Good Deeds

[Martin Hash]

My friend, Jason Clark, is always searching for a rising star to hook onto. He contacts me occasionally with links to whatever the new thing is. (Last time it was graphine.) I like Jason, and I though I'm old & crusty, and think everything is a hoax, I want to encourage & help Jason when I can. This has led to some awkward situations that courtesy wouldn't let me out of.

For example, though it seems like hypocrisy, Jason was involved in monetarizing good Samaritanship. Apparently the simple courtesies that strangers provide one another can make someone else rich? Your good deed is an aspirating Internet mogul's next payment on his Maserati. Ostensibly, you exchange your accumulated good deeds with other good deeders for something tangible, which I never caught even though it was explained to me. I was too uncomfortable with the concept to do anything but nod my head that I'd help and rush away. Jason forwarded me his business plan. The biggest weakness that I could see was that it involves a lot of self-reporting: you decide whether your act was a good deed and how much it's worth on the Good Deed exchange.

Preposterous, I thought, but apparently Jason wasn't the first one to think of this exploit; there's several good deed startups: Good Deeds, Gooddeed Cards, Good St., Good Acts, and others. It's tough to Google because a Tyler Perry movie takes the first page of hits and gooddeed.org is an AmeriCorps Seniors group. “thegoodcards” has an “invalid url” YouTube video but I read the webpage: “Shaping missions to change the world with 15 experts worldwide,” the first of which is a college student “Zero Waste Blogger.” Also, there's a young “Animal Rights Activist,” “Climate Scientist,” “Adventurer,” “No Plastic Bags Initiative,” and “Founder of The Forgiveness Project.” Jason would have to do a lot more to beat that. For differentiation, he called his org, “More Good Deeds.” His competitive advantage is a “Kindness Platform” that “motivates, inspires and encourages people to perform more good deeds.” See https://www.moregooddeeds.org/
And the link to his video still works: https://vimeo.com/77776764

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Unfortunately, somebody went the next step, and there is now a “Do More Good Deeds" organization, and soon I suspect a “Do Even More Good Deeds” group.

It turns out that helping with good deeds involves me and my wife, “Gwynne,” taking laminated “Good Deed” business cards across Central Asia and leaving them in hotel rooms and tourist attractions. I couldn't see anything inherently unethical about it, and the cringe factor was low, and we could do it in anonymity, but there was an obligation on us not to let Jason down, and the almost certainty that nothing would come of it, a looming disappointment we'd eventually have to face. However, Gwynne seemed unconcerned, or at least unaffected by the pending disillusionment, and she dutifully would slip a card out of the rubberbanded bundle and leave it prominently displayed on the nightstand, countertop, or travel brochure rack.

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I'm pretty sure the only good deeds inspired by those cards was us handing them out.

[DBTrek]

The internet Era, where no good deed goes unpublished.

[C-Mag]

Locals save 13 Elk that fall through ice............. video in link
https://www.eastidahonews.com/2017/12/g ... gid-water/