Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't "number of old men who die from heart attacks while doing anything is non zero"?
Shoveling snow is a well-established high risk factor for older adults.
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What is the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?
141–150 of 353 posts
Re: What is the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?
#142Someone held a door open for me so I had to pick up the pace. I'm ugly so strangers aren't nice to me.
In all seriousness, people probably do more favors for attractive strangers. And HN is probably populated with average-looking people, at best. In some ways, this means that the stories posted here will be of true altruism. On the other hand, if you asked a bunch of great-looking people what strangers had done for them, you'd get a bunch of stories about people who were very kind (but perhaps not entirely altruistic…
>at best
Ouch.
Re: What is the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?
#143I'm wondering if altruism is in decline, in this selfish age of social media. I sometimes even get the feeling that altruism is seen as a weakness these days.
> I'm wondering if altruism is in decline
Altruism and empathy, by name, are targets of derogation by a major political movement in the US, at least. So, yeah, absolutely.
> I sometimes even get the feeling that altruism is seen as a weakness these days.
This is fairly explicitly the case, yes.
Re: What is the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?
#144In the UK we used to have a nationalized rail system. People were always rude about the late trains, stale sandwiches etc. But I once managed to leave a bag Xmas present on a train. I only realized when I got another train. They were so helpful, they managed to find the bag and have it sent on to me. I think we lost a lot of that good will when the UK rail system was privatised. And the privatised trains were still l…
I agree. The railway now is mean, willing to prosecute, unhelpful and expensive
I've read various accounts of people trying to reclaim lost baggage and it's a Kafkaesque process designed to be totally useless
But the railway operators are 50% nationalised now. Northern, TransPennine, South West Railway, LNER, Greater Anglia, c2c, ScotRail, Southeastern, TfW are all government owned.
And the forerunner in increasing fares the last couple of years has been...the government. They renationalised various operators during and after COVID and are now busy decreasing rail subsidies and increasing fares.
(yes even with the freezing of some fares in April. It's only some fares. And prices had been going up multiple times a year in many places for a few years. There is a wider picture and other schemes happening pushing up prices)
Maybe Great British Rail will slowly and surely return us to a less mean system. Time will tell
Re: What is the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?
#145My family lived in an apartment near a cemetery when I was 10, the complex stretched along the old cemetery wall made out of massive granite stones. Nearly all of the people living in the complex were elderly.
When I came home from school I would sometimes kick ball against the wall and I could spot old people looking at me from the windows, they would stare at me for a long time.
One summer an elderly woman came out on the balcony and invited me to come up for ice cream, my parents had warned me to beware of friendly strangers but my judgement at the time was that it was a neighbor so they must be friendly.
I entered and to my surprise the woman wasn't alone, she lived with her husband who was sitting in an armchair and they both looked to be in their 80s. They seemed very happy to have me, we sat down on the balcony and I remember feeling a bit awkward as these two strangers looked and smiled at me as I was eating the ice cream.
I don't think they ever had any children.
This memory sometimes resurfaces, and now at 41 I realize how sad and wonderful this was at the same time.
We moved away shortly after and I never saw them again.
Re: What is the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?
#146I'm wondering if altruism is in decline, in this selfish age of social media. I sometimes even get the feeling that altruism is seen as a weakness these days.
People seem to be more helpful to strangers in smaller communities, where there are fewer other people who could render aid, and where the consequences are perhaps more dire. In a big city, meh, there's always someone else who could do it.
What is everyone's responsibility is no-one's responsibility. There are psychology experiements that back that up. Google 'the smoky room experiment' and 'bystander effect'.
Re: What is the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?
#147In the UK we used to have a nationalized rail system. People were always rude about the late trains, stale sandwiches etc. But I once managed to leave a bag Xmas present on a train. I only realized when I got another train. They were so helpful, they managed to find the bag and have it sent on to me. I think we lost a lot of that good will when the UK rail system was privatised. And the privatised trains were still l…
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Re: What is the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?
#148My old BMW GS (motorcycle) engine jumped timing chain for whatever reason and completely gave up the ghost on a busy highway in Poland, a random motorcyclist on a streetbike saw the white smoke cloud and understood what happened to me as I coasted to the side of the road, he stopped, asked a few details and said "get on your bike, I'll push you to the nearest shop". I didn't speak Polish and his English was not great too, but we managed to understand each other. To this day I do not know how he managed, but he was able to control the gas on his bike, align himself to the back and off the side of my bike and kept giving me these push impulses so I could keep moving, and moving we were, we travelled ~6 miles to safety doing ~30mph, I thanked him and we went out separate ways. This experience feels surreal, I literally didn't spend any time in danger lingering on a busy road side or waiting for a trailer, which can take hours.
Re: What is the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?
#149In the UK we used to have a nationalized rail system. People were always rude about the late trains, stale sandwiches etc. But I once managed to leave a bag Xmas present on a train. I only realized when I got another train. They were so helpful, they managed to find the bag and have it sent on to me. I think we lost a lot of that good will when the UK rail system was privatised. And the privatised trains were still l…
I agree. The railway now is mean, willing to prosecute, unhelpful and expensive I've read various accounts of people trying to reclaim lost baggage and it's a Kafkaesque process designed to be totally useless But the railway operators are 50% nationalised now. Northern, TransPennine, South West Railway, LNER, Greater Anglia, c2c, ScotRail, Southeastern, TfW are all government owned. And the forerunner in increasing f…
The UK railways are expensive, and I have a car, so I very rarely go by train. But all those road trips cost everyone else, in terms of congestion, pollution etc. Maybe the railways should be regarded as critical infrastructure, run at a loss and subsidised accordingly.
Re: What is the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?
#150My rc drone lost signal and flew out of range several miles away. Being from a small town, the person who found it eventually found out it was mine, and he returned it.
Did he find it with a helicopter? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffEYqGGYXRk
That was a plane ;-) I knew it was going to be that video before I even saw the jumble of letters at the end of the URL, it's one of my favourites :-D