Comment by tung | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tung | Hacker News Reader

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It's easy to lash Sam Odio, but doing so robs us of some really interesting questions and answers.

First, why was the idea so popular to begin with? Collective funds aren't new, nor is using Twitter as an API for tracking things in the real world. I don't have any good guesses here.

Second, why has the community reacted so passionately? Even here on Hacker News, mostly made up of people who put reason over emotion, have been extremely upset. One: Having the money taken broke people's faith in the greater good of humanity, so indignation naturally follows. Two: Diverting funds was akin to telling people what to do, and nothing makes people angrier than being forced to do things against their will.

People got very emotional over what, in perspective, isn't that much money. $625 could get you an iPad... or a really lousy computer. If somebody had that much stolen from a home break-in, that wouldn't even make local news, let alone Hacker News. It's very curious. Also, it shows money not just as a means of gaining goods and services, but as a way for people to make a mark on the world; 'voting' for things they believe in by giving money, and denying it from things they don't.

I don't approve of what Sam did, but it's better to step back and really see what's going on here, rather than just being a mob about it.

Despite what the common perception of hackers is, we're actually highly community driven. Look at places like HN. Look at the concept of the hackerspace, or the computing clubs that preceded them.

Jonathan's card was in the same spirit as a hacker space, which is [bluntly]: if we all pitch into this, and we're all nice about it, we can have something that's pretty freaking cool.

Assume that instead of a starbucks card, we were talking about a hackerspace. What Sam Odio did was the equivalent of showing up, then taking a bunch of the the tools so that he could sell them and donate the money to homeless people. To take it a step farther he then used his website to encourage other people to do the same thing.

He tried to destroy the community (and succeeded). Hackers love communities, and they tend to hate the people that destroy them.

In fact, Sam Odio is a very community-minded person. He started the original Hacker House in Palo Alto (http://hackerhouse.bluwiki.com/). He was an early enthusiast for the Hacker Dojo in Mountain View (http://wiki.hackerdojo.com/w/page/25442/Incubees). More significantly, when other people were offering advice to an unemployed hacker, it was Sam who offered his couch for a few weeks (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2827635). I'll add a personal data point: he once insisted on giving my co-founder and me a ride to the train station even though it was completely out of his way and we had only met a few minutes earlier. Trivial, yes, but trivial indicators of decency are often the most reliable, especially when no one is watching.

My 2¢ is that Sam seems to process social norms in an unconventional way and it occasionally gets him into a pickle. It also leads to good things. More good than bad, I'd bet.

I'm sure he's a great person. I'm not speaking against his character, just explaining why hackers would be upset about this.

You did speak against his character. You said he tried to destroy a community. That is not the action of a "great person".

You began from the assumption that Sam is not one of us, the "highly community-driven" hackers. That's factually wrong. He's practically a prototype of the community-minded hackerspace type which you extol.

I don't agree with you that people are upset because they care about communities. A readier explanation is just garden-variety sanctimony. (I'm not referring to your comment here, but others.)

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