Why Contributions Already Made to a Society You Joined Without Meeting the Health Requirements Cannot Be Refunded

The fundamental reason: to reduce speculation!

Some of KangAi Commune's societies have health requirements, and members must meet them in order to have a right to aid in the future. If someone joins such a society without meeting its health conditions, there are two possibilities: one is speculation (taking a gamble to obtain aid), the other is not having read the health requirements carefully. The latter may be forgivable, but for a mutual aid platform there is no way to tell which is which.

If a member joins with the first mindset and we then refund the contribution when we refuse aid, it is as though they bore no cost of speculation at all: "I'll just join and try my luck—if I'm lucky I get a lot of money, if not I get my principal back." Objectively, this would greatly encourage such speculation and impose a great deal of unwarranted mutual aid spending on other members. Not refunding raises the cost of speculation and will reduce it to some degree.

So if a member joins a society but discovers when seeking aid that they do not meet the joining conditions, in theory no refund can be given.

On the other hand, the member's contribution has already been paid out to the recipient; even if a refund were made, it would certainly be troublesome and hard to handle.