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Comment by circuit | Hacker News Reader

Quite a few of these "opportunities" are asking a LOT of volunteers, implicitly asking for unpaid labor. These are not your typical "volunteer a few hours a week helping fix up a school/sorting at a food bank/helping the homeless" to give back to your community.

Look at this[1] particular ask:

> Applicants must be available to work a minimum of 32 hours per week.

> [minimum 3 month commitment with possibility to extend to a year] ... Weekend and holiday work is required.

> shovel snow for extended periods of time, hike-ski-snowshoe in extreme weather conditions with a 35-pound backpack at 7,000ft, live in remote locations with regularly snow packed roads.

> Groceries and shopping facilities are approximately 60 miles away; reliable personal transportation is required.

[1] https://www.volunteer.gov/s/volunteer-opportunity/a093d00000...

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Some of these postings are indeed asking a lot, but I don't think this specific one is that crazy. It's essentially an opportunity to live out in the wilderness and go hiking regularly, with free housing provided in exchange for maintenance and rescue work. I know a lot of outdoors enthusiasts that would love to do that. Hell, I know a lot of outdoors enthusiasts that would probably do it without the free housing, or even pay out of pocket to do it (see also: PCT or Appalachian Trail hikers).

not exactly what I'd describe as volunteering though.

I'm going to suggest a new term here - "context dissonance". This occurs when you see something, and because it doesn't apply to your context, you can't imagine it applying to any context.

For example, you use Linux, and can't understand why anyone would use Windows. Or you're a work-from-home fan and can't understand why some people want to work in an office, or why management might need it.

Or, as in thus case, if you work primarily for money the idea of a job that pays in something other than money seems exploiting.

Whereas, of course, there are lots of people who have enough money to meet their needs, and are instead looking for something else. Solitude, Community, Experience and so on.

I don't say this to be disrespectful at all, but part of maturing is in understanding that others can have a different point of view of things. We don't all have to be the same, with the same goals.

These are unpaid positions, with specific requirements and benefits. Clearly they don't sppareal to you and thats fine, but perhaps, just perhaps, there's someone out there this is perfect for.

I can’t do it right now (young family, work responsibilities) but if I’m fortunate enough to retire at a reasonable age and am in good health, I 100% plan on doing these extended volunteering opportunities with NPS or other similar more localized efforts.

There are so many things I complain about in the US but our national parks and the services that make them accessible are not one of them.

I truly believe capital E everyone benefits from spending time in nature, and want to find ways to support this however I can. I really appreciate the feelings I get after extended periods of time in the woods/mountains.

> "context dissonance"

I like that and think it fits here.

Some people can't imagine picking up litter or caring for the elderly as anything but torture and humiliation. For others, the chance to do it, to feel valued is what makes life. Context might be that you became unemployed and just got sick of seeing garbage in your street.

During the pandemic cabin fever drove me out to do volunteering at the church and vaccine drop-ins.

I volunteered a lot in my 20s. Homeless patrols handing out blankets etc. The typical "Kibbutznik" doesn't go to dig soil expecting it to be a picnic, but to satisfy a bunch of other drives. At a certain age you have a ton of energy, a desire to meet people, and the world you know seems too small.

Of course that's always a good recruitment chance for armies, but I was taken with William James' "Moral equivalent of war", at least the abstract ideas and insightful social psychology. There are thousands of environmental and rebuilding projects that need doing - but won't get done - because it falls outside the realm of "capital".

The problem is when profitable interests and corporate workflows intersect with altruistic labour supply. It's obvious the most cynical sort of exploitation is afoot. Many large organised charities suffer from being poisoned that way, I've heard.

I guess before volunteering for an org these days one should do a lot of diligence, check out who runs things, who they're associated with, and whose ethics are behind whet you see on face value.

yea thats more like barter

No. It’s a legal status that says you will perform work for a registered nonprofit and they will cover some of the costs you incur, but you will not come out materially/financially ahead.

There are some people for who this is the opportunity of a lifetime.

PSAR volunteers are also called Trailhead Stewards and people who care a lot about the environment and the health and safety of people flock to these positions. You get training, accommodation that is impossible to obtain otherwise, and experience. There is almost always a waiting list for trailhead stewards.

I’m a watershed steward so I spend a ludicrous number of hours poking around storm drains, parking lots, and streams, writing and giving presentations, compiling reports, and wrangling volunteers for cleanup and drainage projects all in exchange for $0.00.

I like sailing and swimming and fishing and I want my local rivers and bays to be clean. If I liked hiking in the mountains I’d probably be a trailhead steward.

Here’s a video with some psar volunteers: https://www.flickr.com/photos/grand_canyon_nps/51252679717/i...

steward definitely feels like a more appropriate term, seems awesome though. I don't mean to knock it

These full-time positions are fairly common at National Park Service (or other agency-managed) public lands, and are attractive to retirees. I was a paid (and housed) intern at one site, but I lived alongside three or four couples in their RVs. Some used it as a way to vacation, while for others it was more of a lifestyle, volunteering for four months at one location, then traveling for a couple months before volunteering at another location.

> Quite a few of these "opportunities" are asking a LOT of volunteers, implicitly asking for unpaid labor.

Its not implicit, "volunteer" is the word for a non-coerced unpaid laborer.

This feels like making something into a problem when it's not a problem. These are volunteer opportunities, no money is being offered and that's made very clear. People volunteer because they want to do something, or feel like it needs to be done. That's what volunteering is, that's the opportunity that's on the table, this website lists those opportunities.

Where exactly are you drawing the line before using scare quotes around volunteering? Is 10 hours a week too much? Is requiring transportation too much? Would working at 5,000ft vs 7,000ft be ok?

For what it’s worth: if I were at a time in my life where I could do the linked opportunity, I absolutely would. Even better would be an Antarctica opportunity for a winter season.

Some people may see the use of the word volunteering as virtue signaling, it depends on the audience. IMO, if you assist at the local blood bank during a donation drive after a disaster -- that's volunteering. If you are retired and/or rich and can afford to go do Antarctica to assist with research for three months as an essential role or not -- that's free labor.

A person living paycheck-to-paycheck may view the Antarctica opportunity as pompous, but environmental-club peers may view it as volunteering to save the planet and deserves a round of cheers with drinks in hand.

If I have a million dollars to donate to a charity, is not a donation nor an act of charity because most people don't have a million dollars to donate?

It's near certain that every person on HN is in the top 20% of intelligence in the world, and probably in the top 20% in their country. Are our actions and achievements less meaningful because we are lucky enough to be smart?

If someone has the ability to donate months of their life volunteering, I see no reason to diminish or demean their actions simply because I or other people couldn't do it.

Depends on the person, but requiring anything over 30 hours a week to me is part-time work commitment, and compensation is deserved

Any labor deserves compensation. Volunteering is choosing to donate labor, not doing labor that doesn't deserve compensation. That's true if its 1 hour every other week or 40 hours a week, not a function of the time commitment.

IF and how much any given person is willing and, given their other circumstances, able to donate is, obviously, highly variable between people.

Then if I were you, I would absolutely not take any volunteer opportunities that don’t meet this criterion. Otherwise, in some cases these seem like amazing opportunities that pay in experiences much more valuable than money. Working at Crater Lake would be a dream come true for me.

I'm sure experience can pay my bills...

No, it can't, but then, volunteering isn't a job, and its function isn't to pay your bills.

A particular volunteer opportunity may not be interesting to you, because of the time commitment and the opportunity cost of sacrificing paid work, or because you aren't interested in the particular area of volunteer work, or because you just aren't interested in donating labor in general, but... so what? The posting of the volunteer opportunity isn't a personal solicitation aimed at you, either.

This is a public forum, why are you so against a differing perspective that you go through two rounds of trying to essentially say there's only one way to think about it?

There are some things that are too much work for anyone to call it merely volunteering, and should be compensated. I don't care if you find that opinion acceptable.

Since when is volunteering supposed to pay your bills??

Do bills stop existing because one chooses to volunteer? Volunteering is an economic decision every bit as impactful as a job.

> Do bills stop existing because one chooses to volunteer?

Bills don't stop existing because I choose to eat a watch a sunset, either, but I don't ask if watching a sunset is going to pay my bills. People obviously need a way to pay their bills, and lots of activities they might engage in aren't part of that. If you aren't in a position where you can do an activity because of what you need to do to pay your bills, than that activity clearly isn't for you, but unless you were personally and specifically solicited for that activity by someone who should have been aware of your personal circumstances, I don't see how that warrants anything besides "well, that's not for me".

Your circumstances aren't universal.

Imagine defending getting the equivalent of a full time job's work for free and acting like economics isn't still in play regardless of income level.

Take your socioeconomic bigotry and shove it up your priveleged ass.

Ah, you're looking for USA Jobs.gov.

https://www.usajobs.gov/

Don't worry about it, son; you're not the kind that the National Park Service nor Search and Rescue is looking for.

Most of the volunteer SAR people around me are still able to have full time jobs.

This posting isn't for SAR, which typically requires specialized skills and the time commitment is different. This is for _Preventative_ SAR aka PSAR, which basically means just being physically present on trails to give people guidance, direction, and education about how to not get into dangerous situations. The time commitment for PSAR can be greater.

It's asking a lot because the vast majority of folks can't not work unless they also want to stop eating or become homeless after the end of the season not because they implicitly lack the commitment. It's also unpaid labor for a government with a 6 trillion dollar budget.

Most of the old folks retiring at 70 aren't doing any of these labor intensive affairs so its mostly a task for the idle children of the upper middle class to rich. Are we feting people for being born on third base again?

Those last 2 are just business as usual for anybody who already lives in those area.

Isn’t asking for volunteers _explicitly_ asking for unpaid labor?

somewhat similar to unpaid internships for adults who have finished an expensive 18 month MBA program? slightly worse?

I'd wager the volunteers are less annoying to be around.

I think you missed out this part:

> Housing is included

does that include food and drink?

You missed the last half of that sentence. It's a room, not a house, that you will be likely be sharing with someone else.

> room in a shared apartment or house.

The target audience of volunteers for this type of position are people that are probably used to happily sleeping in tents and eating camp food for days/weeks at a time. I don't think they'd mind.

guess it's a race to the bottom then

It’s for the self-selecting who see it as an experience, not a race.

Why would you expect it to be an entire house for one person? It's a volunteer position in a national park, not Jimmy Carters newest deal: homes for extremely introverted humans.

As somebody that's enjoyed many months living exclusively in hostels:

You're out of your mind. Homes should be a standard. That's like, one of the basic human wants/needs as an organism. And having the privacy of your own space is essential to the human psyche.

What?

Which part are you confused about? I like to have a lock on my door.

The part where you started comparing a private room in a shared house/apartment, with a hostel.

healthcare too? and food and pension?

I don't know how it works across the pond, but in Britain, some amount of volunteer activity is allowed whilst officially unemployed. This means that the country contributes National Insurance payments on your behalf so that you'll be able to receive treatment by the National Health Service and a state pension.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/volunteering-and-claiming-benefi...

https://www.gov.uk/national-insurance-credits/eligibility

On this side of the pond unemployment is mostly 13-26 weeks of a fraction of the money you earned previously and requires you to be actively seeking and available for work. You can neither be volunteering nor pursuing education even if you are laid off and need training in another field.

In some particularly stingy places this is as little as the equivalent of 80 pounds per week whereas rent is oft closer to 800 pounds per month.

In many cases its something you receive later after weeks or months of bureaucratic wrangling after you would long ago have lost your housing if you didn't have any of your own money saved.

Hell we make sure you can't exploit the system by getting food stamps or housing help while going to college even if you are poor as a church mouse.

Heck we set the benefits threshold low enough that as you move from part time employment to full time employment the poorest households experience a hump where if you move to full time you may end up poorer than you started because you lose more benefits than you gain income. This is especially true if you go from free medical care to $500-$800 out of pocket.

Because most professions don't involve doubling your wages regularly one has to in effect agree to take on more work to climb into greater poverty in order to work your way out the other side IF increasing costs ever let you get ahead in the first place.

One of the most attractive ways OUT of permanent poverty is naturally a college education however this will almost certainly be by way of borrowing tens of thousands of dollars but since you don't qualify for benefits during your education and you need to keep eating and living inside you are liable to need to continue to work full time which creates a much higher chance of failure which stands to leave you without a degree with thousands of dollars of undischargable debt.

This concludes our tour of one of the shitty parts of America.

Thank you for the really detailed explanation! It sounds like a harsh system for those that don't have the right educational background. I think I can see now why some on this thread are so unhappy about US government organizations asking for volunteers when the welfare benefits are so restricted.

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