Use Jonathan's card to buy yourself an iPad • Hacker News Board

Re: Use Jonathan's card to buy yourself an iPad

#71

Post by catch23 » Fri, Aug 12, 2011, 5:35 PM UTC

nowarninglabel wrote: post #41

Sam_Odio wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a valid point. But is pursuing art (or whatsver) admitting to yourself that you value art more than world hunger? After all, that's how you're allocating your resources. Fwiw, anyone who knows me know I don't have a holier-than-thou attitude (though I took one for this post). This was mostly meant as an edgy/controversial twist to the social experiment: how do peoople react when someone takes the money (which…

I don't know you, but you come off as quite pretentious. I work for a charity/non-profit but that doesn't prevent me from seeing the value in a shared good experiment. Asides from the myriad of other issues in your post, the most important one is that you completely ignore the fact that many people may donate quite a bit to charity, but also may wish to involve themselves in a thing like Jonathan's card. The two are…

And you come off as a person with a holier-than-thou attitude.

What's wrong with thinking about an experiment that hacks the original experiment? I thought this was Hacker News.

Re: Use Jonathan's card to buy yourself an iPad

#72

Post by ay » Fri, Aug 12, 2011, 5:36 PM UTC

Udo wrote: post #47

sequoia wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>On the plus side, I suppose now we know who kept on abusing the card (people were wondering in other threads). I'm betting most of the people abusing the card aren't sending the proceeds to charity...

Well, if he stole enough to buy an iPad, that's a large chunk of the missing money from the card right there. I'm willing to bet most of the other people stealing from the card aren't rich and successful YC graduate entrepreneurs either but somehow that makes what he did much worse in my opinion. He's also a rich guy lecturing people on how they should be donating every little bit of their excess money to charity. I'…

Now the community should do a social experiment of encouraging Sam to return the same amount of money onto the card as he stole and see if it works.

Re: Use Jonathan's card to buy yourself an iPad

#73

Post by random42 » Fri, Aug 12, 2011, 5:39 PM UTC

> "Since _I_ don't find the idea of yuppies buying yuppies coffees very interesting"

Wow, This is some serious sense of entitlement of someone else's money/experiment.

I don't believe in many of people's belief. However its their beliefs and it is Jonathan's (and other donors') social experiment. If you do not agree with its philosophy, don't participate in it, but ruining it would be as senseless as me trying to make a personal mission to harass people on having belief's other than mine.

Re: Use Jonathan's card to buy yourself an iPad

#74

Post by Karhan » Fri, Aug 12, 2011, 5:42 PM UTC

nowarninglabel wrote: post #41

Sam_Odio wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a valid point. But is pursuing art (or whatsver) admitting to yourself that you value art more than world hunger? After all, that's how you're allocating your resources. Fwiw, anyone who knows me know I don't have a holier-than-thou attitude (though I took one for this post). This was mostly meant as an edgy/controversial twist to the social experiment: how do peoople react when someone takes the money (which…

I don't know you, but you come off as quite pretentious. I work for a charity/non-profit but that doesn't prevent me from seeing the value in a shared good experiment. Asides from the myriad of other issues in your post, the most important one is that you completely ignore the fact that many people may donate quite a bit to charity, but also may wish to involve themselves in a thing like Jonathan's card. The two are…

short-sighted is the perfect word here. Its possible that without his deliberate abuse this small project would have encouraged people to be more charitable to causes like the one he wants to donate to. The value of those donations over a lifetime could well have exceeded his little cash grab several times. Instead this has just made people distrust the idea of giving money away a little bit more.

Re: Use Jonathan's card to buy yourself an iPad

#75

Post by Karhan » Fri, Aug 12, 2011, 5:42 PM UTC

nowarninglabel wrote: post #41

Sam_Odio wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a valid point. But is pursuing art (or whatsver) admitting to yourself that you value art more than world hunger? After all, that's how you're allocating your resources. Fwiw, anyone who knows me know I don't have a holier-than-thou attitude (though I took one for this post). This was mostly meant as an edgy/controversial twist to the social experiment: how do peoople react when someone takes the money (which…

I don't know you, but you come off as quite pretentious. I work for a charity/non-profit but that doesn't prevent me from seeing the value in a shared good experiment. Asides from the myriad of other issues in your post, the most important one is that you completely ignore the fact that many people may donate quite a bit to charity, but also may wish to involve themselves in a thing like Jonathan's card. The two are…

short-sighted is the perfect word here. Its possible that without his deliberate abuse this small project would have encouraged people to be more charitable to causes like the one he wants to donate to. The value of those donations over a lifetime could well have exceeded his little cash grab several times. Instead this has just made people distrust the idea of giving money away a little bit more.

Re: Use Jonathan's card to buy yourself an iPad

#76

Post by jules » Fri, Aug 12, 2011, 5:42 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #58

I like the message that replaced 500: "too. much. traffic. Please wait while I install memcache."

I don't get it. Why not serve the original content statically instead of that message? That's bound to be faster than memcache.

Re: Use Jonathan's card to buy yourself an iPad

#77

Post by wefqwefqwfe » Fri, Aug 12, 2011, 5:44 PM UTC

epenn wrote: post #23

Since I don't find the idea of yuppies buying yuppies coffees very interesting I decided to mix things up a bit. OP/Sam, I understand that you believe there are worse problems in the world. I have no doubt that you are correct. However, this does not change the fact that your own social experiment amounts to you taking advantage of the good will of those who contributed to the Starbucks card by stealing from them. Co…

Robin Hood is all about stealing to the rich to give to the poor and in that respect, I think Sam is right on.

Re: Use Jonathan's card to buy yourself an iPad

#78

Post by baddox » Fri, Aug 12, 2011, 5:46 PM UTC

sequoia wrote: post #7

"Or am I alone in thinking that helping a stranger find their next caffeine fix is not what we should be worried about in today's world?" sigh This is such a silly, stupid point to make: Buying an iPad? What about world hunger!? Going to the movies? What about the modern slave trade!? Painting a picture? Women in Sudanese refugee camps can't go to the bathroom at night without fear of rape, and here you painting a pi…

Think of all the fresh water the author could have pumped from a well in an impoverished village in the time it took him to write that blog post.

Re: Use Jonathan's card to buy yourself an iPad

#79

Post by djchung » Fri, Aug 12, 2011, 5:47 PM UTC

nowarninglabel wrote: post #41

Sam_Odio wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a valid point. But is pursuing art (or whatsver) admitting to yourself that you value art more than world hunger? After all, that's how you're allocating your resources. Fwiw, anyone who knows me know I don't have a holier-than-thou attitude (though I took one for this post). This was mostly meant as an edgy/controversial twist to the social experiment: how do peoople react when someone takes the money (which…

I don't know you, but you come off as quite pretentious. I work for a charity/non-profit but that doesn't prevent me from seeing the value in a shared good experiment. Asides from the myriad of other issues in your post, the most important one is that you completely ignore the fact that many people may donate quite a bit to charity, but also may wish to involve themselves in a thing like Jonathan's card. The two are…

Fwiw, I do know Sam and can vouch that he is not pretentious or has a holier than thou attitude. How would participating in Jonathan's card encourage donating to charity? Adding more money to Jonathan's card is not charity. One could even argue that if you knew Sam was doing this, adding money to Jonathan's card so that Sam would donate the money is charity.

Re: Use Jonathan's card to buy yourself an iPad

#80

Post by burgerbrain » Fri, Aug 12, 2011, 5:47 PM UTC

catch23 wrote: post #71

nowarninglabel wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know you, but you come off as quite pretentious. I work for a charity/non-profit but that doesn't prevent me from seeing the value in a shared good experiment. Asides from the myriad of other issues in your post, the most important one is that you completely ignore the fact that many people may donate quite a bit to charity, but also may wish to involve themselves in a thing like Jonathan's card. The two are…

And you come off as a person with a holier-than-thou attitude. What's wrong with thinking about an experiment that hacks the original experiment? I thought this was Hacker News.

There is nothing wrong with thinking about an experiment that hacks the original experiment. There is however something wrong with the statement "is pursuing art (or whatsver) admitting to yourself that you value art more than world hunger? After all, that's how you're allocating your resources."

That something is that it is pretentious as fuck.