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I am very real

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Re: I am very real

#81

Post by dvdhsu »

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,…

> > I think people here tend to assume that [...] to be an empathetic and emotional person puts them at some sort of optimizational and productive disadvantage. Who? That's a foolish viewpoint that I cannot believe anyone here would hold. I haven't run across anyone who seems like they subscribe to this belief — have you?

I, and I suspect many others, have subscribed to this belief. When working on purely technical problems, I find that there's no need to bring emotions in. There's just the problem, the problem, and nothing but the problem. When I bring emotions in, I lose focus on the technical aspects of the problem, which are all that I need to solve it.

Re: I am very real

#82

Post by trentfowler »

phren0logy wrote: post #56

My favorite part: >Perhaps you will learn from this that books are sacred to free men for very good reasons, and that wars have been fought against nations which hate books and burn them. If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely your own. Thanks again, Vonnegut.

>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.

I might have gasped out loud.

Re: I am very real

#83

Post by peterwwillis »

Is there even any logical basis for the idea that banning curse words or otherwise offensive language "protects" children?

The word itself causes no harm. Tell a child a curse word they don't know and they aren't stricken back as if you had slapped them. It has no meaning or value until you describe what it means and when to use it. Then once it's explained to them, assuming they weren't harangued by their parents into fearing the word itself, there's the use in a book such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:

"Oh, yes, this is a wonderful govment, wonderful. Why, looky here. There was a free nigger there from Ohio – a mulatter, most as white as a white man. He had the whitest shirt on you ever see..."

Contrast this with a book like Where The Red Fern Grows, where a boy's dog (who he loves dearly) is disemboweled in front of him and he has to literally stuff his intestines back into the dog's bloody carcass.

If the high purpose is indeed to protect children they should be taught about the world so they'll know how to deal with it. Sure, there's ugly things about the world and for the most part we try to isolate ourselves from it, but burning it doesn't make it go away. The end result may be it enforces in the child the idea that they can choose to destroy any part of society they dislike, regardless of anyone else's opinion and without a reason other than their feelings. Personally I can't think of anything more frightening.

Re: I am very real

#84

Post by blhack »

stevear wrote: post #74
blhack wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nerds, we need to have a talk: http://thingist.com/t/item/4372/

Has this been to the front-page yet? I have noticed this a lot...especially about frameworks and platforms.

It was around a year ago...

Re: I am very real

#85

Post by itmag »

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…

The most common personality types on HN are INTJ and INTP. Might have something to do with it

Source: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=943722

Re: I am very real

#86

Post by Daniel_Newby »

peterwwillis wrote: post #83

Is there even any logical basis for the idea that banning curse words or otherwise offensive language "protects" children? The word itself causes no harm. Tell a child a curse word they don't know and they aren't stricken back as if you had slapped them. It has no meaning or value until you describe what it means and when to use it. Then once it's explained to them, assuming they weren't harangued by their parents in…

The moral purity police are always with us and always find some excuse to save other people from damnation: witch hunting, regulating the surface area of women's clothing, statutory rape, and so forth.

Re: I am very real

#87

Post by lambda »

silentscope wrote: post #42

"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?

I presume he actually kept a copy or draft himself (so the "only copy" part was not strictly true), which he published seven years later in his autobiography, figuring that was long enough after not to be taken for opportunism but mere historical interest.

Re: I am very real

#88

Post by Daniel_Newby »

partisan wrote: post #35
essayist wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

David Foster Wallace's take on this was that my own reality is so overpoweringly real, that it's hard to see you (or anyone else) as real. everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely talk about this sort of natural, basic self-centredness, because it's so socially repulsive.... Oth…

While I agree with your suggestion for dealing with Customer Service, I don't agree with Mr. Wallace's proposed remedy. Why should I have to imagine someone in a piteous position in order to be able to empathize with them? Can't we just accept people for who they are and empathize because they are just like us?

Because humans often make the fundamental attribution error: I am having a bad day, you are a dickhead, he is a dangerous lunatic.

Re: I am very real

#89

Post by zschallz »

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…

Agreed. I think something along these lines every time someone says things like "I hope that xxx company goes under," etc. I guess it's all too easy to forget that there really are people with families and lives behind everything.
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