The fuck? It's a nice anecdote about winning some money for what is ostensibly a charity!
From the description, the people being coerced could presumably choose not to take the action, but would then be denied entry to the bar. That is explicit tribalism and creates a situation where you either join along with the groupthink or you get cast back on to the streets.
Edit: If you can't refute or contribute, down-vote.
"What is Watsi?
Watsi is a global crowdfunding platform that enables anyone to donate as little as $5 to directly fund life-changing healthcare for people in need. Watsi is a registered U.S. 501(c)(3) non-profit organization (EIN: 45-3236734)."
If these were the actions of a CEO for a for profit business your statements might make more sense, except that's not the case at all. Nobody is getting rich off Watsi and there goals are commendable.
Not to say there aren't probably other examples that would make your point, but seriously this doesn't seem like a good one to pick.
I just took a look Watsi's Transparency Report. It's commendable that they seem to be going much further than many other organizations do in opening up their financial information. However, while I found lots of patient details, I was unable to find a breakout of salaries and other payments to employees, officers, or other, only an aggregate monthly salary line item of ~66k. If their about page is accurate and there are currently 6 employees, that's about $132k/year/person. Not Jamie Dimon salaries, but still more than double US median household earnings.
Edit: Also, I'm not ragging on Watsi. I'm not familiar with them other than what I just shared above. My beef is with the behavior in the anecdote (which may or may not be accurate to what actually happened at that NYC bar) that was shared, but more importantly with the culture that people seem to be trying to emulate.
My reading of it wasn't even that the bouncer insisted they do it. More that he or she suggested it as they were entering. This is marketing, not servitude.
I know I'm out of the mainstream on this, but as a European one of the most difficult things about living in the Us is the lack of regard for personal space. Before I knew the appropriate code words I went through a stage of fending off signature-gatherers with clipboard petitions by pretending not to speak English. If you asked me to vote for something on my smartphone as a condition of entry to a bar then my first response would be to find some other place to have a drink.
>Grace had the gutsy idea to ask the bouncer to make everyone who came into the bar have to vote for Watsi on the contest site on their smartphone
I agree that it might not be quite slavery (it would depend on exactly what happened), which is why I included tribal exclusivism, which it most certainly was (at least according to the above portrayal).
Edit: Anonymous down-voters are out, in-force, tonight!
