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Use Jonathan's card to buy yourself an iPad

sam.odio.com

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

#191

Post by Xc43 »

niels_olson wrote: post #103

To all who want to slam on Sam Odio's moral code: You're seriously arguing that a hack that converts money into fat, caffeinated Americans and corporate profit is better than a hack that hacks that hack to feed the poor? We should be finding more ways to prevent the conversion of money into American fat. In fact: as a doctor, there's my challenge to you: please find ways to catch calories before they land in middle-c…

Indeed, I should emulate Sam. Not in every aspect though. In the same way that I do not believe that astrology works and won't start believing because a successful person told me to. That person would have been successful not matter what, the same way the loser who got predicted success lost because of his own behavior.

Now, I don't like you too, Mr Doctor (don't you like that deference doc?) The same way I dislike Sam. The same way I dislike condescending people. Don't hit me to show me I am weak unless you are about to create a meaningful relationship or we already have one. If I know my weakness and you are a martial artist I will bow to you. If I don't know it then perhaps I don't need to know my physical weakness in the first place. Maybe I live in a respectful city and physical strength is irrelevant and will always be for me.

It wasn't a cool hack at all. Proof: most people (at least here) dislike it. The guy that did GoDaddy said something along these lines «Expect the only fare you will encounter is the one you will pay to take the bus». So it is expected that someone would do that. And he finds himself cool. And he's wrong (in the absolute) because he is outside his field of expertise doc.(Mark Cuban, billionaire, missed a great shot on the show Shark Tank. My friend, millionaire, an expert in direct selling told me.) He is the pretty pictures guy. I won't deny him the ability to be a well rounded person, but he didn't show it.(Plus he in YC so he got something good, like anybody. I'll just hack my way to his valuable side and steal it from him for a greater purpose of course)

The most stupid person here is perhaps me. I am taking my time to reply to you and expect a decent number of people to read. While Sammy O' is doing things. Like impeaching young Africans to learn the lesson he taught us. There are jackasses in this world who will take away something from you(like responsibility of yourself). And they'll call it justice, I mean "you don't know how to hack? You must take hacking classes with my pristine prestijuicy school. Or you'll be unhappy and a bad bad hacker. I mean how can you be happy fending for yourself? Owing all you have to yourself? Nevermind all those people who say that fending/the travelling toward the end is source of happiness like Lionel Richie." The guy of this article http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,363663,00... (thanks for the link byrneseyeview) says it all. Adolescent everywhere in the Western world express it. (Yes, more on the artificiality of adolescence in Teen 2.0 by Dr Epstein http://drrobertepstein.com/index.php?option=content&task... . I read the first version so I am not sure about this one. Newer version of books tend to be... "politically dorrect"/condescending. I hate that.)

(If my parents said to me at 12: You can't take responsibility for yourself! Do as I say! Eat my food!. I would have ran away (or become a contented and dependent fool). I am lucky they are cool.)

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

#192

Post by raganwald »

nick007 wrote: post #190
raganwald wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a social experiment, if I leave my bike on my front lawn over night for weeks, eventually it will be stolen. Everybody expects this to happen eventually. Does this excuse the thief?

What if the thief donated the bike to charity?

What if the thief was poorer than me?

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

#193

Post by tobtoh »

Sam has posted on Google+ (https://plus.google.com/113956160418597123621/posts/MAqht3NB...) ... however be aware that I suspect he is deleting posts and blocking people (^) that are critical of him as I posted the following:

"It's not much different to taking money out of the church collection plate and donating it to a charity that you prefer over the churches. Whilst I acknowledge this could be considered an extension of Jonathon's social experiment - it's hardly insightful or clever - you took money from an open fund and spent it. Hardly mind shattering stuff. The whole 'charity versus coffee' justification is little better than the 'think of the children' arguments that are used in similar ways. For the record, I don't think what you did is theft or immoral (it was a social experiment after all), but it was just a lame move that served no purpose and made no point."

... and now it doesn't appear in my stream and i can no longer post on the comment thread.

(^) There is a chance I'm just not understanding how to use G+ and Sam has done nothing of the sort - I only started using it recently.

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

#194

Post by glenra »

jt2190 wrote: post #63

Jonathan's Card claimed to be a social experiment, but it was never clear to me exactly what the experiment was supposed to test. As an outsider looking at this experiment, the first question I has was: How would he prevent unintended use of the card's funds? Sam is just part of the experiment. Yes, he's spoiling the good fun of buying coffees for each other, but if it weren't him taking the money, it'd be someone el…

> the first question I has was: How would he prevent unintended use of the card's funds?

The fact that most people aren't assholes was sufficient to let the system work for a while. A few people being assholes occasionally is survivable but somebody who makes a system out of it and publicizes it probably isn't. In short: "this is why we can't have nice things."

Think about it another way: right now, McDonalds doesn't charge you for napkins, straws, ketchup packets, salt packets, or toilet paper. All that stuff is just FREE - anybody could take however much they want!

A sufficiently motivated asshole could figure out a way to break that convenient social phenomenon too and it wouldn't take any more cleverness than this did. It's not a cool hack, it's taking something other people find useful and ruining it for everyone. Suppose you systematically stole all the toilet paper and paper towels from Starbucks bathrooms. To sell on eBay or whatever. Eventually they'd have to install pay toilets, hire washroom attendants, or just remove access entirely. One motivated jerk can easily make life a little less convenient for everybody in a great many ways, but that doesn't mean he should.

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

#196

Post by georgefox »

sharjeel wrote: post #119

The original post about Jonathan's card Stated that the experiment is inspired by "'take a penny, leave a penny' trays at convenience stores in the US". Then here is what happened: People started using the tray, taking them as well as leaving them. Then one day a guy started showing up at the store. He would intermittently dump the tray into his knapsack whenever there were enough pennies. Not only he did this for ma…

> If this logic is acceptable then I should be allowed to break apart any petty charity collection box and use the money for the purpose I deem more noble.

Not really. Jonathan's Card is not charity. It's like saying you should be able to take change from the give a penny, take a penny tray at the supermarket and drop it into the breast cancer awareness tin instead.

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

#198

Post by mebesilly »

keidian wrote: post #118
ay wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or a social experiment of avoiding his new YC startup Freshplum http://allthingsd.com/20110621/sam-odio-i-left-facebook-to-r...

Sam Odio set up Freshplum ? A startup to avoid. Why does YC get these social retards ? First AirBNB craps on itself, now Freshplum's founder steals and publically talks about his pride at the theft.

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

#199

Post by TranceaddicT »

oflannabhra wrote: post #83
aneth wrote: post #13

This seems like an unauthorized use of the card and could be criminal theft. If I give you my stored value card to buy coffee and you instead steal all the money, it doesn't matter whether you're donating to charity or disagree with my cause - it's stealing. Regardless, it's certainly a shitty thing to do.

Legally, I think the only issue this runs afoul of is his auctioning of a giftcard. Most giftcards do not allow this; however, most gift cards don't allow you to purchase other giftcards with them either, so Starbucks might not have as strict rules about their cards. Morally, though, I agree this is all kinds of wrong.

Actually, the legality covering this issue is WIRE FRAUD.

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

#200

Post by TranceaddicT »

tobtoh wrote: post #193

Sam has posted on Google+ ( https://plus.google.com/113956160418597123621/posts/MAqht3NB... ) ... however be aware that I suspect he is deleting posts and blocking people (^) that are critical of him as I posted the following: "It's not much different to taking money out of the church collection plate and donating it to a charity that you prefer over the churches. Whilst I acknowledge this could be considered an exte…

He has disabled commenting on the post. And, as such, now no one can even view the comments. He puts himself up on a pedestal only to be a fascist when criticized.
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