I may or may not have something to say about this, but not here, and not now. Can we please just let the family grieve? We are the family.
Dude, stop acting and shut the fuck up. What you said amounts to cyber bullying and it's idiots like you who are setting the spiteful tone in HN comments. So much hate. No matter what other comments here say, you are in a way responsible for his death.
Utter and complete nonsense.
Someone offers a thoughtful and considered opinion, and that's "cyberbullying"? Disagreeing with an opinion you hold, no matter how intelligently and reasonably, is "cyberbullying"?
Your post could have just stopped at "shut the fuck up". Because that's the essential gist of everything that followed.
I'm not entirely certain that Aaron knew he was doing something wrong, or, for that matter, whether he was in fact doing something wrong. It seems he made little effort to cover his tracks and pretty much acted out in the open. And from what I've heard from friends who've met him in person - Aaron was brilliant, idealistic, a nice guy, and hopelessly naive about how the world actually works.
If he didn't think he was doing anything wrong, why didn't he just ask permission?
He may've believed that the people who he would have to ask permission from are doing something wrong.
Ugh. I wish I'd seen that thread originally, but I was on my first vacation in years, and not reading HN for some reason.
I couldn't give him much money, but it sounds like just talking to him about the case would have helped, and I doubt even people who thought he did the wrong thing or should have gone to jail to continue his protest would have begrudged him that.
I may or may not have something to say about this, but not here, and not now. Can we please just let the family grieve? We are the family.
Dude, stop acting and shut the fuck up. What you said amounts to cyber bullying and it's idiots like you who are setting the spiteful tone in HN comments. So much hate. No matter what other comments here say, you are in a way responsible for his death.
Cyber bullying? You created an account here just to leave this spiteful disgusting comment? Classic bully behavior - not putting your real identity behind your hateful words.
> I am a woman. I go around telling women to "woman up". Well, the difference between "woman up" and "man up" is that, for men, showing emotion is a sign of weakness, so "man up" means "don't show emotion". That's a very dangerous thing to tell people who have serious emotional problems.
Absolutely. This is a perfect example of how restrictive gender norms (or, what some might call "patriarchy") can harm men as well as women, and are something we all need to care about.
> This is a perfect example of how restrictive gender norms (or, what some might call "patriarchy") can harm men as well as women
And this is why I hate the term "patriarchy" in this context: It implies men always get the best of it, there are no downsides for males, and therefore we should be dismissive of male problems.
I know this isn't what academic feminists think. It is, however, what a disturbing number of people who call themselves feminists out in the real world apparently believe.
First, just to be really clear about this: Ed is pretty much the very last example of bad behavior that I would ever look to on HN. He's a heck of a nice guy, and I wish he wasn't the one being discussed here. That said, surely you can acknowledge that there's a difference between donating and posting a comment?
oh of course, they're very different things that have very different motivations and very different results, what I'm trying to argue is that they are both actions that come from an interest in the subject at hand. If you act on something (regardless of the specifics of that action) then you're making a commitment to that subject. The point is every single person that acted on that post was doing it under exactly the…
> If everyone took the line you're talking about, "I don't know the full story (because nobody ever can) so I'm not going to pass any judgement"...
sigh. I never said that. I have no idea how you got from "comment publicly" to "pass judgement".
I may or may not have something to say about this, but not here, and not now. Can we please just let the family grieve? We are the family.
Dude, stop acting and shut the fuck up. What you said amounts to cyber bullying and it's idiots like you who are setting the spiteful tone in HN comments. So much hate. No matter what other comments here say, you are in a way responsible for his death.
Whatever you think of edw, you should also consider the tone of your own comments. HN can be hard and reductionist, and in your attempt to highlight the problematic nature of the trend you've contributed to it.
We're a community where people come for insight and honest evaluations. However, those things do not have to be rude or dismissive, and we should all try to raise the tone of the conversation - especially when making uncomfortable statements.
An honest appraisal? That is one way of looking at it. Another way is he threw out a giant derogatory 'Meh' to someone asking for help. Does he bear responsibility for what happened to Aaron? No, but it is also not hard to see how the top ranked comment from a respected member didn't carry some weight in how people perceived Aaron and his situation. The big take away here is that words matter and maybe if you don't h…
I don't think this is fair. You cannot read a comment, or a bunch of comments, from over 100 days ago in light of the recent suicide. If people make their actions dependant on someone's post on HN, that is the problem, and making the right posts that magically know what will happen in the future, and what happened behind closed doors (such as the district judge basically shutting Aaron up, if I catched that correctly, sorry if I didn't) is not the solution to it. Yes, more love is what the world needs, so in that sense you are right and would be in whatever context you said the above, and maybe I am just contradicting you because I often am a callous SOB online. But still.. this isn't fair. Yes, he asked for help, but every single US citizen pays taxes for the reason he asked for help. So if you're gonna play the blame game, play it and see where it actually leads, don't just stop at convenient scapegoats like Ed. I cannot speak for Aaron, but it does seem to me that he was scared of jail or worse; he didn't kill himself to hurt anyone, so maybe don't use it that way. There is no way to make sense of all this, but there are ways to make good come of it.. I would do that just to spite someone who killed themselves out of revenge, but how much more so when they didn't. That is all, I feel weird even speaking to this, but I hope it helped.
The primary thing that stands out to me here, and what I believe is the main point of the TC post, is that edw and others clearly have very interesting 'before' and 'after' posts. Before: "Aaron should man up, take responsibility for his actions, and pay his own bills." Then: Aaron can't pay his bills, decides to take one form of responsibility and kills himself. Now: "OH NO! Stunned & heartbroken." "Thank you, Cory.…
In most cases, people simply don't know how bad it is or can't imagine it could be that bad or have no idea how to help, etc. It makes me crazy and I wish the world were better about such things. Yes, it took his death for people to "care", because his death was clear information about how very bad it was. People are still talking in part to try to figure out how to see it more clearly beforehand next time and not have to wait for such a clear signal. At least I hope that is part of the motive, for some people.