i have understood so many things about online leftist culture by the fact that when i said "your local community has people you will morally and politically disagree with but you cannot lock them out of accessing any tangible service you’re organising" one of the tags responding said "this isn’t about proshippers in here you’re not welcome" like. folks. focus with me. some of us are homeless here.
There's a disconnect happening here because the primary function of social media for most casual users is to form a circle of friends around the usual things that friendships are built on: shared interests and lifestyles and ideas of what is important and what is unacceptable. When people are mainly doing leftism on social media, this encourages thinking of leftism as centered around establishing high-minded social clubs.
For anyone who still isn't getting it from someone who helps people IRL: There's a difference between whom you're helping to feed at the mealshare and whom you're choosing to hang out with for fun after the mealshare. You don't have to invite a hungry person with opinions you don't like to play board games with you, but you do have to help keep them from starving if you're serious about leftist organizing.
[Image ID: Tumblr reply with username blocked out reading: *volunteering at the soup kitchen, holding a bowl hesitantly to my chest* what do you think about age gaps in ships /End ID]
This is related to my gripe about people blowing off concerns about disabled people with "Well if we get rid of capitalism, people will just volunteer to take care of other people!"
Setting aside, for a moment, that a lot of care work sucks - it's hard and stressful and gross and thankless and people SHOULD get paid for doing it - survival can not depend on whether or not people like you enough to keep you from dying.
Whatever system you're designing has to account for the fact that some of the most vulnerable people are going to be deeply unpleasant or annoying to be around and you can not leave those people to starve or leave them lying in their own feces because you don't like them.
People with conditions like dementia sometimes say HORRIBLE things, and they still need help - and that can't just be hoping a volunteer decides to show up.
That doesn't mean you, personally, have to be friends with them, but SOMEONE has to do this work, and the current system - where, too often, family members have to absolutely burn out and exhaust themselves because if they don't there's nobody else to take care of their loved one - is bad and UwU People Will Just Take Care of Each Other is not a solution.
