You're seriously arguing that a hack that converts money into fat, caffeinated Americans and corporate profit is better than a hack that hacks that hack to feed the poor? We should be finding more ways to prevent the conversion of money into American fat. In fact: as a doctor, there's my challenge to you: please find ways to catch calories before they land in middle-class American bellies and convert them to some better good.
I know the HN crowd is pretty libertarian, but Sam's behavior is, by definition, thoroughly with the scope of acceptable behavior in a libertarian polity. By the way, Sam's fairly successful startup guy. If you're on HN and not your text editor, you should probably be noting this is how successful entrepreneurs behave, and emulate Sam.
He's not feeding the poor, he's feeding his ego and acting holier than thou. If he wanted to make a donation to charity, he could do that without subverting an experiment under the guise of "helping people who really matter."
I find this entire episode disgusting and if being a "successful entrepreneur" means acting like a douchebag like Sam, may I never be successful. Incidentally, MOST successful entreprenurs I know (and many are far more successful than Sam could ever hope to be) don't act like this. They have better things to do than jack money off a community Starbucks card so that they can create Internet drama.
Better things to do than steal coffees from wealthy Americans in order to feed starving people ...
The internet drama is being created by others.
I see this as a really interesting, surprising outcome of the experiment, not a "subversion" of it. FWIW people in his sphere of influence appear to have added more money on than the worth he subtracted.
"Better things to do that steal coffees from wealthy Americans in order to feed starving people ..."
Why stop at coffee? Steal their cars too. Evict them from their homes and set up shelters in them. Kidnap their children and hold them for ransom.
"see this as a really interesting, surprising outcome of the experiment, not a "subversion" of it."
The Stanford Prison Experiment was invalidated by people acting grossly out of what is reasonably expected from people. As a result, the scientific value of the experiment was completely lost. That is what Sam Odio appears to have attempted to cause here. He didn't want to participate, he wanted to destroy the experiment because he found the very notion of such an experiment to be offensive.
Because missing out on a cup of coffee is not going to really affect anyone involved in this experiment in any significant way. They probably drink too much of it anyway.
>The Stanford Prison Experiment was invalidated //
Excuse me? It was a highly successful experiment it demonstrating how moral judgement can be manipulated, how people react to roles and outward signs of authority.
To say an experiment was invalidated suggests that it didn't have the right outcome, experiments don't have right outcomes they have results. Sure results can show that you should have used a different methodology or that more experimentation is needed but results aren't wrong unless they fail to show what happened in the experiment.
Contrary to popular believe, the scientific value of the experiment was lost. It's only real value today in the field is as an example of how not to run an experiment.
>the scientific value of the [Standford Prison] experiment was lost //
I strongly disagree. It has informed psychological experiment strongly since, yes partly by being an example of how not to conduct experiments but not wholly. It has also strongly informed understanding of human nature and the conditions in which minimal pressure can modify moral action.
Under test was how "assignment of a label" would affect the development of "norms, rules and expectations". The results showed how such assignment could affect a persons character dramatically even to the point of drawing in Zimbardo to the point that he had to be corrected by his partner to stop the experiment.
Indeed, I should emulate Sam. Not in every aspect though. In the same way that I do not believe that astrology works and won't start believing because a successful person told me to. That person would have been successful not matter what, the same way the loser who got predicted success lost because of his own behavior.
Now, I don't like you too, Mr Doctor (don't you like that deference doc?) The same way I dislike Sam. The same way I dislike condescending people. Don't hit me to show me I am weak unless you are about to create a meaningful relationship or we already have one. If I know my weakness and you are a martial artist I will bow to you. If I don't know it then perhaps I don't need to know my physical weakness in the first place. Maybe I live in a respectful city and physical strength is irrelevant and will always be for me.
It wasn't a cool hack at all. Proof: most people (at least here) dislike it. The guy that did GoDaddy said something along these lines «Expect the only fare you will encounter is the one you will pay to take the bus». So it is expected that someone would do that. And he finds himself cool. And he's wrong (in the absolute) because he is outside his field of expertise doc.(Mark Cuban, billionaire, missed a great shot on the show Shark Tank. My friend, millionaire, an expert in direct selling told me.) He is the pretty pictures guy. I won't deny him the ability to be a well rounded person, but he didn't show it.(Plus he in YC so he got something good, like anybody. I'll just hack my way to his valuable side and steal it from him for a greater purpose of course)
The most stupid person here is perhaps me. I am taking my time to reply to you and expect a decent number of people to read. While Sammy O' is doing things. Like impeaching young Africans to learn the lesson he taught us. There are jackasses in this world who will take away something from you(like responsibility of yourself). And they'll call it justice, I mean "you don't know how to hack? You must take hacking classes with my pristine prestijuicy school. Or you'll be unhappy and a bad bad hacker. I mean how can you be happy fending for yourself? Owing all you have to yourself? Nevermind all those people who say that fending/the travelling toward the end is source of happiness like Lionel Richie." The guy of this article http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,363663,00... (thanks for the link byrneseyeview) says it all. Adolescent everywhere in the Western world express it. (Yes, more on the artificiality of adolescence in Teen 2.0 by Dr Epstein http://drrobertepstein.com/index.php?option=content&task... . I read the first version so I am not sure about this one. Newer version of books tend to be... "politically dorrect"/condescending. I hate that.)
(If my parents said to me at 12: You can't take responsibility for yourself! Do as I say! Eat my food!. I would have ran away (or become a contented and dependent fool). I am lucky they are cool.)
You're seriously arguing that a hack that converts money into fat, caffeinated Americans and corporate profit is better than a hack that hacks that hack to feed the poor? We should be finding more ways to prevent the conversion of money into American fat. In fact: as a doctor, there's my challenge to you: please find ways to catch calories before they land in middle-class American bellies and convert them to some better good.
I know the HN crowd is pretty libertarian, but Sam's behavior is, by definition, thoroughly with the scope of acceptable behavior in a libertarian polity. By the way, Sam's fairly successful startup guy. If you're on HN and not your text editor, you should probably be noting this is how successful entrepreneurs behave, and emulate Sam.