alt Hacker News> 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.
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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.
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.
> 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!
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).
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.
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.