A girl who was never meant to survive • Hacker News Board

Re: A girl who was never meant to survive

#11

Post by RankingMember » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 2:48 PM UTC

RedBee wrote: post #5

I'm always impressed how people manage to go to "why not me though?" after thinking about "why me?". It's a sign of a strong and life-aware person. We usually gives us reasons why we shouldn't do something and then there's no guilt not to think about why we should do it. It's sad because there could be so many more stories like this one if more of us had will to go to positive side first or at least after thinking ab…

I think a lot of which direction a person goes when faced with adversity has to do with their upbringing. I feel that, had she been left in Vietnam in an orphanage, it may have been a much different story with regard to her outlook.

Re: A girl who was never meant to survive

#12

Post by RankingMember » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 2:52 PM UTC

saiya-jin wrote: post #10

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids can be surprisingly durable in pretty much every way imaginable. Edit: We're talking about one bad event early in childhood here, not spending an entire childhood with abusive parents.

Yes but then you meet them as adults and they exhibit (and unsuccessfully try to hide) tons of mental issues due to messed up childhood. Usually revolves around trusting others in relationships and this trickles down to many aspects of their lives

Yeah, I've seen it both ways. Some people have learned to bottle up their negative childhoods, leading to various outward behavioral clues, while others seem like they were able to get past it somehow and live truly without that baggage holding them back.

Re: A girl who was never meant to survive

#13

Post by Fancygeek » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 3:05 PM UTC

froghash wrote: post #4

How can ever parents do something like this. I can't imagine how did she survived, not just physically but emotionally.

People can endure incredible amounts of pain, some of them even get used to it sadly.

Re: A girl who was never meant to survive

#14

Post by HenryBemis » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 3:17 PM UTC

doctorRetro wrote: post #7

gumby wrote: post #2

On mobile as you scroll through it cycles through some large photos, breaking the flow of the text. I had to stop trying to read it.

Even on desktop I find this style of presentation distracting. It looks cool, I get it, but it doesn't feel conducive to story telling to break up the text with a screen filling image every N paragraphs.

Yes some story-telling from BBC's website is very UI-unfriendly. But please do take the time to read the story.

Re: A girl who was never meant to survive

#15

Post by amerkhalid » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 3:22 PM UTC

RankingMember wrote: post #12

saiya-jin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but then you meet them as adults and they exhibit (and unsuccessfully try to hide) tons of mental issues due to messed up childhood. Usually revolves around trusting others in relationships and this trickles down to many aspects of their lives

Yeah, I've seen it both ways. Some people have learned to bottle up their negative childhoods, leading to various outward behavioral clues, while others seem like they were able to get past it somehow and live truly without that baggage holding them back.

Recently, I was reading Brain Rules for Baby by John Medina. IIRC, he said that normally people will have permanent psychological damage and but a few humans seem to get past childhood trauma. There are some genes which seem to make children more resilient. So resilience might be partially hereditary.

Re: A girl who was never meant to survive

#16

Post by wyldfire » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 3:25 PM UTC

doctorRetro wrote: post #7

gumby wrote: post #2

On mobile as you scroll through it cycles through some large photos, breaking the flow of the text. I had to stop trying to read it.

Even on desktop I find this style of presentation distracting. It looks cool, I get it, but it doesn't feel conducive to story telling to break up the text with a screen filling image every N paragraphs.

I have mixed feelings. It certainly feels like a different experience from most articles (especially BBC ones). Some of the photographs were especially compelling, and I think they'd have had less impact as a sidebar.

It's clear that the goal is to capitalize on the browser medium's differences from traditional print media. It's definitely new/different. I don't think I liked it the first time I saw it but in this case it struck me as notably beneficial.

Re: A girl who was never meant to survive

#17

Post by spinach » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 3:26 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #6

froghash wrote: post #4

How can ever parents do something like this. I can't imagine how did she survived, not just physically but emotionally.

Kids can be surprisingly durable in pretty much every way imaginable. Edit: We're talking about one bad event early in childhood here, not spending an entire childhood with abusive parents.

Trauma, abuse, sexual assault, etc, that children undergo is linked to a lot of problems later in their life, in all aspects of their life. They might live through it, but the quality of their life will suffer.

Re: A girl who was never meant to survive

#18

Post by close04 » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 3:50 PM UTC

saiya-jin wrote: post #10

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids can be surprisingly durable in pretty much every way imaginable. Edit: We're talking about one bad event early in childhood here, not spending an entire childhood with abusive parents.

Yes but then you meet them as adults and they exhibit (and unsuccessfully try to hide) tons of mental issues due to messed up childhood. Usually revolves around trusting others in relationships and this trickles down to many aspects of their lives

It's possible that a specific genetic makeup or upbringing may also play a role in the outcome.

But it helps if you can somehow see your tragedy as also the thing that eventually lead to a better life. The type of "every kick in the butt is one step forward". I've met many people (close friends included) who are genuinely at peace with certain tragic/life altering events from childhood or adulthood because without that they would have or be less than they do now.

Of course sometimes you simply can't see that event as bringing anything remotely good in your life and have to wrestle with those issues for a long time.

Re: A girl who was never meant to survive

#19

Post by improbable22 » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 4:29 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #8

doctorRetro wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even on desktop I find this style of presentation distracting. It looks cool, I get it, but it doesn't feel conducive to story telling to break up the text with a screen filling image every N paragraphs.

It does some curious things though. It makes reading online an interactive thing - you have to 'flip pages' quite deliberately and quite often. That would have a significant effect on engagement I would think. Perhaps (older?) folks like us are put off; but I can imagine a crowd that would be more likely to finish the article, once they got going/hooked?

This has everything I dislike about documentary videos. But many people like those, are happy to go along with the narrator's pace, absorb the pictures and wait for scraps of information.

The outline.com version posted nearby is to me vastly superior, and an interesting comparison: https://outline.com/e3h5H2

Re: A girl who was never meant to survive

#20

Post by gumby » Thu, Mar 07, 2019, 4:42 PM UTC

HenryBemis wrote: post #14

doctorRetro wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even on desktop I find this style of presentation distracting. It looks cool, I get it, but it doesn't feel conducive to story telling to break up the text with a screen filling image every N paragraphs.

Yes some story-telling from BBC's website is very UI-unfriendly. But please do take the time to read the story.

Thankfully someone posted an outline.com link which makes it more readable.