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 was something like = I provide logistics and you provide content; like the story of your cross-country bike trip.
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. We have largely replaced the P2P protocol of kindness with a sort of centralized platform of service. We stripped out the human latency and the requirement for social reciprocity and replaced it with currency and star ratings. It makes me surreal to think about this.
It's a choice. I go to the supermarket twice a week, not shopping for much. I switched the store I use three, four months ago, but I can already talk about some of the employees at the store I visit. Louis is back where he grew up right now because his 97-year-old grandfather died. Among other things, he feels lucky grandpa's passing came after the new year because of his time-off allotment. Nikki had great holidays, mostly because her adult daughter was here for a week. Nadine ("Shh.") has decided she's going to retire at the end of the month but hasn't yet told anyone at the store.
Raffy, the UPS delivery guy I see maybe five times a year? He's doing well, finally feeling things slowing down some after the holidays. His fiancé will finish her graduate degree this spring, then they're going to decide if they want to stay here or move back to the state where they were born. They like it here, but think job opportunities will be better back home.
I'm sure many here are familiar with "This is Water," the commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace. Many often cite his line, "Everybody worships," his observation that we all hold aspects of life in reverence, whether religious things or otherwise. It's a valid, pithy point, but I always thought the key part to his speech comes later and has been widely overlooked:
And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving.... The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.
He delivered that speech in 2005. Before the modern smartphone. All those people I mentioned earlier were strangers. That's no longer the case because all of us chose to interrupt what we were doing and open up a little to someone unfamiliar. It's a choice. Or, as Bob Dylan once sang,
this comment was beautiful. In my younger years, I used to be so embarrassed when I'd go grocery shopping or elsewhere with my mother and she would ask about service people's lives and stories. I used to hate it and feel uncomfortable and wonder what the point even was.
Thank you for completely changing my perspective, on something I haven't thought about in a long time
Ahhhhhh I love this and love that you referenced This Is Water something I've held dear to me as my default perception of life. There's so much to the world which we can access on our very doorstep, we just need to open up to it.
It's an easy thing to forget if you don't do it consistently enough to be 2nd nature.
> 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.
One question could be: which set of people know more about each other at the end of dinner.
Dinner time used to be a time of the day where couples and families would have the first chance since breakfast to discuss their day. With all of different available forms of communication today, my partner and I already know what happened during the other’s day and we are doing something like planning the next adventure.
I work from home and “retired my wife” six years ago. She’s home most of the time unless she’s out either teaching fitness classes or taking fitness classes. We talk all of the time off and on during the day.
We also travel a lot (nothing glorious or expensive and I know all of the credit card hacks), if you see us on our phones when we are out, we are usually looking at our shared calendar/Google sheet plotting and planning what we are going to do next.
We are 51/50 and have a window where our kids are grown and our parents see mostly healthy and independent and we are both in good shape and gym rats
To be fair, you don't know if that couple is just out for dinner because they didn't make anything at home that day. You don't know if they've been around eachother and off their phones for the past 24 hours.
I have the opposite anecdotal experience to yours. Lots of people at restaurants are not on their phones but I've also stopped caring to look honestly.
Or maybe one of them is responding to another human being in their life over their phone, and as that results in a break in conversation, the other person starts using theirs.
> When Joe Rogan is more interesting than talking about your day with your spouse or friend ...
... you may (just may!) have been married for a rather long time. I still think that is sad, but in a different sort of way than it would be for younger couples/pairs.
I think maybe this happens in waves? I’ve been with my SO a while, over a decade at least, so we’ve run through the backlog of stories. But there’s usually at least one or two new things to talk about from our independent lives. I guess if we were both retired, we would probably spend less time apart, and have less time to accumulate stories the other didn’t know about.
Although sometimes we just play the crossword, taking turns on one of our phones, when waiting for the waiter.
Rogan pushes fairly regressive and misogynistic narratives, so I would expect a "Rogan guy" to not have a great relationship with his wife and would not at all be surprised they stopped getting along or just lacked a lot in common anymore, unless she's also a Rogan type.
>> 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.
Haha! In the 90's I picked up a hitchhiker on the Pensylvania turnpike. I thought 'oh, someone to talk to". After a brief conversation he said where to wake him up and slept until we were there...
You should try again sometime. I try to pick up hitchhikers when I get the chance (I rarely drive) and always get to hear some truly interesting stories - I have yet to regret picking someone up.
I would encourage people to test this out for themselves, I think you will find a different result. People today are starved for in-person connection, but are afraid to initiate the conversation.
This doesn't come naturally to me, but after working on it over a few years, 95% of the time strangers are excited to chat and say hi and make a friend.
You mentioned working on it — do you have a particular strategy, venue, or opening line/guiding ethos that you find works well?
I love making friends with strangers, but usually rely on the "handshake protocol" of a casual observation or small talk that is then accepted (with a similar slight-deepening or extension of the thought) or rejected (casual assent or no response at all), until the bandwidth opens and I can foster a more meaningful moment of connection with a pivot like "Oh awesome that you do $THING for work. Do you enjoy what you do?" or "Oh I don't know much about $LOCATION_YOURE_FROM. Good spot for a vacation, or good spot to drive straight through?"
As somewhere between "thinks like an engineer" and "on the spectrum," I really enjoy hearing others' strategies or optimizations (optimizing for quality, connection, warmth) for social situations.
> "Oh I don't know much about $LOCATION_YOURE_FROM."
I always love the most to chat with strangers in line or wherever when I'm in a foreign country, as there's so much good dirt for digging with someone from a far away place. It's funny, though, the number of times I strike up a conversation with someone halfway around the world only to find out they live within a few miles of me. Last time I was in London, for example, the lady in line in front of me had an Australian accent, and I always enjoy talking to Aussies. Yep, she was an Aussie... Who lives a few towns over from me in the US, in the same apartment complex my wife lived in when I met her.
FWIW I think you're already doing the thing. That's it. But I'd suggest trying not to care too much about optimisation. It's unnecessary in my view because it implicit puts goals & outcomes as the end, when it's, ore about meandering and seeing where things go, endless possibilities.
There does feel like some wide resignation (more so with younger people <35 if I can generalise a bit) that we're too far gone everyone being closed off. But I've generally found that there is no real resolve to that resignation. Many just do not want to, or feel comfortable, making the start. Once the start is done though, the pleasantness of the experience is generally visible.
Well, you're not wrong about novelty being a much rarer thing in the past but people rarely drove alone in total silence. 8-tracks and cassettes came along eventually but even before then, people listened to the radio which had a wide variety of music, news, sports, and call-in shows. Truckers had CB radios and would talk to other truckers and drivers to pass the time.
Those who didn't see much of the world before the last two decades have this impression that everyone was far less connected to the world and each other before the Internet. That's not strictly true... the Internet made long-distance connections and access to content easier, but the ease of access to entertainment (namely, social media) has greatly weakened local connections.
I saw somewhere here saying they want some kind of AI appliance that learns their regular commute and warns them about traffic and construction and I was like, dude, every radio station had regular traffic reports from helicopter pilots through the whole morning and evening drive times.
An individualized report tailored to your route at your time is much higher utility than periodic reports of a few popular routes provided at random intervals.
Also, all the big map apps already provide real time traffic so not sure what LLMs (“AI”) bring to the table.
Human contact is more scarce than ever, it's not fungible with podcasts or audiobooks, and most people are starving.
I've backpacked/hitchiked through Ireland few years back. It was easy to catch a ride, even easier to find somebody to let me pitch a tent on their land. People were open and kind and wanted to hear and share stories.
Yes but the large language STEM salad of "marginal utility of a stranger's story" and the "P2P protocol of kindness" is surely more authoritative than your real world experience.
I got picked up by a born again christian women hitch-hiking in the interior of British Columbia. She was telling us about smoking pot with her friends at a retirement home. Good times
When I look at stunning works of art (especially architecture - how did they build such tall structures when they didn't have cranes) from hundreds of years ago, first thought is - that should have taken a long time and tremendous effort.
But they didn't have Netflix, video games, YouTube... That could be at least a tiny contributor? Maybe
I dunno, I've picked up my share of hitchhikers and to me it wasn't about being a trade, it's about sharing presence and our stories. Not a transaction, but just sharing.
One time I was stopped on a single lane highway in the mountains, in driving rain, as a power pole was blocking the road. A fellow commuter was in the same boat, but he was on a motorcycle. I invited him in my car and we just chilled and shared some light conversation. No trade, nothing gained besides someone offering a little shelter to another.
don't have time for any of that, must worry all the time how to survive in this super inflated economy.. 20 years ago one still made a wage and living..
I dont think this is it as we've had radio and music since the 50s and mp3 audiobooks since the early 2000's.
I think this is just the communal values of that society. Its not entirely some weird transaction about being entertained, and that's just a really mercenary way to see human life.
A lot of cultures, especially in more rural areas, pity or feel responsibility for people walking far and will just offer them rides. Especially if there's risk in that area from storms or criminals or wild animals. Its something we've been doing since forever. I don't think its based on entertainment. I think talking and sharing is just a normal part of being human.
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
In addition, the socioeconomic gaps are wider. So much so that the software engineer rushing to their 10am meeting doesn't want your $50. The Uber driver does, though.
Before I quit riding my motorcycle, I recalled one important thing: all the way from the Oakland Hills to downtown San Francisco, many (I dare say 'most') drivers would step their cars to the edges of their lanes to make room for me to lane-split. I know there are lots of people who use their phones will driving, but this was clearly intentional, and a large number of people would do it. I was riding a Ducati but in a modern car you won't hear me. So that means that this large number of people were:
* checking their mirrors
* deciding to make room for me
You don't have to make room for me. I can lane split with a car in the center of its lane and I can slow and stop if its close to this side. But people would do it. It's just an everyday kindness - a small measure of friendly consideration and I appreciated that.
I used to ride as well, and I had the same reaction. The sheer number of people who moved over for me (in California) blew me away every time I rode. They'd never hear me coming; they SAW me and made the choice to move over. I constantly felt that I was underestimating how many people were truly paying attention while they were driving, despite how much "we" like to complain that everyone's in their own world and nobody pays attention anymore.
I try very hard to do the same. I did before I rode, and I still do now. I'm a skilled and trained and attentive driver who is rarely distracted. And yet, I am ashamed at how often I am surprised when a motorcycle splits past me. Maybe I shouldn't think so highly of my attentiveness compared to the "average" person.
It's also a lesson on law and culture. Here in CA where it's legal by statute (if not always practiced in a legal manner), and where drivers are aware it happens, and MOSTLY aware that it's legal, the drivers are very kind. In places where it is ILLEGAL, drivers can be a lot more antagonistic and unsafe about the practice. But at the end of the day, the laws are arbitrary; on the asphalt, it's just another human trying to get from one place to another, doing nothing to inhibit the journey of the other.
Haha, I feel the same way. I like to pay attention when driving. But then sometimes a motorcycle splits past me and I didn't see him coming. It feels like such an indictment. All these guys used to see me coming. I should definitely strive for that at least.
I like moving over for motorcycles. It's a little thing, but costs me nothing and is totally available as a recognition. Maybe it's like saying, "I see you." I had wondered if it was helpful. Now that you told me it's not necessary, I guess I'll continue doing it anyways.
I think I may have given the wrong impression: I definitely appreciated it. When I said it's not necessary, I was distinguishing the act from legal acts that are necessary. For instance: a car waiting for me to take my turn at a stop sign cannot be evidence of the driver "showing consideration" since even the inconsiderate may yet prioritize adhering to a legal requirement.
Making it easier for me to lane-split on the other hand is not required of the driver. If they are doing it, they are doing so entirely optionally and consequently it is evidence of their being considerate.
When lane-splitting I appreciated the move over for the following reasons:
* I know you can see me
* It is more comfortable with more space
* I know you are willing to look out for other motorists => if a thing happens unexpectedly right in front, the spot I'm in next to you is safer than standard.
> 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.
I thought the eaay was creepy but that section just gave me the heebie-jeebies. "Sympathy vampire" is the term that came to my mind unbidden. It reads like an essay by someone aromantic describing love purely in terms of going to restaurants to eat exquisite food, and the mutual benefits of filing taxes jointly.
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 was no one in time, I took a bus. (If there was one)
But buddies I travelled with also 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.
> 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 grown up he was, and he knew what is like to be poor, because he was poor… (1)
In my opinion he was full of shit and full of himself. It remind me about the film Inside Man, the opening scene features mastermind Dalton Russell (Clive Owen) in a prison cell, he say something like “being in a cell is not being in prison”. Is absolutely not the same being poor, in contrast to having money and not using it as part of a kind of game.
(1) let me give me more context: I saw him telling other people, who were actually poor and were struggling to eat, and giving lessons of life to them, explaining how being poor is an “opportunity“. It was a miracle he conserved all teeth that day.
"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.
> But if you have done the livestyle and know that you can get by without money, you do loose some fear of loosing money.
I disagree. I’ve seen people that used to say “I was unemployed, I don’t fear unemployment”… until they lost the job.
To me is like saying “I will go to see the bear behind bars in the zoo, so that when I see one in the wild I do not fear.”
The people I know that actually were poor fear poverty the most. That guy never ever had such a fear. He even never ever studied or worked, because liked living from others, until he went back to the parents.
I mean, it depends of course. Especially now that I have children, who depend on me. I do know, even with kids you can hitchhike, do work exchange, etc. but it is a whole different story than doing it on my own, so I would never claim I transcended above existential fears regarding money. But I do believe my base attitude is way more relaxed to always find a way somehow and that helps me a lot to not get a heart attack considering all the stress I do have to face.
About others I don't know I won't judge, but surely quite some like living in a illusion, no doubt about it.
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.
I think it's a balance. In some cases, the act of giving means much more to the giver than to the receiver, especially when they want to be a part of something larger than themselves.
This is part of the issue I have with the original article.
When these kinds of "unique" people are rare, that's ... sorta okay. Once you get too many of them, it's no longer interesting and becomes an active hazard.
I have a further problem because it seems like the author has no plans for the reverse when it is supposed to be his turn to be on the giving side rather than the receiving.
Maybe the point was the connectedness? Spend £100 with no actual interactions, because literally everything is transactional, or "free ride" of of the very human need to connect socially with others?
I think our future needs more of the latter and less of the former.
My wife and kids always make fun of me for the goofy dad-joke-level interactions* I will create with strangers (that far more often then not elicits laughs from the person with whom I interact).
When they tease me about it, I ask them if they'd rather live in a world of complete atomization, free of any human interaction.
I see others expressing this point, but I'll add my two cents: this essay really bothered me.
1. The writer describes hitchhiking to work every day, presumably for months or years. He doesn't describe in any way how he paid back that kindness, either to the people he rode with directly, or just by paying it forward.
2. The writer describes traveling in Asia for 8 years, and many of the instances of kindness he describe imply very strongly that he intentionally put himself at risk, where others were faced with the choice to help him or let him suffer consequences. It's one thing to get caught in a rip current and need assistance; it's another entirely to swim out past where you are safe, and then wait for someone to rescue you -- and to do that repeatedly for eight years. Further, it is obvious from the language used that he was traveling rough by choice, with the privilege and economic security of his background, and yet repeatedly accepting -- I would argue demanding -- the help of people from a poorer background than himself. He was cosplaying poverty and repeatedly being assisted by people living it for real.
3. The backyard idea seems similarly pushy. He says he was never turned away, not once. So he believes that no one, given an actual free choice, would rather not have a stranger camp in their backyard. He ignores the possibility that people would feel uncomfortable about rejecting someone presenting as having no place to stay, and rather believes that everyone he asked woke up that day thinking about how happy they'd be to do a favor for a stranger. And he couches the whole process as him doing them a favor.
4. He lists multiple instances where people less well-off than him went to great lengths to help him, without ever thinking about why they might feel obligated, and through it all admitting that not only doesn't he engage in such kindness himself, he can't imagine that he would.
5. And through it all he characterizes what he very nearly describes as him pushing himself on people as "willingness to be helped" -- as some sort of saintliness.
And of course each of these people only saw him once, for a short while. Reading this essay we see how it is a pattern: how he is essentially a traveling con man, moving from mark to mark, letting each of them believe that he just happens to need help this one time, so they put good out into the universe. But in reality he is taking, taking, taking, abusing the world's willingness to help -- if everyone did what he did, the world would swiftly become a meaner, poorer place.
The author's philosophy is that, what the people doing him kindness got in return was that they got to do something kind for someone.
To be honest, I think there's something to that. It could certainly be taken too far, but your assumption that it has been taken too far in this case is mostly based on an uncharitable reading of the text, in which the author was "pushing himself on people" and they were secretly resentful of him.
The article reminds me of The Art of Asking. If you never heard of it, it's a TED talk where a musician/singer shared how much favors she received from fans (without expectations of returning them.)
Years later the said musician, Amanda Palmer, was accused and sued for sexual assault and human trafficking. Together with her husband, Neil Gaiman.
I'm not saying the author has done anything illegal, but I think one should be extra cautious about people who take others' kindness for granted.
There's always a fine line between being a wandering spirit and a mooch. I used to hang out with the rainbow gathering crowd, and this reminds me of the time my friend, who on coming down from his acid trip, declared that he was going to give all of his possessions away and wander the earth. When I suggested that might not be a good idea, his reply was something like "no, you don't understand, the universe will give me everything I need". I understood why a lot of old hippies end up as forest hermits or sticking to a small group: the burn-outs, mooches, and grifters wear out their welcome very quickly.
That said, I think there's something about going out into a world on a wandering 'quest' that appeals to human nature on a deep level. I'd hesitate to call the author a con man, since you wouldn't call a mendicant or pilgrim a con man. If his motivation was just to squat in people's backyards and mooch free meals until he gets kicked out and then wander around until he finds a new host, I'd agree. But if people want to help him on his personal project of experiencing the kindness of he world, I wouldn't call that taking advantage of people who offer their help freely.
The difference between a spiritual pilgrim and a vagabond freeloader depends on how much of a romantic one is, and if you admire Don Quixote or not.
I'm from Sri Lanka. One incident I always remember is how the front wheels of my car went into a ditch and got completely stuck while trying to pull out of a shopfront parking lot. I was fairly new to driving and was at a complete loss as to what to do next. Within seconds, a crowd of men gathered, some from the bus stop nearby, others from the restaurant in front of the parking spot. "Get back in and reverse when we tell you", said one person. Then a group of about 5 men literally lifted the front of my car and placed the wheels back on terra firma. I reversed out of the ditch, parked the car and got out to thank them, but they had dispersed as rapidly as they had assembled. I always thought my people a bit brusque in social interactions -- we don't greet shopkeepers or supermarket cashiers; we don't smile randomly at each other; we don't often say thank you. But I suppose when it matters, people are more willing to get involved and roll up their sleeves to help.
Really nice article, but it sort of flies in the face of all our biological imperatives.
Being a good "kindee" means forgoing security, control and some safety.
Constant Gratitude for just the miracle of life means forgoing the driving dissatisfaction that will push you ahead.
This is the classic battle between our ancient biological impulses and the reality of modern society. Many religions try to square these: Buddhisms central focus is to "stop grasping" your desires, Christianity wants you to "surrender" and put your faith in god. And then you also have articles like this that have a vague spiritual bent but mostly preach mindfulness and gratitude as a balm to our general dissatisfaction. Do we still need constant anxiety around our safety, do we still need to feel dissatisfied with each achievement and constantly want more? Or were those just useful imperatives for an animal 50,000 years ago but useless to us today?
In my personal life I have momentary success being mindful/grateful, but the bare reality is we are the product of millions of years of life being a short cruel struggle, fraught with danger. Does modern society give us the right to throw all that away and pretend we get to float around observing the beauty of the world? Or is our life supposed to be a battle?
What's interesting about this post is that it would be completely unsurprising to most people in most parts of the world, as well as most people here 100 years ago. The discomfort so many people in this thread feel with receiving kindness and the devaluing of the gift of companionship, gratitude, and a good story is a testament to how far off human norms our society is these days.
I struggle with this a lot myself - I've had to overcome deep feelings of inadequacy and insecurity because I never valued what I offered people just by being present and because I always felt like I had to "square the books" - that every interaction or relationship was an exchange that needed to square its ledgers. The best thing for my mental health has been to become comfortable just being with people and accepting their continued presence and return to my company as something that doesn't require an exchange - that human companionship and kindness are things we enjoy as people, not services to be itemized and accounted for.
One interesting note on this is that it's not just an "old world" phenomenon - if you look at many old farmhouses across the midwest, they've got a separate covered section that's accessible from outside the house - the assumption was that travelers passing by could and would spend the night there, and often the owners would have supplies of oatcakes or other durable foodstuffs for travelers, because everyone who traveled needed somewhere to stay or something to eat at some point, and reciprocity could be assumed when the homeowner traveled themselves in the future.
That was wonderful writing. As we go through the daily grind of life, we forget how privileged we are to be alive.
I found the following two paragraphs truly incredible.
> All of us begin in the same place. Whether sinner or saint, we are not owed our life. Our existence is an unnecessary extravagance, a wild gesture, an unearned gift. Not just at birth. The eternal surprise is being funneled to us daily, hourly, minute by minute, every second. As you read these words, you are rinsed with the gift of time. Yet, we are terrible recipients. We are no good at being helpless, humble, or indebted. Being needy is not celebrated on day-time TV shows, or in self-help books. We make lousy kindees.
> I’ve slowly changed my mind about spiritual faith. I once thought it was chiefly about believing in an unseen reality; that it had a lot in common with hope. But after many years of examining the lives of the people whose spiritual character I most respect, I’ve come to see that their faith rests on gratitude, rather than hope. The beings I admire exude a sense of knowing they are indebted, of resting upon a state thankfulness. They recognize they are at the receiving end of an ongoing lucky ticket called being alive. When the truly faithful worry, it’s not about doubt (which they have); it’s about how they might not maximize the tremendous gift given them. How they might be ungrateful by squandering their ride. The faithful I admire are not certain about much except this: that this state of being embodied, inflated with life, brimming with possibilities, is so over-the-top unlikely, so extravagant, so unconditional, so far out beyond physical entropy, that is it indistinguishable from love. And most amazing of all, like my hitchhiking rides, this love gift is an extravagant gesture you can count on. This is the meta-miracle: that the miracle of gifts is so dependable. No matter how bad the weather, soiled the past, broken the heart, hellish the war – all that is behind the universe is conspiring to help you – if you will let it.
> I’d like to think that I would without hesitation drive far out of my way to bring a sick traveler to the hospital (in the Philippines), but I am having trouble seeing myself emptying my bank account to purchase a boat ticket for someone who has more money than I do. And if I were a cold drink seller in Oman, I would definitely not give cold drinks away for free just because the recipient was a guest in my poor country. But those kind of illogical blessings happen when you are open to a gift.
I did the hitchhiking thing in my 20's. Up to Alaska and back. I know what he describes.
I wish everyone could have some experience like this. Because, like Kevin, I also have a positive view about strangers, about my fellow humans. And I have met a lot of people (friends, coworkers) where I recognize in them a fearfulness of the world. And I used to be like that too.
It really is a different and a wonderful world I think when you lose your fear of it.
Radical openness can slide into naïveté if it ignores power, incentives, and bad actors. “Be vulnerable and good things will happen” is only true in constrained contexts, where norms, reciprocity, and consequences exist. Outside those, vulnerability can absolutely be exploited.
Ina perfect world openness is not surrender; humility is not passivity; trust is not indiscriminate access.
Your comment makes me think about my situation. I am an open person that likes to try to make strangers laugh and people often are comfortable striking up conversations and opening up to me.
Recently I was essentially conned by a guy who I thought was being friendly but he ended up walking off with my phone and PIN (that I’m guessing he saw me enter earlier) and emptied my bank account. This was my payment for being open and obviously too trusting of strangers.
It seems more recently whenever I spend time out in public all I see are people on their phones, people driving around not paying attention, no one doing anything with any actual care and I seem to keep literally stepping in other peoples dog shit. I now have quite a negative view of the general public and I tend to think they are mostly morons that don’t give a fuck about anybody or anything but themselves.
I don’t actually want to be like this. I liked the authors idea of “pronoia” but I don’t see any way there for me. I’d say I’m still a positive and open person really but inside I hold quite a bit of hate for people in general.
Stories like this always feel a little bittersweet. It’s beautiful, but women would be in potential danger in situations like these.
And I say that as someone who has spent years the world traveling alone and isn’t afraid of humanity and agrees that the kindness of people is one of the most precious and Hope-building things in the world.
For those in the thread worrying that KK may have been mooching off people, and would not reciprocate: many years ago, I opened up our back yard for people who wanted to come to O'Reilly's Emerging Tech conference, but could not afford the sky-high hotel prices in Silicon Valley (this was before AirBnB or couchsurfing).
I was surprised when Kevin Kelly appeared. He'd been my (very distant) boss at Wired, was a published author of one of my favorite books, a very well-known figure and a smiling but disarmingly calm manner. He sat and amicably talked for hours with a yard full of people, many of whom have become some of my closet friends. Then, as the evening closed, he asked if he could sleep in my yard too. Others had brought tents, and burning men structures, and it had begun to rain. Kevin pulled out a camping sleeping bag from nowhere, struck out, and I saw him later, in the soaking, muddy garden, quietly curled up under someone's geodesic dome structure.
Decades later, after Covid, I mailed him out of the blue, and asked him for advice. He immediately remembered me, invited me to his home, and talked to me, again, for an hour or so, about AI, optimism, and how to change the world.
To be frank, I never emailed him thank you, and I still feel guilty about that, but now I feel like it was never needed or asked for. I may mail him anyway. Maybe there's a miracle or two still left in the day.
This is a mindset that is intentionally cultivated in Jesuit novices to the priesthood in what they call the "pilgrimage experiment": each is given $50 and a bus ticket in order to make a trip to a specific/meaningful destination while giving and receiving aid in whatever opportunities arise. Example anecdote: https://www.jesuitscentralsouthern.org/stories/judge-for-you...
More so about this thread than the post, but I think it's a shame that so many immediately go to the edge cases of safety concerns (parricularly for women) or strangers with difficult mental illnesses. I don't want to belittle or dismiss those concerns, as they do exist, but letting that limit potential possibilities feels like a unnecessarily limited life.
Granted I'm lucky enough that in my travels and general life nothing awful has happened to me but opening yourself to your fellow peers on this tiny planet is such a core part of existence that we should find ways of making this happen. It doesn't need to be picking up hitchhikers, they're millions of relatively risk free interactions out there. Dive in.
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 :^)
> one might even call the act of accepting generosity a type of compassion. The compassion of being kinded.
When reading this, I can suddenly relate. There's a colleage who always smiles but I know she's hurt inside. Sometimes in a quiet moment I try to comfort her with careful listening, kind words and genuine advice. She's very receptive and thankful to this act of kindness and I find it a pleasure to be kind to her. The reward is so high that it almost feels compassionate towards me.
Beautiful article. This is kind of the antidote to the more cynical side of things that you see in posts such as, say, Meditations On Moloch (neither is wrong, I think, but there is more to humanity than either alone).
This comment leaves me confused as to what you believe. Do you believe a man biking across the country "takes and does not give" in a different way from a charity, or was "someone who takes and does not give" simply not meant in a bad way?
It's a distinct possibility. What's more likely is that this person is an example of someone robbed of their own agency, either intentionally or not.
It leads to becoming dependent on others, a true Last Man in the original sense. That's where the resentment starts on the part of the giver, especially when enabling people such as this repeatedly and on long enough timescales.
What's become clear to me is that there isn't anything inherently wrong (morally speaking) with these people, but they need to be moved out of the way so to speak. They cannot be allowed to escape their various containment zones, and the mechanism for their containment must be strengthened.
I do like that the article touches exactly this, and even though I'm a stranger to the entire concept, it makes sense:
>Hardly anyone hitchhikes any more, which is a shame because it encourages the habit of generosity from drivers, and it nurtures the grace of gratitude and patience of being kinded from hikers
Not sure I agree, the systematicness can be cultural as well.
In my area there's a bunch of Islands with ferry service, but the ferry terminals are often remotely located on these islands, away from lodging and population centers.
It's fairly common to see people hitchhiking their way to hop off the islands. Every time I've chosen to do it, I'm still filled with the same sense of gratitude Kevin Kelly describes. The folks picking me up always feel like they're experiencing the sense of levity and kindness, not habituality and scorn.
I wasn't trying to enforce reciprocity. I'm just saying that if you don't need help you shouldn't be asking for it from strangers.
If you have a job and income you can afford transportation. Behaving like a broke person when you are not is taking advantage of other people, and taking limited kindness resources away from people who actually need help.
If you are morally obligated to use your own resources if you have them, then you're stratifying society. The financially comfortable can never ride a bus. The rich cannot drive themselves. Nobody can ever learn what those less fortunate are like, and must necessarily look down upon them and use their imagination to figure out what "those people" care about and need.
So that's not a great outcome either.
(I don't exactly disagree with you either. Accepting a scarce resource from someone when you possess significantly more? That rubs me the wrong way too. Get their mailing address and pay it back later, in spades, if it deprived them of something!)
Even mentions in the article that he would be hesitant to respond the same way with his resources... that's when I stopped reading, so frankly don't know if he changed that attitude or not...
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.
This was my impression as well. I'm supposed to wander around and wonder who I will leech off of today, while presenting it both a skill and to some extent as a favor to the person helping me?
I think the ending is worth reading to; to me this was not an essay showcasing a travel philosophy of reliance on others, but rather to express an easy to dismiss notion that you are not alone, and there are people that can and will look out for you.
Beautiful story. One Christmas Eve I ( with my kids in the car) picked up a hitchiker. His name was Christian, and he was headed to our church. I went out of my way, and dropped him off in the parking lot. I felt blessed to have helped him.
Okay, I will take the contrarian position. As I read this I kept waiting for the part where he somehow repays all the hospitality he has received, if not directly to those who gave it, then forward, somehow. Instead, all I got was new-agey rationalization.
To solicit a gift from a stranger takes a certain state of openness. If you are lost or ill, this is easy, but most days you are neither, so embracing extreme generosity takes some preparation. I learned from hitchhiking to think of this as an exchange. During the moment the stranger offers his or her goodness, the person being aided can reciprocate with degrees of humility, dependency, gratitude, surprise, trust, delight, relief, and amusement to the stranger. It takes some practice to enable this exchange when you don’t feel desperate. Ironically, you are less inclined to be ready for the gift when you are feeling whole, full, complete, and independent!
The things he lists are not reciprocation. The paragraph strikes me as a long-winded way of saying, "It takes a special mindset to beg from others when you're not actually needy." Indeed it does.
One might even call the art of accepting generosity a type of compassion. The compassion of being kinded.
Not only does he rationalize a life of asking for and taking from others, even the very poor, without any material reciprocation, but even admits that he is not sure he would have done the same for another person in his position.
When the miracle flows, it flows both ways.
No. The attitude of humility and gratitude with which one is obliged to receive another's charity is not itself a repayment. The social contract around this kind of hospitality is that everyone gives and receives materially; if you are taking now because you have nothing to give, then the expectation is that you will give to someone else later, not simply walk the earth taking and taking. It's a prisoner's dilemma, and we only all benefit if we all cooperate. Calling a person who takes but never gives back in a material way a "kindee" is just sanctifying the defector.
(EDIT: please note that I'm not advocating against offering hospitality, only against taking it with an attitude that you will neither repay it nor pay it forward, because just the act of accepting it is somehow holy.)
I'm trying to square this guy's experience with all of the homeless people who don't seem nearly so lucky. Or perhaps they are being helped and supported and I don't see it?
I agree with others here that the notion of relying on others so completely makes me feel uncomfortable, like I'm a burden. But I think that's part of what the author intends to draw attention to. Wouldn't a world where everyone freely supports each other, even if it's not needed, be a more pleasant place, and a safer place, than one where everyone looks out for themselves? Is a community where each member is only kind to other members who can reciprocate really kind, or just cooperative? Each act of kindness was given freely, and I assume the more extravagant examples were unasked. When you give something to others, you gain something yourself. As long as he's not misrepresenting his situation (e.g. claiming to be a victim or refugee) I don't think he's really doing something wrong - just something that goes against highly competitive big-city western values, which neither he nor the givers seem to share.
>I'm trying to square this guy's experience with all of the homeless people who don't seem nearly so lucky. Or perhaps they are being helped and supported and I don't see it?
I get that, but I do witness a lot of compassion and help directed to homeless folks. However, even if they're regularly gifted by strangers, it's likely not enough to materially change their situation.
I would suggest that the staggering efficacy of panhandling does demonstrate how remarkably willing strangers are willing to help a rough looking homeless person on a street. And beyond that, there are a lot of invisible homeless (the ones not struggling with mental health or drug issues) that remain off the streets because people in their community will give them a few days on a couch here or there, or help fix their car, give them a place to park a trailer, etc.
In my neighborhood, there's a homeless man that lives in a camper trailer in the back yard of some neighbors. They just met him one day and offered him a stable piece of land to be and help him out as they can. He comes around asking us neighbors for lawn care work and such to earn some money, which is how I learned about the situation.
> I get that, but I do witness a lot of compassion and help directed to homeless folks. However, even if they're regularly gifted by strangers, it's likely not enough to materially change their situation.
When I've looked at the data, the majority of homeless people have been homeless less than 12 months. This means that the majority of homeless people who benefit from support will use it to get out of that situation quickly. And for the most part, if you give help it will be immediately and materially useful.
Speaking as someone who worked for the SF bay area's largest homeless shelter nonprofit:
People who end up homeless long-term usually have negative social behaviors that push others away. When you help them, they don't tell an interesting story, they act angry or yell at you. When you give them money, they don't make you feel you happy, they make you feel afraid or annoyed.
This is unfortunately often due to mental health issues or drug problems. It's very sad, and ends up completely isolating them from all friends, family, and strangers who could help them.
Edit: This article actually puts this into clear terms, long term homeless people are poor "kindees"
> I'm trying to square this guy's experience with all of the homeless people who don't seem nearly so lucky.
Although I don't think there's an image to confirm,
"Informed Attractiveness", aka "Pretty people are always happy to espouse how friendly strangers are to them" - probably applies. There's also simple charisma which carries a long way. I wouldn't say I was ever super hot (maybe a 7 at one point), but I can point to many situations where I benefitted from being attractive (in appearance, action, or mannerism). Some tangled beard doesn't change host most people perceive me.
Loved this piece. Kindness and gratitude as a kind of symmetry. I have to work on both of those, I'm afraid. I suppose we all do: but, they seem admirable goals.
Does anyone else feel a sort of anxiety in those situations? I've been on such trips and I would rather not sleep at all than ask a stranger for help. When I'm in a position to help, I am delighted to do so, but also scared of offering.
Like all skills; practice. Push through the fear enough times that you learn to love it.
When I was in the military, we once had an exercise which consisted of our troop leaders dropping 60 of us in Edinburgh (Scotland) with nothing on our person except for a cheap film camera. We had to complete a list of challenges with different scores, that varied from "eat a free meal" to "play a hole at St Andrews golf course". We were picked up the following day (meaning we had to find a place to sleep the night) and had to debrief the group on what challenges we managed to complete with video evidence. To be honest, it completely changed my world view in a weekend.
We had guys who talked their way into an airfield, miles away from where we started, and convinced a random pilot to give them a spin in his private aircraft. One group managed to get the castle guards to let them fire the daily One O'Clock Gun from the top of Edinburgh castle. Another did manage to play the first hole of St Andrews (£340 a round, and a 2 hour drive away!). We had people crash a wedding, sew up a kilt, learn to play the bagpipes; it was carnage in the best kind of way.
All of that was done just by asking. At the start of the day, everyone was awkward and embarrased. By the end of day two, we all just wanted to see how much further we could take it. Turns out that sometimes all your inhibitions do is get in the way of a fun time and a great story.
I have been thinking about your comment a lot today and yesterday. Thanks for sharing.
At the exact same time last year I went on a short trip without a phone. I was forced to talk to people and it was a good exercise, even though I wasn’t very good at it. It led to conversations I would not have had otherwise.
I feel like there's something in the zeitgeist happening. I've only become aware recently of the 'gift economy' but I'm seeing more and more people post things related.
In summary, a wealthy westerner travels the world, asking the poor for favors. He eventually comes to believe that enlightened spirituality rests primarily on gratitude. (One can't imagine why.)
He then proceeds to passive-aggressively browbeat readers who aren't as grateful as he is for the "lucky ticket called being alive."
Has it occurred to him that perhaps it was his ticket that was lucky? It certainly seems luckier than that of the Filipino family who opened their "last can of tinned meat" to feed him, a volitional vagabond.
If there's anything worth reading here, it's the reminder that altruism is more prevalent than individualists sometimes expect. The rest is frankly stomach-turning.
Yeah, while the article is beautifully and poetically written (he's a reputed magazine editor after all), it comes across naive to extrapolate his good fortune to "you just have to be open enough to let the miracle happen to you". (I know, I'm simplifying here a bit.)
Obviously, there's some truth to it, but there are many unspoken variables that worked in his favor that he doesn't bother to acknowledge them. Some other comments also touched on it.
I'm not being cynical here. I myself have had incredibly good fortune in experiencing the kindness of strangers, both in the East and the West, and I do my best to reciprocate. But I'm acutely aware of how invisible factors that are not in my control helped facilitate some of the good fortune that came my way. I can't merrily attribute it all to my own "openness to experience"!
So many people around the world are so wonderfully generous with everything, and we should celebrate that.
However mooching off others is weird.
It is a fine thing to graciously accept generosity. And it is a fine thing to graciously offer generosity without expectations.
It gets difficult when the generous are poor if they choose to give. It can be hard to decline without being offensive.
I have lived for lengths of time basically at the generosity of others (not poor, including the dole in my wealthy country) so I shouldn't fault the guy. However, I have also tried to give back, and now I'm older I also try and pay it forward. Certainly I've given >10x back to the government (I'm taxed highly in my country - and I dislike thinking about taxation as something you ever get back).
His story is a simplification of the modern world. We are often given so much by our society and it can be difficult to give fairly back to society.
We went back to the fire and discussed breakfast. "Nothing but Java," said the bum that had the coffee.
"I'll go to the farmhouse," I volunteered, "and buy something."
"Nix, nix," said one; "buy nothin'," said the other, "it's you kind of cats that
make it tough on us, buyin' chuck. They begin to expect money. You go up to that house," pointing to a place on a small rise, about fifteen minutes' walk,
"and tell the woman you and two other kids run away from home in the city three days ago and you ain't had nothin' but a head of cabbage that fell off a farmer's wagon between youse since you left. Tell her you are on your way back home and the other two kids are down by the bridge so hungry they can't walk. On your way up there git a phony name and street number ready in case she asks you questions. She'll give you a sit-down for yourself, chances are, but bring back a 'lump' for us. You're a decent-lookin' kid; she might git worked up about your troubles and ask a lot of dam' fool questions.
Cut her off. Tell her you're ashamed to be settin' there wasting time and the other boys starvin' under the bridge."
Before I got to the house a couple of dogs dashed out, barking savagely. A healthy, matronly woman came out and quieted them, looking at me inquiringly. I told her myself and two boy friends, runaways from home, were hungry and I wanted some food, that I would be glad to pay her for anything she could spare, and if she would wrap it up I would hurry down to the bridge with it, where my chums were waiting.
"Yes," she said kindly, "come in. I haven't much here, but maybe I can find enough." She gave me a seat outside near the kitchen door, where I waited and made friends with the dogs. In no time she came out with a large parcel, and refused the money I offered. I thanked her and went down to the bridge with my "lump."
The bums had coffee boiling. We found enough tin cans to drink from and opened the parcel. It contained cold, fried chicken, cold biscuits, and half a pie.
"You're a good connecter, kid; sure you didn't pay for this?" one of them said.
> 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 make the world a better place. The way he presents it, he just relies on other people because he can and without giving ever back. Maybe I'm misreading, but I don't feel inspired.
I think this was rhetorical hedging - the author was expressing false doubt to underscore how extraordinary the actions of his hosts were, but he didn't literally mean he wouldn't do the same for others. The tone of the rest of the piece implies he is very grateful for the kindness of strangers.
That's not the point of his piece, and spending time virtue signaling to the reader would undermine the message that this kindness is a form of grace, given freely without expectation of reciprocation.
> I am having trouble seeing myself emptying my bank account to purchase a boat ticket for someone who has more money than I do.
Another strange example. In the entire article he does not give one example where he is the helper or offers reason why he would help or why people should help. It is all about the taking as far as I can read. IDK, just I'm not inspired or excited.
This person is being honest about how he feels about a hypothetical situation. I appreciate the humility of sharing a thought people might look down on and would be trivial to lie about. Also based on this article I would be surprised if he is not the type to show such kindness - if anything this reflection shows that such openness is not to be taken lightly, that it is special and should be appreciated as such. How wonderful then that is is so ubiquitous.
I'm pretty sure the message is about the general goodness of humanity and the positivity of connection, "the better angles of our nature." As the culture gets more divided and us vs them, people are actually fundamentally good and helpful. I'm sure the people who helped him also got a positive experience out of it. It is not zero sum that he took something from them, both were positively affected by the experience.
> I learned from hitchhiking to think of this as an exchange. During the moment the stranger offers his or her goodness, the person being aided can reciprocate with degrees of humility, dependency, gratitude, surprise, trust, delight, relief, and amusement to the stranger. It takes some practice to enable this exchange when you don’t feel desperate.
I would offer to help someone to the tune of an hour of my time or a hundred dollars to hear a story about how they are travelling without money. It wouldn't matter to me whether they used to have a job so long as they weren't claiming they would die if someone didn't help (which I didn't hear in this article).
Imagine the good he could have done if he actually paid people back! He could've bought a cart of food for the family generous enough to share their last can of meat. He could have spotted a generous driver with a full tank of gas right at the end of the trip.
I'm very happy to see this account of what once passed for normal life. It serves as a reminder that doomscrolling, however addicting it may be, is not reality.
During my time hitchhiking across the lower 48 U.S. states (in the 1960s), I only had to learn one rule -- smile. All the rest followed from that.
It seems some commenters feel the author was taking advantage of all those people who helped them. I disagree.
I think they are missing a large part of the situation through lack of experience, a selfish focus, or some other different perspective I don't understand. I very much doubt that any of the people who helped him along his travels thought he was in dire straights and needed the resources more than they did (which might be fraud if he had lots of resources and refused to use them in favour of lying to others to take their resources). I don't think someone who picks up a hitch hiker does so because they think the other person will die if they don't so it's worth the driver being taken advantage of.
I would be willing to share resources if someone knocked on my door and asked to camp in my backyar; for pretty much nothing but the expectation of mutual respect between myself, them, and the rest of society. Though I would also offer a meal for the chance to hear about what they were doing and why. No part of that situation involves me thinking they Need my backyard or Need to be fed to live. In fact, I would do it thinking they left a job and a normal life and chose the journey they're on; my assumption would be that when they were finished they would move back to a more regular life. Where I would have a problem is if the person seemed clearly intent on living like that their whole life; taking without giving. So in a way, my expectation is that the person is giving back in the experiences and stories they share with others, in the knowledge and experience they take back into a regular life; I will happily contribute to that. I don't think this changes regardless of how much someone has so I don't think it matters if someone from Canada travels Africa for example. I don't see any reason to believe he was lying to people to make them feel sorry for him.
Another aspect is that often he was indirectly selecting for people who were willing to share resources. By hitch hiking one is excluding anyone who feels they and society get no value from this person. One is excluding anyone who feels they would be taken advantage of by helping a hitch hiker. Those kinds of people just don't stop the car. Therefore anyone who helped him was obviously willing to do so and felt they would benefit more than what they expended to help.
I kind of struggled reading this, gratitude for the kindness offered to the author was genuinely good reading, but I also had the overwhelming feeling of, I don't know the bane of the emotion, but.. taking advantage of their kindness felt rude.
I know that there was an exchange, the author's company in return for the accommodation, and that may be true, just, I don't know, it was hard to reconcile.
FTR I personally am the same generation as the author, and also silent time hitchhiking, and "paying it forward" by proving rides and accommodation to others.
I disagree. The world is in fact filled with people with this attitude. And it is likely why we're still here at all.
"…it is one of high importance to all those animals which aid and defend one another, it will have been increased through natural selection; for those communities, which included the greatest number of the most sympathetic members, would flourish best, and rear the greatest number of offspring."
I saw him as a content creator doing some research, like pewdiepie or mrbeast. He's a good writer though. The article was a fun read.
> Your goal here is to make the best YOUTUBE videos possible. That’s the number one goal of this production company. It’s not to make the best produced videos. Not to make the funniest videos. Not to make the best looking videos. Not the highest quality videos. It’s to make the best YOUTUBE videos possible. Everything we want will come if we strive for that. Sounds obvious but after 6 months in the weeds a lot of people tend to forget what we are actually trying to achieve here.
KK is basically encouraging people to go out in the world and say "what can this place do for me today?" which is bad enough on its surface, but he's doing it while interacting with people (in this story at least) who have much, much less than him in so many ways. I'm not sure what you want to call it exactly, but it feels exploitative and antisocial to me at a minimum.
Only if it's not reciprocal. There was another comment here about how someone who helped KK emailed him much later for some help, and he immediately remembered and invited him over to talk. Gratitude leads to reciprocation.
If a species is going to die out anyway, shouldn't it try to go out in a way respectful to its self-identity (assuming it's smart enough to have self-identity)?
Conversely, if the world was filled with people with this attitude, humanity would be living in a stable, post-scarcity situation from a very long time ago.
No, because everyone would be waiting around to be helped rather than producing the abundance required for a post-scarcity society (which can never actually exist by the way).
You can't eat or sleep in gratitude, especially from people who have no intent of repaying your favors.
Edit: To be clear, I was talking about the author in my comment above.
There was a post recently on a social network complaining how so many people have a side hustle, typically social media. Basically I think the Uberization of passions, or even just interests, with platforms like Ubers but also Etsy and finally TikTok (because even an act itself, without even a product or service at the end) allowing the monetization of anything is what killed the expectation of genuinely free act of kindness.
Capitalism destroy social links by turning everything, literally everything, from externalities to sources of capital. We are becoming sociopath by embracing such a system. The few at the top clearly demonstrate that.
It's certainly a responsibility. A responsibility that, through its unique circumstances, you were not given the opportunity to accept our reject on your own volition.
I generally view that life has no meaning out of the box. We tend to think of terms like "meaningless" as a negative thing, but I see that more as a reaction to the indoctrination of a society that insists on lives having meaning. You wouldn't say a scattering of sand on the floor had "meaning," but you also wouldn't call the scattering "meaningless" in its negative connotation.
And just as we could use our finger to arrange the sand into a message and assign it meaning, we can choose to assign a meaning to our own lives. But that's still doesn't mean it started having meaning. If it did, that would be predestination, which is absurd.
I suppose that would depend on how easy it is to change ones perspective, which is something I've made no claim about. If you are depressed, for example, perspective change is notoriously difficult--and in my (admittedly limited, anecdotal) experience, everyone I have known to view life as a curse has been suffering some level of depression.
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.
I think you're misreading the comment you're responding to. Its parent comment said that life can be a blessing or a curse depending on how you choose to look. They responded by asking whether the word "curse" is appropriate if it can be changed based only on perspective.
I read the comment with a bit more grace. I just assumed they were skipping to the end of a journey without any of the subject's empathetic nuance. Meaning, most philosophical, spiritual, psychological, and mindset approaches all "end" with the idea that we have a choice in how we feel about things. That choice is choosing to feel things differently.
Those ends would say that suffering is a product of our own making. It is a choice. Bad things can happen to you, but your perspective on the situation creates the suffering (resistance, guilt, personalization, inability to see it as a change agent, etc.).
And it’s not a question of “not everything needs to scale”
If there’s anything that needs to scale its care and there are thermodynamic limits to that because singular individuals need magnitudes more care than any specific individual can provide
For example I had to go to the emergency room last night and the number of people who were involved in my care was at least 7 people
So let’s say you have millions of individuals with zero care and support networks who need more than a single individual can care for them
That means you need some multiple of individuals who have access energetic capacity to care for all of the individuals who do not have support or care structures for the ability to do it individually
The fact of the matter is of the 8 billion people who live on the planet, there does not exist another 16 billion people who are servicing them to make sure that they have the care that they need
But thermodynamics requires those 16 billion excess people to provide inputs to care for the 8 billion
Turchin describes this as elite overproduction theory. And I’m not saying it is correct and I’m certainly not saying it’s normative, but I do believe that there is a level of descriptiveness here that makes the mathematics of “care” impossible to solve with the atomic unit of human.
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).
When I read these enjoyable posts, I agree, but then the thought creeps in that the human experience is not all that bliss. Thoughts about the Russian soldiers raping Ukrainians and putting the grenade booby traps into the children toys (replace with other war experiences of your choice), or about parts of our society idolizing insecure men being cruel and inevitable murder of innocent bystanders that happens then.
Of course the author had a great experience, he's a weird white American somewhere unexpected, the embodiment of a "traveler" archetype. Would that Swedish person give their car keys to a random Roma on their doorstep? Yeah no.
I don't know where I'm going with this rant. "Check your privilege" screeds are overused. Being kind, on the other hand, isn't.
Yeah, it's a good article, but the dissonance between this today and the death of Renee Good is so hard to reconcile. Certainly no miracle happened for her that day.
99.9% of the people I meet want to be kind and help. You just need to "tune into that frequency." Fantastic anecdotal article that speaks to the goodness of humanity.
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 person can make it not worth approaching strangers at all.
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.
That's fair—and it's true I wasn't addressing them. Although I feel like vulnerability, in my experience, is a thing that absolutely elicits sympathy, compassion from strangers.
Part of why hitchhiking works is because you are putting yourself out there at the mercy of a stranger—making yourself vulnerable as it were.
I know several women who've travelled alone at various places in South America.
My sister had her credit card blocked by her bank while travelling in Belize just before coming home. She got a ton of help from locals who understood her predicament.
Sure, lots of women travel alone, and most of them have excellent experiences.
But you generally don't have to talk to a lot of them before you encounter one that's been sexually assaulted on her travels.
Does that mean women shouldn't travel alone outside of "safe" countries? I am not in any sort of position to make that call. But I'll be supportive of my daughters if they decide to do so.
Not traveling alone on foot in a country in which you barely speak the language does not mean staying shut in your house and never traveling at all and never meeting people. There is a middle ground.
Everything you said here is selfish, do you understand that?
"From my experience (60+ years now) the best times of my life have involved taking those "chances"."
You are not focused on giving, it is all about getting. And why is staying at home your whole life something looked down on? Just think of all the carbon it saves going into the atmosphere, if you can that is.
Just don't push your luck. There are a lot of people -- usually women -- who travel the world to prove the goodness of humanity and get killed by some rando along the way. Look up Pippa Bacca.
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.
For men I suspect the “killed by a rando” number is pretty low, but robbery/theft is very high. Of course if you have nothing to steal, that does insulate you a little.
For women I suspect the “killed by a rando” number is low, but the sexual assault number is higher.
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.
>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 saying that you are making a big claim, but provide no evidence.
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?
Negligible odds of death I'll buy, but a very large number of my women friends over my life have been sexually assaulted (and probably far more than I realize, it's not like it's something you bring up during holiday dinner). I'm often shocked by how few men realize how prevalent this is.
The idea that "women who aren't comfortably traveling the world alone depending on the kindness of strangers are living a life ruled by fear" seems naive at best.
Even back in the days when hitchhiking was much more common you would almost never see a single woman by herself, for good reason.
It is also more likely than not for assault victims that their assaulter is known to them, which goes back to the original point: how much more likely is a woman traveling the world to be assaulted or killed than one who is just existing in her everyday environs?
My original point still stands: the commenter made a big claim: world travel is (more) risky for women (than not world travel), but provided little evidence to support said claim.
>99.9% of the people I meet want to be kind and help. You just need to "tune into that frequency."
Jesus.
The only people who say this are white men.
"You just need to "tune into that frequency."" Is especially gross. You were raped and murdered by a stranger? It's your fault for tuning into the rape-and-murder frequency instead of the give-me-stuff frequency. That's what the implication is. Ewww.
Oh....what's the frequency Kennith? I have a hard time tuning to frequencies though, due to my severe mood disorder, so can you offer me some help on getting my tuner repaired first?
Goodness of humanity? Possibility of it, yes, yes, but have you seen the homeless counts rise in the U.S., richest country in the world?
> 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.
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 ease of -accepting- help and the strange difficulty of -offering- help. It's worth reflecting on, and imo much more relatable.
I'm reminded of a friend who talks about primary and secondary wants. He wants to eat a burger, but he wants to want to eat a salad. Maybe KK wants to want to help people, and the challenge for him is connecting the dots.
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
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.
as written on the emerald tablet once: "That which is above is like to that which is below, and that which is below is like to that which is above".
i have received MONEY from poor/working class people on my hitchhike and voluteer trip. i always refused but ALL of them never accepted the refusal. hospitality/food i think it's not even considered a donation/gift for most people who helped me over that year. sometimes you are part of all their forgotten teen dreams. sometimes you are someone they can talk freely about anything. that has no price too
The problem with a religion where all it takes is one weird ritual to remain blameless in the eyes of God forever is that it's easy to let a lot of shit slide. Christians always say "we're not perfect, we're just forgiven."
So even though that is Christianity's message, Christianity's metagame means if you take it seriously, you don't actually have to put in the work. You're still going to Heaven because grace is through faith and not works.
You've been dealing with the wrong folks then because all Christians should believe what James says when we says
James 2:14-20, 26 (NET) What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Can this kind of faith save him?
If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacks daily food,
and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm and eat well,” but you do not give them what the body needs, what good is it?
So also faith, if it does not have works, is dead being by itself.
But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith without works and I will show you faith by my works.
You believe that God is one; well and good. Even the demons believe that – and tremble with fear.
But would you like evidence, you empty fellow, that faith without works is useless?
For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.
I think this is the point being made: your 'should', and by extension your quote, has no meaning when grace is defined as the single goal of spiritual life, and then is reduced to a simple transaction.
Sure, people are free to believe whatever. I am quoting the very scripture they claim to believe though and so it would be hypocritical to do otherwise
The term we have for those folks is that they're doing "easy-believism" and it's broadly a pitfall within Christianity. It's not considered normative to so heavily lean on grace in the way that you're describing
Interestingly, the New Testament forewarns that the church will attract all kinds of sinful people, too: hypocrites, Pharisees, abusers, false prophets, false teachers, “wolves”, and those of dead faith as you mention. Jesus and the apostles consistently assume corruption, misuse of authority, and false prophets will exist.
This is further reflected in the biblical distinction between the visible and invisible church and Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the tares: genuine followers and the others grow together until the final judgment.
So, many people know that only a small minority of “Christians” are actually faithful followers of Jesus (i.e. regularly read Scripture and live in obedience to it). And, some estimates place this number as low as 1%.
Lots of interesting things in this miraculous story, but I can assure you none of these miracles would happen without the two words completely left out of the article: white privilege
Take that as a lesson for the benefits of building a great reputation for your race to bless your decendents that even in foriegn lands your kind are respected.
I do think it is a stretch to say that such a reputation was responsible for every single act of kindness he received.
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 was something like = I provide logistics and you provide content; like the story of your cross-country bike trip.
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. We have largely replaced the P2P protocol of kindness with a sort of centralized platform of service. We stripped out the human latency and the requirement for social reciprocity and replaced it with currency and star ratings. It makes me surreal to think about this.
It's a choice. I go to the supermarket twice a week, not shopping for much. I switched the store I use three, four months ago, but I can already talk about some of the employees at the store I visit. Louis is back where he grew up right now because his 97-year-old grandfather died. Among other things, he feels lucky grandpa's passing came after the new year because of his time-off allotment. Nikki had great holidays, mostly because her adult daughter was here for a week. Nadine ("Shh.") has decided she's going to retire at the end of the month but hasn't yet told anyone at the store.
Raffy, the UPS delivery guy I see maybe five times a year? He's doing well, finally feeling things slowing down some after the holidays. His fiancé will finish her graduate degree this spring, then they're going to decide if they want to stay here or move back to the state where they were born. They like it here, but think job opportunities will be better back home.
I'm sure many here are familiar with "This is Water," the commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace. Many often cite his line, "Everybody worships," his observation that we all hold aspects of life in reverence, whether religious things or otherwise. It's a valid, pithy point, but I always thought the key part to his speech comes later and has been widely overlooked:
And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving.... The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.
He delivered that speech in 2005. Before the modern smartphone. All those people I mentioned earlier were strangers. That's no longer the case because all of us chose to interrupt what we were doing and open up a little to someone unfamiliar. It's a choice. Or, as Bob Dylan once sang,
Freedom, just around the corner from you
But with truth so far off, what good will it do
This was a deeply moving comment, and has changed my perspective in a way that I will never forget. Thank you.
this comment was beautiful. In my younger years, I used to be so embarrassed when I'd go grocery shopping or elsewhere with my mother and she would ask about service people's lives and stories. I used to hate it and feel uncomfortable and wonder what the point even was.
Thank you for completely changing my perspective, on something I haven't thought about in a long time
Ahhhhhh I love this and love that you referenced This Is Water something I've held dear to me as my default perception of life. There's so much to the world which we can access on our very doorstep, we just need to open up to it.
It's an easy thing to forget if you don't do it consistently enough to be 2nd nature.
> 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.
One question could be: which set of people know more about each other at the end of dinner.
Dinner time used to be a time of the day where couples and families would have the first chance since breakfast to discuss their day. With all of different available forms of communication today, my partner and I already know what happened during the other’s day and we are doing something like planning the next adventure.
I work from home and “retired my wife” six years ago. She’s home most of the time unless she’s out either teaching fitness classes or taking fitness classes. We talk all of the time off and on during the day.
We also travel a lot (nothing glorious or expensive and I know all of the credit card hacks), if you see us on our phones when we are out, we are usually looking at our shared calendar/Google sheet plotting and planning what we are going to do next.
We are 51/50 and have a window where our kids are grown and our parents see mostly healthy and independent and we are both in good shape and gym rats
To be fair, you don't know if that couple is just out for dinner because they didn't make anything at home that day. You don't know if they've been around eachother and off their phones for the past 24 hours. I have the opposite anecdotal experience to yours. Lots of people at restaurants are not on their phones but I've also stopped caring to look honestly.
Or maybe one of them is responding to another human being in their life over their phone, and as that results in a break in conversation, the other person starts using theirs.
> When Joe Rogan is more interesting than talking about your day with your spouse or friend ...
... you may (just may!) have been married for a rather long time. I still think that is sad, but in a different sort of way than it would be for younger couples/pairs.
I think maybe this happens in waves? I’ve been with my SO a while, over a decade at least, so we’ve run through the backlog of stories. But there’s usually at least one or two new things to talk about from our independent lives. I guess if we were both retired, we would probably spend less time apart, and have less time to accumulate stories the other didn’t know about.
Although sometimes we just play the crossword, taking turns on one of our phones, when waiting for the waiter.
Rogan pushes fairly regressive and misogynistic narratives, so I would expect a "Rogan guy" to not have a great relationship with his wife and would not at all be surprised they stopped getting along or just lacked a lot in common anymore, unless she's also a Rogan type.
Way to totally miss the point. You can just pretend he said The Young Turks instead if you care to follow along with the conversation.
Put another way, we are all competing with professional entertainers now. Sink or swim...
>> 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.
Haha! In the 90's I picked up a hitchhiker on the Pensylvania turnpike. I thought 'oh, someone to talk to". After a brief conversation he said where to wake him up and slept until we were there...
You should try again sometime. I try to pick up hitchhikers when I get the chance (I rarely drive) and always get to hear some truly interesting stories - I have yet to regret picking someone up.
I would encourage people to test this out for themselves, I think you will find a different result. People today are starved for in-person connection, but are afraid to initiate the conversation.
This doesn't come naturally to me, but after working on it over a few years, 95% of the time strangers are excited to chat and say hi and make a friend.
You mentioned working on it — do you have a particular strategy, venue, or opening line/guiding ethos that you find works well?
I love making friends with strangers, but usually rely on the "handshake protocol" of a casual observation or small talk that is then accepted (with a similar slight-deepening or extension of the thought) or rejected (casual assent or no response at all), until the bandwidth opens and I can foster a more meaningful moment of connection with a pivot like "Oh awesome that you do $THING for work. Do you enjoy what you do?" or "Oh I don't know much about $LOCATION_YOURE_FROM. Good spot for a vacation, or good spot to drive straight through?"
As somewhere between "thinks like an engineer" and "on the spectrum," I really enjoy hearing others' strategies or optimizations (optimizing for quality, connection, warmth) for social situations.
> "Oh I don't know much about $LOCATION_YOURE_FROM."
I always love the most to chat with strangers in line or wherever when I'm in a foreign country, as there's so much good dirt for digging with someone from a far away place. It's funny, though, the number of times I strike up a conversation with someone halfway around the world only to find out they live within a few miles of me. Last time I was in London, for example, the lady in line in front of me had an Australian accent, and I always enjoy talking to Aussies. Yep, she was an Aussie... Who lives a few towns over from me in the US, in the same apartment complex my wife lived in when I met her.
FWIW I think you're already doing the thing. That's it. But I'd suggest trying not to care too much about optimisation. It's unnecessary in my view because it implicit puts goals & outcomes as the end, when it's, ore about meandering and seeing where things go, endless possibilities.
I'd echo this.
There does feel like some wide resignation (more so with younger people <35 if I can generalise a bit) that we're too far gone everyone being closed off. But I've generally found that there is no real resolve to that resignation. Many just do not want to, or feel comfortable, making the start. Once the start is done though, the pleasantness of the experience is generally visible.
Exactly this. I don't do it much in the USA to be honest, but when traveling.
Well, you're not wrong about novelty being a much rarer thing in the past but people rarely drove alone in total silence. 8-tracks and cassettes came along eventually but even before then, people listened to the radio which had a wide variety of music, news, sports, and call-in shows. Truckers had CB radios and would talk to other truckers and drivers to pass the time.
Those who didn't see much of the world before the last two decades have this impression that everyone was far less connected to the world and each other before the Internet. That's not strictly true... the Internet made long-distance connections and access to content easier, but the ease of access to entertainment (namely, social media) has greatly weakened local connections.
I saw somewhere here saying they want some kind of AI appliance that learns their regular commute and warns them about traffic and construction and I was like, dude, every radio station had regular traffic reports from helicopter pilots through the whole morning and evening drive times.
An individualized report tailored to your route at your time is much higher utility than periodic reports of a few popular routes provided at random intervals.
Also, all the big map apps already provide real time traffic so not sure what LLMs (“AI”) bring to the table.
Human contact is more scarce than ever, it's not fungible with podcasts or audiobooks, and most people are starving.
I've backpacked/hitchiked through Ireland few years back. It was easy to catch a ride, even easier to find somebody to let me pitch a tent on their land. People were open and kind and wanted to hear and share stories.
Yes but the large language STEM salad of "marginal utility of a stranger's story" and the "P2P protocol of kindness" is surely more authoritative than your real world experience.
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.
I got picked up by a born again christian women hitch-hiking in the interior of British Columbia. She was telling us about smoking pot with her friends at a retirement home. Good times
When I look at stunning works of art (especially architecture - how did they build such tall structures when they didn't have cranes) from hundreds of years ago, first thought is - that should have taken a long time and tremendous effort.
But they didn't have Netflix, video games, YouTube... That could be at least a tiny contributor? Maybe
I dunno, I've picked up my share of hitchhikers and to me it wasn't about being a trade, it's about sharing presence and our stories. Not a transaction, but just sharing.
One time I was stopped on a single lane highway in the mountains, in driving rain, as a power pole was blocking the road. A fellow commuter was in the same boat, but he was on a motorcycle. I invited him in my car and we just chilled and shared some light conversation. No trade, nothing gained besides someone offering a little shelter to another.
don't have time for any of that, must worry all the time how to survive in this super inflated economy.. 20 years ago one still made a wage and living..
I dont think this is it as we've had radio and music since the 50s and mp3 audiobooks since the early 2000's.
I think this is just the communal values of that society. Its not entirely some weird transaction about being entertained, and that's just a really mercenary way to see human life.
A lot of cultures, especially in more rural areas, pity or feel responsibility for people walking far and will just offer them rides. Especially if there's risk in that area from storms or criminals or wild animals. Its something we've been doing since forever. I don't think its based on entertainment. I think talking and sharing is just a normal part of being human.
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
> replaced it with currency and star ratings
In addition, the socioeconomic gaps are wider. So much so that the software engineer rushing to their 10am meeting doesn't want your $50. The Uber driver does, though.
Before I quit riding my motorcycle, I recalled one important thing: all the way from the Oakland Hills to downtown San Francisco, many (I dare say 'most') drivers would step their cars to the edges of their lanes to make room for me to lane-split. I know there are lots of people who use their phones will driving, but this was clearly intentional, and a large number of people would do it. I was riding a Ducati but in a modern car you won't hear me. So that means that this large number of people were:
* checking their mirrors
* deciding to make room for me
You don't have to make room for me. I can lane split with a car in the center of its lane and I can slow and stop if its close to this side. But people would do it. It's just an everyday kindness - a small measure of friendly consideration and I appreciated that.
I used to ride as well, and I had the same reaction. The sheer number of people who moved over for me (in California) blew me away every time I rode. They'd never hear me coming; they SAW me and made the choice to move over. I constantly felt that I was underestimating how many people were truly paying attention while they were driving, despite how much "we" like to complain that everyone's in their own world and nobody pays attention anymore.
I try very hard to do the same. I did before I rode, and I still do now. I'm a skilled and trained and attentive driver who is rarely distracted. And yet, I am ashamed at how often I am surprised when a motorcycle splits past me. Maybe I shouldn't think so highly of my attentiveness compared to the "average" person.
It's also a lesson on law and culture. Here in CA where it's legal by statute (if not always practiced in a legal manner), and where drivers are aware it happens, and MOSTLY aware that it's legal, the drivers are very kind. In places where it is ILLEGAL, drivers can be a lot more antagonistic and unsafe about the practice. But at the end of the day, the laws are arbitrary; on the asphalt, it's just another human trying to get from one place to another, doing nothing to inhibit the journey of the other.
Haha, I feel the same way. I like to pay attention when driving. But then sometimes a motorcycle splits past me and I didn't see him coming. It feels like such an indictment. All these guys used to see me coming. I should definitely strive for that at least.
I like moving over for motorcycles. It's a little thing, but costs me nothing and is totally available as a recognition. Maybe it's like saying, "I see you." I had wondered if it was helpful. Now that you told me it's not necessary, I guess I'll continue doing it anyways.
I think I may have given the wrong impression: I definitely appreciated it. When I said it's not necessary, I was distinguishing the act from legal acts that are necessary. For instance: a car waiting for me to take my turn at a stop sign cannot be evidence of the driver "showing consideration" since even the inconsiderate may yet prioritize adhering to a legal requirement.
Making it easier for me to lane-split on the other hand is not required of the driver. If they are doing it, they are doing so entirely optionally and consequently it is evidence of their being considerate.
When lane-splitting I appreciated the move over for the following reasons:
* I know you can see me
* It is more comfortable with more space
* I know you are willing to look out for other motorists => if a thing happens unexpectedly right in front, the spot I'm in next to you is safer than standard.
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.
I thought the eaay was creepy but that section just gave me the heebie-jeebies. "Sympathy vampire" is the term that came to my mind unbidden. It reads like an essay by someone aromantic describing love purely in terms of going to restaurants to eat exquisite food, and the mutual benefits of filing taxes jointly.
indeed the author sounds like an alien visiting a human zoo
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 was no one in time, I took a bus. (If there was one)
But buddies I travelled with also 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.
> 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 grown up he was, and he knew what is like to be poor, because he was poor… (1)
In my opinion he was full of shit and full of himself. It remind me about the film Inside Man, the opening scene features mastermind Dalton Russell (Clive Owen) in a prison cell, he say something like “being in a cell is not being in prison”. Is absolutely not the same being poor, in contrast to having money and not using it as part of a kind of game.
(1) let me give me more context: I saw him telling other people, who were actually poor and were struggling to eat, and giving lessons of life to them, explaining how being poor is an “opportunity“. It was a miracle he conserved all teeth that day.
"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.
> But if you have done the livestyle and know that you can get by without money, you do loose some fear of loosing money.
I disagree. I’ve seen people that used to say “I was unemployed, I don’t fear unemployment”… until they lost the job.
To me is like saying “I will go to see the bear behind bars in the zoo, so that when I see one in the wild I do not fear.”
The people I know that actually were poor fear poverty the most. That guy never ever had such a fear. He even never ever studied or worked, because liked living from others, until he went back to the parents.
I mean, it depends of course. Especially now that I have children, who depend on me. I do know, even with kids you can hitchhike, do work exchange, etc. but it is a whole different story than doing it on my own, so I would never claim I transcended above existential fears regarding money. But I do believe my base attitude is way more relaxed to always find a way somehow and that helps me a lot to not get a heart attack considering all the stress I do have to face.
About others I don't know I won't judge, but surely quite some like living in a illusion, no doubt about it.
I think if he is willing to be generous in other times and places as well, it can be a good learning experience.
I know this is also how Jesus lives in the Gospels, and has his disciples do so at times as well.
Of course he paid his way by healing the sick and raising the dead!
And telling really good stories.
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.
An interesting question would be - have I helped people more well-off than me? and how did I think about it?
I think there is no reason for him to write this article for free, or any of his articles, but I am glad he did us the kindness.
(I did like amish hackers https://kk.org/thetechnium/amish-hackers-a/ )
I think it's a balance. In some cases, the act of giving means much more to the giver than to the receiver, especially when they want to be a part of something larger than themselves.
This is part of the issue I have with the original article.
When these kinds of "unique" people are rare, that's ... sorta okay. Once you get too many of them, it's no longer interesting and becomes an active hazard.
I have a further problem because it seems like the author has no plans for the reverse when it is supposed to be his turn to be on the giving side rather than the receiving.
Maybe the point was the connectedness? Spend £100 with no actual interactions, because literally everything is transactional, or "free ride" of of the very human need to connect socially with others?
I think our future needs more of the latter and less of the former.
Right, he's promoting living in a more helpful, less isolated world.
Then he needs to be willing to live both sides of the equation.
My wife and kids always make fun of me for the goofy dad-joke-level interactions* I will create with strangers (that far more often then not elicits laughs from the person with whom I interact).
When they tease me about it, I ask them if they'd rather live in a world of complete atomization, free of any human interaction.
I know I would not!
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEGohj0IkQo. (They call me "Bonjour" sometimes lol)
I see others expressing this point, but I'll add my two cents: this essay really bothered me.
1. The writer describes hitchhiking to work every day, presumably for months or years. He doesn't describe in any way how he paid back that kindness, either to the people he rode with directly, or just by paying it forward.
2. The writer describes traveling in Asia for 8 years, and many of the instances of kindness he describe imply very strongly that he intentionally put himself at risk, where others were faced with the choice to help him or let him suffer consequences. It's one thing to get caught in a rip current and need assistance; it's another entirely to swim out past where you are safe, and then wait for someone to rescue you -- and to do that repeatedly for eight years. Further, it is obvious from the language used that he was traveling rough by choice, with the privilege and economic security of his background, and yet repeatedly accepting -- I would argue demanding -- the help of people from a poorer background than himself. He was cosplaying poverty and repeatedly being assisted by people living it for real.
3. The backyard idea seems similarly pushy. He says he was never turned away, not once. So he believes that no one, given an actual free choice, would rather not have a stranger camp in their backyard. He ignores the possibility that people would feel uncomfortable about rejecting someone presenting as having no place to stay, and rather believes that everyone he asked woke up that day thinking about how happy they'd be to do a favor for a stranger. And he couches the whole process as him doing them a favor.
4. He lists multiple instances where people less well-off than him went to great lengths to help him, without ever thinking about why they might feel obligated, and through it all admitting that not only doesn't he engage in such kindness himself, he can't imagine that he would.
5. And through it all he characterizes what he very nearly describes as him pushing himself on people as "willingness to be helped" -- as some sort of saintliness.
And of course each of these people only saw him once, for a short while. Reading this essay we see how it is a pattern: how he is essentially a traveling con man, moving from mark to mark, letting each of them believe that he just happens to need help this one time, so they put good out into the universe. But in reality he is taking, taking, taking, abusing the world's willingness to help -- if everyone did what he did, the world would swiftly become a meaner, poorer place.
The author's philosophy is that, what the people doing him kindness got in return was that they got to do something kind for someone.
To be honest, I think there's something to that. It could certainly be taken too far, but your assumption that it has been taken too far in this case is mostly based on an uncharitable reading of the text, in which the author was "pushing himself on people" and they were secretly resentful of him.
> what the people doing him kindness got in return was that they got to do something kind for someone
Yes, there is something to that but he gives too much credit[1] to his own "willingness to be open".
I don't know if KK has taken it too far or not, but the way he expresses it all is not inspiring. It carries an air of pretentious wisdom.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46561144
This is also how I read it.
Also many of these acts of kindness happened in places where people culturally pay it forward for each other, regardless of wealth.
The article reminds me of The Art of Asking. If you never heard of it, it's a TED talk where a musician/singer shared how much favors she received from fans (without expectations of returning them.)
Years later the said musician, Amanda Palmer, was accused and sued for sexual assault and human trafficking. Together with her husband, Neil Gaiman.
I'm not saying the author has done anything illegal, but I think one should be extra cautious about people who take others' kindness for granted.
There's always a fine line between being a wandering spirit and a mooch. I used to hang out with the rainbow gathering crowd, and this reminds me of the time my friend, who on coming down from his acid trip, declared that he was going to give all of his possessions away and wander the earth. When I suggested that might not be a good idea, his reply was something like "no, you don't understand, the universe will give me everything I need". I understood why a lot of old hippies end up as forest hermits or sticking to a small group: the burn-outs, mooches, and grifters wear out their welcome very quickly.
That said, I think there's something about going out into a world on a wandering 'quest' that appeals to human nature on a deep level. I'd hesitate to call the author a con man, since you wouldn't call a mendicant or pilgrim a con man. If his motivation was just to squat in people's backyards and mooch free meals until he gets kicked out and then wander around until he finds a new host, I'd agree. But if people want to help him on his personal project of experiencing the kindness of he world, I wouldn't call that taking advantage of people who offer their help freely.
The difference between a spiritual pilgrim and a vagabond freeloader depends on how much of a romantic one is, and if you admire Don Quixote or not.
He basically thinks he’s the main character, and other people around him are NPCs.
The writer is Kevin Kelly, who is like the overlap between the hippie SF days and 90s techno-utopianism that has led to where we are today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Kelly_(editor)
I'm with you 100% on this. I kept reading it and thinking to myself, "is... is this guy admitting out loud to being a grifter?"
I'm from Sri Lanka. One incident I always remember is how the front wheels of my car went into a ditch and got completely stuck while trying to pull out of a shopfront parking lot. I was fairly new to driving and was at a complete loss as to what to do next. Within seconds, a crowd of men gathered, some from the bus stop nearby, others from the restaurant in front of the parking spot. "Get back in and reverse when we tell you", said one person. Then a group of about 5 men literally lifted the front of my car and placed the wheels back on terra firma. I reversed out of the ditch, parked the car and got out to thank them, but they had dispersed as rapidly as they had assembled. I always thought my people a bit brusque in social interactions -- we don't greet shopkeepers or supermarket cashiers; we don't smile randomly at each other; we don't often say thank you. But I suppose when it matters, people are more willing to get involved and roll up their sleeves to help.
a friend of mine had written a bit about kindness and tried to jot a few points about it. worth a read. I believe this also sits well with what the author is trying to convey https://open.substack.com/pub/karthiksama221505/p/kindness-t...
Really nice article, but it sort of flies in the face of all our biological imperatives.
Being a good "kindee" means forgoing security, control and some safety.
Constant Gratitude for just the miracle of life means forgoing the driving dissatisfaction that will push you ahead.
This is the classic battle between our ancient biological impulses and the reality of modern society. Many religions try to square these: Buddhisms central focus is to "stop grasping" your desires, Christianity wants you to "surrender" and put your faith in god. And then you also have articles like this that have a vague spiritual bent but mostly preach mindfulness and gratitude as a balm to our general dissatisfaction. Do we still need constant anxiety around our safety, do we still need to feel dissatisfied with each achievement and constantly want more? Or were those just useful imperatives for an animal 50,000 years ago but useless to us today?
In my personal life I have momentary success being mindful/grateful, but the bare reality is we are the product of millions of years of life being a short cruel struggle, fraught with danger. Does modern society give us the right to throw all that away and pretend we get to float around observing the beauty of the world? Or is our life supposed to be a battle?
It is survival of the fittest gene
A cooperating human race has been excellent for our survival.
What's interesting about this post is that it would be completely unsurprising to most people in most parts of the world, as well as most people here 100 years ago. The discomfort so many people in this thread feel with receiving kindness and the devaluing of the gift of companionship, gratitude, and a good story is a testament to how far off human norms our society is these days.
I struggle with this a lot myself - I've had to overcome deep feelings of inadequacy and insecurity because I never valued what I offered people just by being present and because I always felt like I had to "square the books" - that every interaction or relationship was an exchange that needed to square its ledgers. The best thing for my mental health has been to become comfortable just being with people and accepting their continued presence and return to my company as something that doesn't require an exchange - that human companionship and kindness are things we enjoy as people, not services to be itemized and accounted for.
One interesting note on this is that it's not just an "old world" phenomenon - if you look at many old farmhouses across the midwest, they've got a separate covered section that's accessible from outside the house - the assumption was that travelers passing by could and would spend the night there, and often the owners would have supplies of oatcakes or other durable foodstuffs for travelers, because everyone who traveled needed somewhere to stay or something to eat at some point, and reciprocity could be assumed when the homeowner traveled themselves in the future.
Is that really true? Would a black man be able to receive this type of kindness 100 years ago?
Outside of America, sure.
That was wonderful writing. As we go through the daily grind of life, we forget how privileged we are to be alive.
I found the following two paragraphs truly incredible.
> All of us begin in the same place. Whether sinner or saint, we are not owed our life. Our existence is an unnecessary extravagance, a wild gesture, an unearned gift. Not just at birth. The eternal surprise is being funneled to us daily, hourly, minute by minute, every second. As you read these words, you are rinsed with the gift of time. Yet, we are terrible recipients. We are no good at being helpless, humble, or indebted. Being needy is not celebrated on day-time TV shows, or in self-help books. We make lousy kindees.
> I’ve slowly changed my mind about spiritual faith. I once thought it was chiefly about believing in an unseen reality; that it had a lot in common with hope. But after many years of examining the lives of the people whose spiritual character I most respect, I’ve come to see that their faith rests on gratitude, rather than hope. The beings I admire exude a sense of knowing they are indebted, of resting upon a state thankfulness. They recognize they are at the receiving end of an ongoing lucky ticket called being alive. When the truly faithful worry, it’s not about doubt (which they have); it’s about how they might not maximize the tremendous gift given them. How they might be ungrateful by squandering their ride. The faithful I admire are not certain about much except this: that this state of being embodied, inflated with life, brimming with possibilities, is so over-the-top unlikely, so extravagant, so unconditional, so far out beyond physical entropy, that is it indistinguishable from love. And most amazing of all, like my hitchhiking rides, this love gift is an extravagant gesture you can count on. This is the meta-miracle: that the miracle of gifts is so dependable. No matter how bad the weather, soiled the past, broken the heart, hellish the war – all that is behind the universe is conspiring to help you – if you will let it.
> I’d like to think that I would without hesitation drive far out of my way to bring a sick traveler to the hospital (in the Philippines), but I am having trouble seeing myself emptying my bank account to purchase a boat ticket for someone who has more money than I do. And if I were a cold drink seller in Oman, I would definitely not give cold drinks away for free just because the recipient was a guest in my poor country. But those kind of illogical blessings happen when you are open to a gift.
inedible?
Indelible, probably -- though I admit that both trying to eat and trying to delete that passage failed. (I jest -- "impossible to forget," of course.)
Interesting! I meant "incredible", though. Fixed now.
Thanks. Fixed.
I did the hitchhiking thing in my 20's. Up to Alaska and back. I know what he describes.
I wish everyone could have some experience like this. Because, like Kevin, I also have a positive view about strangers, about my fellow humans. And I have met a lot of people (friends, coworkers) where I recognize in them a fearfulness of the world. And I used to be like that too.
It really is a different and a wonderful world I think when you lose your fear of it.
From what I have heard, women in their 20s have a materially higher probability of experiencing the opposite.
And people of color.
Would you have a positive view about me, a homeless older man with schizoacffective disorder? Not looking for an answer, I just wan that in your head.
Radical openness can slide into naïveté if it ignores power, incentives, and bad actors. “Be vulnerable and good things will happen” is only true in constrained contexts, where norms, reciprocity, and consequences exist. Outside those, vulnerability can absolutely be exploited.
Ina perfect world openness is not surrender; humility is not passivity; trust is not indiscriminate access.
Your comment makes me think about my situation. I am an open person that likes to try to make strangers laugh and people often are comfortable striking up conversations and opening up to me.
Recently I was essentially conned by a guy who I thought was being friendly but he ended up walking off with my phone and PIN (that I’m guessing he saw me enter earlier) and emptied my bank account. This was my payment for being open and obviously too trusting of strangers.
It seems more recently whenever I spend time out in public all I see are people on their phones, people driving around not paying attention, no one doing anything with any actual care and I seem to keep literally stepping in other peoples dog shit. I now have quite a negative view of the general public and I tend to think they are mostly morons that don’t give a fuck about anybody or anything but themselves.
I don’t actually want to be like this. I liked the authors idea of “pronoia” but I don’t see any way there for me. I’d say I’m still a positive and open person really but inside I hold quite a bit of hate for people in general.
Stories like this always feel a little bittersweet. It’s beautiful, but women would be in potential danger in situations like these.
And I say that as someone who has spent years the world traveling alone and isn’t afraid of humanity and agrees that the kindness of people is one of the most precious and Hope-building things in the world.
For those in the thread worrying that KK may have been mooching off people, and would not reciprocate: many years ago, I opened up our back yard for people who wanted to come to O'Reilly's Emerging Tech conference, but could not afford the sky-high hotel prices in Silicon Valley (this was before AirBnB or couchsurfing).
I was surprised when Kevin Kelly appeared. He'd been my (very distant) boss at Wired, was a published author of one of my favorite books, a very well-known figure and a smiling but disarmingly calm manner. He sat and amicably talked for hours with a yard full of people, many of whom have become some of my closet friends. Then, as the evening closed, he asked if he could sleep in my yard too. Others had brought tents, and burning men structures, and it had begun to rain. Kevin pulled out a camping sleeping bag from nowhere, struck out, and I saw him later, in the soaking, muddy garden, quietly curled up under someone's geodesic dome structure.
Decades later, after Covid, I mailed him out of the blue, and asked him for advice. He immediately remembered me, invited me to his home, and talked to me, again, for an hour or so, about AI, optimism, and how to change the world.
To be frank, I never emailed him thank you, and I still feel guilty about that, but now I feel like it was never needed or asked for. I may mail him anyway. Maybe there's a miracle or two still left in the day.
This is a mindset that is intentionally cultivated in Jesuit novices to the priesthood in what they call the "pilgrimage experiment": each is given $50 and a bus ticket in order to make a trip to a specific/meaningful destination while giving and receiving aid in whatever opportunities arise. Example anecdote: https://www.jesuitscentralsouthern.org/stories/judge-for-you...
More so about this thread than the post, but I think it's a shame that so many immediately go to the edge cases of safety concerns (parricularly for women) or strangers with difficult mental illnesses. I don't want to belittle or dismiss those concerns, as they do exist, but letting that limit potential possibilities feels like a unnecessarily limited life.
Granted I'm lucky enough that in my travels and general life nothing awful has happened to me but opening yourself to your fellow peers on this tiny planet is such a core part of existence that we should find ways of making this happen. It doesn't need to be picking up hitchhikers, they're millions of relatively risk free interactions out there. Dive in.
Except it’s not an edge case. As a person of color, I can tell you that my everyday life experiences are gonna be vastly different.
These are not edge cases, but our every day, real life experiences.
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 :^)
> one might even call the act of accepting generosity a type of compassion. The compassion of being kinded.
When reading this, I can suddenly relate. There's a colleage who always smiles but I know she's hurt inside. Sometimes in a quiet moment I try to comfort her with careful listening, kind words and genuine advice. She's very receptive and thankful to this act of kindness and I find it a pleasure to be kind to her. The reward is so high that it almost feels compassionate towards me.
Beautiful article. This is kind of the antidote to the more cynical side of things that you see in posts such as, say, Meditations On Moloch (neither is wrong, I think, but there is more to humanity than either alone).
Just want to say I love this vintage internet blog style.
Sounds like someone who takes and does not give
Why would he be helped if he truly doesn't give? He speaks about this a little:
which, at the time, was genuinely valuable [0].[0] Discussed more at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46555688
You left off this part:
> It takes some practice to enable this exchange when you don’t feel desperate.
Which to me means that he had to fake the reciprocity.
Do you donate to a charity expecting reciprocity?
This comment leaves me confused as to what you believe. Do you believe a man biking across the country "takes and does not give" in a different way from a charity, or was "someone who takes and does not give" simply not meant in a bad way?
For years and from people who have nothing to share.
It's a distinct possibility. What's more likely is that this person is an example of someone robbed of their own agency, either intentionally or not.
It leads to becoming dependent on others, a true Last Man in the original sense. That's where the resentment starts on the part of the giver, especially when enabling people such as this repeatedly and on long enough timescales.
What's become clear to me is that there isn't anything inherently wrong (morally speaking) with these people, but they need to be moved out of the way so to speak. They cannot be allowed to escape their various containment zones, and the mechanism for their containment must be strengthened.
Some would call them a begpacker. It’s quite common in Asia.
Exactly.
People taking advantage of other peoples' kindness systematically and at scale is the reason why people are less kind today.
I do like that the article touches exactly this, and even though I'm a stranger to the entire concept, it makes sense:
>Hardly anyone hitchhikes any more, which is a shame because it encourages the habit of generosity from drivers, and it nurtures the grace of gratitude and patience of being kinded from hikers
I can see how it becomes a healthy feedback loop
Not sure I agree, the systematicness can be cultural as well.
In my area there's a bunch of Islands with ferry service, but the ferry terminals are often remotely located on these islands, away from lodging and population centers.
It's fairly common to see people hitchhiking their way to hop off the islands. Every time I've chosen to do it, I'm still filled with the same sense of gratitude Kevin Kelly describes. The folks picking me up always feel like they're experiencing the sense of levity and kindness, not habituality and scorn.
people getting increasingly hung up on enforcing reciprocity is just as likely a culprit
I wasn't trying to enforce reciprocity. I'm just saying that if you don't need help you shouldn't be asking for it from strangers.
If you have a job and income you can afford transportation. Behaving like a broke person when you are not is taking advantage of other people, and taking limited kindness resources away from people who actually need help.
If you are morally obligated to use your own resources if you have them, then you're stratifying society. The financially comfortable can never ride a bus. The rich cannot drive themselves. Nobody can ever learn what those less fortunate are like, and must necessarily look down upon them and use their imagination to figure out what "those people" care about and need.
So that's not a great outcome either.
(I don't exactly disagree with you either. Accepting a scarce resource from someone when you possess significantly more? That rubs me the wrong way too. Get their mailing address and pay it back later, in spades, if it deprived them of something!)
Perhaps kindness isn't a zero-sum game
Even mentions in the article that he would be hesitant to respond the same way with his resources... that's when I stopped reading, so frankly don't know if he changed that attitude or not...
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.
Seems like a good way to rationalize receiving and not giving anything.
This was my impression as well. I'm supposed to wander around and wonder who I will leech off of today, while presenting it both a skill and to some extent as a favor to the person helping me?
I think the ending is worth reading to; to me this was not an essay showcasing a travel philosophy of reliance on others, but rather to express an easy to dismiss notion that you are not alone, and there are people that can and will look out for you.
Beautiful story. One Christmas Eve I ( with my kids in the car) picked up a hitchiker. His name was Christian, and he was headed to our church. I went out of my way, and dropped him off in the parking lot. I felt blessed to have helped him.
Okay, I will take the contrarian position. As I read this I kept waiting for the part where he somehow repays all the hospitality he has received, if not directly to those who gave it, then forward, somehow. Instead, all I got was new-agey rationalization.
To solicit a gift from a stranger takes a certain state of openness. If you are lost or ill, this is easy, but most days you are neither, so embracing extreme generosity takes some preparation. I learned from hitchhiking to think of this as an exchange. During the moment the stranger offers his or her goodness, the person being aided can reciprocate with degrees of humility, dependency, gratitude, surprise, trust, delight, relief, and amusement to the stranger. It takes some practice to enable this exchange when you don’t feel desperate. Ironically, you are less inclined to be ready for the gift when you are feeling whole, full, complete, and independent!
The things he lists are not reciprocation. The paragraph strikes me as a long-winded way of saying, "It takes a special mindset to beg from others when you're not actually needy." Indeed it does.
One might even call the art of accepting generosity a type of compassion. The compassion of being kinded.
Not only does he rationalize a life of asking for and taking from others, even the very poor, without any material reciprocation, but even admits that he is not sure he would have done the same for another person in his position.
When the miracle flows, it flows both ways.
No. The attitude of humility and gratitude with which one is obliged to receive another's charity is not itself a repayment. The social contract around this kind of hospitality is that everyone gives and receives materially; if you are taking now because you have nothing to give, then the expectation is that you will give to someone else later, not simply walk the earth taking and taking. It's a prisoner's dilemma, and we only all benefit if we all cooperate. Calling a person who takes but never gives back in a material way a "kindee" is just sanctifying the defector.
(EDIT: please note that I'm not advocating against offering hospitality, only against taking it with an attitude that you will neither repay it nor pay it forward, because just the act of accepting it is somehow holy.)
I'm trying to square this guy's experience with all of the homeless people who don't seem nearly so lucky. Or perhaps they are being helped and supported and I don't see it?
I agree with others here that the notion of relying on others so completely makes me feel uncomfortable, like I'm a burden. But I think that's part of what the author intends to draw attention to. Wouldn't a world where everyone freely supports each other, even if it's not needed, be a more pleasant place, and a safer place, than one where everyone looks out for themselves? Is a community where each member is only kind to other members who can reciprocate really kind, or just cooperative? Each act of kindness was given freely, and I assume the more extravagant examples were unasked. When you give something to others, you gain something yourself. As long as he's not misrepresenting his situation (e.g. claiming to be a victim or refugee) I don't think he's really doing something wrong - just something that goes against highly competitive big-city western values, which neither he nor the givers seem to share.
>I'm trying to square this guy's experience with all of the homeless people who don't seem nearly so lucky. Or perhaps they are being helped and supported and I don't see it?
I get that, but I do witness a lot of compassion and help directed to homeless folks. However, even if they're regularly gifted by strangers, it's likely not enough to materially change their situation.
I would suggest that the staggering efficacy of panhandling does demonstrate how remarkably willing strangers are willing to help a rough looking homeless person on a street. And beyond that, there are a lot of invisible homeless (the ones not struggling with mental health or drug issues) that remain off the streets because people in their community will give them a few days on a couch here or there, or help fix their car, give them a place to park a trailer, etc.
In my neighborhood, there's a homeless man that lives in a camper trailer in the back yard of some neighbors. They just met him one day and offered him a stable piece of land to be and help him out as they can. He comes around asking us neighbors for lawn care work and such to earn some money, which is how I learned about the situation.
> I get that, but I do witness a lot of compassion and help directed to homeless folks. However, even if they're regularly gifted by strangers, it's likely not enough to materially change their situation.
When I've looked at the data, the majority of homeless people have been homeless less than 12 months. This means that the majority of homeless people who benefit from support will use it to get out of that situation quickly. And for the most part, if you give help it will be immediately and materially useful.
Speaking as someone who worked for the SF bay area's largest homeless shelter nonprofit:
People who end up homeless long-term usually have negative social behaviors that push others away. When you help them, they don't tell an interesting story, they act angry or yell at you. When you give them money, they don't make you feel you happy, they make you feel afraid or annoyed.
This is unfortunately often due to mental health issues or drug problems. It's very sad, and ends up completely isolating them from all friends, family, and strangers who could help them.
Edit: This article actually puts this into clear terms, long term homeless people are poor "kindees"
> I'm trying to square this guy's experience with all of the homeless people who don't seem nearly so lucky.
Although I don't think there's an image to confirm, "Informed Attractiveness", aka "Pretty people are always happy to espouse how friendly strangers are to them" - probably applies. There's also simple charisma which carries a long way. I wouldn't say I was ever super hot (maybe a 7 at one point), but I can point to many situations where I benefitted from being attractive (in appearance, action, or mannerism). Some tangled beard doesn't change host most people perceive me.
Loved this piece. Kindness and gratitude as a kind of symmetry. I have to work on both of those, I'm afraid. I suppose we all do: but, they seem admirable goals.
Does anyone else feel a sort of anxiety in those situations? I've been on such trips and I would rather not sleep at all than ask a stranger for help. When I'm in a position to help, I am delighted to do so, but also scared of offering.
How does one get over that fear?
Like all skills; practice. Push through the fear enough times that you learn to love it.
When I was in the military, we once had an exercise which consisted of our troop leaders dropping 60 of us in Edinburgh (Scotland) with nothing on our person except for a cheap film camera. We had to complete a list of challenges with different scores, that varied from "eat a free meal" to "play a hole at St Andrews golf course". We were picked up the following day (meaning we had to find a place to sleep the night) and had to debrief the group on what challenges we managed to complete with video evidence. To be honest, it completely changed my world view in a weekend.
We had guys who talked their way into an airfield, miles away from where we started, and convinced a random pilot to give them a spin in his private aircraft. One group managed to get the castle guards to let them fire the daily One O'Clock Gun from the top of Edinburgh castle. Another did manage to play the first hole of St Andrews (£340 a round, and a 2 hour drive away!). We had people crash a wedding, sew up a kilt, learn to play the bagpipes; it was carnage in the best kind of way.
All of that was done just by asking. At the start of the day, everyone was awkward and embarrased. By the end of day two, we all just wanted to see how much further we could take it. Turns out that sometimes all your inhibitions do is get in the way of a fun time and a great story.
I have been thinking about your comment a lot today and yesterday. Thanks for sharing.
At the exact same time last year I went on a short trip without a phone. I was forced to talk to people and it was a good exercise, even though I wasn’t very good at it. It led to conversations I would not have had otherwise.
I feel like there's something in the zeitgeist happening. I've only become aware recently of the 'gift economy' but I'm seeing more and more people post things related.
In summary, a wealthy westerner travels the world, asking the poor for favors. He eventually comes to believe that enlightened spirituality rests primarily on gratitude. (One can't imagine why.)
He then proceeds to passive-aggressively browbeat readers who aren't as grateful as he is for the "lucky ticket called being alive."
Has it occurred to him that perhaps it was his ticket that was lucky? It certainly seems luckier than that of the Filipino family who opened their "last can of tinned meat" to feed him, a volitional vagabond.
If there's anything worth reading here, it's the reminder that altruism is more prevalent than individualists sometimes expect. The rest is frankly stomach-turning.
Yeah, while the article is beautifully and poetically written (he's a reputed magazine editor after all), it comes across naive to extrapolate his good fortune to "you just have to be open enough to let the miracle happen to you". (I know, I'm simplifying here a bit.)
Obviously, there's some truth to it, but there are many unspoken variables that worked in his favor that he doesn't bother to acknowledge them. Some other comments also touched on it.
I'm not being cynical here. I myself have had incredibly good fortune in experiencing the kindness of strangers, both in the East and the West, and I do my best to reciprocate. But I'm acutely aware of how invisible factors that are not in my control helped facilitate some of the good fortune that came my way. I can't merrily attribute it all to my own "openness to experience"!
KK inhales his own good fortune too deeply.
"Instead of believing everyone is out to get you, you believe everyone is out to help you."
Worst advice I have ever heard.
I think the lesson to take from this is "Who's miracle can I be today?"
Beautiful and disturbing.
So many people around the world are so wonderfully generous with everything, and we should celebrate that.
However mooching off others is weird.
It is a fine thing to graciously accept generosity. And it is a fine thing to graciously offer generosity without expectations.
It gets difficult when the generous are poor if they choose to give. It can be hard to decline without being offensive.
I have lived for lengths of time basically at the generosity of others (not poor, including the dole in my wealthy country) so I shouldn't fault the guy. However, I have also tried to give back, and now I'm older I also try and pay it forward. Certainly I've given >10x back to the government (I'm taxed highly in my country - and I dislike thinking about taxation as something you ever get back).
His story is a simplification of the modern world. We are often given so much by our society and it can be difficult to give fairly back to society.
Yet for some reason his writing recalls me of You can't win by Jack Black https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69404
make it tough on us, buyin' chuck. They begin to expect money. You go up to that house," pointing to a place on a small rise, about fifteen minutes' walk, "and tell the woman you and two other kids run away from home in the city three days ago and you ain't had nothin' but a head of cabbage that fell off a farmer's wagon between youse since you left. Tell her you are on your way back home and the other two kids are down by the bridge so hungry they can't walk. On your way up there git a phony name and street number ready in case she asks you questions. She'll give you a sit-down for yourself, chances are, but bring back a 'lump' for us. You're a decent-lookin' kid; she might git worked up about your troubles and ask a lot of dam' fool questions.> 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 make the world a better place. The way he presents it, he just relies on other people because he can and without giving ever back. Maybe I'm misreading, but I don't feel inspired.
I think this was rhetorical hedging - the author was expressing false doubt to underscore how extraordinary the actions of his hosts were, but he didn't literally mean he wouldn't do the same for others. The tone of the rest of the piece implies he is very grateful for the kindness of strangers.
Well we only know what he said.
He doesn't present examples where he helped others.
That's not the point of his piece, and spending time virtue signaling to the reader would undermine the message that this kindness is a form of grace, given freely without expectation of reciprocation.
> I am having trouble seeing myself emptying my bank account to purchase a boat ticket for someone who has more money than I do.
Another strange example. In the entire article he does not give one example where he is the helper or offers reason why he would help or why people should help. It is all about the taking as far as I can read. IDK, just I'm not inspired or excited.
This person is being honest about how he feels about a hypothetical situation. I appreciate the humility of sharing a thought people might look down on and would be trivial to lie about. Also based on this article I would be surprised if he is not the type to show such kindness - if anything this reflection shows that such openness is not to be taken lightly, that it is special and should be appreciated as such. How wonderful then that is is so ubiquitous.
I'm pretty sure the message is about the general goodness of humanity and the positivity of connection, "the better angles of our nature." As the culture gets more divided and us vs them, people are actually fundamentally good and helpful. I'm sure the people who helped him also got a positive experience out of it. It is not zero sum that he took something from them, both were positively affected by the experience.
> I learned from hitchhiking to think of this as an exchange. During the moment the stranger offers his or her goodness, the person being aided can reciprocate with degrees of humility, dependency, gratitude, surprise, trust, delight, relief, and amusement to the stranger. It takes some practice to enable this exchange when you don’t feel desperate.
That's his view. Transactional and rehearsed.
Agreed. There are helpers and the helped, and it is a good thing to do both when you can.
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.
I would offer to help someone to the tune of an hour of my time or a hundred dollars to hear a story about how they are travelling without money. It wouldn't matter to me whether they used to have a job so long as they weren't claiming they would die if someone didn't help (which I didn't hear in this article).
> the way he proudly explains how he is using people is just awful.
TFA: “One might even call the art of accepting generosity a type of compassion.”
Turns out he’s doing them a favor!
He sounds like a “begpacker.”
Reading this makes me think badly about the author. Taking from those less fortunate is horrible.
If you are rich enough to travel to a poor country, please don’t exploit the people by taking more from them.
Imagine the good he could have done if he actually paid people back! He could've bought a cart of food for the family generous enough to share their last can of meat. He could have spotted a generous driver with a full tank of gas right at the end of the trip.
I'm very happy to see this account of what once passed for normal life. It serves as a reminder that doomscrolling, however addicting it may be, is not reality.
During my time hitchhiking across the lower 48 U.S. states (in the 1960s), I only had to learn one rule -- smile. All the rest followed from that.
It seems some commenters feel the author was taking advantage of all those people who helped them. I disagree.
I think they are missing a large part of the situation through lack of experience, a selfish focus, or some other different perspective I don't understand. I very much doubt that any of the people who helped him along his travels thought he was in dire straights and needed the resources more than they did (which might be fraud if he had lots of resources and refused to use them in favour of lying to others to take their resources). I don't think someone who picks up a hitch hiker does so because they think the other person will die if they don't so it's worth the driver being taken advantage of.
I would be willing to share resources if someone knocked on my door and asked to camp in my backyar; for pretty much nothing but the expectation of mutual respect between myself, them, and the rest of society. Though I would also offer a meal for the chance to hear about what they were doing and why. No part of that situation involves me thinking they Need my backyard or Need to be fed to live. In fact, I would do it thinking they left a job and a normal life and chose the journey they're on; my assumption would be that when they were finished they would move back to a more regular life. Where I would have a problem is if the person seemed clearly intent on living like that their whole life; taking without giving. So in a way, my expectation is that the person is giving back in the experiences and stories they share with others, in the knowledge and experience they take back into a regular life; I will happily contribute to that. I don't think this changes regardless of how much someone has so I don't think it matters if someone from Canada travels Africa for example. I don't see any reason to believe he was lying to people to make them feel sorry for him.
Another aspect is that often he was indirectly selecting for people who were willing to share resources. By hitch hiking one is excluding anyone who feels they and society get no value from this person. One is excluding anyone who feels they would be taken advantage of by helping a hitch hiker. Those kinds of people just don't stop the car. Therefore anyone who helped him was obviously willing to do so and felt they would benefit more than what they expended to help.
I kind of struggled reading this, gratitude for the kindness offered to the author was genuinely good reading, but I also had the overwhelming feeling of, I don't know the bane of the emotion, but.. taking advantage of their kindness felt rude.
I know that there was an exchange, the author's company in return for the accommodation, and that may be true, just, I don't know, it was hard to reconcile.
FTR I personally am the same generation as the author, and also silent time hitchhiking, and "paying it forward" by proving rides and accommodation to others.
If the world was filled with people with KK's attitude, humanity would have died off a very long time ago.
I disagree. The world is in fact filled with people with this attitude. And it is likely why we're still here at all.
"…it is one of high importance to all those animals which aid and defend one another, it will have been increased through natural selection; for those communities, which included the greatest number of the most sympathetic members, would flourish best, and rear the greatest number of offspring."
—Charles Darwin (the Ascent of Man)
You realize I'm talking about the author (KK), not the people he was basically grifting?
I have edited my comment to make it more clear.
I did not realize, thanks for the clarification.
I think you're leaning a little too hard on Kevin though. Grifting is putting a bit of a fine point on it.
I saw him as a content creator doing some research, like pewdiepie or mrbeast. He's a good writer though. The article was a fun read.
> Your goal here is to make the best YOUTUBE videos possible. That’s the number one goal of this production company. It’s not to make the best produced videos. Not to make the funniest videos. Not to make the best looking videos. Not the highest quality videos. It’s to make the best YOUTUBE videos possible. Everything we want will come if we strive for that. Sounds obvious but after 6 months in the weeds a lot of people tend to forget what we are actually trying to achieve here.
- mr beast
I figured not, apologies for not making it clear.
KK is basically encouraging people to go out in the world and say "what can this place do for me today?" which is bad enough on its surface, but he's doing it while interacting with people (in this story at least) who have much, much less than him in so many ways. I'm not sure what you want to call it exactly, but it feels exploitative and antisocial to me at a minimum.
"Grifter" is exactly the word that came to my mind as I was reading the article, for whatever that's worth.
Only if it's not reciprocal. There was another comment here about how someone who helped KK emailed him much later for some help, and he immediately remembered and invited him over to talk. Gratitude leads to reciprocation.
If a species is going to die out anyway, shouldn't it try to go out in a way respectful to its self-identity (assuming it's smart enough to have self-identity)?
Conversely, if the world was filled with people with this attitude, humanity would be living in a stable, post-scarcity situation from a very long time ago.
No, because everyone would be waiting around to be helped rather than producing the abundance required for a post-scarcity society (which can never actually exist by the way).
You can't eat or sleep in gratitude, especially from people who have no intent of repaying your favors.
Edit: To be clear, I was talking about the author in my comment above.
There was a post recently on a social network complaining how so many people have a side hustle, typically social media. Basically I think the Uberization of passions, or even just interests, with platforms like Ubers but also Etsy and finally TikTok (because even an act itself, without even a product or service at the end) allowing the monetization of anything is what killed the expectation of genuinely free act of kindness.
Capitalism destroy social links by turning everything, literally everything, from externalities to sources of capital. We are becoming sociopath by embracing such a system. The few at the top clearly demonstrate that.
> We are at the receiving end of a huge gift simply by being alive.
I always perceived it completely opposite. Even as a few years old child.
You think it's a curse to be alive?
Not sure if I'd use word curse. It at least slightly implies agency.
I'd just say it's a burden and a bother.
It's certainly a responsibility. A responsibility that, through its unique circumstances, you were not given the opportunity to accept our reject on your own volition.
I generally view that life has no meaning out of the box. We tend to think of terms like "meaningless" as a negative thing, but I see that more as a reaction to the indoctrination of a society that insists on lives having meaning. You wouldn't say a scattering of sand on the floor had "meaning," but you also wouldn't call the scattering "meaningless" in its negative connotation.
And just as we could use our finger to arrange the sand into a message and assign it meaning, we can choose to assign a meaning to our own lives. But that's still doesn't mean it started having meaning. If it did, that would be predestination, which is absurd.
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.
I suppose that would depend on how easy it is to change ones perspective, which is something I've made no claim about. If you are depressed, for example, perspective change is notoriously difficult--and in my (admittedly limited, anecdotal) experience, everyone I have known to view life as a curse has been suffering some level of depression.
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.
I think you're misreading the comment you're responding to. Its parent comment said that life can be a blessing or a curse depending on how you choose to look. They responded by asking whether the word "curse" is appropriate if it can be changed based only on perspective.
I read the comment with a bit more grace. I just assumed they were skipping to the end of a journey without any of the subject's empathetic nuance. Meaning, most philosophical, spiritual, psychological, and mindset approaches all "end" with the idea that we have a choice in how we feel about things. That choice is choosing to feel things differently.
Those ends would say that suffering is a product of our own making. It is a choice. Bad things can happen to you, but your perspective on the situation creates the suffering (resistance, guilt, personalization, inability to see it as a change agent, etc.).
It doesn't even need to be situations, just a particular flavor of brain chemistry.
If you haven't read C. S. Lewis' The Great Divorce you may like it.
I don't really understand which bit of the quoted phrase is opposite. Do you mean we're at the giving end of a huge gift? Or something else?
Im pretty sure the commenter means that they do not experience (or at least see) life as a gift, but as the complete opposite. Anti-natalist-y
white man experience
Care doesn’t scale
Harm scales trivially
And it’s not a question of “not everything needs to scale”
If there’s anything that needs to scale its care and there are thermodynamic limits to that because singular individuals need magnitudes more care than any specific individual can provide
For example I had to go to the emergency room last night and the number of people who were involved in my care was at least 7 people
So let’s say you have millions of individuals with zero care and support networks who need more than a single individual can care for them
That means you need some multiple of individuals who have access energetic capacity to care for all of the individuals who do not have support or care structures for the ability to do it individually
The fact of the matter is of the 8 billion people who live on the planet, there does not exist another 16 billion people who are servicing them to make sure that they have the care that they need
But thermodynamics requires those 16 billion excess people to provide inputs to care for the 8 billion
Turchin describes this as elite overproduction theory. And I’m not saying it is correct and I’m certainly not saying it’s normative, but I do believe that there is a level of descriptiveness here that makes the mathematics of “care” impossible to solve with the atomic unit of human.
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).
What an amazing blog post. Such a treat to have read this. Thanks for sharing.
I guess I've been struggling incorrectly.
When I read these enjoyable posts, I agree, but then the thought creeps in that the human experience is not all that bliss. Thoughts about the Russian soldiers raping Ukrainians and putting the grenade booby traps into the children toys (replace with other war experiences of your choice), or about parts of our society idolizing insecure men being cruel and inevitable murder of innocent bystanders that happens then.
Of course the author had a great experience, he's a weird white American somewhere unexpected, the embodiment of a "traveler" archetype. Would that Swedish person give their car keys to a random Roma on their doorstep? Yeah no.
I don't know where I'm going with this rant. "Check your privilege" screeds are overused. Being kind, on the other hand, isn't.
Yeah, it's a good article, but the dissonance between this today and the death of Renee Good is so hard to reconcile. Certainly no miracle happened for her that day.
99.9% of the people I meet want to be kind and help. You just need to "tune into that frequency." Fantastic anecdotal article that speaks to the goodness of humanity.
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 person can make it not worth approaching strangers at all.
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.
That's fair—and it's true I wasn't addressing them. Although I feel like vulnerability, in my experience, is a thing that absolutely elicits sympathy, compassion from strangers.
Part of why hitchhiking works is because you are putting yourself out there at the mercy of a stranger—making yourself vulnerable as it were.
I know several women who've travelled alone at various places in South America.
My sister had her credit card blocked by her bank while travelling in Belize just before coming home. She got a ton of help from locals who understood her predicament.
Sure, lots of women travel alone, and most of them have excellent experiences.
But you generally don't have to talk to a lot of them before you encounter one that's been sexually assaulted on her travels.
Does that mean women shouldn't travel alone outside of "safe" countries? I am not in any sort of position to make that call. But I'll be supportive of my daughters if they decide to do so.
Not traveling alone on foot in a country in which you barely speak the language does not mean staying shut in your house and never traveling at all and never meeting people. There is a middle ground.
Everything you said here is selfish, do you understand that?
"From my experience (60+ years now) the best times of my life have involved taking those "chances"."
You are not focused on giving, it is all about getting. And why is staying at home your whole life something looked down on? Just think of all the carbon it saves going into the atmosphere, if you can that is.
Just don't push your luck. There are a lot of people -- usually women -- who travel the world to prove the goodness of humanity and get killed by some rando along the way. Look up Pippa Bacca.
I can think of one example. There are likely hundreds of thousands of non-examples though.
You get one life. If you choose to live it to maximize personal safety you'll never know all the wonders you sat out.
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.
For men I suspect the “killed by a rando” number is pretty low, but robbery/theft is very high. Of course if you have nothing to steal, that does insulate you a little.
For women I suspect the “killed by a rando” number is low, but the sexual assault number is higher.
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.
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.
>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 saying that you are making a big claim, but provide no evidence.
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?
> negligible odds of death or assault?
Negligible odds of death I'll buy, but a very large number of my women friends over my life have been sexually assaulted (and probably far more than I realize, it's not like it's something you bring up during holiday dinner). I'm often shocked by how few men realize how prevalent this is.
The idea that "women who aren't comfortably traveling the world alone depending on the kindness of strangers are living a life ruled by fear" seems naive at best.
Even back in the days when hitchhiking was much more common you would almost never see a single woman by herself, for good reason.
I'm male and I was speaking of males (male friends and co-workers for example).
It is also more likely than not for assault victims that their assaulter is known to them, which goes back to the original point: how much more likely is a woman traveling the world to be assaulted or killed than one who is just existing in her everyday environs?
My original point still stands: the commenter made a big claim: world travel is (more) risky for women (than not world travel), but provided little evidence to support said claim.
The odds of assault for women are not negligible.
And it kinda takes the fun out of such a trip if you have to be on edge in order to protect yourself all the time.
>99.9% of the people I meet want to be kind and help. You just need to "tune into that frequency."
Jesus.
The only people who say this are white men.
"You just need to "tune into that frequency."" Is especially gross. You were raped and murdered by a stranger? It's your fault for tuning into the rape-and-murder frequency instead of the give-me-stuff frequency. That's what the implication is. Ewww.
Oh....what's the frequency Kennith? I have a hard time tuning to frequencies though, due to my severe mood disorder, so can you offer me some help on getting my tuner repaired first?
Goodness of humanity? Possibility of it, yes, yes, but have you seen the homeless counts rise in the U.S., richest country in the world?
> 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.
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 ease of -accepting- help and the strange difficulty of -offering- help. It's worth reflecting on, and imo much more relatable.
I'm reminded of a friend who talks about primary and secondary wants. He wants to eat a burger, but he wants to want to eat a salad. Maybe KK wants to want to help people, and the challenge for him is connecting the dots.
> 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
> 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.
as written on the emerald tablet once: "That which is above is like to that which is below, and that which is below is like to that which is above".
i have received MONEY from poor/working class people on my hitchhike and voluteer trip. i always refused but ALL of them never accepted the refusal. hospitality/food i think it's not even considered a donation/gift for most people who helped me over that year. sometimes you are part of all their forgotten teen dreams. sometimes you are someone they can talk freely about anything. that has no price too
This is what Christianity says its message is, but one can credibly read quite a few other core messages into what various types of Christians do.
The problem with a religion where all it takes is one weird ritual to remain blameless in the eyes of God forever is that it's easy to let a lot of shit slide. Christians always say "we're not perfect, we're just forgiven."
So even though that is Christianity's message, Christianity's metagame means if you take it seriously, you don't actually have to put in the work. You're still going to Heaven because grace is through faith and not works.
You've been dealing with the wrong folks then because all Christians should believe what James says when we says
James 2:14-20, 26 (NET) What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Can this kind of faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm and eat well,” but you do not give them what the body needs, what good is it? So also faith, if it does not have works, is dead being by itself. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith without works and I will show you faith by my works. You believe that God is one; well and good. Even the demons believe that – and tremble with fear. But would you like evidence, you empty fellow, that faith without works is useless? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.
>all Christians should believe
I think this is the point being made: your 'should', and by extension your quote, has no meaning when grace is defined as the single goal of spiritual life, and then is reduced to a simple transaction.
Sure, people are free to believe whatever. I am quoting the very scripture they claim to believe though and so it would be hypocritical to do otherwise
The term we have for those folks is that they're doing "easy-believism" and it's broadly a pitfall within Christianity. It's not considered normative to so heavily lean on grace in the way that you're describing
Interestingly, the New Testament forewarns that the church will attract all kinds of sinful people, too: hypocrites, Pharisees, abusers, false prophets, false teachers, “wolves”, and those of dead faith as you mention. Jesus and the apostles consistently assume corruption, misuse of authority, and false prophets will exist.
This is further reflected in the biblical distinction between the visible and invisible church and Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the tares: genuine followers and the others grow together until the final judgment.
So, many people know that only a small minority of “Christians” are actually faithful followers of Jesus (i.e. regularly read Scripture and live in obedience to it). And, some estimates place this number as low as 1%.
Lots of interesting things in this miraculous story, but I can assure you none of these miracles would happen without the two words completely left out of the article: white privilege
Take that as a lesson for the benefits of building a great reputation for your race to bless your decendents that even in foriegn lands your kind are respected.
I do think it is a stretch to say that such a reputation was responsible for every single act of kindness he received.