Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 562 posts

Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

#321

Post by netsharc »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #314
lkrubner wrote: post #293

In terms of the kindness of strangers, I’m reminded of a friend who decided she wanted to hitch hike around Mexico when she was 18. She was poor but she wanted adventures. She wanted to get away from the beaten path, away from tourist traps, and go out into the rural areas so she could discover what Mexico was really like. Everyone who picked her up warned her that what she was doing was very dangerous. She was lucky…

The problem with hitchhiking is that you don't pick someone at random, someone decides to pick you up. If you pick a random person, they'll almost certainly be a normal, honest person. If you advertise yourself with a giant sign "I WILL GET IN YOUR CAR IF YOU STOP", then a small percentage of random strangers, but a large percentage of opportunistic criminals, will stop. I'd argue she got very lucky.

It seems like hitchhiking works then! In safe areas, and in super dangerous areas when you look vulnerable... All those families stopped because they were afraid for her well-being. But still, super lucky, if a criminal had got on that road ahead of the family, the story might have been different.

Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

#322

Post by TylerE »

ethbro wrote: post #294
jjeaff wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same thing applies if something gets stolen. Countless individuals have "not" stolen that item. You only take note when it gets stolen.

I call this the subway train theory. I am nervous with one other person in my subway car. I feel completely safe with 5+ unrelated people in my subway car.

You shouldn't. I had my iPhone stolen on a nearly full DC metro train. Thief grabbed it out of my hands just before the doors closed and dashed.

Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

#323

Post by mikepurvis »

roenxi wrote: post #277
SI_Rob wrote: post #51

Every so often my pessimistic tendencies get a healthy slap across the face by the actions of someone who took the high road when they easily could have chosen otherwise. It's a couple summers ago, at the height of the summer tourist season and I'm cycling up 4th ave SW in DC. Somewhere between the NASA HQ and the National Mall my camera bag - packed full with a fairly new DSLR, a few lenses, and a secondary cell pho…

There is an interesting selection bias at work. 1) If someone on the street approaches you, they are probably up to something. 2) If you randomly select someone on the street you have probably picked a moral and upstanding person who would love to do you a good turn. Because of (1) people tend to be a lot more defensive than they need to be when assessing what the average stranger is likely to do.

This is why modern parenting guidance tends away from a blanket stranger danger policy toward something a bit more nuanced like "beware of a grownup who approaches you or initiates a conversations with you, but if you are in trouble, almost any grownup who looks safe to you is probably someone you can ask for help."

You can add a few more layers like seeking out someone in a uniform or who has a stroller, but generally speaking most people minding their own business are perfectly safe.

Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

#324

Post by netsharc »

sjf wrote: post #163
nindalf wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “messages from non-friends are really hard to find lol” UI dark pattern You think you would do something different here? And you have considered all the possible ramifications of doing so? No doubt you've considered the impact on the number of spammy/scammy interactions that everyone experiences, the number of harassing messages that people around the world receive and you've made an informed trade-off between that…

FB's solution to unsolicited messages and spam was basically to make messages from non-friends totally invisible. I wouldn't really call it a dark pattern, but they have broken the ability to send messages to anyone who is not your friend. It's pretty much a spam filter with with one binary parameter. It's just lazy.

Interesting point, I wonder if they can apply some logic into it, like if the sender is male and he's written to many female non-friends, give him a higher "probably junk" score. But if he's gotten good response rates his message is probably worth delivering.

FB probably already has data to know how much of a pervert someone is... if they linger on those beach pictures for too long, for example.

Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

#326

Post by dang »

thedaemon wrote: post #201
andreygrehov wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years ago, I found a wallet at a New York subway station. The wallet had some documents (including driver's license), weed and a note saying "You are fool". I found the guy on Facebook. He didn't know anything about the note, but we figured it was written by someone who found the wallet before me. He or she took all the cash and left a note, lol. I threw out weed and mailed the owner all of his documents. He wa…

So you too stole from him, as you stated you "threw out weed". That's not very nice.

Please follow the site guidelines when posting here.

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

Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

#327

Post by dang »

droithomme wrote: post #149
es-hn wrote: post #72

Coincidentally, I was able to return four peoples' IDs and other cards just this afternoon. Yesterday I was walking in East Oakland and found a pile of credit cards, debit cards, and IDs. Oakland Police Department wouldn't take them so I brought them home and started googling names and addresses. Of the four IDs I found three belonged to adults; the third was a state ID for a minor related to one of the adults. I was…

> I wish OPD had taken an interest in the theft Been there, in a different city, a few times. Police are somehow in collusion with the crime syndicate. Don't trust police. Ever. All police are corrupt and can not be trusted. Are there exceptions? Only to the extent they don't actively commit crimes but stay silent and refuse to go against their criminal "brothers in blue". Which makes them complicit as well. As I jus…

"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."

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

Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

#328

Post by netsharc »

faeyanpiraat wrote: post #114
JenBarb wrote: post #103

A few weeks ago I found a working iPhone X on the side on the sidewalk. I thought about using siri to call a recent contact and try to get it back to the owner, but I found the language was set to Chinese (which I cannot read or speak) and I gave up and put it back on the sidewalk in case the owner came back. In retrospect, I don't think I could have done anything even if the language was English apart from wait for…

Use google translate text-to-speech function, and make your phone ask the other phone in Chinese to "call mom".

"Wei?"

Then what?

(It's the Chinese greeting when picking up the phone)

Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

#329

Post by jaco8 »

lkrubner wrote: post #293

In terms of the kindness of strangers, I’m reminded of a friend who decided she wanted to hitch hike around Mexico when she was 18. She was poor but she wanted adventures. She wanted to get away from the beaten path, away from tourist traps, and go out into the rural areas so she could discover what Mexico was really like. Everyone who picked her up warned her that what she was doing was very dangerous. She was lucky…

In a bus traveling south of Mazatlan I met a family and they invited me to stay at their home in Mexico City. This place, as it turned out, was right in the middle of the largest slum and consisted of a metal frame with roofing and side walls made of tarpauline and a mud floor . The first few days there was a queue of people outside just to oogle the foreigner, but it was all good with lots of smiles. The morning teeth brushing and face washing ritual by young and old was fascinating to watch, with everyone awaiting their turn at the single faucet for hundreds of people.Food was simple, mostly made on small kerosene stoves. I stayed for 8 days and at no time did I feel unsafe , despite my host explaining about many pickpockets , expert thieves and robbers living in this area who went to work the tourist spots during the day , like other people would go to an office , but this was home. My host had a real job in the forestry department of the city government , but he said he could not afford to live else where.

Re: I just lost my wallet on the way home from work

#330

Post by DoreenMichele »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #314
lkrubner wrote: post #293

In terms of the kindness of strangers, I’m reminded of a friend who decided she wanted to hitch hike around Mexico when she was 18. She was poor but she wanted adventures. She wanted to get away from the beaten path, away from tourist traps, and go out into the rural areas so she could discover what Mexico was really like. Everyone who picked her up warned her that what she was doing was very dangerous. She was lucky…

The problem with hitchhiking is that you don't pick someone at random, someone decides to pick you up. If you pick a random person, they'll almost certainly be a normal, honest person. If you advertise yourself with a giant sign "I WILL GET IN YOUR CAR IF YOU STOP", then a small percentage of random strangers, but a large percentage of opportunistic criminals, will stop. I'd argue she got very lucky.

I have reservations about the explanation that a consistent positive outcome can be chalked up to pure luck.

She may not know what she was "doing right," but I think it more likely she was doing something that helped foster positive outcomes.

Post reply on HN