. The broader social benefits are invisible. The returns are, at the absolute best, a momentary personal sense of good-vibes. There is no virtuous cycle you’re participating in, just an endless void you’re expected to bleed into.
I was poor in 99 already
Tell me about it… in '99 I could barely afford a snickers bar
I mean I was 5, but still… I’m sure I could’ve done better if I’d just grinded a little harder
Good so you have experience 😁
“Lord, I don’t even need a billion, I could do a lot of good work with just $100 million. Because it’s not about the money for me.”
If you need help chances are good your city town whathaveyou has support systems you can take advantage of to get back on your feet.
Not everywhere does, unfortunately. My city has a food bank, yes, but if you need housing there are hoops to go through to even get a shelter bed. When I went there, they said I needed a referral (no idea from whom) or proof of eviction. I wasn’t evicted, my boyfriend just decided to move and drop me, so that was out of the question. Then the low income housing situation is literally a lottery, one that takes months if not years for a place to open up.
Then social programs vary from place to place. Some states may say I’m eligible for food stamps, while others tell me that I’d only be eligible if I had a kid. When I tried to sign up in Florida, I was straight up told that if I wanted benefits, I had to have a baby. Yeah, I’m struggling to feed and house myself, lemme bring a child into this situation, great idea.
The US truly hates the poor.
Yeah it’s a trap. My friend got stuck in a cycle of needing shelter before he finally was able to get his own place again. Then he died. So even that victory was short lived.
Damn, I’m sorry about your friend.
Hey thanks, i appreciate that
Don’t let that stop you from helping the poor!
