Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How will the miracle happen today?

kk.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 285 posts

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#81

Post by KingMob »

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…

That's true, but hitchhiking declined in the late 70's, well before podcasts, Spotify, satellite radio, or even books on tape, so the availability of alternate content can't have been a factor.

Instead, I've heard a variety of alternative reasons for the decline in hitchhiking:

- govt and media fearmongering about dangerous hitchhikers - increased police enforcement - higher rates of car ownership - the Interstate Highway System made pulling over safely more difficult

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#82

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #73
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

s/foo/bar/ is search & replace foo with bar. So yes, they're saying the rate of harassment is high. Even if we posit that >99% of men aren't harassers, a solo female traveler is going to encounter a lot more than 100 men, so is quite likely to be harassed.

> s/foo/bar/ is search & replace foo with bar.

Ah, thank you.

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#83

Post by JKCalhoun »

reaperducer wrote: post #34
buellerbueller wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There are a lot of people -- usually women -- who want to travel the world to prove the goodness of humanity and get killed by some rando along the way. "Wont someone think of the (lots of?) women?" Honestly: how are you defining "a lot" here? A dozen or two? That's a vanishingly small proportion of humanity, my friend. And would you even hear the tales of those who travel the world and don't get killed? I am just s…

They're human beings, not numbers or statistics. Or would you have us believe that a certain number of these kinds of murders are OK, because they're just "rounding errors" or "edge cases?" What's the over/under number?

Of course they're human beings. I think the point is, should you, statistically, live a life of fear based on possibly negligible odds of death or assault?

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#84

Post by OfficialTurkey »

I've been lucky enough to have a couple big adventures in my life, including living in China for a while as a teenager and later hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (from Mexico to Canada). This has been exactly my experience.

On the PCT, in Mount Shasta while my friends and I were waiting to be seated at Black Bear Diner, an older gentleman came up and asked us about the hike. After talking for five minutes he told us he wanted to buy us breakfast and handed me a 100 dollar bill. I have dozens of such stories -- it was always easy to find a hitch into and out of town and often I would be offered a room to stay in. It's hard to describe but when you're an a quest, big or small, people just really want to help. Over the course of the trail I came to agree with the author: these people were doing me a kindness, yes, but I was also paying with experience, stories, levity.

I agree with the other commenters that one can't always be a kindee. Next time you're driving up the west coast and see a dirty hike with a dirty pack, pick them up :^)

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#85

Post by magicalist »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #66
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.)

> The confessed feeling guilt that he might not be able to have done the same

I don't know; it's very human, certainly, to feel that way and have that doubt about yourself, but I don't see any evidence of guilt in the text, or even a hand wave at wanting to work on that feeling or himself.

Even though I love the point it seems he's trying to make, the post definitely rubbed me the wrong way in that it reads as taking help you don't need from people who need it more, and the reward for them is they get to help someone, and the reward for you is that you get free stuff and be a tourist marveling at how kind everyone they meet is.

There's definitely a different way to write this article that doesn't feel like that, and it's not clear to me whether or not the author wrote it this way because they don't see the difference.

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#86

Post by tefkah »

gbjw wrote: post #51
buellerbueller wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I think it is whichever of these you perceive it to be.

Strange "curse" if it can be rid of with some perspective change.

What perspective change? Your brains splattered on the wall? While I am also grateful to be alive, I don't think it's that hard to imagine other people being in situations where they feel deeply unhappy about being born, and that that feeling really can't be dispelled with a simple "perspective change", unless you mean suicide.

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#87

Post by bryanlarsen »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #78
bryanlarsen wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the 0.1% ruin it completely. It takes only one bad apple to spoil the entire barrel. (Literally: the bad apple produces ethylene which spoils the rest of the apples in the barrel). Examples of this phenomenon are everywhere. One bad cop makes the entire force untrustworthy, two to three unruly kids can make a classroom unteachable, et cetera. And a 0.1% chance of a bad encounter with a stranger as a vulnerable pe…

You're gong to throw away a life of living above fear if you focus on the 0.1%. And you'll never know what you were missing. You can stay at home your whole life, avoid travel, avoid meeting people. From my experience (60+ years now) the best times of my life have involved taking those "chances".

Me too. But is it the privilege of being large, male and white with a small but real family safety net? I specifically specified "vulnerable people" in my comment.

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#88

Post by JKCalhoun »

gostsamo wrote: post #2

> I am not sure I would invite a casual tourist I met to take over my apartment, and cook for him, as many have done for me. leaves a bad taste. I've helped and been helped in all kinds of situations. The sense of entitlement in this guy and the way he proudly explains how he is using people is just awful. Help is to give when you know that the gesture will have an disproportional effect for the other person and will…

I get what you're saying. But to me he is simply being honest.

If he did not wonder to himself how he would have felt about a scraggly, hippy knocking on his front door in the evening, I would have been suspect.

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#89

Post by Noaidi »

This world today is so cruel, no one cares for their own life or the life of others. I am mentally ill and homeless. Why? Why do all of you let this happen? Why does Kevin Kelly let this happen? He is am optimist only because he has not seen reality.

Passages like the following are telling someone like me, the man with nothing, to help or else I will get no help? Just accept that no one has helped me for six years even though I do help others? And worse yet, to help rich people like him?

"Receiving help on the road is a spiritual event triggered by a traveler who surrenders his or her fate to the eternal Good. It’s a move away from whether we will be helped, to how: how will the miracle unfold today? In what novel manner will Good reveal itself? Who will the universe send today to carry away my gift of trust and helplessness?"

That is just the same "power of positivity" wrapped up in new writing. Because no one here will rent me an apartment for 1/3 of my disability income. I have surrendered to my fate more than one. Maybe I did not do it right? Can you tell me how to do it right Mr. Kelly?

"We are at the receiving end of a huge gift simply by being alive." That is easy to say when you are Kevin Kelly who seems to still have the silver spoon in his mouth. Hey Kevin, why don't you help by being more like the Christian you say you are, sell all of your belongings and help the mentally ill like Christ tells you to do?

Until I see him do this, all his words are meaningless.

I know I am privileged to be alive, but that privileged is abused by the rich boomers like KK (I am in my late 50's).

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#90

Post by magicalist »

eduction wrote: post #68
magicalist wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> I'm not sure that's his intent, or not

I'll just say at the very least there's no evidence in the text itself this is his intent. In fact, he blows right past his observations about himself to underline how magical letting other people be kind is, so it doesn't appear to me that he's ruminating on himself.

Post reply on HN