I think the post is talking about retired people who can’t work and sometimes don’t get enough retirement money to live without worrying of paying bills or food
“Only the fittest survive” capitalism is out-of-control. Maybe we just make the meals stationary instead of cruelly forcing the elderly to chase them down?
It’s great that someone is trying to help the elderly. The challenge with charity is that it’s charity. If meals on wheels blinked out of existence tomorrow, no one has the right to expect a meal the day after. It would just suck more for a bunch of people. I think we need commitment to new human rights: among other things, everyone should have enough food. That’s the standard. If they don’t have enough food, we and that person should expect that it’s addressed.
Agreed, of course. Was just pointing out that such a thing did exist. Charities are not the most effective way to handle such issues, absolutely.
Charities absolutely rely on things like public relations and advertising campaigns to raise awareness that they exist and/or need funding. It leaves everyone at the mercy of which charity is “most popular” and if yours isn’t very popular, you could see it disappear. It also means a significant portion of the budget is spent on things that don’t actually address the real problem, which is hunger.
Yeah! Like I’m glad that Charity Navigator exists because we need it in the world we live in, but people shouldn’t have to do a lot of research to determine if their donation is mostly going to administrative costs.
You really think enough people are going to love doing septic tank maintenance and picking berries and all the other hot, painful, messy shit that people have to do to keep ourselves alive to support that? Because I don’t.
Maybe when we’ve got amazing robots that can do all that I guess, but then we’ve just moved on to robot maintenance and coding. Granted more people will be ok with those tasks, but they call it work because it’s WORK.
Some people genuinely don’t care about smells and such, and construction and maintenance is satisfying without being pushed to always do more with less… People do it for free all the time. Just this week, I helped my neighbor with some stuff, I like using tools and using my hands.
People literally pay to pick berries as a fun group activity. People go on wait lists for things like habitat for humanity
People like doing these activities. They don’t like the conditions of a job doing these things.
Clearly, there’s some middle ground - you don’t need the threat of homelessness to get people to work. You can make less desirable jobs well paid, let people play with the fancy power tools, or have the jobs come with social status/privileges
Obviously it’s not as simple as “hope someone volunteers” but it’s clearly not some impossible to solve problem
You’re right, it’s not desirable for people to be overworked or those who can work to not contribute. It’s also not desirable for any of these people to go hungry:
People who want to work, but can’t find jobs
People who do work but aren’t paid enough to cover essentials
People who can’t work
People
We’ve become incredibly efficient over the centuries, and we have enough for everybody to eat without overworking anyone. The issue is many people not receiving the full value of their work, while a much smaller group receive value far beyond what they contributed.
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I think the post is talking about retired people who can’t work and sometimes don’t get enough retirement money to live without worrying of paying bills or food
https://www.mealsonwheelsamerica.org/
Exactly what meals on wheels is for, but it needs more funding, to be sure.
“Only the fittest survive” capitalism is out-of-control. Maybe we just make the meals stationary instead of cruelly forcing the elderly to chase them down?
It’s great that someone is trying to help the elderly. The challenge with charity is that it’s charity. If meals on wheels blinked out of existence tomorrow, no one has the right to expect a meal the day after. It would just suck more for a bunch of people. I think we need commitment to new human rights: among other things, everyone should have enough food. That’s the standard. If they don’t have enough food, we and that person should expect that it’s addressed.
Agreed, of course. Was just pointing out that such a thing did exist. Charities are not the most effective way to handle such issues, absolutely.
Charities absolutely rely on things like public relations and advertising campaigns to raise awareness that they exist and/or need funding. It leaves everyone at the mercy of which charity is “most popular” and if yours isn’t very popular, you could see it disappear. It also means a significant portion of the budget is spent on things that don’t actually address the real problem, which is hunger.
Yeah! Like I’m glad that Charity Navigator exists because we need it in the world we live in, but people shouldn’t have to do a lot of research to determine if their donation is mostly going to administrative costs.
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These people will be you and your friends enjoying your free lunch
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Because when work doesn’t suck, people like doing it
You really think enough people are going to love doing septic tank maintenance and picking berries and all the other hot, painful, messy shit that people have to do to keep ourselves alive to support that? Because I don’t.
Maybe when we’ve got amazing robots that can do all that I guess, but then we’ve just moved on to robot maintenance and coding. Granted more people will be ok with those tasks, but they call it work because it’s WORK.
Some people genuinely don’t care about smells and such, and construction and maintenance is satisfying without being pushed to always do more with less… People do it for free all the time. Just this week, I helped my neighbor with some stuff, I like using tools and using my hands.
People literally pay to pick berries as a fun group activity. People go on wait lists for things like habitat for humanity
People like doing these activities. They don’t like the conditions of a job doing these things.
Clearly, there’s some middle ground - you don’t need the threat of homelessness to get people to work. You can make less desirable jobs well paid, let people play with the fancy power tools, or have the jobs come with social status/privileges
Obviously it’s not as simple as “hope someone volunteers” but it’s clearly not some impossible to solve problem
You’re right, it’s not desirable for people to be overworked or those who can work to not contribute. It’s also not desirable for any of these people to go hungry:
We’ve become incredibly efficient over the centuries, and we have enough for everybody to eat without overworking anyone. The issue is many people not receiving the full value of their work, while a much smaller group receive value far beyond what they contributed.
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If you actually believed this, you wouldn’t work. You don’t really believe it, though.