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.
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
No need for crosswords or other activities to keep her brain active - talking to people and remembering their stories is what kept her going!
Before moving to the community, she had a house in Cambridge (Boston) and let out the upper floor to students, post grads etc - and kept up with many of them long after they had left. Connection was definitly a skill of hers.
Thank you for completely changing my perspective, on something I haven't thought about in a long time
It's an easy thing to forget if you don't do it consistently enough to be 2nd nature.
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.
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.
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
... 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.
Although sometimes we just play the crossword, taking turns on one of our phones, when waiting for the waiter.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Also, all the big map apps already provide real time traffic so not sure what LLMs (“AI”) bring to the table.
Most are damn interesting. People pay money, for fiction, that isn't as interesting as the stories I hear, almost daily, from the folks that lived them.
It's interesting, when someone talks about how he was shot, then pulls up his shirt, to show you the scar.
> "War talk by men who have been in a war is always interesting; whereas moon talk by a poet who has not been in the moon is likely to be dull."
- Mark Twain
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.
But they didn't have Netflix, video games, YouTube... That could be at least a tiny contributor? Maybe
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.
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.
I have nothing to base this on except anecdotal experience, but I really think this current generation (Gen Alpha?) is going to hate AI and anything related to it. One recent example: a friend’s kid’s third-grade class recently visited our local city hall and had a mock city council meeting with the mayor. One of the kids asked if we could “ban ChatGPT from the city.”
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.
* 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.
On the flip side, when _I'm_ the one on the bicycle, and some car goes half out of the lane to pass me, I think "geez, you don't need to give me 20 feet of space, I'm not some drunk idiot, I can ride my bike in a straight line!"
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.
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.
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.
I feel he's depending on others' kindness and not even really acknowledging them. It's like he feels it's a miraculous power that's helping him (God?) rather than the actual individuals choosing to help him. Maybe that explains why he doesn't seem to feel the need to give back to them.
It reminds me of an episode of The Wire where a mediocre detective tries to use magic to solve a case. After he wakes up the next day he goes to the office and finds the case is solved. He says the magic worked! And the police chief tells him it wasn't magic, it's his colleagues who worked all night solving cases.
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.
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.
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.
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.
And he never needs/wants this benefit of giving for himself? Because he never describes paying it forward, in fact quite the opposite.
And again, he repeated describes never failing to get the help he seeks. Either he is taking advantage of people, or he is the luckiest person on the planet.
Interestingly, I have some similar incidents in my past: I took the Amtrak to Crescent City, then bicycled south along the coast of California. On the train up I met someone from Eureka, who invited me to stay at their place when I got there the second night, and I did. It's been so long I had forgotten the situation until just now, and I don't remember the conversation leading up to that. I don't think I was pushing for a place to stay; I stayed at a hostel in Crescent City the night before, and another somewhere near Leggett the night after, and I never slept indoors for free on the rest of the trip.
Later, when I was looking for a public trash can in a small town, I asked someone if there were any. They said no, and just to toss whatever I wanted to get rid of into the back of their pickup, and they'd drop it at the dump the next time they went.
My knees got extremely painful by the time I reached San Francisco. At a hostel near Muir Beach(?) I ran into a guy from San Diego (where I lived) who took half my gear (lightening the load) and gave me a Mueller knee brace he happened to have with him to wear for the rest of the trip. That act definitely saved my trip.
Still later on the trip, camping at a park I ran into a guy who was also bicycling, homeless by choice -- he said he was divorced and living without an address to deny his ex her alimony. He said to never go into a grocery store without checking the dumpster out back first, and handed me an over-date yogurt :-)
But I can very confidently state that I wasn't asking for any favors. Maybe that makes me not "open" to the world looking to help me?
At first I questioned whether I was being judgmental. But writing it out as I did convinced me I was not. If people are helping him at every turn, even people far less well off than he is, that is clearly him pressing the world's "kindness" button -- hard.
"We ended up sleeping like sardines under a single home-woven blanket while snow fell." -- how would he have kept warm if they didn't share the blanket with him? Did they have any option but to share their blanket or feel like they were leaving an innocent to freeze?
Actually, I have an experience for that as well. When I was prepping for the California ride I rode through the Cuyamaca mountains east of San Diego. I brought no clothing but a bike jersey and shorts. It dropped well below freezing that night. I spent the entire night huddled in a bad K-Mart sleeping bag, dozing, shivering, and cursing how long it was until dawn. I suppose I could have knocked on any van or RV at the site, but I didn't even think to, even though I was legitimately freezing. Again, maybe I'm not "open" enough, but I made a stupid decision to not bring better gear, or at least a jacket -- I earned that consequence, and I paid for it in full. :-)
And I tell that story all the time. At this point I don't think it's a better or worse story/memory than the one I would have if I had asked someone for help and received it.
I've received help many times in my life. But again, it rubs me the wrong way if someone purposefully and repeatedly throws themself into deep water, expecting others to rescue them. And to me at least, it seems clear that's what he's done.
Also many of these acts of kindness happened in places where people culturally pay it forward for each other, regardless of wealth.
He could afford not to rely on others, but instead he let people buy him food, give him a bed, etc.
This didn't sit well with me. If you can pay your own way, but choose to instead let others pay for you, you're just sponging off people.
I 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 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.
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.
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.
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.
About others I don't know I won't judge, but surely quite some like living in a illusion, no doubt about it.
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 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/ )
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.
I think our future needs more of the latter and less of the former.
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 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.
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?
A cooperating human race has been excellent for our survival.
That's brutally honest, but really, isn't the lesson from his whole trip that either :
- yes, he would reciprocate, because that's human nature, and it is why the "miracle" keep happening
- no, he would not reciprocate, and how can he not be ashamed of that, or his upbringing, or his society, etc... ? And what is different in the life's of the people who did help him ?
"Elle est a toi cette chanson, toi l'auvergnat qui sans façon..."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 would never do this solo.
The amount of times solo travelling I have been threatened with rape is not high. But it's way too far from zero for me to ever consider anything like this.
Perhaps to you it's an unnecessarily limited life. I must, however, stick with my real world, lived experience threat model re:safety.
It's bittersweet to both hear how little others understand this, and also to read about experiences I can never have.
These are not edge cases, but our every day, real life experiences.
Ina perfect world openness is not surrender; humility is not passivity; trust is not indiscriminate access.
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.
Just think about it, we are a social species and without this type of behaviors it makes no sense for individuals to stay together. It is a strategy of our genes to keep successfully replicating.
But even so, I agree with the author there is something really spiritual about this: deeply contradictory but firmly rooted in our nature.
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 :^)
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.
> One might even call the art of accepting generosity a type of compassion.
People may feel good about themselves after performing an act of kindness, but this sentence makes it sound like the author is gifting them the opportunity to go out of their way to do things for him.
And all of these stories of wandering around Asia for eight years sound more like he deliberately put himself in positions to guilt people who culturally feel obligated towards generosity. These don't read like stories of kindness to me, but someone bragging about all the people he manipulated, and then recycled all these stories of manipulation into some ridiculous idea that he is the truly compassionate and kind person because he is accepting their kindness.
His thesis seems broadly to be that by accepting gifts whenever they're offered, he is making the world a better place - opening himself up to kindness somehow encourages kindness in others. This is nonsense and totally backwards. What he's doing is just soaking up a whole world of goodwill and generosity, and giving basically nothing in return. "Paying it forward" is a chain - people do nice things for each other in the hope that the recipients of that goodwill will provide similar generosity to others in the future and together we make the world better for all of us. It's socialised good will - creating a rising tide that lifts all of our boats. The author of this piece has instead acted as a kind of capitalist, moving into a space with abundant resources (i.e. the generosity of others), and harvesting as much as he can, wondering at how much resource there is available for him to take, marvelling that others leave it there for him when he would likely not do the same, and patting himself on the back for taking it so that more can flow into the space.
It's somewhat akin to high frequency traders claiming that they benefit markets by providing liquidity.
Maybe we should all just follow his example, and then none of us would have anything left to give each other. Narcissistic nonsense.
the person being aided can reciprocate with degrees of humility, dependency, gratitude, surprise, trust, delight, relief, and amusement
[0] Discussed more at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46555688
> 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.
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.
People taking advantage of other peoples' kindness systematically and at scale is the reason why people are less kind today.
>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
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.
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.
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!)
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.
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 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 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.
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.
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.
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"
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.
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.
How does one get over that fear?
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.
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.
Worst advice I have ever heard.
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
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 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.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.
He doesn't present examples where he helped others.
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.
That's his view. Transactional and rehearsed.
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.
TFA: “One might even call the art of accepting generosity a type of compassion.”
Turns out he’s doing them a favor!
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 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.
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.
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.
"…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)
I have edited my comment to make it more clear.
I think you're leaning a little too hard on Kevin though. Grifting is putting a bit of a fine point on it.
> 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
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.
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.
I always perceived it completely opposite. Even as a few years old child.
I'd just say it's a burden and a bother.
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.
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.).
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.
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.
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).
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.
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 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".
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.
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.
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.
"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.
You get one life. If you choose to live it to maximize personal safety you'll never know all the wonders you sat out.
For women I suspect the “killed by a rando” number is low, but the sexual assault number is higher.
Ah, thank you.
"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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.)
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.
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 he could try instead of waiting for someone to help him do it?
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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%.
I do think it is a stretch to say that such a reputation was responsible for every single act of kindness he received.