Let's Talk About Donating To Strangers Online.
I hate to make this post, I genuinely do. Someone who seems genuine and like a good person who reblogs nothing but important information to help people sent me an ask today asking for money because she and her family were struggling, and the fact that I have to make a post about this over that sucks, but I do. I've seen a whole lot of this on Tumblr and is generally seen as innocent and harmless, but it's not, and it has to be addressed.
First we have to talk about impact. Min-maxing is not just a concept in gaming, but one to be applied to real life. In this way, we can do the most good with the least money and thus have more money to do more good over all. When it comes to helping individuals, you generally know the good it will do in their life and that may be significant, but on a societal scale, it does nigh on nothing unless the money you gave makes the difference that gets them on their feet and they go on to make societal contributions. But much worse...
If all you do is help people get on their feet without addressing what put them down in the first place, you're just feeding the thing that put them down.
In fact, every cent you put toward helping them up feeds it, even if you are addressing it with other money. The only time this isn't true is when those people do more to fight it than you could've done with that money.
For this reason, it's best from a logical standpoint to put all your donations toward dealing with the problem so that there isn't a revolving door of people in tough situations in the first place.
Society isn't a game and there's genuine human and animal suffering going on, so from a humanitarian standpoint I think it's fine to help well-researched charitable organizations (Read: not individuals) and those close to you from time to time. It's also important to note that by not fighting it, we perpetuate it, and the longer it goes on the more suffering we have inadvertently caused. You're not just helping someone. You're enabling a system that's hurting people. We all mean the best, and to do the best, you have to keep this in mind.
Now that that's clear, we can get to the actual problem: strangers on the internet. Remember how I said an ask from a very seemingly-genuine person's ask (https://www.tumblr.com/friedpizzapersonadia) started this? I didn't refuse to help simply because it's not cost efficient. That's a big part of it, but there's something more important: I have no idea who they are. I know who they say they are and I saw their blog, but that means nothing. They could be anyone behind the screen. They could be in that situation because they can't or won't budget, meaning anything I give them is just enabling them and won't actually help. They could spend it on hurting other people. They could be a literal serial killer trying to get money to skip their current town - I literally have no way of knowing. Worst of all, they could be lying. They could even be a company of scammers. By giving them money, I could be actively causing harm.
When I say seemingly genuine, I mean at first they were. The ask they sent was a copy-paste of their pinned post, but I think that's to be somewhat expected. Then I thought to double check the dates on their posts. All from were from January 12th. They ended just a little farther than I scrolled. They claim to be a married mother of 2 from Zambia, yet all their posts are in English and many of them apply specifically to Americans, and their very first picture has 3 children. This one is actually a fairly obvious scam, but that can't be said of all of them. Some are real people who are just exaggerate their circumstances, and there's no way for you to know.
The most horrific part about this actually is that it's an obvious scam.
Scammers are making blogs on Tumblr to ask for money just for profit.
The charity situation on Tumblr is that bad. Scammers are starting to come here just to make money. If this continues, nothing good can come of it. Please don't donate to strangers on the internet. You don't know them and you don't know what they're doing with the money.
Please report the blog I sent; I'm using it as an example but it also needs to be taken down.
