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Help A Stranger Out
p/help-a-stranger-outAnonymous, decentralized acts of kindness towards strangers.
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Hideko Kulp

Help A Stranger Out - Anonymous, decentralized acts of kindness towards strangers.

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We spend our lives in bubbles. Eat, sleep, work, repeat. Let's step outside of our bubbles for once.
Help A Stranger Out helps us be more intentional about showing kindness to strangers.
RE Reagan: "We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone”.

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Hideko Kulp
Maker
Hey all, I quit my job 1 year ago to learn how to code full time. This is the first tool I've built by myself and it is my entry for Blockstack's "Can't Be Evil" hackathon. This app helps us be intentionally kind towards strangers. I built it with Blockstack JS, a decentralized authentication strategy, and Ruby on Rails. By making it decentralized, "smiles" (e.g. upvotes) and deeds in progress are stored client-side (privately), and stories about completed acts of kindness are anonymous. Fundable deeds through BTC are coming soon.. e.g. the ability to fund someone's effort to buy a stranger a meal. Let me know what you think! Cheers, Hideko
Lachlan Kirkwood
Nice work, love the UI!
Hideko Kulp
Maker
@lachlankirkwood Thanks Lachlan! Built it with Orange's new open-source design system: https://orangecss.com
Nicolas Vrillac
Hi, where have you got the illustrations, they're sick !
Harshil Sharma
Nice concept! The world could definitely use a bit of this.
Hideko Kulp
Maker
@harshilsharma63 Thanks Harshil! I agree :)
David Villalón
Hi! Very nice concept and. As feedback, I noticed that I can give "unlimited smiles", wouldn't have more sense to only be able to put one smile per user? Good luck with the launch! @hideko_kulp
Hideko Kulp
Maker
@davipar Thanks for the feedback, David! I don't store any info about the user (as part of the "anonymity" slant). I definitely could have limited smiles per session but thought having unlimited smiles would be fun and positive -- like Medium's unlimited "claps".
Sean O'Dowd
Love the idea-thanks for working to make the world a better place!! I'm a bit confused by the anonymity piece. If someone did something nice for me, I'd love to know who they are to say "thanks" as a nice thing to do in return (because SO many people don't say thank you!) Is it possible to do that in the current iteration? I might have missed that
Hideko Kulp
Maker
@sean_odowd Hi Sean, thanks for asking! While all good deeds are positive in my book, I wanted to explore the benefits of truly anonymous altruism. Studies show that anonymous kindness has a different flavor of impact on the brain — when it’s an anonymous selfless act without the expectation of recognition. I also think there’s a unique benefit to the kindness recipient. We all feel isolated sometimes, and a stranger’s kindness becomes a general representation of the good in humanity as a whole. One could argue that putting a name behind the face loses some of that impact. For instance, maybe you subconsciously make excuses that the person is “like you” in some way. And then you may be more likely to pay it forward to just others in your “tribe”. I’m hoping the anonymity feature of this app encourages people to view their “tribe” as all humans, not just those in their communities.
Arjun Sundararajan
Warms up my heart to see such projects. Also kudos for launching your first product. It takes a lot to quit your job to learn coding full time. I've been maintaining a list of products that I want to include as a part of my daily routine. This will be in my short list.
Hideko Kulp
Maker
@sarjun Hi Arjun. That's fantastic to hear! Thanks so much for the kind words :)
jazarine
This is so cool! I had created http://doagooddeednow.com/ years ago with a vision similar to this but never got around to implementing the features that I wanted to. I’m so glad you did this. Love the UI and love your take on Anonymous activity.
Hideko Kulp
Maker
@jazarine Nice product -- looks like we were thinking along the same route! Thanks for the kind words!
caryn werner
Wow. Super inspiring. Way to add goodness in this world!!!!
Allen Chan
Hideko this is awesome!!!! we're on a mission to help more people too. Are you still actively working on this product?