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I am very real

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Re: I am very real

#91

Post by joshkaufman »

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,…

Here's my personal experience with these sorts of issues: http://joshkaufman.net/working-in-public-is-weird/

Re: I am very real

#92

Post by iwwr »

zschallz wrote: post #89
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.

It's very easy to dwell on that too. Companies rise and fall, some are well lead, others not. A frequent jump is to raise the "family card" in order to prop up a failing business. The error in the latter case is ignoring people on the other side of the equation.

Re: I am very real

#93

Post by picklestime »

essayist wrote: post #22
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…

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…

Here is the full audio of him delivering this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5THXa_H_N8 (part 1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSAzbSQqals (part 2)

Highly recommended listening.

Re: I am very real

#94

Post by freditup »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #59
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…

You think it's worse here than on other boards? Most internet boards are worse than this one, I see lots of comments elsewhere of people saying "you must be a retard" , "kill yourself" etc

I normally come here for the articles, not the discussion, but it doesn't seem too bad here. However, tech forums can often become a place of arrogance, pride, and incivility, and it never hurts to look at yourself in the mirror now and then.

Re: I am very real

#95

Post by EricDeb »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #59
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…

You think it's worse here than on other boards? Most internet boards are worse than this one, I see lots of comments elsewhere of people saying "you must be a retard" , "kill yourself" etc

Comments like "Kill yourself" would never be tolerated around here, but that does not mean people are encouraging and positive.

Instead of being encouraging, you see a lot of pedantic nitpicking and subtle criticism

Re: I am very real

#96

Post by pepve »

dvdhsu wrote: post #81
peter_l_downs wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

A problem never made you mad or excited? Did you never get motivated or deterred by a problem?

I think keeping emotions out is an illusion.

Re: I am very real

#97

Post by nik61 »

dvdhsu wrote: post #81
peter_l_downs wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

Hi there, Sheldon Cooper.

Re: I am very real

#98

Post by potatolicious »

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…

I ran into this problem myself in the 90s when I first got into the whole internet forum thing. This is something that has worked for me, though YMMV:

I re-read every post I write in my head, and pretend I'm saying it to the other person IRL who is sitting across the table from me. Would I use the same words? The same tone?

The internet is, in its current form, dehumanizing, you have to take care to maintain your own humanity and the humanity of the semi-anonymous non-faces you're interact with.

The negativity on HN doesn't bother me so much as the tone and language. Instead of criticizing, many posters here outright bash. Remember OMGPOP's sale to Zynga? The word "coward" got tossed around as if the company was staffed by an army of unfeeling Mecha-Hitlers.

Re: I am very real

#99

Post by gshubert17 »

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?

Vonnegut published a copy of the originally private letter to the people of Drake, in his autobiography "Palm Sunday", pages 4-6.

Re: I am very real

#100

Post by jiggy2011 »

EricDeb wrote: post #95
jiggy2011 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think it's worse here than on other boards? Most internet boards are worse than this one, I see lots of comments elsewhere of people saying "you must be a retard" , "kill yourself" etc

Comments like "Kill yourself" would never be tolerated around here, but that does not mean people are encouraging and positive. Instead of being encouraging, you see a lot of pedantic nitpicking and subtle criticism

I quite like this side as a way to feed my pedantic side since nobody else will let me.

There's more criticism and less encouragement here partly because people here are just harder to impress on the whole.

The anti-humor thing can get annoying sometimes, although I'm glad it's not full of people posting "witty" variations on internet memes every other post. Sometimes you see a post that has an original and relevant joke or something that is meant tongue in cheek to just get downvoted to oblivion.

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