Comment on What should we actually turn our aggression towards?
jtzl@lemmy.zip 7 hours agoYou make several compelling points.
My cynicism is based on my general view that anonymous strangers are often unhelpful, but to be more accurate, I would have to acknowledge my feedback would vary a lot based on region. For instance, I mostly grew up in TX (nearish I-35). However, I lived in Western Washington for years, and I can easily see a community pantry being appreciated there.
So if I were to revise my comment now, I’d seek to emphasize that some regional populations have been propagandized and are destructive. And like some people don’t mind contributing like that, but I see it like trying to fill a jug with a hole in the bottom.
ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 7 hours ago
If viewed from the perspective that the community fridge isn’t solving the issue of the people near it needing it to be continuously resupplied, then yes, it is a ‘bottomless pit’. But at the same time, what it is providing is a somewhat constant relief from the system which created the circumstances for a community fridge to be needed, which means its also a source of endless/ongoing harm reduction.
But, if the community fridge is viewed as one tool in our belt with which to build alternative systems that would eventually allow us to decouple from our current one, then it is not a bottomless pit, and instead is one very needed and useful stepping stone leading to a much more egalitarian and prosperous society that could eliminate food deserts and wage labor entirely. In that way, a community fridge is just one form of prefiguration. Specifically, a community fridge is building out one part of a gift-economy.
If you’d like to see the end result of those efforts visualized in a very realisistic manner, I’d highly suggest The Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuin, which is a classic sci-fi novel based in an egalitarian gift-economy, and goes quite in-depth on how it functions.
jtzl@lemmy.zip 6 hours ago
I know The Dispossessed!
I’m generally supportive of the idea of feeding people. I’m further supportive of like people helping people. I think the part that makes me apprehensive is that the system you describe fundamentally operates on assumptions that sidestep the matter of beneficiaries knowing the source of the benefits, which seems very dubious. The idea seems to be quite kind and selfless, but I still think this is a scenario where folks will fail to appreciate the kindness involved because they’re simply unaware of the effort made by numerous folks involved