"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24161104.

>Why do you want people to donate?

Because the hospital is located in a country that was already in crisis and has now sustained damage. This makes it even harder to do their primary work of helping people not die. A donation would help fund the hospital and enable it to continue its work to serve the health of the community.

I really don't see how it matters. It is this specific comment that is going to "manipulate" you into donating? The disaster happened. Stories as told in this comment happened. The hospital exists, it was severely damaged. In that context, does it really matter whether this person is speaking the truth?

Its not that its going to manipulate me into donating. Its that this sort of action does not ring true. Even if raising funds via 'go fund me' etc is what is purported to happen in many of these events.

If you were involved in an accident of some sort say a car crash, would you say that people should donate to some-cause on account of having heard your story? Would you leverage this event in that way? And if you did, wouldn't you provide some actual evidence that you were there, rather than a couple of links to generic news clips? Surely the bar needs to be a little higher for us to buy into this stuff....

Regardless, this explosion happened and there are many human beings in distress. That alone would be enough reason to donate.

If I was in a car crash, I would not ask people to donate. This is different, this is a humanitarian crisis, and he is not soliciting donations for himself but rather the hospital.

I'm all for questioning things, but come on. There's a giant freaking crater in the ground. And you think, what exactly? This is a grand conspiracy to get you to donate a few dollars. I'm sorry but that doesn't make sense.

I feel hurt by this comment. I’m Lebanese, and I can assure you a large swath of the population is traumatized from this incident and from decades of mismanagement and corruption.

Everything about your comment reeks of privilege and luxury.

> But really, people (you and I) should only be a witness to stuff they have personally experienced.

You got a comment from someone who was fairly close to the blast, how is that not a “personal experience”? The only people who could have given a more personal experience are would likely not be able to do so.

It's not privilege, it's awareness of the scope of fraudulent donation initiatives that get viral on social media.

Absolutely - I'm not privileged and these sorts of donation initiatives do not get my agreement. Where is the evidence? Here we are provided 2 news clips.... what do those prove?

Evidence of what? That there was a massive explosion?