Today you, tomorrow me

I am sorry you had this experience. There are always some people who take positive ideas to the other extreme and become exactly like the people they despise.

We habitually rely on institutions or the government to save our bacon, something an immigrant likely has no desire for interacting with.

About 5 years ago I planned to visit friends in Texas by car from a little place called Richards Landing in Ontario. That's a pretty long trip and even though we had two stops planned it still was going to take a lot of time on unfamiliar roads, plenty of the driving at night.

Somewhere in Iowa, about 45 minutes past Decorah a deer teleported out of nowhere in front of the car and we hit it hard enough that the deer was probably mortally wounded (it still managed to run off!) and the bonnet lock had crushed all the way in to the valve cover.

The car looked an absolute mess and it didn't look like we were going to reach our destination.

We limped in to some sleepy town (2:30 am), some gas station right off the highway wondering what to do next.

Before we could even ask the guy that ran the garage came out and said he's already called his brother in law and he was underway. We didn't really get what was going on but since we couldn't really go anywhere we just hung out, 5 minutes later a pick-up rolled in to the gas station with a sleepy looking guy in it. He jumped out, walked around our minivan, asked if it still moved or of we needed a tow. The car still ran (but made some pretty scary sounds) so he told us to follow him.

After a few minutes we got to an industrial area of the small town, he rolled up a huge garage door and we were welcomed to his car repair service.

In the space of 4 hours he took the front of the car apart, straightened out the pieces that had taken the brunt of the impact, fixed the valve cover with some of the most impressive epoxy that I've ever seen, found ways to get each and every one of the problems the car had to be fixed in a temporary but very serviceable way.

Little by little the car looked like it was going to be a reliable vehicle again and at the end the only tell-tales were the dent in the hood and two tie down straps running across it to hold it down (the lock had gone beyond repair).

So, when all was done we aked how much we owed him, the answer was simple: "Nothing. Could have happened to me just the same, and I'm sure you folks would have helped me out as much as you could too."

Whatever we did he refused payment, so in the end we bade our goodbyes and continued to Texas, from there to Fort Collins, Colorado and from there back to Canada, the 'temporary' fixes held as good as could be expected and when we turned the car in for a proper repair it was in a way a weird feeling because we'd gotten used to seeing the orange stripes across the hood :)

There are lots of nice people in this world.

When someone says "I really don't believe that," what I hear is, "I am certain that more of this story is false than true." Based on this post, though, that doesn't seem like what you're saying--it seems like you are just asserting that the story has just been modified to become a little bit "larger than life." For example, maybe in real life the tire iron didn't break, but in the Redditor's Magical-Love-Compassion-Universe, it snapped and the Mexican man's wife was on the road to get a new one just seconds later, still all smiles.

When it comes to stuff like that, I have what I would call "Schrodinger's belief" in those details. It's not that I believe or disbelieve; I simply wouldn't be surprised either way. Turns out the details were embellished? No shock there. Turns out it was patently true, through-and-through? Well that's just spiffy.

I was upset when I thought you were certain that the entire thing was fabricated. I didn't understand how anyone could come to possess a world-view that precluded the possibility of such a simple kindness. And, as we all know: Humans fear the unknown; Americans yell at it and accuse it of terrorism. So, to the extent that you were just saying "This seems embellished," I'm sorry I called you a spiritual terrorist.

When I re-read your OP now, I think I see what happened.

This was my thought process when I originally read it, and I bet the downvoters felt similarly:

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> That's a good story but a little over the top.

I can buy that. Obviously I'd like to believe it's 100% true, but everyone loves to embellish.

> If the author had dispensed with the $20 bill in the tamale the suspension of belief would have been a little more effective.

Wait, what? "Suspension of disbelief?" This guy doesn't believe the entire story... and it's because the Mexican wouldn't take the poster's money? That's crazy. I've turned down money after helping a stranger before; why wouldn't the good samaritan in the story? This guy is either crazy, misanthropic, racist, or a combination of all three. My disgust must be broadcast to the world... dear colkassad, who was foolish enough to be wrong on the internet, I downvote you with the fury of a thousand suns!

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Okay, maybe that last part was a little over the top. But the gist of it is: I think that when you explicated a potential embellishment that everyone else had ostensibly already accepted, they thought you were taking it one step further.

Or, I dunno. Maybe people were just pissed 'cause we're all optimistic hippies and you were harshing our rainbow love groove. The world may never know.

Thanks for continuing to explain yourself in the face of my opinionated ranting, by the way--I love Hacker News most of all for its tendency to nurture discussions like this.

How can you not only prevent this loss but also export this into other countries? How can we spark this in other cultures? How can we get rid of "negative greatness"?