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Today you, tomorrow me

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Re: Today you, tomorrow me

#41

Post by michael_dorfman »

mynameishere wrote: post #35

Whenever I see a comment with 1000s of upmods, I'm usually expecting a good story, but there was literally nothing there. Lots of people have had car trouble pal. I mean, there are probably a full million people in the world right now with car trouble. Why is his anecdote special?

Seriously, did you read the anecdote?

The point isn't the car trouble. The point is that nobody stopped to help him....except the poor, Mexican family, who had all the best reasons for not wanting to stop, who refused payment for their help, and then sent him on his way with a lesson about social responsibility.

Re: Today you, tomorrow me

#42

Post by bmelton »

Perhaps my favorite good act to do is to help people push their car when they need it. It's dumb, really, but having grown up in the south, people are just hospitable that way.

It generally doesn't take much to do, it helps traffic, and at least for me, it makes me feel good about myself. Besides, it always irks me when I see someone trying to push their car out of traffic and nobody else is helping. Especially considering the traffic implications around here, when somebody in the road makes an already bad situation worse.

I've been late because of it, but to date, I've never had anybody hold it against me that I was late because I helped somebody move a car.

Re: Today you, tomorrow me

#43

Post by jasonlotito »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #14

This seemed very appropriate for Reddit, and it's a touching story. I don't quite get the Hacker angle, but maybe I'm missing something.

I think it's a poignant lesson for a startup. Help a customer today, and tomorrow they'll be your biggest supporter ever. Indeed, in every hackers life, the idea of helping others now will come back to help you. Lots of cultures have this idea, a three-fold return or the golden-rule.

While it's a bit of a stretch, I think it fits nicely into the hacker mindset.

Re: Today you, tomorrow me

#44

Post by raganwald »

Interestingly, Richard Feynman tells a similar story. I think it's in "Why do you care what other people think?" It also is depicted in Matthew Broderick's movie "Infinity."

He was working at Los Alamos on the bomb, and his wife was dying in hospital. He had to make long drives back and forth to visit his wife. He picks up a hitchhiker, a Mexican who speaks no English. IIRC, he rambles on and tells the Mexican about his wife and how she's sick, but the Mexican can't understand him. The crux of the story is when they break down. They aren't in danger of dying in the desert, they get to a gas station, where the Mexican suddenly speaks perfect English and explains how to fix the car so that Feynman can make it to see his wife in time.

Feynman deduces that the Mexican pretending to speak no English is actually a spy, and asks him why he broke his cover. The Mexican answers that he was moved by Richard's plight.

Re: Today you, tomorrow me

#45

Post by charliepark »

malbiniak wrote: post #27
charliepark wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you need a translation?

Did you accomplish what you set out to do with your comment?

Seriously? What the fuck. His comment wasn't clear.

Was his comment to distance the Golden Rule from Christianity? I'm having a hard time interpreting it otherwise, but that's an ignorant effort, as the "do unto others" concept predates Jesus of Nazareth by 1,000+ years.

I'm still not clear on what the point of his comment was; all I did was ask for clarification, with NO commentary at all. Can you clarify his initial intent? If so, please do.

Also, I know you might not have been one of the folks to give me downvotes, so I'll address whoever that was separately: Don't just downvote a comment on HN without explaining your beef. This isn't Reddit.

Re: Today you, tomorrow me

#46

Post by mrcharles »

sliverstorm wrote: post #12

I try to give rides to hitchhikers when it's especially dark and lonely and cold out. I ride a motorcycle, and people usually aren't interested in a ride with no helmet unless it's really dark, lonely and cold. Used to help people on the side of the road a lot, but a childhood friend was hit by a truck & killed just recently while helping someone change a flat and I almost broke my ankle in the dark another night whe…

That's the problem in a lot of places. The highway I use most often is the 401 in the greater toronto area -- the busiest highway in north america. Stopping on the side of the road is extremely dangerous at the best of times, and walking along it, even worse.

However, I have called 911 on occasion. It always amazes me how few people call in collisions and accidents. On a recent road trip to the US, I was travelling North from Indianapolis to Chicago, when I see a huge cloud of dust appear ahead of me. As I drive towards it, there's a car flipped upside down in the center ditch. 4-5 cars had already stopped, but I stopped as well, as fast as I could, and called 911.

I was the first that called, out of nearly 10 people on scene.

Please, people, don't assume someone else has called 911, ever.

Re: Today you, tomorrow me

#47

Post by edw519 »

Funny, as I read this post I thought, "Not hacker news." Then I read all the comments (42 as of this writing) and still thought, "Not hacker news."

Then I realized, "Perfect hacker news." Let me explain...

I try to approach my business just as the Mexicans in the story did. Not to make money, not to change the world, not to build cool stuff (well maybe just a little), but to genuinely help people. For a business person, this thinking is difficult and counter-intuitive.

Why do I do this? Because of my first mentor (and co-founder).

He was relentless in everything he did. I learned to stay up all night, keep calling on customers, and stay with tasks until we got somewhere with them. I remember many nights with thousands of invoices spread across the carpet, watching the graveyard shift run their machines, or scanning reports on-line, looking for clues. He wouldn't quit and the reason was always the same, "These people need help and we can help them. So we do. Don't worry about how hard it is or how much time we spend, it'll all work out in the end."

Sometimes I think that this is the attitude very successful people must have. It's too easy to give up when it's for ourselves, but much harder when we know that someone else needs us to get the thing done.

The Mexicans in the story reminded me of my mentor. A great lesson for anyone in business (or not). Thank you, OP.

Re: Today you, tomorrow me

#48

Post by araneae »

maguay wrote: post #6
bobf wrote: post #3

The original Spanish expression is "Hoy por ti, mañana por mi", and I find the Golden Rule to be the closest direct application of the concept in a single expression. Interestingly, the three suggested translations of the expression I found were: "You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours", "What goes around, comes around", and "Tit for tat" ( http://www.proz.com/kudoz/spanish_to_english/idioms_maxims_s... ). Howeve…

"You today ... me tomorrow" is my new favorite "Golden Rule" translation :)

It's really more a translation of karma.

At any rate, I vastly prefer it to the "Golden Rule." Whenever anyone goes on about it, I always say, "what about masochists?" It may sound a trite response, but I think it's a really important aspect of a moral system that people are different, and you should think about what they want, not what you would want in that situation.

Re: Today you, tomorrow me

#49

Post by marknutter »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #14

This seemed very appropriate for Reddit, and it's a touching story. I don't quite get the Hacker angle, but maybe I'm missing something.

Get used to seeing more and more of these types of submissions as the HN user base grows. Digg and Reddit both used to be great sources of tech news, but are now filled with these sentimental posts, countless memes, and tons of left wing politics.

Re: Today you, tomorrow me

#50

Post by bemmu »

raganwald wrote: post #44

Interestingly, Richard Feynman tells a similar story. I think it's in "Why do you care what other people think?" It also is depicted in Matthew Broderick's movie "Infinity." He was working at Los Alamos on the bomb, and his wife was dying in hospital. He had to make long drives back and forth to visit his wife. He picks up a hitchhiker, a Mexican who speaks no English. IIRC, he rambles on and tells the Mexican about…

My wife, Arlene, was ill with tuberculosis--very ill indeed. It looked as if something might happen at any minute, so I arranged ahead of time with a friend of mine in the dormitory to borrow his car in an emergency so I could get to Albuquerque quickly. His name was Klaus Fuchs. He was the spy, and he used his automobile to take the atomic secrets away from Los Alamos down to Santa Fe. But nobody knew that.

The emergency arrived. I borrowed Fuchs's car and picked up a couple of hitchhikers, in case something happened with the car on the way to Albuquerque. Sure enough, just as we were driving into Santa Fe, we got a flat tire. The two guys helped me change the tire, and just as we were leaving Santa Fe, another tire went flat. We pushed the car into a nearby gas station.

The gas station guy was repairing somebody else's car, and it was going to take a while before he could help us. I didn't even think to say anything, but the two hitchhikers went over to the gas station man and told him the situation. Soon we had a new tire (but no spare--tires were hard to get during the war). About thirty miles outside Albuquerque a third tire went flat, so I left the car on the road and we hitchhiked the rest of the way. I phoned a garage to go out and get the car while I went to the hospital to see my wife.

Arlene died a few hours after I got there.

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