Hi guys, just a conversation starter prompted by a friend who is very involved in community organisation: – What are people’s thoughts around the topic of mutual aid and charity? – What do these terms mean to you, and how are they different? – How do they show up in your life, if at all? – What questions emerge from this brief reflection?

Let me answer briefly.

What are people’s thoughts around the topic of mutual aid and charity?

I think people do want to help others – who may not be related by blood to them – they just don't know how. (and, indeed, who to help). but my own experience has been that when I was in severe desperate need, the right help came at the right time.

“charity” seems like a tainted word in Singapore – incentivised by tax deductions and appearances on Lists of Honoured Donors -

“mutual aid” was something new to me, I only learnt about it during Covid times – but burn-out became a real thing – the organisers were burnt out – I wasn't an organiser, just a participant in my own small way – but my phone was ringing at strange hours with desperate, gut-wrenchingly worded requests for food and cash – it seemed I was slipping into an endless ocean of endless suffering.

I had to limit my own involvement in mutual aid, for my own peace-of-mind.

There is a book that divides people into two groups: givers and takers. I think, for people who are givers, mutual aid was an experiment that consumed a lot of resources we weren't prepared to give away.

What do these terms mean to you, and how are they different?

Charity is high-profile – I'm thinking of President's Challenge Night television shows in Singapore – while mutual aid is quiet and “behind closed doors”.

Charity is something “nice to do” when I have extra resources to spare for others. Whereas mutual aid has a kind of urgent-emergency tone to it.

How do they show up in your life, if at all?

I'm using a social media platform named Mastodon. There is a hash-tag for mutual aid. Every time I scroll past the posts in that hash-tag, I'm reminded that there are a-million-and-one ways that a life could fall apart suddenly in such a quietly violent way – and no one is around you to pick up the gazillion broken pieces -

Charity – I don't have to look too far – there is Give.asia, and Giving.sg, crowd-funding platforms in Singapore – I associate them with the government, in my mind, I don't know why.

Oh, yes, once every year, freshmen from National University of Singapore go to public spots in Singapore to collect donations (the money goes to some charity organisation or another, I don't know which) – it's a tradition named Rag & Flag.

What questions emerge from this brief reflection?

I just want to know if the money I'm sending out into the world, (through mutual aid, and charity), is making an impact.

Or is it a Sisyphean labour of futility? The more you give, the more an emergency develops.

But I think it was Camus who commented about Sisyphus this way: “one must imagine him happy”.

I ask myself: am I happy to give? or, to choose the word “gift” over the word “give” – am I happy to gift to others, without expecting anything in return?

What is the intention behind my gift? Is it genuine human kindness, or something else?

Is my gift thoughtful, and desirable to the recipient? For example, giving a piece of expensive beef steak to a vegetarian may be neither thoughtful nor desirable, though it certainly costs me a lot.

#conversations

They sat next to each other at the bar counter, saying nothing to each other.

J's dessert punctuated the silence. Its arrival elicited a puzzled look from J.

Y caught J's facial expression, and said: “what's that you're having?”

J paused, and then replied, “I ordered an ice-cream sandwich. I don't know why there is chocolate.”

“If you don't want that chocolate, I'd be happy to have it.”

“Okay.”

After exchanging such polite greetings, they went down to the important business of getting to know one another.

J opened his mouth and spoke thus:

“I leave Singapore on Wednesday, three days from now. I'm at the end of a four-month holiday. I'll be going back to work, in Melbourne.

I've been to the U.S., the U.K. and Thailand. It has been difficult and tiring. I wanted to relax, but I ended up feeling tired.

I'll spend my next holiday watching television at home, for three months. I've learnt my lesson.”

Y said: “you learnt your lesson the hard way.”

“Well, now I know.”

Y continued: “Melbourne. I've heard that everyone is a barista in Melbourne.”

“Yes, I didn't care much about coffee. But then I joined an organisation where everyone was serious about their coffee.”

“How do you like your coffee?”

“Black, no sugar. Colombian beans. I like them for their tasting notes of chocolate. I use an AeroPress brewer.”

J pushed his little ceramic plate to Y. “Do you want some chocolate?”

“Sure, thanks.”

Munching.

“It's nice. Is it okay if I finish the entire plate?”

“Yes, it's all yours.

A fashion icon once said:

“Fashion trends come and go. But style remains. Style never goes out of fashion.”

Or something like that.

#conversations

It was about how humans manage – or fail to manage – industrial waste, and consumer waste. There were a lot of statistics in the documentary.

It ended on an carefully curated optimistic note:

“In these dark times, we have a tendency to oscillate between complacent optimism and fatalistic pessimism. That leads us to lie down and do nothing... But one thing you can always do is to make a positive contribution to your community, wherever you are... What the planet needs is not a few people who do everything perfectly, but many people who do things imperfectly.”

It reminds me of a quote from a book by Dee Hock, former leader of the now-famous payment-processing organisation, Visa:

“There is no failure in failing to achieve something that you have dreamed of. The failure is in failing to dream of what you can achieve.”

As there was an accompanying discussion among panellists, I did some reading-up before the screening.

references

1. https://circular-economy.tomra.com/podcast/02-04/annupa-ahi
2. https://www.oecd.org/environment/extended-producer-responsibility.htm
3. https://www.eco-business.com/videos/can-the-music-industry-ever-reach-net-zero/
4. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/environmental-social-and-governance-esg-criteria.asp
5. https://web.archive.org/web/20120520130336/http://www.mensjournal.com/jack-johnson
6. https://blog.science.edu.sg/2023/12/08/wasted-an-eco-business-documentary-series-review/
7. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eco-capitalism
8. “Environmental scholar Bill McKibben proposes “full scale climate mobilization” to address environmental decay. During World War II, vehicle manufacturers and general goods manufacturers shifted to producing weapons, military vehicles and war time goods. McKibben argues that, to combat environmental change, the American Military Industrial Complex and other national arms producers could shift to producing solar panels, wind turbines and other environmental products in an eco-capitalist system.” https://newrepublic.com/article/135684/declare-war-climate-change-mobilize-wwii

my anti-library

an anti-library is defined as books that you haven't read.

1. Smith, Richard (2015). “Green Capitalism: the god that failed”. World Economics Association. pp. 55–61. ISBN 978-1-911156-22-2.
2. Tanuro, Daniel (2013). “Green Capitalism: Why it Can't Work”. Merlin Press. p. 112. ISBN 978-1-55266-668-5.
3. Jeremy Rappleye, Hikaru Komatsu, Yukiko Uchida, Kuba Krys & Hazel Markus (2020). ‘Better policies for better lives’?: constructive critique of the OECD’s (mis)measure of student well-being,“. Journal of Education Policy, 35:2, 258-282

#lists #conversations

I asked Cole how he deals with burn-out and being jaded. (He's been in the coffee industry for 15 years).

He suggested finding an outlet for your negative energy.

He shared that on his current tour, he has a public-facing event, nearly every day. It's hectic. But he and his team has a ritual of running every morning. He hated running at first, but he grew to enjoy it after a while. He said his morning run helps to adjust his energy for the events of the day.

But he also acknowledged that different people may have different approaches to dealing with burn-out. Maybe some people might want to take a long break every three months.

#PlagueDiary #Conversations

I asked him a question: “what is the biggest problem that coffee farmers face today?”

Patrik answered: “it is coffee buyers who ask for green beans, without possessing much knowledge about the subject matter. They demand a certain processing style from the farmer, but the farmer may not be suited to that processing style. Many of these farmers don't even know what they are doing. For example, in the natural process, there may be all kinds of micro-organisms growing in an uncontrolled manner. Whereas I prefer to have a more deliberate – instead of laissez-faire – approach to processing coffee. And the coffee buyer – who presumably roasts the green beans – may not have received much education or training before becoming suddenly becoming a buyer of green beans, who ends up making unsuitable demands on the farmer.”

#Conversations

He had these tips to offer, about providing service to customers:

'Very often, the barista is the first “stranger” that the customer meets, outside of that customer's house. The customer's chat with the barista, sets the tone of the rest of the customer's day.

As a barista, you have to be very friendly, and very bubbly.

Make sure the customer feels appreciated. Remember the customer's name. Or, just say “thank you”.'

#conversations

I was there to visit an exhibition by the artist Tsuyumi Miwa, who has been in Singapore for close to a decade.

“This exhibition is a token of our friendship,” Takumi-san explained, referring to the artist Tsuyumi-san and Tsuyumi-san's husband.

“At first I sold music boxes at this museum, but later I wanted it to be more educational. I want to leave something to the coming generations,” Takumi-san continued.

Yes, the museum is located where the Hokkien Huay Kuan used to be. Doesn't it reflect the cultural melting pot that is Singapore?

(I visited the museum on 26th May, 2021).

#Conversations

Q: “Why are you interested in ethics?”

A: “I do not have [an academic] background in ethics or philosophy. I studied Computer Science in Germany. My thinking changed after I had a son – he is three years old now – and I have done much more reading since.”

Q: “I don’t mean to offend you personally, but if we talk about ethics, there is the danger of being a hypocrite, that is, saying one thing and doing another. How do you ensure you are not a hypocrite?”

A: “Humans are fallible. If someone does what he says – if he walks the talk – he is an angel. [Having said that,] I try to be better today than I was yesterday.”

Q: “About Andrew Yang… [in the U.S., who proposed a Department of the Attention Economy]”

A: “Algorithm Oversight. Right now, there is a gap: the regulation-authorities have to figure out what is happening in these algorithms. It takes time to come up with regulations, and meanwhile, technology keeps moving on. They have to be paid well, because they are the best of the best [that is, those whom The Government (may) recruit to regulate algorithms that appear in software]. This is one area that I think Singapore does well in: the ministers are well-paid. In the U.S. or in Europe, working in The Government means taking a pay-cut.”

Q: “You mentioned reading. What are some of those books?”

A: “I'll email you after our chat.” [Later, Sebastian emails:]

1. Cathy O'Neil. (2016). “Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data increases inequality and threatens democracy”.
2. Brad Smith. (2019). “Tools and weapons: The promise and the peril of the Digital Age”.
3. Yancey Strickler. (2019). “This could be our future: A manifesto for a more generous world”.
4. Tim O'Reilly. (2017). “WTF?: What's The Future and why it's up to us”.

The Q&A above represents only a portion of the entirety of my chat with Sebastian, which concluded with agreeing that applying ethics to technology meant (highly skilled) people co-operating or collaborating, across various fields of expertise. As Sebastian put it, “I observe; I act within my sphere of influence… [but] I cannot solve the problem on my own.”

However, Sebastian seems optimistic, if not hopeful: “[if I] keep repeating a message [about ethics, to the audience of my various talks], maybe the message will get in.”

(Sebastian posts at Medium.com: https://medium.com/@sm5c )

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