Yeah, but that isn’t a problem you can solve by “criticizing” them, either. That’s a person who is probably making those decisions because, to them, ??? could genuinely be a mental need or because they just don’t want to suffer in a universe without any sort of pleasure. You could give genuine advice, such as providing a different cheaper kind of shampoo they could use, or even telling them that you’re worried that they’ll starve if they spend everything on this non-basic-need thing. And that would make sense and not even be offensive or demeaning. But that isn’t how most people say things, or “criticize” things. I don’t know why but I feel like, especially here, there is an utter inability to criticize something without also hating it. And while you say that it wasn’t the case here, that simply means it was one of a smattering of exceptions. Exceptions that can only exist because of similar issues happening in aeons past and being responded to.

There’s a difference between “criticizing” someone’s “lack of responsibility” and simply realizing someone else is easier to help, too.

I understand that you want to give genuine advice. And I relate to that, a lot. But, just as in the case of “just asking questions” debatebros and smarmy chuds, if you give a single fucking inch to the people who take any chance to blame the poor for their predicament, they will take a light year. I know this because I’ve seen how people do this to autistic people, to gay people. How people use civility and what would otherwise be genuine questions or critiques to needle and bully others while pretending it’s in their “best interest”.

And I know it’s an issue here because I saw it happen before on this very site. Does “rachel” ring a bell at all? She was poor, recently homeless, and a drug addict. We criticized her for valid reasons, yeah. But the ability to criticize was not just utilized for that. People got angry, and people get vindicative. Pretty soon we bullied a homeless woman off of our platform because the presence of someone we can’t help because of the sheer depth of their needs was too uncomfortable for us. People couldn’t properly externalize Rachel’s issues as being a result of numerous complex systems and I saw them continue blaming her for her entire situation. Not the FBI for flooding her neighborhood with drugs, not the systems of capital for grinding her amenities available into fucking nothing, not even her friends for making her homeless in the first place (because she made bad decisions if i remember correctly?? she didn’t kill anyone or anything justifying a death sentence though so it’s irrelevant to me). The Amerikkka brain just took over and all material analysis and the usual calm of this place was lost in a writhing hive of fucking hatred for this single homeless woman, not merely limited to overly hostile pleas or understandable anger from her for not getting the financial assistance she needs- If someone took personal offense to her lashing out that would be one thing. But as she retreated and went more and more on the defensive and stopped even asking for anything they continued to thrash her with constant hostility. Even mentioning her name was like mentioning furries on a Brotherhood of Steel roleplay discord server.

That paragraph probably makes me sound like a Rachel alt but I genuinely am not, I just saw it happen and it fucked with my head

I don’t know if I feel comfortable with this site taking any step even remotely toward allowing that kind of thing to happen again. I don’t feel like I can trust it. And I wish I could, but I can’t, and the only reason I’ve grown slightly more trusting over time since that incident is because of rules like this.

Of course it is reasonable to analyze someone’s situation and realize giving them money is not effective. It would even, in theory, be reasonable to say it, to explain why you can’t give them money, even to point to others who you can help easier and therefore you don’t have the money for this harder case left-over, as long as it was said in a non-judgemental and normal way. But I don’t trust people to say it that way because I’m not sure if Amerikkkan-brained people even can. Even some of the best, most compassionate, and most kind people I know treat homeless and destitute people like they’re all scammers or going to stab them to death. I generally trust people but, in this case, that trust is not more powerful than the sheer strength of Amerikkkan brainworms.

Tbf it could be effective to have a “Don’t judge or hate those asking even if you’re pointing out suboptimal decisions” rule, but I don’t even know if we could use that little leeway responsibly or if it devolve into weird passive-aggressive shit.