How about offering to help someone and then people acting like you are a bad person? How about that?
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?
I did not make assumptions about them. I talked about my experience with how this typically goes and the fact that I find this sort of comment very problematic.
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.
> 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.
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)
Thank you. And thank you for your Patreon pledge. The world would be a better place if there were more people like you genuinely trying to do the right thing under difficult circumstances.
You have to realize it's not about YOU and not make it an ego thing where you get offended at a suffering person's reactions. People in need are ignored, blamed and screwed with constantly and it's a normal reaction to be depressed, angry and defensive about it. But instead of having that empathy, most people react with a "Well who do you think you are? Screw you then I was trying to HELP!" and make it all about themselves. It's like people who get angry at someone in an emergency who is panicking or in pain. Yelling at them as if they are being a jerk to make the rescuer/provider's life difficult. I saw it a lot in my previous work. If you want to help others effectively you cannot make it about you and have to approach things outside your ego and gain the trust. Most people can' be bothered.
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?