Stop Giving Money To Assholes!

It seems obvious, right? But apparently the locals (which recently came to include me) sometimes disagree. This is the shit I hate. The sort of person whose reliance on transient, unreliable things like blatant demographic pandering, trends, or memery spits on the advanced knowledge and perspective of experienced, validated professionals. Actively, aggressively hound them out of the public eye, shame their backers into backing out, and eye their motivations postmortem. The world has no need to support such immature inadequacies.

Give us those restaurant spaces. Give us that financial backing. Most times, professionals are too cautious to strike out on our own because we care. We know the many, many risks, and don't want to hurt anyone else if things don't work out right. But in this context, that doesn't even matter. We deserve those opportunities. We deserve the backing and support to create something that's worthy of being there- of being at all!

Sharing a great deal of common ground with that problem- there's a distressingly large number of wealthy 'investors' that think ROI is supposed to be something other than social capital when it comes to investing in small businesses. The actual goal is always to build a thriving, sustainable, largely self-sufficient community. To create a comfortable environment for those nearby, and a draw for those farther afield.

But the more money people are willing to throw at things, the more likely their outlook is to strip-mine instead. When the faces of the pump-and-dump operation also buy in to that strip-mining plan, they take advantage of things like local community generosity and goodwill, tear the life out of the very places they claim to be an integral part of, and ride into the sunset with full pockets, leaving behind battered neighborhoods and broken promises.

Too many people with too much money try to understand cost and fail to understand value, and too many people without enough money to succeed will cheerfully exchange their principles and ethics instead. Each and every one is a blight on the human condition, and a weight on the shoulders of those carrying its future.