By looking at the last 1/2 of the video it is clear that the pedestrians are thinking like the first 1/2 of the video.

*british *promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Monday, April 7th, 2014 8:18am PDT - promote requested by alien_concept.

Adding video to channels (British) - requested by alien_concept.

It's understandable that people would confront a guy for being disrespectful to poor people... it's also understandable that most people don't believe that the best solution is to hand money to some random guy on the street with a placard.

Exactly, a lot of the time giving money on the street is counter productive. It's best to give it to an organization that can make the most use of that money to help people. The majority of people begging on the street are either mentally ill or addicts and they need more then just a couple of bucks to get another fix they need real help from the community.

Now do it with "Fuck the rich".

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Mel-Brooks-summed-up-our-economic-policy-in-three-words

Mel Brooks summed up our economic policy in three words has been added as a related post - related requested by Fantomas.

*nsfw

This video has been flagged as being Not Suitable For Work - declared nsfw by ant.

Right, because "I want to give you a flyer" is exactly the same as "give me your money," so it's shocking the latter didn't elicit as much of a response.

While I see where you're coming from, I have a few issues with what you're saying:

1. The organization you're referring to is staffed, has offices and overheads. Assuming it isn't corrupt and skimming and holding multi-million-dollar appreciation nights and galas (and we probably shouldn't assume that it isn't), the money you're giving this organization still gets portioned off quite a bit. Your point about helping on the systemic level is quite valid (provided you are channelling your concern into actually doing so), but I'd look more into local community health centres or the nonprofit down the street, and still, that money isn't guaranteed to reach the person in front of you. Much as a social worker can help him connect to essential services, advocate for fair and affordable housing, counsel him on trauma, etc, he will still need money for a lot of basic needs.

2. You are vastly oversimplifying the needs and situation of every person on the street. That person may actually depend on money from strangers to make rent (being that welfare barely puts a dent in even the lowest affordable housing costs), feed kids, buy food that isn't McDonald's or canned food, get a haircut, or a million other things that everyone needs money for.

3. Even if that person intends to spend some of your money on oxy or crack, it is not in your right to judge that. While addiction can very generally be called "bad", this person may suffer from chronic pain, trauma, mental illnesses, or some combination and short of governments finally realizing that housing and caring for the poor is cheaper than incarcerating them and treating emergency health conditions, self-medicating is the only reasonable way they can continue functioning for another day. This isn't even an unlikely scenario; think how easily someone can go from your (or my) comfy life to homeless, poor and desperate. It isn't always "bad decisions"; you could be a contractor that falls and gets a serious injury, hit by a car, stricken with a mental illness you have no control over, traumatized earlier in life, born into a high-risk environment or social strata, or anything else, and then start sliding from there. You develop an addiction, your income comes to a screeching halt, your loved ones can't or get too tired to support you, bills that were routine become suffocating, and there you are on the street, pain exploding relentlessly in your body/mind, on the other side of the decision, seeing chins turned up and eyes turned away from you and hearing people mutter "Don't give anything to him; he's just gonna use it to get high," to each other.

4. Not a single person in the video (and really, in just about every situation you see on whatever street you're on) speaks to or even looks at the guy.

While I wouldn't expect that everyone gives money to folks on the street (I myself have only done it a few times), it frustrates me to hear people insist that nobody should. "He's just going to use it for drugs/booze" is a presumptuous and ignorant statement and mindset.

One more thing: if you really care about urban poverty and those suffering from it, the biggest thing (IMO) you can do is vote for politicians/parties who openly and strongly support social services and welfare, then hold them to their promises. I don't make a ton of money, but I am happy to pay higher taxes and lose some luxuries if it means people who need help just to get by get it.

For me it spoke to how easy people get angry and spout off when they see something that seems wrong to them, but when it comes to actually doing something to help fix the actual problem they cant be bothered. This video to me is just an example of how that works. Probably not what the video was shootin' for but its what i took from it.

Hey, they make the jobs, asshole! "Help the rich" more like. They need more so that they can make more jobs for people that can't make things. Makes sense to me.

Right, that slipped my mind for some reason. I am so sorry!

Jim Norton had a joke along those lines, that there was a drug addict he was sponsoring that was going to see him, and take his cum.

No, it's understandable that people are offended enough by a sign saying "fuck the poor" to fight against it. Words are far easier to elicit from people than positive action...

People don't feel comfortable around beggars. Perhaps it highlights what might be, perhaps they are just snobs, but translating words in to action is one of the biggest problems with humanity.

Take the internet for example, slacktivism at an all time high and yet less and less actually seems to get fixed. Numbers drop dramatically from calls for action on forums to online petitions to online donations to physical presence at protests...

It's easy to offer an opinion, far harder (apparently) to offer 5 bucks...

Yep.

Part of that is laziness/selfishness/greed, etc. but I bet that part of it is also a sense of helplessness or of being overwhelmed at the scale of the problem.

I don't sign internet petitions for anything anymore, because I believe them to be utterly useless as a means to affect change (see also "slacktivist" and "hashtagactivist" for equally useless activities)

Meaningful change is slow.

In some cases (like poverty) that's incredibly detrimental to those affected, but over time things will (hopefully) improve. Certainly humans are generally better off today than they were 100 years ago.

In other cases (like climate change), it's fucking catastrophic.

What's the solution? Damned if I know....