Right on, Commander!
A video game community filled my nephew's final days with joy
11–20 of 113 posts
Re: A video game community filled my nephew's final days with joy
#12Man... just woke up, checked HN as usual, and now I‘m up in tears. Communities like the ones from Elite Dangerous or EVE Online really tend to shine in such moments. I‘m... I don‘t know what else to write. Dang it. o7
Exactly the same happened. I've never been a community like this but I'm truly feeling appreciation.
Re: A video game community filled my nephew's final days with joy
#13o7
Re: A video game community filled my nephew's final days with joy
#14I couldn’t find it inspiring, only heartbreaking and anger-inducing. It makes me so geared up to think how shitty the world is to some people who have done nothing to deserve it and so generous to some who have done everything to not deserve it. Just one more reminder of how the world really feels like one wretchedly sick joke concocted in the mind of a wretchedly sick fuck.
That's an extremely negative take on a beautiful, if sad, story. I'd rather focus on the positive, beautiful aspects, like the heart-touching gestures of his friends and how he hope when nothing was going his way. Sometimes that's really all you can do.
Re: A video game community filled my nephew's final days with joy
#15I couldn’t find it inspiring, only heartbreaking and anger-inducing. It makes me so geared up to think how shitty the world is to some people who have done nothing to deserve it and so generous to some who have done everything to not deserve it. Just one more reminder of how the world really feels like one wretchedly sick joke concocted in the mind of a wretchedly sick fuck.
The world being as you say it is would make the story even more inspiring for me.
Re: A video game community filled my nephew's final days with joy
#16I couldn’t find it inspiring, only heartbreaking and anger-inducing. It makes me so geared up to think how shitty the world is to some people who have done nothing to deserve it and so generous to some who have done everything to not deserve it. Just one more reminder of how the world really feels like one wretchedly sick joke concocted in the mind of a wretchedly sick fuck.
That's an extremely negative take on a beautiful, if sad, story. I'd rather focus on the positive, beautiful aspects, like the heart-touching gestures of his friends and how he hope when nothing was going his way. Sometimes that's really all you can do.
I agree that, at the individual level, focusing on the beautiful aspects seems like a reasonable coping strategy, and I can’t help but think that on larger scales of time and space, it only helps perpetuate the horrors.
Re: A video game community filled my nephew's final days with joy
#17When a close friend's body was starting to fail from lung cancer (and it was clear that it was his final days), I think we were very lucky that we both enjoyed video games. He was bedridden, slowly losing his motor functions, and it was hard to talk since breathing started to become difficult - but in a multiplayer video game with a controller and large buttons, he could be very expressive!
There were goofy moments (where he would make his character wear something silly, and I'm pretty sure he was fishing for a reaction from me, too) or moments where I could see him emote through the in-game characters (like making a character's animation look like it's panicking by moving controls around arbitrarily, and you can see the video game character flail wildly). Through these actions I could see my friend's personality clearly, and I think being able to express yourself is important when you've been in the hospital for a while. I can only assume that he also found some joy from it as well, since it could have been difficult to express the same emotions when you're attached to machinery and often short of breath.
I think it's important to connect with people using the time we have alive, and I really think anyone in palliative care (or knows someone in palliative care) could consider video games as another option for connecting with your friends and family. With the right game/accessibility of controls, and an appropriate level of energy/attention span, it could be something that brings people closer even as we hit our physical limits.
Re: A video game community filled my nephew's final days with joy
#18I couldn’t find it inspiring, only heartbreaking and anger-inducing. It makes me so geared up to think how shitty the world is to some people who have done nothing to deserve it and so generous to some who have done everything to not deserve it. Just one more reminder of how the world really feels like one wretchedly sick joke concocted in the mind of a wretchedly sick fuck.
And that's fine; cold impersonal anger can be a very powerful motivator if channeled properly. My question is what are WE going to do about it?
For me:
1/ support the Grauniad [0]: the gulf between the quality of their journalism and the rest of the market is gaping. I may not agree with all their views but the world is a better place with their investigative push
2/ let's leverage the HN community: one of the constant messages I've seen in my limited time on HN is how diverse and capable the community is. Surely we can do this and more if we set our heart to it?
It may not be the most popular view at the moment but I do believe "The Arc of the Moral Universe Is Long, But It Bends Toward Justice". But this doesn't happen automatically; each of us need to push the pendulum, and a billion pushes can outweigh quite a bit of unfairness...
Re: A video game community filled my nephew's final days with joy
#19I couldn’t find it inspiring, only heartbreaking and anger-inducing. It makes me so geared up to think how shitty the world is to some people who have done nothing to deserve it and so generous to some who have done everything to not deserve it. Just one more reminder of how the world really feels like one wretchedly sick joke concocted in the mind of a wretchedly sick fuck.
And that's fine; cold impersonal anger can be a very powerful motivator if channeled properly. My question is what are WE going to do about it? For me: 1/ support the Grauniad [0]: the gulf between the quality of their journalism and the rest of the market is gaping. I may not agree with all their views but the world is a better place with their investigative push 2/ let's leverage the HN community: one of the consta…
Forgot the footnote :)
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/aug/24/grauni...
Re: A video game community filled my nephew's final days with joy
#20I couldn’t find it inspiring, only heartbreaking and anger-inducing. It makes me so geared up to think how shitty the world is to some people who have done nothing to deserve it and so generous to some who have done everything to not deserve it. Just one more reminder of how the world really feels like one wretchedly sick joke concocted in the mind of a wretchedly sick fuck.
If you believe in evolution then there is no evil behind this lad's illnesses just very bad luck. At least he was lucky enough to have very loving people around him, something else that is a result of evolution.