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My friend who works at the airport in the Galapagos (GPS) was telling me that no one has gotten paid since the tourism stopped. Luckily she can work on farm, bu
by lowpro 6y ago
My friend who works at the airport in the Galapagos (GPS) was telling me that no one has gotten paid since the tourism stopped. Luckily she can work on farm, but many can't. The local animal shelter there is now out of food, and the dogs will starve if they don't somehow raise money in the next 3 days or so (@patitasgalapaguenas on instagram, you can donate here [0]).
The US is struggling in many ways, but I can't help but think many other less fortunate nations are struggling even more. But the US doesn't show international news so you wouldn't really know unless you go looking for it.
[0]: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donations&business=patitas-galapaguenas%40hotmail.com&item_name=Help+the+Miss+treated+domestic+animals+on+the+galapagos+islands.+The+first+animal+sanctuary+on+galapagos¤cy_code=USD&source=url https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donations&busines...
- celim307 6y agoDonated. Cute doggies. Hope your friend and her coworkers are safe.
- lowpro 6y agoThank you so much! They are staying safe but I heard the government is only paying the police there right now, everyone else is on their own right now
- cylinder 6y agoThis is not at all different from what's going on across the US for anyone who works in a service role, and most people still haven't had their UI claims processed / payments made.
- Melting_Harps 6y ago> This is not at all different from what's going on across the US for anyone who works in a service role, and most people still haven't had their UI claims processed / payments made. Exactly. Most of my old team is simply floating on what savings they had, partner's salaries and any money from the family funds we are offered (small grants of $1200 depending on need and availability for FT employees). Some don't qualify for unemployment, as they're just furloughed waiting for a re-open date, or are still dependents and got screwed out of the $1200 checks sent out. I stepped down from my role as a chef in late January to focus on SpaceX interview(s) and had budgeted accordingly and was ok with passive income sources, but those dried up as the Market tanked, so I had to get really creative this month to make ends-meet because I thought after my interview in February I'd be employed by May. My landlord has made it clear he still expects payment on the 1st, which made me ask serious questions about my current situation. Ultimately, I have realized I have to go back to tech now as these past years in culinary to get to this point have been incredibly financially precarious, so I took some refresher classes on Coursera and sent out some CVs. I've heard back from one potential employer so hopefully that pans out as our stay at home requirement is being lifted at the end of this month in CO. My family in CA is still required to stay at home and less than half can work remotely so its putting a strain on things.
- elliekelly 6y agoI suspect credit cards are serving as the “safety net” for many American families right now.
- 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 6y agoThis is very true. And OPs point is good: the HN/millennial technorati is really out of touch with how much pain will is and will be descending upon the world.
- rayiner 6y agoSource for “most people?” As of April 11, 71% of people who have applied have received benefits: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/23/coronavirus-unemployment-claims-numbers-203455 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/23/coronavirus-unemplo.... And state’s have geared up processing since then. (Maryland launched new computer system last week.)
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y agoAl Jazeera is always a good source for news ignored by the rest of the world. Here's social distancing in a prison in El Salvador -- not sure those masks will help much. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/el-salvador-inmates-crammed-prison-lockdown-200427204528364.html https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/el-salvador-inmates-c... In India in particular, the lockdown has so far caused more misery than the virus itself: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/india-covid-19-lockdown-means-food-work-rural-poor-200402052048439.html https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/india-covid-19-lockdo... ...although it's an impossible equation, because letting it turn rampant would also cause death and destruction.
- ceejayoz 6y ago> In India in particular, the lockdown has so far caused more misery than the virus itself... I mean, that's the point, right? Heart surgery hurts more than chest pain, but it's intended to prevent the heart attack.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y agoSure, but the implementation was still absurdly bad. For example, by imposing a harsh lockdown on cities with no plan for migrant workers, the only thing they could do was head home to their villages, ensuring the virus would be distributed widely across the country.
- redisman 6y agoCan't say I'm surprised though. When and where do governments ever treat migrant workers as humans?
- pinkfoot 6y agoWhere do the migrant workers normally sleep? Answer: In the cities they chose to leave.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
- miranda_rights 6y agoAlso donated. Hopefully the shelter gets some visibility with your post :)
- lowpro 6y agoThank you so much, stay safe!
- ahs1 6y agodonated, thanks
- markdown 6y agoI'm gonna be that guy... given that people are starving, isn't immoral to ask that money be donated to keep shelter dogs alive? Surely they should just be put to sleep, no?
- 3solarmasses 6y agoIt's only immoral to question the validity of a good cause on the pretense that there's something worse happening out there somewhere...
- edoceo 6y agoHint: there is always something worse somewhere.
- imtringued 6y agoThere are as many "worst things" as there are people.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoThere are many bad things happening everywhere. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try and stack-rank them, in order to allocate funds effectively. There's diminishing returns to everything[0]. As you throw money at problem #1, it becomes more and more expensive to make a marginal improvement, so eventually, it swaps places with some other problem in the ranking. There are many criteria you could use for making such ranking of problems (a popular one is minimizing dollars per lives saved, or dollars per QALY added). Living in a free society means people are free to decide how much (if anything all) they want to spend on charitable causes, and on which ones. But in one's individual spending, it's worth to think about how to get maximum "bang for your buck", in terms of alleviating suffering. --- [0] - By coincidence, this is on the front page right now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22993486 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22993486.
- markdown 6y agoYou're being deliberately obtuse. There are millions of people out of jobs, and soon there'll be millions of people starving. Put moral relativism aside for a minute and think about the real pain that people are feeling right now. These poor dogs aren't going to find homes that can feed them for a long time. At some point you need to stop being selfish and putting your own feelings aside to think about the people around you.
- irrational 6y agoI'm surprised to learn that animals like dogs (and I presume cats) are allowed on the Galapagos since there is so much at-risk fauna that is unique to those islands.
- lowpro 6y agoI was surprised when I first went, the people that live there are allowed on 5 of the islands, with the largest island hosting the town of puerto ayora. The town has 10,000 people, and total population of the Galapagos is 30,000 and growing. It’s an interesting place as people move there from the mainland because of the money you can make in tourism, but immigration is tightly controlled due to the negative effect on nature as the towns expand. People first started living in the Galapagos a long time ago, in the 1950s they consolidated everyone into the islands they live today. Interesting history for a place that you’d think was purely natural, but human civilization finds a way I suppose.
- TonyChol 6y agoProbably it's my first reply on HN but dontated!
- lowpro 6y agoThank you so much!
- jessedhillon 6y agoDonated. Is there a way to make that link followable from IG?
- lowpro 6y agoI’m not sure I understand what you mean by followable?
- rbinv 6y agoDonated, thanks. Maybe they should set up a GoFundMe page? Would seem more legitimate than a "random" PayPal link.
- lowpro 6y agoI’ll bring it up to them!
- sdoering 6y agoDonated as I know how hard it is for animal protection efforts to raise money right now (we are a foster home for cats from three protection societies). I also forwarded it to my network - maybe this helps at least a little bit more in terms of donations.
- hello_asdf 6y agoI've donated and shared the link with others, best of wishes <3
- lowpro 6y agoThank you so much! Stay safe out there <3
- newacct8086 6y agoDonated. Good luck to the doggies.