I must say, I can relate. The discussion almost sounds as if Jonathan's card would have saved the world (transformed us all into happy altruists, drinking free coffee ever after) if only Sam hadn't ruined it.
Maybe the "hack" was not such a good idea after all, but I am willing to believe that it was not done in a mean spirit, but simply to experiment.
Come to think of it, perhaps in this way the whole experiment (Card+iPad hack) brings out other, more ugly facets of humans than the desired altruism. Like the tendency to gang up on other people - and sometimes people who want to make the world a better place are the most aggressive ones.
I do think you have a good point with the ugliness of ganging up on this guy.
My feeling is: if this was actually an "experiment", as people claimed -- and not some lame attempt at proving people are really fluffy teddy bears inside -- then what happens in context of that experiment should stay in that context. We shouldn't be making stabs at this guy's character for doing something that was basically part of the game.
The experiment was asking "what will happen if we do this". We got our answer: "someone will take advantage of it". At least the guy that took advantage of it was willing to fess up, and we all (should have) learned something.
What could Sam possibly learn from his experiment?
Everyone on hacker news knew that what he did was possible technically and that it would put an end to the experiment. He basically said so himself in his original blog post. He didn't like the experiment and decided to end it by donating it all to charity.
Maybe the "hack" was not such a good idea after all, but I am willing to believe that it was not done in a mean spirit, but simply to experiment.
Come to think of it, perhaps in this way the whole experiment (Card+iPad hack) brings out other, more ugly facets of humans than the desired altruism. Like the tendency to gang up on other people - and sometimes people who want to make the world a better place are the most aggressive ones.