I give a lot of thought to how I can best help others with the resources I have. I am not claiming to be a particularly effective (or pleasant) helper.
biases
- I prefer to help groups of people rather than individuals.
- I prefer to help in public, for the “groups” reason above and because it gives others an opportunity to contribute and discuss.
- I prefer to help people by offering organized information rather than spoon-feeding them specific answers. E.g. the RVwiki project.
- I prefer to help people who are actively trying to help themselves
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I prefer to help where my efforts will have results, or a decent chance of results. If someone does not appear capable or willing to accept my style of help I do not offer it and expend my efforts elsewhere. I am not judging, but in my experience these people will typically not benefit from my help:
- the lazy
- dreamers
- minors1
- mildly-curious tire-kickers
- the delusional
- bong enthusiasts
- drunks
- addicts
- get-rich-quickers
- day traders
- crypto bros
- people whose hobby appears to be asking hundreds or thousands of questions
- thrashers, people who blast a lot of separate questions, (or post the same question in many places) and don’t listen to the answers
- etc
As someone pointed out, the end result is I am loathe to give advice or personal opinion about what is Good for someone else. I barely know what’s Good for me!
On reddit I was asked:
Why are the newbies always in love with complicated theoretical ways to do simple things … ?
- /r/StonerThoughts is leaking
- /r/IAm14andThisIsDeep is leaking
- failure to understand the basic principles, which encompasses the main offenders above.
information
I learn by writing; it forces me to clarify what I know vs what I think I know, organize, etc. Hence the blog and RVwiki.
Having the stuff written down has the happy side effects of
- allowing searchers to find it with no effort on my part
- allowing me to link to often-provided info instead of typing it out over and over for each FAQ.
charity
All the money resources I offer1 goes to micro-lenders at Kiva. [I don’t think of it as charity in the formal sense but it’s a convenient term.]
As of May 2021 my capital investment there has been lent-repaid-relent 8.08x, and 34.3% of the capital has been lost to default, currency variations, etc. Interesting detail: 100% of the defaults have been from the US and from sub-Saharan Africa, with the US being the worst by far. I no longer lend to the U.S., and only carefully lend in the sub-Sahara.
1 Exception: I do give cash to buskers and other performers, but I consider that payment-for-service rather than charity in the usual sense.
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Minors are a special case. They are usually not thinking clearly because their brains aren’t finished developing. So they may be worth the effort but it is tough to advise minors without incurring risk. Tread carefully. ↩