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I am very real

lettersofnote.com

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Re: I am very real

#41

Post by reason »

peter_l_downs wrote: post #39
reason wrote: post #31

This submission could not have come at a better time. Over the past couple of weeks, I've been contemplating making a submission urging HNers to be human , and to recognize that everyone else who comments here is also a human , and that stories about startups and notable figures are essentially about humans - humans who all have families, friends, ambitions, desires, flaws, struggles. All too often I see people here…

Elaborate on this; write a blog post. I'll gladly give you another up vote. > But there's something about the negativity and criticism here that grates on me more than on other sites. Honestly, I have had the opposite experience. Everyone here seems focused on getting work done and making great things, yes, but the little criticism that I do see is always well thought-out and explained. Instead of it 'grating' on me,…

That is of course an assumption I'm making, but one that's come from years of using HN. More recently there was the article about the girl from Pakistan who received technical certification and sadly passed away. There was a good amount of comments that took a fully rational approach to assessing her credentials concluding that what she'd done was not worthy of praise. That seemed terribly inhuman, and I feel people of this community are more prone to act that way.

Re: I am very real

#42

Post by silentscope »

"And no copies of this letter have been sent to anybody else. You now hold the only copy in your hands. It is a strictly private letter from me to the people of Drake..."

What happened?

Re: I am very real

#43

Post by username3 »

If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely your own.

If Kurt is an American, Kurt must allow book burning.

If you are an American, you must not down vote.

Re: I am very real

#45

Post by hythloday »

username3 wrote: post #43

If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely your own. If Kurt is an American, Kurt must allow book burning. If you are an American, you must not down vote.

I guess you stopped reading at that point, because he goes on to say:

After I have said all this, I am sure you are still ready to respond, in effect, “Yes, yes–but it still remains our right and our responsibility to decide what books our children are going to be made to read in our community.” This is surely so. But it is also true that if you exercise that right and fulfill that responsibility in an ignorant, harsh, un-American manner, then people are entitled to call you bad citizens and fools. Even your own children are entitled to call you that.

Re: I am very real

#46

Post by DanBC »

Spearchucker wrote: post #14
sosuke wrote: post #3

While not nearly as important, the idea that authors are real makes me immediately relate to my own experience that customers don't seem to understand that software is made by real people too. People with feelings, who are fallible. Several comments on blogs or reviews on the app store show to me that people don't feel they are being insulting or rude if they aren't facing the person they criticize. The more I wrote…

This is an unfortunate but real human trait. There's a book that describes the effect in war. The basic premise is that it's easier to kill people by dropping a bomb on them from an airplane than it is to shoot them with a rifle on the battlefield. It's because in the latter you see your victim. And immediately relate to that victim [edit: 1]. Which makes shooting him or her exceedingly difficult. It's an interesting…

> Unless the shooter is psychotic.

Nitpick: You mean "psychopathic", not "psychotic". People with a psychotic illness are more likely to be victims of violence than the perpetrators of violence, and are much more likely to harm themselves than to harm another person.

Re: I am very real

#48

Post by [deleted] »

hythloday wrote: post #45
username3 wrote: post #43

If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely your own. If Kurt is an American, Kurt must allow book burning. If you are an American, you must not down vote.

I guess you stopped reading at that point, because he goes on to say: After I have said all this, I am sure you are still ready to respond, in effect, “Yes, yes–but it still remains our right and our responsibility to decide what books our children are going to be made to read in our community.” This is surely so. But it is also true that if you exercise that right and fulfill that responsibility in an ignorant, hars…

[deleted]

Re: I am very real

#49

Post by johngunderman »

peacemaker wrote: post #34
gaius wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once had a cow-orker who thought software came from "the internet" - he literally could not fathom writing a program himself.

I can't understand this logic. Did he think the internet was some magical place that created all his games and apps and so on? How did he think about manufacturing then? Or artwork? Or movies? How does someone get so far in such a technology based society without knowing that there are people behind all these things?

In my experience there is a large class of people who lack basic curiosity about how things work. They are content to believe that things just "exist". I haven't done much research into this, but I would be interested in seeing if this is considered more an education problem, or if some people simply don't have the capacity for curiosity.

Re: I am very real

#50

Post by forgotAgain »

renegadedev wrote: post #23

Burning a book (good or bad) is the lowest form of expression humans can stoop to. If people understood the fact that a book is simply a personification of ideas, and ideas good or bad, cannot perish in a fire, the will realize the folly of engaging in a futile act like burning a book. One of the inevitable consequences of the digital revolution will be that, there will come a time, when a controversial book will be…

Only two differences with digital books come immediately to mind.

1) There won't be any smoke. At least now we can see the act and know of it. It will be much more invisible when someone can just enter a phrase into a lookup table that ultimately filters packets.

2) Not only will the book be censored but any discussion of the book being censored will be censored. Invisibly.

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