alt Hacker News"…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.