I was thinking about not donating to charity but buying stuff directly and asking them for support to ship it. Basically that makes you buy and not gift. If you buy 1 gigaton of rice for Ethiopia (I have no clue how many people a gigaton of rice would feed and I also have no clue whether Ethiopians need any rice) from Costco, well, then you have spent the money on it. Fuck it, maybe buy a boat. A ferry to ship it all directly. Buy land and don't gift but let workers work there. For free. For eternity. Oh you happen to pay them 50 times the average salary of their country? Well you're probably a bad businessman but you're not gifting. Pay the lawyers to make a bulletproof testament where you explicitly state that these poor fellas will never own the land but will for eternity be able to use it for free until the sun explodes.

And then bribe. Bribe away the heartache, bribe away the pain. Bribe the SCOTUS to retire. Bribe Putin to stop the war and fuck off. Bribe Trump to fuck off. Bribe Musk to get a vasectomy and fuck off. I mean you're basically just lobbying at that point but we all know that that's bribing and not gifting.

[–] Underwaterbob@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago

I also have no clue whether Ethiopians need any rice

The Ethiopian famine was 30 years ago. Not that they haven't had troubles off-and-on since then.

[–] _stranger_@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

I love that idea that you'd just go to your local Costco, say "One gigaton of rice please" and they give you a voucher to go to the front of the store where high value items are handed out after purchase.

[–] MNByChoice@midwest.social 3 points 1 month ago

Yes. You can buy their support though.