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Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

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thompnickson2

Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

To The Mother Church,

As you know, I am addicted to coffee and particularly to coffee houses, and particularly to Ohori’s-next-to-Kaune’s, where I like to loll in the sunshine of a late afternoon like the flea-bitten old dog that I am. Over the years I have come to befriend and greatly admire the Barista’s of Santa Fe. They remind me of graduate students. Many of them are using barista work to make possible independent scholarship, artistic careers, and musical careers, pursued for the sheer love of it. So when the virus hit in March and many of them lost work, I tried to set up some sort of a fund to help them. But not being gig-economy type, I couldn’t see how to do it.

Now, to my delight, one of the workers has set up a gofundme site.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/ohoris-staff-relief-fund?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link-tip&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet

I am hoping that those of you who have shared my pleasure in dealing with these young folks will make some sort of a donation, if only as a token of your support.

I am figuring it this way: I am saving about 7 – 10 dollars a day in latte’s and zucchini bread (AND lost three pounds). I figure that savings ought to go to them.

It would be a great kindness to me if you would pitch in.

All the best,

Nick

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Steve Smith

Re: Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

Nick -

Thanks for the link. Ohori's is not my goto, but I'm 100% with the spirit. I have had no traction on trying to extend this kind of help TO my regular go-tos. I am of a mind that at the very least, my weekly *tip* budget could go straight into the same pockets it used to with no harm to me... and as you point out, my entire luxury food/services budget could go that way as well.

I'll check for other go-fund-me's in SFe and would love to hear from others who have discovered similar to yours here.

- Steve

To The Mother Church,

As you know, I am addicted to coffee and particularly to coffee houses, and particularly to Ohori’s-next-to-Kaune’s, where I like to loll in the sunshine of a late afternoon like the flea-bitten old dog that I am. Over the years I have come to befriend and greatly admire the Barista’s of Santa Fe. They remind me of graduate students. Many of them are using barista work to make possible independent scholarship, artistic careers, and musical careers, pursued for the sheer love of it. So when the virus hit in March and many of them lost work, I tried to set up some sort of a fund to help them. But not being gig-economy type, I couldn’t see how to do it.

Now, to my delight, one of the workers has set up a gofundme site.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/ohoris-staff-relief-fund?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link-tip&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet

I am hoping that those of you who have shared my pleasure in dealing with these young folks will make some sort of a donation, if only as a token of your support.

I am figuring it this way: I am saving about 7 – 10 dollars a day in latte’s and zucchini bread (AND lost three pounds). I figure that savings ought to go to them.

It would be a great kindness to me if you would pitch in.

All the best,

Nick
.-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... .... . ...
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thompnickson2

Re: Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

Ed,

Thanks for your kind note.

If you’ll dump a little change into “mine”, I will dump a little change into “yours”. I just think it’s way to help these folks feel that somebody has noticed what they are doing and is aware of what has happened to them.

Thanks,

Nick

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2020 12:29 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

Nick -

I'll check for other go-fund-me's in SFe and would love to hear from others who have discovered similar to yours here.

- Steve

To The Mother Church,
As you know, I am addicted to coffee and particularly to coffee houses, and particularly to Ohori’s-next-to-Kaune’s, where I like to loll in the sunshine of a late afternoon like the flea-bitten old dog that I am. Over the years I have come to befriend and greatly admire the Barista’s of Santa Fe. They remind me of graduate students. Many of them are using barista work to make possible independent scholarship, artistic careers, and musical careers, pursued for the sheer love of it. So when the virus hit in March and many of them lost work, I tried to set up some sort of a fund to help them. But not being gig-economy type, I couldn’t see how to do it.
Now, to my delight, one of the workers has set up a gofundme site.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/ohoris-staff-relief-fund?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link-tip&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet
I am hoping that those of you who have shared my pleasure in dealing with these young folks will make some sort of a donation, if only as a token of your support.
I am figuring it this way: I am saving about 7 – 10 dollars a day in latte’s and zucchini bread (AND lost three pounds). I figure that savings ought to go to them.
It would be a great kindness to me if you would pitch in.
All the best,
Nick
.-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... .... . ...
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
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Steve Smith

Re: Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

I tipped Ohori's staff, hoping that success there will maybe encourage lateral transmission to other restaurants.

I also found Sweetwater on goFundMe and gave them a little "taste" even though I've only been there once.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/50KSWnm

Glen made the point with me at one point before "the time of COVID19" (on or off line, I'm not sure) that the "independent spirit" of *only* helping those you know or close to you is a little ??? (Narcissistic is my word).

I still feel it is important to NOT *use* global/national/organized fundraisers as a way to appease guilt (and therefore responsibility). The pre-COVID city signs that went up trying to discourage panhandling on streetcorners were good for illuminating the paradoxes. I didn't *want* people to *feel the need to* stand on street corners and know that supporting local non-profits that help the the homeless and otherwise marginalized helps *most* of those folks... yet at the same time, it felt good in another way to hand out a set of chemical hand/toe-warmers, a bar of chocolate, and a couple of bucks to those with the fortitude, or the desperation, (or the entrepreneurial spirit) to stand on the corners.

I don't have any answers... and this pandemic has offered the mixed blessing of forcing me to consider a lot of different questions. If my garden this year begins to produce, I think I'll be setting up a self-serve farm-stand at the top of my drive with three options: A) if you need some, takes some; B) if you can afford a few $$, drop it in the collection box; C) do someone you know in more need than you a solid... bring them some food or give *them* the $$ you would have left in the box.

I may also use that "farm stand" as a way to gift away some the 2 cords of books I still have filling a covered trailer... like a "little library" but with a larger selection. "farm and book stand"?

Meanwhile, I hope we all find more ways to be kind and "pay it forward, backward, and sideways".

- Steve

On 4/22/20 12:40 PM, [hidden email] wrote:

Ed,

Thanks for your kind note.

If you’ll dump a little change into “mine”, I will dump a little change into “yours”. I just think it’s way to help these folks feel that somebody has noticed what they are doing and is aware of what has happened to them.

Thanks,

Nick

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam [hidden email] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2020 12:29 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

Nick -

Thanks for the link. Ohori's is not my goto, but I'm 100% with the spirit. I have had no traction on trying to extend this kind of help TO my regular go-tos. I am of a mind that at the very least, my weekly *tip* budget could go straight into the same pockets it used to with no harm to me... and as you point out, my entire luxury food/services budget could go that way as well.

I'll check for other go-fund-me's in SFe and would love to hear from others who have discovered similar to yours here.

- Steve
To The Mother Church,

As you know, I am addicted to coffee and particularly to coffee houses, and particularly to Ohori’s-next-to-Kaune’s, where I like to loll in the sunshine of a late afternoon like the flea-bitten old dog that I am. Over the years I have come to befriend and greatly admire the Barista’s of Santa Fe. They remind me of graduate students. Many of them are using barista work to make possible independent scholarship, artistic careers, and musical careers, pursued for the sheer love of it. So when the virus hit in March and many of them lost work, I tried to set up some sort of a fund to help them. But not being gig-economy type, I couldn’t see how to do it.

Now, to my delight, one of the workers has set up a gofundme site.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/ohoris-staff-relief-fund?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link-tip&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet

I am hoping that those of you who have shared my pleasure in dealing with these young folks will make some sort of a donation, if only as a token of your support.

I am figuring it this way: I am saving about 7 – 10 dollars a day in latte’s and zucchini bread (AND lost three pounds). I figure that savings ought to go to them.

It would be a great kindness to me if you would pitch in.

All the best,

Nick
.-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... .... . ...
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thompnickson2

Re: Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

Hi Steve,

Thanks, Steve,

I was listening to a podcast by the guy who runs Robin Hood, an organization dedicated to getting at the institutional roots of poverty. When asked where we should give money in this crisis, he said, give it where you feel passion, because that is where you are likely to give it again. I confess I feel passion for these young folks, who in the 60’s would have been in graduate programs, or art or music schools, teaching, learning, inspiring, but are instead meagerly supporting their passions by making me coffee. And very good coffee at that. So that’s where my money goes. Robin Hood might be better for Glen because “According to Fortune magazine, "Robin Hood was a pioneer in what is now called venture philanthropy, or charity that embraces free-market forces. An early practitioner of using metrics to measure the effectiveness of grants, it is a place where strategies to alleviate urban poverty are hotly debated, ineffectual plans are coldly discarded, and its staff of 66 hatches radical new ideas."^[”

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2020 12:52 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

I tipped Ohori's staff, hoping that success there will maybe encourage lateral transmission to other restaurants.

I also found Sweetwater on goFundMe and gave them a little "taste" even though I've only been there once.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/50KSWnm

I may also use that "farm stand" as a way to gift away some the 2 cords of books I still have filling a covered trailer... like a "little library" but with a larger selection. "farm and book stand"?

Meanwhile, I hope we all find more ways to be kind and "pay it forward, backward, and sideways".

- Steve

On 4/22/20 12:40 PM, [hidden email] wrote:

Ed,

Thanks for your kind note.

If you’ll dump a little change into “mine”, I will dump a little change into “yours”. I just think it’s way to help these folks feel that somebody has noticed what they are doing and is aware of what has happened to them.

Thanks,

Nick

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam [hidden email] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2020 12:29 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

Nick -
Thanks for the link. Ohori's is not my goto, but I'm 100% with the spirit. I have had no traction on trying to extend this kind of help TO my regular go-tos. I am of a mind that at the very least, my weekly *tip* budget could go straight into the same pockets it used to with no harm to me... and as you point out, my entire luxury food/services budget could go that way as well.
I'll check for other go-fund-me's in SFe and would love to hear from others who have discovered similar to yours here.
- Steve
To The Mother Church,
As you know, I am addicted to coffee and particularly to coffee houses, and particularly to Ohori’s-next-to-Kaune’s, where I like to loll in the sunshine of a late afternoon like the flea-bitten old dog that I am. Over the years I have come to befriend and greatly admire the Barista’s of Santa Fe. They remind me of graduate students. Many of them are using barista work to make possible independent scholarship, artistic careers, and musical careers, pursued for the sheer love of it. So when the virus hit in March and many of them lost work, I tried to set up some sort of a fund to help them. But not being gig-economy type, I couldn’t see how to do it.
Now, to my delight, one of the workers has set up a gofundme site.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/ohoris-staff-relief-fund?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link-tip&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet
I am hoping that those of you who have shared my pleasure in dealing with these young folks will make some sort of a donation, if only as a token of your support.
I am figuring it this way: I am saving about 7 – 10 dollars a day in latte’s and zucchini bread (AND lost three pounds). I figure that savings ought to go to them.
It would be a great kindness to me if you would pitch in.
All the best,
Nick
.-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... .... . ...
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
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.-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... .... . ...
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gepr

Re: Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

Heh, it's funny how something you say can be perfectly inverted by the audience to mean the opposite of what you intended. The Telephone Game is always relevant.

My point to Steve was about "effective altruism", the idea that the philanthropist has any idea whatsoever of the relative optimality of one charity compared to another. My position is one of ignorance and against the (mostly wealthy, tech-savvy, arrogant) person's most likely *mistaken* belief in their own competence, especially in a domain that is fundamentally different from where they operate "professionally". My point to Steve was that meritocracy is a sham and a sibling effect to the Great Man Theory.

Now, to the extent that my reading of von Hayek (not Friedman) argued for market forces because it is *arrogant* to pretend you can design a system more efficient than the one nature relaxes into, then I would argue for such natural, organic solutions over engineered ones. But that's precisely *because* those who think they can singularly, themselves, engineer a reality better than the one that grew, stigmergically, socially, naturally are most likely wrong.

But I have *never* insisted there is such a thing as a *free* market. Everything that seems to be "natural" is constrained by the engineering of the agents in and around it, even if those agents are termites or bacteria. Whatever the Robin Hood foundation might mean by "free market", their very use of the term means I would not support them in any way. The term "free market" is a trigger phrase for this delicate snowflake. >8^D And I've already blown several cherries at billionaire phlanthropists. Ptouie. E.g. Bill Gates' magnanimity comes at the cost of decades of slimy and exploitative practices. It's reputation laundering in the extreme. If Bill Gates really gave a flying fsck about these things, he should have begun working on them *before* (or instead of) exploiting the world to make siphon off and concentrate billions of dollars.

So, I tend to stick with established charities with proven track records including both the united way and the red cross. My tiny personal donations are doled out at the end of the year to organizations like mozilla, MAPS, software in the public interest, etc. with ZERO regard to how "efficient" or "effective" they are. And my real contributions are paying (and voting for) taxes and buying goods and services from the smallest businesses and co-ops I can find.

On 4/22/20 1:04 PM, [hidden email] wrote:
> I was listening to a podcast by the guy who runs Robin Hood, an organization dedicated to getting at the institutional roots of poverty. When asked where we should give money in this crisis, he said, give it where you feel passion, because that is where you are likely to give it again. I confess I feel passion for these young folks, who in the 60’s would have been in graduate programs, or art or music schools, teaching, learning, inspiring, but are instead meagerly supporting their passions by making me coffee. And very good coffee at that. So that’s where my money goes. Robin Hood <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hood_Foundation> might be better for Glen because “According to /Fortune <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_(magazine)>/ magazine, "Robin Hood was a pioneer in what is now called venture philanthropy, or charity that embraces free-market forces. An early practitioner of using metrics to measure the effectiveness of grants, it is a place where
> strategies to alleviate urban poverty are hotly debated, ineffectual plans are coldly discarded, and its staff of 66 hatches radical new ideas."^[ <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hood_Foundation#cite_note-fm-2> ”

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uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

Frank Wimberly-2

Re: Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

Whenever I get drawn to contributing to a charity, usually based on sentimental TV ads, I send them an email and ask how to access their IRS Form 990, which has to be publicly available, usually via a web page. The last time I did this was for Shriners' Hospital for Children. If I read the form correctly, in a recent year they had $700,000,000 in income, paid $500,000,000 in executive salaries and fundraising. I don't believe remaining $200,000,000 all went to medical and family travel/lodging expenses. But I may not be reading it right. Any accountants out there?

Frank

On Wed, Apr 22, 2020 at 2:36 PM uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

Heh, it's funny how something you say can be perfectly inverted by the audience to mean the opposite of what you intended. The Telephone Game is always relevant.

My point to Steve was about "effective altruism", the idea that the philanthropist has any idea whatsoever of the relative optimality of one charity compared to another. My position is one of ignorance and against the (mostly wealthy, tech-savvy, arrogant) person's most likely *mistaken* belief in their own competence, especially in a domain that is fundamentally different from where they operate "professionally". My point to Steve was that meritocracy is a sham and a sibling effect to the Great Man Theory.

Now, to the extent that my reading of von Hayek (not Friedman) argued for market forces because it is *arrogant* to pretend you can design a system more efficient than the one nature relaxes into, then I would argue for such natural, organic solutions over engineered ones. But that's precisely *because* those who think they can singularly, themselves, engineer a reality better than the one that grew, stigmergically, socially, naturally are most likely wrong.

But I have *never* insisted there is such a thing as a *free* market. Everything that seems to be "natural" is constrained by the engineering of the agents in and around it, even if those agents are termites or bacteria. Whatever the Robin Hood foundation might mean by "free market", their very use of the term means I would not support them in any way. The term "free market" is a trigger phrase for this delicate snowflake. >8^D And I've already blown several cherries at billionaire phlanthropists. Ptouie. E.g. Bill Gates' magnanimity comes at the cost of decades of slimy and exploitative practices. It's reputation laundering in the extreme. If Bill Gates really gave a flying fsck about these things, he should have begun working on them *before* (or instead of) exploiting the world to make siphon off and concentrate billions of dollars.

So, I tend to stick with established charities with proven track records including both the united way and the red cross. My tiny personal donations are doled out at the end of the year to organizations like mozilla, MAPS, software in the public interest, etc. with ZERO regard to how "efficient" or "effective" they are. And my real contributions are paying (and voting for) taxes and buying goods and services from the smallest businesses and co-ops I can find.

On 4/22/20 1:04 PM, [hidden email] wrote:
> I was listening to a podcast by the guy who runs Robin Hood, an organization dedicated to getting at the institutional roots of poverty. When asked where we should give money in this crisis, he said, give it where you feel passion, because that is where you are likely to give it again. I confess I feel passion for these young folks, who in the 60’s would have been in graduate programs, or art or music schools, teaching, learning, inspiring, but are instead meagerly supporting their passions by making me coffee. And very good coffee at that. So that’s where my money goes. Robin Hood <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hood_Foundation> might be better for Glen because “According to /Fortune <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_(magazine)>/ magazine, "Robin Hood was a pioneer in what is now called venture philanthropy, or charity that embraces free-market forces. An early practitioner of using metrics to measure the effectiveness of grants, it is a place where
> strategies to alleviate urban poverty are hotly debated, ineffectual plans are coldly discarded, and its staff of 66 hatches radical new ideas."^[ <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hood_Foundation#cite_note-fm-2> ”

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Frank Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918

Angel Edward

Re: Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

Go to Charity Navigator or Charity Watch. There are others. They’ll give you access to the IRS forms and more importantly give you how much of thir funds are spent on programs.

__________

Ed Angel

Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab)
Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico

1017 Sierra Pinon
Santa Fe, NM 87501
505-984-0136 (home) [hidden email]
505-453-4944 (cell) http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel

On Apr 22, 2020, at 3:17 PM, Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:

Whenever I get drawn to contributing to a charity, usually based on sentimental TV ads, I send them an email and ask how to access their IRS Form 990, which has to be publicly available, usually via a web page. The last time I did this was for Shriners' Hospital for Children. If I read the form correctly, in a recent year they had $700,000,000 in income, paid $500,000,000 in executive salaries and fundraising. I don't believe remaining $200,000,000 all went to medical and family travel/lodging expenses. But I may not be reading it right. Any accountants out there?

Frank

On Wed, Apr 22, 2020 at 2:36 PM uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:
Heh, it's funny how something you say can be perfectly inverted by the audience to mean the opposite of what you intended. The Telephone Game is always relevant.

My point to Steve was about "effective altruism", the idea that the philanthropist has any idea whatsoever of the relative optimality of one charity compared to another. My position is one of ignorance and against the (mostly wealthy, tech-savvy, arrogant) person's most likely *mistaken* belief in their own competence, especially in a domain that is fundamentally different from where they operate "professionally". My point to Steve was that meritocracy is a sham and a sibling effect to the Great Man Theory.

Now, to the extent that my reading of von Hayek (not Friedman) argued for market forces because it is *arrogant* to pretend you can design a system more efficient than the one nature relaxes into, then I would argue for such natural, organic solutions over engineered ones. But that's precisely *because* those who think they can singularly, themselves, engineer a reality better than the one that grew, stigmergically, socially, naturally are most likely wrong.

But I have *never* insisted there is such a thing as a *free* market. Everything that seems to be "natural" is constrained by the engineering of the agents in and around it, even if those agents are termites or bacteria. Whatever the Robin Hood foundation might mean by "free market", their very use of the term means I would not support them in any way. The term "free market" is a trigger phrase for this delicate snowflake. >8^D And I've already blown several cherries at billionaire phlanthropists. Ptouie. E.g. Bill Gates' magnanimity comes at the cost of decades of slimy and exploitative practices. It's reputation laundering in the extreme. If Bill Gates really gave a flying fsck about these things, he should have begun working on them *before* (or instead of) exploiting the world to make siphon off and concentrate billions of dollars.

So, I tend to stick with established charities with proven track records including both the united way and the red cross. My tiny personal donations are doled out at the end of the year to organizations like mozilla, MAPS, software in the public interest, etc. with ZERO regard to how "efficient" or "effective" they are. And my real contributions are paying (and voting for) taxes and buying goods and services from the smallest businesses and co-ops I can find.

On 4/22/20 1:04 PM, [hidden email] wrote:
> I was listening to a podcast by the guy who runs Robin Hood, an organization dedicated to getting at the institutional roots of poverty. When asked where we should give money in this crisis, he said, give it where you feel passion, because that is where you are likely to give it again. I confess I feel passion for these young folks, who in the 60’s would have been in graduate programs, or art or music schools, teaching, learning, inspiring, but are instead meagerly supporting their passions by making me coffee. And very good coffee at that. So that’s where my money goes. Robin Hood <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hood_Foundation> might be better for Glen because “According to /Fortune <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_(magazine)>/ magazine, "Robin Hood was a pioneer in what is now called venture philanthropy, or charity that embraces free-market forces. An early practitioner of using metrics to measure the effectiveness of grants, it is a place where
> strategies to alleviate urban poverty are hotly debated, ineffectual plans are coldly discarded, and its staff of 66 hatches radical new ideas."^[ <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hood_Foundation#cite_note-fm-2> ”

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Edward Angel

Re: Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

In reply to this post by thompnickson2

Nick,

I have no problem with anyone wanting to support their local barista. Please remember also that the Food Bank really needs funds.

I do have a problem with your view of the 60’s. Those young folks you remember were almost 100% white middle class kids, Almost no blacks, hispanics, native americans or asians. At that time poverty was far higher than it is today. Medical care was not available to large parts of the population. And then there was the rest of the world at that time.

By fixating on the local situation, we tend to forget about the bigger world which is suffering far more than us. Countries across Asia and Africa are dealing with the virus in addition to refugees, lack of medical facilities, the impossibility of social distancing and many other factors. Lots of information on the web as to how bad the situation is. There are organizations combating these factors that are worth paying attention to.

_______________________

Ed Angel

Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab)
Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico

1017 Sierra Pinon

Santa Fe, NM 87501
505-984-0136 (home) [hidden email]

505-453-4944 (cell) http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel

On Apr 22, 2020, at 2:04 PM, [hidden email] wrote:
Hi Steve,

Thanks, Steve,

I was listening to a podcast by the guy who runs Robin Hood, an organization dedicated to getting at the institutional roots of poverty. When asked where we should give money in this crisis, he said, give it where you feel passion, because that is where you are likely to give it again. I confess I feel passion for these young folks, who in the 60’s would have been in graduate programs, or art or music schools, teaching, learning, inspiring, but are instead meagerly supporting their passions by making me coffee. And very good coffee at that. So that’s where my money goes.  Robin Hood might be better for Glen because “According to Fortune magazine, "Robin Hood was a pioneer in what is now called venture philanthropy, or charity that embraces free-market forces. An early practitioner of using metrics to measure the effectiveness of grants, it is a place where strategies to alleviate urban poverty are hotly debated, ineffectual plans are coldly discarded, and its staff of 66 hatches radical new ideas."^[”

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2020 12:52 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

I tipped Ohori's staff, hoping that success there will maybe encourage lateral transmission to other restaurants.
I also found Sweetwater on goFundMe and gave them a little "taste" even though I've only been there once.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/50KSWnm
Glen made the point with me at one point before "the time of COVID19" (on or off line, I'm not sure) that the "independent spirit" of *only* helping those you know or close to you is a little ??? (Narcissistic is my word).
I still feel it is important to NOT *use* global/national/organized fundraisers as a way to appease guilt (and therefore responsibility).   The pre-COVID city signs that went up trying to discourage panhandling on streetcorners were good for illuminating the paradoxes.   I didn't *want* people to *feel the need to* stand on street corners and know that supporting local non-profits that help the the homeless and otherwise marginalized helps *most* of those folks... yet at the same time, it felt good in another way to hand out a set of chemical hand/toe-warmers, a bar of chocolate, and a couple of bucks to those with the fortitude, or the desperation, (or the entrepreneurial spirit) to stand on the corners.
I don't have any answers... and this pandemic has offered the mixed blessing of forcing me to consider a lot of different questions.   If my garden this year begins to produce, I think I'll be setting up a self-serve farm-stand at the top of my drive with three options: A) if you need some, takes some; B) if you can afford a few $$, drop it in the collection box; C) do someone you know in more need than you a solid... bring them some food or give *them* the $$ you would have left in the box.
I may also use that "farm stand" as a way to gift away some the 2 cords of books I still have filling a covered trailer... like a "little library" but with a larger selection. "farm and book stand"?
Meanwhile, I hope we all find more ways to be kind and "pay it forward, backward, and sideways".
- Steve
On 4/22/20 12:40 PM, [hidden email] wrote:
Ed,

Thanks for your kind note.

If you’ll dump a little change into “mine”, I will dump a little change into “yours”. I just think it’s way to help these folks feel that somebody has noticed what they are doing and is aware of what has happened to them.

Thanks,

Nick

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam [hidden email] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2020 12:29 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

Nick -
Thanks for the link. Ohori's is not my goto, but I'm 100% with the spirit. I have had no traction on trying to extend this kind of help TO my regular go-tos. I am of a mind that at the very least, my weekly *tip* budget could go straight into the same pockets it used to with no harm to me... and as you point out, my entire luxury food/services budget could go that way as well.
I'll check for other go-fund-me's in SFe and would love to hear from others who have discovered similar to yours here.
- Steve
To The Mother Church,
As you know, I am addicted to coffee and particularly to coffee houses, and particularly to Ohori’s-next-to-Kaune’s, where I like to loll in the sunshine of a late afternoon like the flea-bitten old dog that I am. Over the years I have come to befriend and greatly admire the Barista’s of Santa Fe. They remind me of graduate students. Many of them are using barista work to make possible independent scholarship, artistic careers, and musical careers, pursued for the sheer love of it. So when the virus hit in March and many of them lost work, I tried to set up some sort of a fund to help them. But not being gig-economy type, I couldn’t see how to do it.
Now, to my delight, one of the workers has set up a gofundme site.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/ohoris-staff-relief-fund?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link-tip&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet
I am hoping that those of you who have shared my pleasure in dealing with these young folks will make some sort of a donation, if only as a token of your support.
I am figuring it this way: I am saving about 7 – 10 dollars a day in latte’s and zucchini bread (AND lost three pounds). I figure that savings ought to go to them.
It would be a great kindness to me if you would pitch in.
All the best,
Nick
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thompnickson2

Re: Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

In reply to this post by gepr

Hi Glen,

Yeh, in retrospect, the Wikipedia entry just doesn't seem to do jusrtice to the radicalism of Robin Hood's current leader, Wes Moore. So here's the podcast. It's Preet Brahara's Stay Tuned, and it's only the first part. https://www.omnycontent.com/d/playlist/aaea4e69-af51-495e-afc9-a9760146922b/0236a31f-71e0-49dd-97f8-aac7015df30b/370e1fbf-45d4-42d9-96fd-aac7015df319/podcast.rss

If you had a few minutes ... .

Nick

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of u?l? ?
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2020 2:36 PM
To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

Heh, it's funny how something you say can be perfectly inverted by the audience to mean the opposite of what you intended. The Telephone Game is always relevant.

My point to Steve was about "effective altruism", the idea that the philanthropist has any idea whatsoever of the relative optimality of one charity compared to another. My position is one of ignorance and against the (mostly wealthy, tech-savvy, arrogant) person's most likely *mistaken* belief in their own competence, especially in a domain that is fundamentally different from where they operate "professionally". My point to Steve was that meritocracy is a sham and a sibling effect to the Great Man Theory.

Now, to the extent that my reading of von Hayek (not Friedman) argued for market forces because it is *arrogant* to pretend you can design a system more efficient than the one nature relaxes into, then I would argue for such natural, organic solutions over engineered ones. But that's precisely *because* those who think they can singularly, themselves, engineer a reality better than the one that grew, stigmergically, socially, naturally are most likely wrong.

But I have *never* insisted there is such a thing as a *free* market. Everything that seems to be "natural" is constrained by the engineering of the agents in and around it, even if those agents are termites or bacteria. Whatever the Robin Hood foundation might mean by "free market", their very use of the term means I would not support them in any way. The term "free market" is a trigger phrase for this delicate snowflake. >8^D And I've already blown several cherries at billionaire phlanthropists. Ptouie. E.g. Bill Gates' magnanimity comes at the cost of decades of slimy and exploitative practices. It's reputation laundering in the extreme. If Bill Gates really gave a flying fsck about these things, he should have begun working on them *before* (or instead of) exploiting the world to make siphon off and concentrate billions of dollars.

So, I tend to stick with established charities with proven track records including both the united way and the red cross. My tiny personal donations are doled out at the end of the year to organizations like mozilla, MAPS, software in the public interest, etc. with ZERO regard to how "efficient" or "effective" they are. And my real contributions are paying (and voting for) taxes and buying goods and services from the smallest businesses and co-ops I can find.

On 4/22/20 1:04 PM, [hidden email] wrote:
> I was listening to a podcast by the guy who runs Robin Hood, an
> organization dedicated to getting at the institutional roots of poverty. When asked where we should give money in this crisis, he said, give it where you feel passion, because that is where you are likely to give it again. I confess I feel passion for these young folks, who in the 60’s would have been in graduate programs, or art or music schools, teaching, learning, inspiring, but are instead meagerly supporting their passions by making me coffee. And very good coffee at that. So that’s where my money goes. Robin Hood <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hood_Foundation> might be better for Glen because “According to /Fortune <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_(magazine)>/ magazine, "Robin Hood was a pioneer in what is now called venture philanthropy, or charity that embraces free-market forces. An early practitioner of using metrics to measure the effectiveness of grants, it is a place where strategies to alleviate urban poverty are hotly debated, ineffectual plans are coldly discarded, and its staff of 66 hatches radical new ideas."^[ <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hood_Foundation#cite_note-fm-2> ”

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gepr

Re: Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

In reply to this post by Angel Edward

ProPublica's thing seems good too:

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/362193608

On 4/22/20 2:20 PM, Angel Edward wrote:
> Go to Charity Navigator or Charity Watch. There are others. They’ll give you access to the IRS forms and more importantly give you how much of thir funds are spent on programs.

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uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

thompnickson2

Re: Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

In reply to this post by Edward Angel

Ed,

Wait a minute: these young folks of the sixties were a hypothetical! I can make them as brown or as lower class or as native American as I like. Don’t Mess With My Mythos.

Nick

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Edward Angel
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2020 3:30 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

Nick,

I have no problem with anyone wanting to support their local barista. Please remember also that the Food Bank really needs funds.

_______________________

Ed Angel

Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab)
Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico

1017 Sierra Pinon

Santa Fe, NM 87501
505-984-0136 (home) [hidden email]

505-453-4944 (cell) http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel

On Apr 22, 2020, at 2:04 PM, [hidden email] wrote:
Hi Steve,

Thanks, Steve,

I was listening to a podcast by the guy who runs Robin Hood, an organization dedicated to getting at the institutional roots of poverty. When asked where we should give money in this crisis, he said, give it where you feel passion, because that is where you are likely to give it again. I confess I feel passion for these young folks, who in the 60’s would have been in graduate programs, or art or music schools, teaching, learning, inspiring, but are instead meagerly supporting their passions by making me coffee. And very good coffee at that. So that’s where my money goes.  Robin Hood might be better for Glen because “According to Fortune magazine, "Robin Hood was a pioneer in what is now called venture philanthropy, or charity that embraces free-market forces. An early practitioner of using metrics to measure the effectiveness of grants, it is a place where strategies to alleviate urban poverty are hotly debated, ineffectual plans are coldly discarded, and its staff of 66 hatches radical new ideas."^[”

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2020 12:52 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

I tipped Ohori's staff, hoping that success there will maybe encourage lateral transmission to other restaurants.
I also found Sweetwater on goFundMe and gave them a little "taste" even though I've only been there once.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/50KSWnm
Glen made the point with me at one point before "the time of COVID19" (on or off line, I'm not sure) that the "independent spirit" of *only* helping those you know or close to you is a little ??? (Narcissistic is my word).
I still feel it is important to NOT *use* global/national/organized fundraisers as a way to appease guilt (and therefore responsibility).   The pre-COVID city signs that went up trying to discourage panhandling on streetcorners were good for illuminating the paradoxes.   I didn't *want* people to *feel the need to* stand on street corners and know that supporting local non-profits that help the the homeless and otherwise marginalized helps *most* of those folks... yet at the same time, it felt good in another way to hand out a set of chemical hand/toe-warmers, a bar of chocolate, and a couple of bucks to those with the fortitude, or the desperation, (or the entrepreneurial spirit) to stand on the corners.
I don't have any answers... and this pandemic has offered the mixed blessing of forcing me to consider a lot of different questions.   If my garden this year begins to produce, I think I'll be setting up a self-serve farm-stand at the top of my drive with three options: A) if you need some, takes some; B) if you can afford a few $$, drop it in the collection box; C) do someone you know in more need than you a solid... bring them some food or give *them* the $$ you would have left in the box.
I may also use that "farm stand" as a way to gift away some the 2 cords of books I still have filling a covered trailer... like a "little library" but with a larger selection. "farm and book stand"?
Meanwhile, I hope we all find more ways to be kind and "pay it forward, backward, and sideways".
- Steve
On 4/22/20 12:40 PM, [hidden email] wrote:
Ed,

Thanks for your kind note.

If you’ll dump a little change into “mine”, I will dump a little change into “yours”. I just think it’s way to help these folks feel that somebody has noticed what they are doing and is aware of what has happened to them.

Thanks,

Nick

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam [hidden email] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2020 12:29 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

Nick -
Thanks for the link. Ohori's is not my goto, but I'm 100% with the spirit. I have had no traction on trying to extend this kind of help TO my regular go-tos. I am of a mind that at the very least, my weekly *tip* budget could go straight into the same pockets it used to with no harm to me... and as you point out, my entire luxury food/services budget could go that way as well.
I'll check for other go-fund-me's in SFe and would love to hear from others who have discovered similar to yours here.
- Steve
To The Mother Church,
As you know, I am addicted to coffee and particularly to coffee houses, and particularly to Ohori’s-next-to-Kaune’s, where I like to loll in the sunshine of a late afternoon like the flea-bitten old dog that I am. Over the years I have come to befriend and greatly admire the Barista’s of Santa Fe. They remind me of graduate students. Many of them are using barista work to make possible independent scholarship, artistic careers, and musical careers, pursued for the sheer love of it. So when the virus hit in March and many of them lost work, I tried to set up some sort of a fund to help them. But not being gig-economy type, I couldn’t see how to do it.
Now, to my delight, one of the workers has set up a gofundme site.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/ohoris-staff-relief-fund?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link-tip&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet
I am hoping that those of you who have shared my pleasure in dealing with these young folks will make some sort of a donation, if only as a token of your support.
I am figuring it this way: I am saving about 7 – 10 dollars a day in latte’s and zucchini bread (AND lost three pounds). I figure that savings ought to go to them.
It would be a great kindness to me if you would pitch in.
All the best,
Nick
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Steve Smith

Re: Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

In reply to this post by gepr

glen -

I definitely didn't intend to *invert* your intention... I *did*
understand (roughly) that it is arrogant to believe that *I* can
engineer a better altruism than say Red Cross or Habitat for Humanity or
the Social Welfare apparatus of my city/state/national/UN efforts.
But I think your arguments *also* allow (support) my feeling that I
*want* to make sure that the people who have given good service to me
(and to whom I have been mostly generous with my tips in the past)
survive this mess and are available and motivated (or not) to return to
that service.

Giving good tips, paying what may feel like inflated prices to local
farmers and artisans, etc. feels like I'm being part of the
emergent/evolved system...   Back when many were part of a local
religious congregation, there was the idea of a "tithe" or sharing
1/10th of one's productive efforts with one's peers, using their
church's (synagog/stupa/whatever) leader/admnistration to help them by
distributing it.   Of course these were always (mostly) Franchises that
gathered up a "tithe" of those tithes to fund the larger
administration/hierarchy (I've seen the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake
and the Vatican... as well as the extravagant architecture of Washington
DC), and some might resent that and would rather just "give their
neighbor a hand during planting, harvest, barn-raising time) or not.

I'm (for the most part) rooting the House Dems who are working hard
(best I can tell) to get whatever money they manage to get printed at
this moment to "the little guy" whether it is through the direct
payments already halfway in/through the mail or to small businesses who
will do their (we hope) damnedest to do right by their employees...
keep them on payroll long enough to *maybe* pull out of whatever
nosedive their industry is in.

I acknowledge that this surely means higher taxes for me in the (near
and indefinite) future.   My income/savings is pretty modest by
professional standards but best I can tell notably above many in
service and living (much less minimum) wage workers, and I'm willing to
*share* some of their pain.   I don't know how much, or in what mode,
but this kind of event makes *me* feel "yet more generous" than
otherwise...

Untangle me in this one if you might? I really didn't want to impugne
your guidance in these matters.

- Steve

On 4/22/20 2:36 PM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:

> Heh, it's funny how something you say can be perfectly inverted by the audience to mean the opposite of what you intended. The Telephone Game is always relevant.
>
> My point to Steve was about "effective altruism", the idea that the philanthropist has any idea whatsoever of the relative optimality of one charity compared to another. My position is one of ignorance and against the (mostly wealthy, tech-savvy, arrogant) person's most likely *mistaken* belief in their own competence, especially in a domain that is fundamentally different from where they operate "professionally". My point to Steve was that meritocracy is a sham and a sibling effect to the Great Man Theory.
>
> Now, to the extent that my reading of von Hayek (not Friedman) argued for market forces because it is *arrogant* to pretend you can design a system more efficient than the one nature relaxes into, then I would argue for such natural, organic solutions over engineered ones. But that's precisely *because* those who think they can singularly, themselves, engineer a reality better than the one that grew, stigmergically, socially, naturally are most likely wrong.
>
> But I have *never* insisted there is such a thing as a *free* market. Everything that seems to be "natural" is constrained by the engineering of the agents in and around it, even if those agents are termites or bacteria. Whatever the Robin Hood foundation might mean by "free market", their very use of the term means I would not support them in any way. The term "free market" is a trigger phrase for this delicate snowflake. >8^D And I've already blown several cherries at billionaire phlanthropists. Ptouie. E.g. Bill Gates' magnanimity comes at the cost of decades of slimy and exploitative practices. It's reputation laundering in the extreme. If Bill Gates really gave a flying fsck about these things, he should have begun working on them *before* (or instead of) exploiting the world to make siphon off and concentrate billions of dollars.
>
> So, I tend to stick with established charities with proven track records including both the united way and the red cross. My tiny personal donations are doled out at the end of the year to organizations like mozilla, MAPS, software in the public interest, etc. with ZERO regard to how "efficient" or "effective" they are. And my real contributions are paying (and voting for) taxes and buying goods and services from the smallest businesses and co-ops I can find.
>
> On 4/22/20 1:04 PM, [hidden email] wrote:
>> I was listening to a podcast by the guy who runs Robin Hood, an organization dedicated to getting at the institutional roots of poverty. When asked where we should give money in this crisis, he said, give it where you feel passion, because that is where you are likely to give it again. I confess I feel passion for these young folks, who in the 60’s would have been in graduate programs, or art or music schools, teaching, learning, inspiring, but are instead meagerly supporting their passions by making me coffee. And very good coffee at that. So that’s where my money goes. Robin Hood <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hood_Foundation> might be better for Glen because “According to /Fortune <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_(magazine)>/ magazine, "Robin Hood was a pioneer in what is now called venture philanthropy, or charity that embraces free-market forces. An early practitioner of using metrics to measure the effectiveness of grants, it is a place where
>> strategies to alleviate urban poverty are hotly debated, ineffectual plans are coldly discarded, and its staff of 66 hatches radical new ideas."^[ <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hood_Foundation#cite_note-fm-2> ”
>

Steve Smith

Re: Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

In reply to this post by Edward Angel

On 4/22/20 3:29 PM, Edward Angel wrote:

> Nick,
>
> I have no problem with anyone wanting to support their local barista.
> Please remember also that the Food Bank really needs funds.
>
> I do have a problem with your view of the 60’s. Those young folks you
> remember were almost 100% white middle class kids, Almost no blacks,
> hispanics, native americans or asians. At that time poverty was far
> higher than it is today. Medical care was not available to large parts
> of the population. And then there was the rest of the world at that time.
>
> By fixating on the local situation, we tend to forget about the bigger
> world which is suffering far more than us. Countries across Asia and
> Africa are dealing with the virus in addition to refugees, lack of
> medical facilities, the impossibility of social distancing and many
> other factors. Lots of information on the web as to how bad the
> situation is. There are organizations combating these factors that are
> worth paying attention to.

I'm with you on this Ed... I just heard some of the forecasts/worries
about how the consequences of this pandemic are going to domino into the
worst-poverty situations around the world. I'm not against helping
there too... just wanting to acknowledge those around me who got caught
worst by this than I did.

My only direct(ish) link into that world is a Kenyan friend who still
has deep roots in his homeland.

The $500 fund I started at my local market to allow checkers/management
to let anyone unable to pay their full grocery bill was my alternative
to the occasional "bailout" I'd offer the cashier/next-person-in-line
when I was there to observe it. I'm now only at that store once a week
(or less) and the number of people are very limited and I just haven't
found myself in that spot like I used to (often EBT users who
misunderstood what was and wasn't covered by their EBT cards... )...

I doubt this comes up at Whole Foods or Trader Joe's very often... but
it is common in a market like Pojoaque.

I'm afraid if we don't get this current administration (and probably the
current Senate GOP majority) out in November, our ability/appetite to
help anyone but ourselves (and maybe not the most needy here) will be
negative...

- Steve

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gepr

Re: Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

In reply to this post by Steve Smith

8^) Sorry. I didn't intend to accuse anyone of purposefully manipulation. That's why I mentioned the Telephone Game. It doesn't matter what we intend, the message will get perverted. ("The only problem with communication is the illusion that it exists." -- somebody somewhere I'm too lazy to look up.)

For me, it's "Do what thou wilt". If you want to spend hours scouring 990's and build expert systems or constraint optimizers to tell you which charity to give to, that's fantastic. But don't, at the end of the day, pomp around town spouting how your money's more effective than others. (This is said not to anyone here, but to the EA people.) If you want to toss $100 bills out the window at homeless people, that's fantastic. I choose to donate to nonprofits I care about (like for Debian or psychedelic research). And I have friends who volunteer for the red cross. So I like to toss some money that way. To my mind, any overhead (even if it's 90%) they use off my donation to pay the staff or raise other funds is their business. I try not to micromanage. Similarly, if the homeless guy takes my $5 and buys some Strawberry Hill, more power to him. It was a gift and he can use it as he pleases.

The "how are you going to spend this if I give it to you" sounds a lot like "Get off my lawn!"

On 4/22/20 2:43 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

> glen -
>
> I definitely didn't intend to *invert* your intention... I *did*
> understand (roughly) that it is arrogant to believe that *I* can
> engineer a better altruism than say Red Cross or Habitat for Humanity or
> the Social Welfare apparatus of my city/state/national/UN efforts.
> But I think your arguments *also* allow (support) my feeling that I
> *want* to make sure that the people who have given good service to me
> (and to whom I have been mostly generous with my tips in the past)
> survive this mess and are available and motivated (or not) to return to
> that service.
>
> Giving good tips, paying what may feel like inflated prices to local
> farmers and artisans, etc. feels like I'm being part of the
> emergent/evolved system...   Back when many were part of a local
> religious congregation, there was the idea of a "tithe" or sharing
> 1/10th of one's productive efforts with one's peers, using their
> church's (synagog/stupa/whatever) leader/admnistration to help them by
> distributing it.   Of course these were always (mostly) Franchises that
> gathered up a "tithe" of those tithes to fund the larger
> administration/hierarchy (I've seen the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake
> and the Vatican... as well as the extravagant architecture of Washington
> DC), and some might resent that and would rather just "give their
> neighbor a hand during planting, harvest, barn-raising time) or not.
>
> I'm (for the most part) rooting the House Dems who are working hard
> (best I can tell) to get whatever money they manage to get printed at
> this moment to "the little guy" whether it is through the direct
> payments already halfway in/through the mail or to small businesses who
> will do their (we hope) damnedest to do right by their employees...
> keep them on payroll long enough to *maybe* pull out of whatever
> nosedive their industry is in.
>
> I acknowledge that this surely means higher taxes for me in the (near
> and indefinite) future.   My income/savings is pretty modest by
> professional standards but best I can tell notably above many in
> service and living (much less minimum) wage workers, and I'm willing to
> *share* some of their pain.   I don't know how much, or in what mode,
> but this kind of event makes *me* feel "yet more generous" than
> otherwise...
>
> Untangle me in this one if you might? I really didn't want to impugne
> your guidance in these matters.
>

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

Joe Spinden

Re: [501 (c)(3)

In reply to this post by Frank Wimberly-2

Have you heard of Charity Navigator? If not, you might want to check it out. They evaluate charities above a certain size with published records. They give the Shriners' Hospital for Children in Tampa, FL a very good rating. (Comparable to Doctors Without Borders, which I like very much.)

Joe

On 4/22/20 3:17 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:

Whenever I get drawn to contributing to a charity, usually based on sentimental TV ads, I send them an email and ask how to access their IRS Form 990, which has to be publicly available, usually via a web page. The last time I did this was for Shriners' Hospital for Children. If I read the form correctly, in a recent year they had $700,000,000 in income, paid $500,000,000 in executive salaries and fundraising. I don't believe remaining $200,000,000 all went to medical and family travel/lodging expenses. But I may not be reading it right. Any accountants out there?

Frank

On Wed, Apr 22, 2020 at 2:36 PM uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

Heh, it's funny how something you say can be perfectly inverted by the audience to mean the opposite of what you intended. The Telephone Game is always relevant.

My point to Steve was about "effective altruism", the idea that the philanthropist has any idea whatsoever of the relative optimality of one charity compared to another. My position is one of ignorance and against the (mostly wealthy, tech-savvy, arrogant) person's most likely *mistaken* belief in their own competence, especially in a domain that is fundamentally different from where they operate "professionally". My point to Steve was that meritocracy is a sham and a sibling effect to the Great Man Theory.

Now, to the extent that my reading of von Hayek (not Friedman) argued for market forces because it is *arrogant* to pretend you can design a system more efficient than the one nature relaxes into, then I would argue for such natural, organic solutions over engineered ones. But that's precisely *because* those who think they can singularly, themselves, engineer a reality better than the one that grew, stigmergically, socially, naturally are most likely wrong.

But I have *never* insisted there is such a thing as a *free* market. Everything that seems to be "natural" is constrained by the engineering of the agents in and around it, even if those agents are termites or bacteria. Whatever the Robin Hood foundation might mean by "free market", their very use of the term means I would not support them in any way. The term "free market" is a trigger phrase for this delicate snowflake. >8^D And I've already blown several cherries at billionaire phlanthropists. Ptouie. E.g. Bill Gates' magnanimity comes at the cost of decades of slimy and exploitative practices. It's reputation laundering in the extreme. If Bill Gates really gave a flying fsck about these things, he should have begun working on them *before* (or instead of) exploiting the world to make siphon off and concentrate billions of dollars.

So, I tend to stick with established charities with proven track records including both the united way and the red cross. My tiny personal donations are doled out at the end of the year to organizations like mozilla, MAPS, software in the public interest, etc. with ZERO regard to how "efficient" or "effective" they are. And my real contributions are paying (and voting for) taxes and buying goods and services from the smallest businesses and co-ops I can find.

On 4/22/20 1:04 PM, [hidden email] wrote:
> I was listening to a podcast by the guy who runs Robin Hood, an organization dedicated to getting at the institutional roots of poverty. When asked where we should give money in this crisis, he said, give it where you feel passion, because that is where you are likely to give it again. I confess I feel passion for these young folks, who in the 60’s would have been in graduate programs, or art or music schools, teaching, learning, inspiring, but are instead meagerly supporting their passions by making me coffee. And very good coffee at that. So that’s where my money goes. Robin Hood <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hood_Foundation> might be better for Glen because “According to /Fortune <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_(magazine)>/ magazine, "Robin Hood was a pioneer in what is now called venture philanthropy, or charity that embraces free-market forces. An early practitioner of using metrics to measure the effectiveness of grants, it is a place where
> strategies to alleviate urban poverty are hotly debated, ineffectual plans are coldly discarded, and its staff of 66 hatches radical new ideas."^[ <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hood_Foundation#cite_note-fm-2> ”

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Frank Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918
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thompnickson2

Re: Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

In reply to this post by Steve Smith

ED,

You wrote:

The $500 fund I started at my local market to allow checkers/management to let anyone unable to pay their full grocery bill was my alternative to the occasional "bailout"

That was a fabulous idea and I am glad you did it.

Nick

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2020 3:54 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fundraiser by Christina Z. : Ohoris Staff Relief Fund

On 4/22/20 3:29 PM, Edward Angel wrote:

> Nick,

> I have no problem with anyone wanting to support their local barista.

> Please remember also that the Food Bank really needs funds.

> I do have a problem with your view of the 60’s. Those young folks you

> remember were almost 100% white middle class kids, Almost no blacks,

> hispanics, native americans or asians. At that time poverty was far

> higher than it is today. Medical care was not available to large parts

> of the population. And then there was the rest of the world at that time.

> By fixating on the local situation, we tend to forget about the bigger

> world which is suffering far more than us. Countries across Asia and

> Africa are dealing with the virus in addition to refugees, lack of

> medical facilities, the impossibility of social distancing and many

> other factors. Lots of information on the web as to how bad the

> situation is. There are organizations combating these factors that are

> worth paying attention to.

My only direct(ish) link into that world is a Kenyan friend who still has deep roots in his homeland.

The $500 fund I started at my local market to allow checkers/management to let anyone unable to pay their full grocery bill was my alternative to the occasional "bailout" I'd offer the cashier/next-person-in-line when I was there to observe it. I'm now only at that store once a week (or less) and the number of people are very limited and I just haven't found myself in that spot like I used to (often EBT users who misunderstood what was and wasn't covered by their EBT cards... )...

I doubt this comes up at Whole Foods or Trader Joe's very often... but it is common in a market like Pojoaque.

I'm afraid if we don't get this current administration (and probably the current Senate GOP majority) out in November, our ability/appetite to help anyone but ourselves (and maybe not the most needy here) will be negative...

- Steve

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