Highest Rated Comments


Donkey__Balls150 karma

You’re probably the only fan of this film that can actually afford to hide $350,000 under a big “W” just for the hell of it.

Actually you should do that. Adjusting for installation from 1963 to 2021 it’s $3,008,330.07...so let’s say an even $3 million?

Donkey__Balls60 karma

They're just taking softballs and tapdancing around the face that they don't have any substantial answers. I haven't seen anything of actual value here other than "Don't take any news at face value, try to get a balanced perspective, but you can trust what we say."

So far it feels like a huge waste of time, they aren't saying anything that the average Redditor doesn't know already.

Donkey__Balls57 karma

Hi Bill, no way you remember me but I actually met you at a fundraiser for Duke’s undergrad research program (Pratt Fellows) over a decade ago. No idea if this rings a bell but they had a James Bond themed-show where we all had to get on stage in lab coats holding some equipment we borrowed from our labs. It was…kinda silly, but fun.

So I really want to say how grateful I am, because I was able to go on a lot of scholarships thanks to generous donors. I was able to go from struggling to help my single mom pay the bills and not get evicted at 15, to working on my own research project at 18 under one of the most prestigious research departments in the world for water treatment technologies and I helped develop new low-cost water disinfection techniques - never would have happened without your donations.

Now do a question, it took me years before I was able to get to a point where I could go out into least developed countries to perform at work. It was always my dream but frankly even years later it’s still very difficult because if there were and still are a lot of financial obligations I can’t fully escape. I’ve just now starting to get the student loans under control because I took time to work as an aid worker and that really set me back (but I wouldn’t trade it).

And frankly now I’m almost getting too old to really start a dedicated career in aid work. So my question, what can we do to help young people who want to have a career and aid work?

In a previous AMA you said that people really have to be financially stable before they can do that kind of work, and life experiences have led me to agree 100%. But the same time I can take 20 years for someone to get truly financially independent if they started with nothing, and then there’s a whole bunch of other new obligations. Aside from a few mechanisms like the Peace Corps Act that don’t really function well for professional aid workers, what can we do to really make it possible for aid workers to go off and spend a career helping people without having to worry about being haunted by student loans?

Just for example in my field, water and sanitation work is so different in the states than it is in places I worked like central Africa, there’s very little overlap that I could’ve learned so much more and been so much more effective if I have been able to start younger. We need aid workers to be able to start younger when they’re still healthy and don’t have family obligations, but people who are graduating have such crippling dead that nobody can do this kind of work when they have to worry about paying their bills - and I don’t need to tell you that aid agencies can’t pay aid workers a generous salary when you’re trying to help people who are living on the equivalent of a few dollars a month. How can we have a real mechanism to recruit and foster younger people into career aid worker positions, without burdening them by simply deferring their student debt?

Also I’d like to say how much I appreciate your contributions to water and sanitation projects around the world. I personally implemented some projects that wouldn’t of happened without your foundation and they absolutely do save lives, thank you.

Donkey__Balls25 karma

I would ask if you were too young for champagne...but I guess if you get diced by a lightsaber you might as well have a buzz going.

Donkey__Balls9 karma

She gave him a mint one time. He never forgot.