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How will the miracle happen today?

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Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#61

Post by JKCalhoun »

Fiveplus wrote: post #32

I couldn't help but focus on the vicarious adventure aspect Kelly mentions which was the "payment" he offered drivers in exchange for the ride. This is a mechanism that has largely been deprecated by the modern attention economy. In the era of hitchhiking, the bandwidth for novelty was low. A driver on a long commute had no podcasts, no Spotify or audiobooks. A stranger with a story was high value. The transaction wa…

I've seen it work the other way: some evangelical Christians picked me and friend up in Alaska and spent the whole ride proselytizing, ha ha.

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#62

Post by lukan »

f1shy wrote: post #48
lukan wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I say it depends how he communicated it. If the other persons assumed he did not have money at all (and he was not clear about it) it is close to fraud - otherwise it is an awesome exercise in humbleness and expanding ones mind about the illusion of money. Not being dependent on it. I used to hitchhike with a very low budget, but liked my independence and feel not comfortable to be dependant on other people, if there…

> But buddies I travelled with took the no money approach serious (despite also having a bank account somewhere). Partly ideological, partly spiritual motivations. Not being dependant on money. It is freeing. I knew a ridiculous rich guy, who said the parents: “I do not want money from you, I will manage alone” He went to another city (where I met him) and he always bragged about how “liberating” it was, and how grow…

"Is absolutely not the same being poor, in contrast to having money and not using it as part of a kind of game."

It is definitely not the same if there is a safety net you always can call and go back to. A true poor person does not have that. But if you have done the livestyle and know that you can get by without money, you do loose some fear of loosing money. That is indeed a liberating feeling and did helped me grow. But I also did not go around bragging how liberated I am, so I cannot judge on the person you met.

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#63

Post by ryandrake »

Fiveplus wrote: post #32

I couldn't help but focus on the vicarious adventure aspect Kelly mentions which was the "payment" he offered drivers in exchange for the ride. This is a mechanism that has largely been deprecated by the modern attention economy. In the era of hitchhiking, the bandwidth for novelty was low. A driver on a long commute had no podcasts, no Spotify or audiobooks. A stranger with a story was high value. The transaction wa…

> Today, we have near infinite content in our pockets. The marginal utility of a stranger's story has plummeted because the competition is Joe Rogan or an endless algorithmic feed.

Not just strangers. The content tentacle reaches even deeper. You can go to a restaurant and see two people (presumably partners, who know and love one another, or friends who at least like to hang out together) sitting together separately scrolling their phones, lost down their own personal content-holes. When Joe Rogan is more interesting than talking about your day with your spouse or friend, I think it's pretty sad, and indicates a even bigger problem.

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#64

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

dheera wrote: post #33
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what the rate of "getting killed by some rando along the way" actually is. Sure, lots of anecdotes, and I don't really know how you'd measure it, but I'm curious how it plays out by the real numbers.

s/killed/harassed/ and the numbers are pretty damn high at least in my circle

The rate of being killed is pretty damn high in your circle? What is s/killed? Or is it just a harassment issue? If it's so high, why keep doing it? I'm struggling to understand the risk/reward, and what the risk actually is compared to what it's perceived to be.

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#65

Post by magicalist »

postexitus wrote: post #39
BrokenCogs wrote: post #6

Sounds like someone who takes and does not give

There is a view that being a kindee is generosity, because you allow other people to express kindness (and feel good about themselves?).

Sure, and a world where we're more dependent on each other would be a better world. It's clearer all the time that humans work much better that way.

But if you're only a "kindee", if you structure your life in a way that you can only receive help from other people and never be the helper, that's not humans dependent on each other.

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#66

Post by JKCalhoun »

jimbokun wrote: post #28

> Although we don’t deserve it, and have done nothing to merit it, we have been offered a glorious ride on this planet, if only we accept it. This is the core message of Christianity. Undeserved Grace. I will also say though, I find it annoying this guy so easily received gifts from those least able to afford them, and then admits he is not willing to be so generous himself. Did he learn nothing from their example?

"…and then admits he is not willing to be so generous himself"

That was not my impression. The confessed feeling guilt that he might not be able to have done the same—but I don't recall him saying that he absolutely would not have.

(And in fact I believe he can put his doubts aside— he probably would have done the same. Considering it in the abstract is different than when you come face to face with the choice.)

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#67

Post by mapmeld »

JR1427 wrote: post #5

This reminds me of a video I watch recently of a comfortably off guy who decided to try and do a long-distance cycle with just £100. He could afford not to rely on others, but instead he let people buy him food, give him a bed, etc. This didn't sit well with me. If you can pay your own way, but choose to instead let others pay for you, you're just sponging off people.

I did some bike touring for a few days at a time, and lived out of monthly Airbnbs for years. I was helped out several times, but my objective was to only accept when I was in a pinch. It's when you're relying on other people as a routine that it flips some circuit and I question it (the difference between a friend staying over and moving in, Airbnb and Couchsurfing). So the daily hitchhiking, even though he likely needed to save money, got to me a bit more than the other stories.

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#68

Post by eduction »

magicalist wrote: post #59
jptlnk wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I may, I think that's actually part of the point, and (at least for me) part of the lesson. I read him as saying that part of the miracle to him is that he has experienced something that makes him realize that it's a lot harder than it sounds to be loving and kind with no (or few) conditions, and to open your home and life to a stranger. For me, a lesson of this piece is actually the juxtaposition of the relative…

> Maybe KK wants to want to help people, and the challenge for him is connecting the dots. Maybe he could try instead of waiting for someone to help him do it?

The act of writing something like this can be a way of helping yourself do it. I'm not sure that's his intent, or not, but I like the idea of writing at an intermediate stage. Should he wait until his behavior is perfect before sharing his experience? If so it might never get written. There is a generosity in talking about your own flaws, it can help people who are working through their own flaws as well.

Paul Graham is among those who have written about how putting thoughts into words tends to change those thoughts: "You can know a great deal about something without writing about it. Can you ever know so much that you wouldn't learn more from trying to explain what you know? I don't think so." https://paulgraham.com/words.html

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#69

Post by tejohnso »

JR1427 wrote: post #5

This reminds me of a video I watch recently of a comfortably off guy who decided to try and do a long-distance cycle with just £100. He could afford not to rely on others, but instead he let people buy him food, give him a bed, etc. This didn't sit well with me. If you can pay your own way, but choose to instead let others pay for you, you're just sponging off people.

> If you can pay your own way, but choose to instead let others pay for you, you're just sponging off people.

I was particularly perturbed at the mention of someone emptying their bank account to help this guy, who has more money than the person emptying their account. I'm no ethics expert, but there is an idea that the unbounded acceptance of generosity becomes a form of exploitation, which I agree with.

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