Giving food directly to starving people (however it is obtained) is much better than throwing financial aid at a nation or institution
What’s your estimate of how much money and how much time I would have to spend to deliver $100 of food directly to a starving person? Does that estimate change if 50% of my neighbors are also doing this?
Actually my point is questions like that are already guiding discussion away from alternative solutions which may be capable of making a real impact (outside of needing to “become rich” first, or risk the cause getting lost in bureaucracy and profiteering). Take a group like Food Not Bombs for instance; they diminish the “money spent” part of the equation by dumpstering and getting food donations. The time involved would of course depend on where you live, and how easily you could find corporate food waste (sometimes physically guarded by locks, wire, and even men with guns to enforce artificial scarcity), and transporting it to the people who need it. The more people who join in, would of course mean more food must be produced and more area covered in search of food waste to be reclaimed. A fortunate thing is that the more people pitch in, the shorter it takes to do large amounts of labor that benefits everyone; thus the term mutual aid.
I’m not even taking the cost of the food into consideration. I’m assuming there’s this food sitting here.. perhaps as donations, perhaps by dumpstering, perhaps by theft, whatever. What I was trying to get a feel for is your estimate of the costs of individuals delivering that food to where it needs to go. But it sounds like you endorse people getting together in groups in order to do this more efficiently, as long as they don’t become bureaucratic institutions in the process, so that addresses my question. Thanks.
What’s your estimate of how much money and how much time I would have to spend to deliver $100 of food directly to a starving person?
Does that estimate change if 50% of my neighbors are also doing this?
Actually my point is questions like that are already guiding discussion away from alternative solutions which may be capable of making a real impact (outside of needing to “become rich” first, or risk the cause getting lost in bureaucracy and profiteering). Take a group like Food Not Bombs for instance; they diminish the “money spent” part of the equation by dumpstering and getting food donations. The time involved would of course depend on where you live, and how easily you could find corporate food waste (sometimes physically guarded by locks, wire, and even men with guns to enforce artificial scarcity), and transporting it to the people who need it. The more people who join in, would of course mean more food must be produced and more area covered in search of food waste to be reclaimed. A fortunate thing is that the more people pitch in, the shorter it takes to do large amounts of labor that benefits everyone; thus the term mutual aid.
I’m not even taking the cost of the food into consideration. I’m assuming there’s this food sitting here.. perhaps as donations, perhaps by dumpstering, perhaps by theft, whatever. What I was trying to get a feel for is your estimate of the costs of individuals delivering that food to where it needs to go. But it sounds like you endorse people getting together in groups in order to do this more efficiently, as long as they don’t become bureaucratic institutions in the process, so that addresses my question. Thanks.