cosecantphi

Many observers have high expectations for Ukraine’s attacks, starting with an intangible one: boosting Ukraine’s morale and damaging Russia’s.

Oh god are these people still talking about morale? Ukraine's ability to do attacks on Russian fuel and general logistic capability is so pitiful that it's questionable whether said attacks impact the war on a level distinguishable from normal market fluctuations, but they still think doing more attacks like that is worthwhile for the boost in soldier morale?

No kidding, like he really had to fuck up hard to get caught doing what he was doing. The guy anonymously makes himself the executioner's blade of the global capitalist police state. The mainstream news and imperial core policing institutions publishes lists of names labeled "criminal". Light Yagami kills them. Kira's will and the will of capitalist states the world over were aligned.

Light kills various detectives during the initial investigations, but there were absolutely 0 serious police or societal resources put toward stopping the threat of Kira until L chases Light into a corner. To lose the heat, Light has Rem give the death note to some dumbass rich executive who starts using it to kill other rich people, and the hammer comes down. Then once Light gets the death note back, Rem, a literal goddess of death, sacrifices herself to kill L and bailout Misa. Light comes out of this squeaky clean.

The first incident with L, chalk it up to inexperience with the real world. Light starts his career as a magical serial killer a young man fresh out of high school, stupid mistakes are expected.

After that? There's never another serious attempt to stop him until he gets too cocky and slips up several times while being watched by a rogue CIA offshoot lead by a literal 12 year old. This rogue CIA offshoot had by that point lost all state backing. The president of the United States himself by that point expresses support of Kira. Light Yagami was just sort of a fuck up.

I think Light was actually just ace, or at least he gives off strong ace energy. In the end, I feel sorry for Misa after she loses her memory of the death note because the whole tragedy with her is that it is entirely her own fault she ended up this deeply involved with Light Yagami.

Western opinions of the DPRK are downright wacky, the propaganda against this one country is absolutely saturated in society. The average westerner knows just as much about what the DPRK is actually like as the westerners who consider themselves well read on international politics. It's like the one country where almost all people think it's ok to just never read anything about it, never investigate it, and never make a single good faith attempt to understand it. Instead it's always just repeat the last insane gossip you heard coming from the last large news media company you recall talking about scary North Korea

I don't know if it's still like this, but there was once a wikipedia article about homeownership rates by country. It made note of the DPRK specifically just to say the home ownership rate was 0%. The justification for this in the talk page was that the DPRK is an absolute monarchy, Kim Jong Un is the monarch, and therefore he owns every home in the DPRK and the ownership rate is thus 0.

Nonsense like this so pervasive that I am of the occasional mind that near all English speaking media about the DPRK should just be dismissed out of hand.

I would be very careful using the word scammer this lightly. And if this actually even is storyofrachel (I have not personally seen the evidence of this yet, but I do admit this would be very uncanny similarity if this were just a coincidence).

No one else who sent money in small amounts could have been deceived because this money was sent on the basis that this user is homeless, and has unmet basic needs that money can help them fulfill. This is true regardless of anything else this user may have lied about or did under different accounts.

The queerphobic comments made by storyofrachel that originally got her banned are disappointing and, it would be unfortunate to learn this is the same user. But remember this is a young, unhoused, trans person themself. Those comments were made years ago, and nothing like that has ever happened again since. I'm personally willing to forgive them, but I understand anyone who else who is not. But since this is all speculation, it would be unfeasible to make a case for getting them on ban evasion.

Ultimately none of that makes them a scammer, though. They are a genuine member of Hexbear and I have seen them posting normally for at least six months under their current account.

EDIT: Almost forgot to address the $4000, lol. If anyone was scammed, it was the person who sent this all at once. That was just one donation, and we don't have anyone coming out claiming they were scammed. Without someone reporting they were scammed, it's hard to make the case that this was a scamming. That's why I think this whole incident should just be shelved for now.

Oh ok! I just thought it might have in response to me directly since its in reply to the start of my big comment.

Hope this helps as like an insight, but this person your talking about clearly lives amongst some kind of irl community of other unhoused people. No one suddenly smokes up even $1000 dollars worth of meth in three weeks, so get that thought out of your head if anything like that was on your mind. It's not a stretch to imagine a lot of it going toward others in their offline life. For unhoused people, these communities are very transitory in that people appear and disappear fast, but they all have the same solidarity from being unhoused. Multiple times this user has mentioned helping out other unhoused people with money donated.

Also while I'm gonna encourage the use of the report button to bring matters to our attention, please don't use it as an "I disagree button"

Definitely! I hope nothing in my comment implied I meant to imply I recommend that, could you elaborate on what part of my comment you're responding to?

To my memory, Rachel was actually banned for unrelated instances of certain queerphobic comments. That's according to the modlog as I recall it. Ultimately it had nothing to do with the incident you described. There was also genuine evidence that her account was actually taken over by someone else, leading to that post. But ultimately that wasn't the reason she was banned.

Before that, there was an actual transphobic witch hunt directed against her and other trans users of this site by wreckers off the site. Back when this place was new and called chapo.chat, we had regular raids coming in from kiwifarms and transphobic harassment discords pulling shit like that all the time because their attention had followed us here from the reddit banning of r/chapotraphouse.

Yes, and what I am saying is that Hexbear does not have the power to help this person by changing the rules of this comm. Your criticism cannot touch anything you gleamed from them by their posting on this site because every day they are out there fighting for survival unhoused.

Ultimately Hexbear is not a crisis service, we have very little avenue for directing change in this persons life other than supporting their claimed efforts to live a healthier life. You can choose to not believe they are genuine and stop donating, but there is nothing Hexbear can do but ban them on the basis of speculation. What does that solve? All we can do is lend support in whichever ways we can, and one of those ways is by giving them spare cash.

You have no idea what the person who donated that was thinking. As far as I am concerned, this is between that user and some rich donator who had too much money to spare and related to this user's struggle. This comm is for the good for the community, and this kind of directed anger toward one situation none of us can fully understand is not helpful to anyone else who has been sincerely helped by c/mutual aid.

The solution to any person you think is abusing this community is to point it out to a Hexbear admin or moderator. I assure you they are active, even on this comm, and have thought long and hard about the rules, they just do not make their presence known as much as they did historically on Hexbear. If they disagree, feel free to point it out in a post, but after the community consensus lands on no harm done? At that point is where the solution to said problem user being distasteful for you is to donate to something else and block the comm for a while. It is not your problem, nor does it become your problem because the few bucks you sent them didn't totally transform their life. It's also not your problem if others disagree and continue to help, it's all confined to this comm, no one who doesn't want to see this has to see it.

Here's my personal experience as a person who fortunately received money during crisis from comrades on this comm:

The first time was after I had to turn down a scab job offer while running out of money. I was on the verge of homelessness at that point, and could no longer afford my Buprenorphine prescription, which my life and ability to function on a daily basis depends on. That was my first post in c/mutual_aid. My Hexbear account is four years old. I was there during the first three days of the site's existence and the entirety of the lifeboat discord before that. All under this account, which admittedly gives me an unfair advantage, but that novelty wears off quickly.

I got 120 dollars within a day of posting, enough for a two month supply of Buprenorphine. Every single cent went to that. This was urgent for me, people with similar experiences donated money to me because they understand what this is like. They almost certainly looked over my post history, and that was enough for them to trust I'm not a scammer because Hexbear is still a small enough site that communities can form where most people recognize each other from their time spent browsing.

I don't believe anyone would say that was problematic given I followed all the rules of this comm. That includes keeping all mutual_aid posts and discussion in c/mutual_aid. Since we can either sort by local or sort by all and block this community, no one who wants to think about this stuff need know who's even using the comm for help because they wouldn't have to see the posts made in their feed.

Later on, I found I had my Buprenorphine all taken care of, but had no money for food that I could access. So I asked for $50 dollars for one to two weeks worth of groceries. By then my situation had started to stabilize and was on the up swing. I had luckily found a new job sooner than I had expected, but was flat broke and the first check was still weeks out. I just didn't have enough money for some basic self care and food, and that's the amount I thought would do me well for one to two weeks. I made a second post, but with less elaboration and detail on my situation, had a relaxed tone to show it wasn't urgent, and simply asked if anyone could help out. I only got twenty dollars, but there were more dire ongoing situations and spare money is finite. And that's also a fine outcome! They helped a comrade they related to with what money they could spare to that, it's no problem, it feels good to help people in hard situations. That was still very helpful!

What I'm getting at is that for anyone on this comm that donates, it is an informed decision made because they have money to spare and another person needs it more. You don't do this to change someone with money you expect to lose because no one is perfect. You already knew it wouldn't be enough to permanently change their situation, so how can you, a person who has never met them give criticism about their spending via this narrow look into their life? And for that same reason, why do you believe any of your criticism is applicable to their problems just because you sent them a few bucks and read a few of their posts? You ultimately still do not owe them anything, nor do they owe you anything. The relationship between aid giver and receiver is never transactional. You can't just toss people out of this community because you imposed on them some will to change their lives after sending them any amount of money discussed here.

On the other end of things, donating to someone on c/mutual_aid cannot be enabling as it is typically understood. The rules of this comm enforce a boundary in that no one can make or discuss these mutual aid requests outside of this comm. Which means there is a very easy means of setting boundaries preventing two people from forming toxic relationships involving donations and expectations of behavior. Just giving money to a grown adult known to have a drug problem cannot be considered enabling because regardless of their addiction, they need money to merely exist! If you stop giving them money, they do not necessarily stop using drugs, they find money elsewhere because they also need it to eat, find shelter, and take care of their other basic needs. Can your small donation make them quit their vices? No? Don't be surprised if they use some or all of it for their vices. Enabling requires the presence of the type of a relationship precluded by the way the rules are enforced on this comm.

None of this changes just because the dollar amount is in the low thousands. That was a single donation made by someone who clearly had money to spare. You can not know what any of that actually entailed, and you are projecting paranoia onto this comm as a result.

So ultimately I have to say: