Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A remarkable kid has died in Newcastle, Utah

deseret.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 196 posts

Re: A remarkable kid has died in Newcastle, Utah

#131

Post by rendall »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #129
blobbers wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it was blatant stupidity of all the people surrounding him. Life jackets exist for a reason. They save people who can't swim! It's tragic that it is such a stupid preventable death, not an accident. It's like saying someone drove around their whole life without a seatbelt and then died in a car accident at 14. Angry at his stupid parents, or whoever gave him the kayak.

"Life jackets exist for a reason. They save people who can't swim!" Just wanted to add that they save folks that can swim as well. A lot of folks can swim a little, but not enough to get to shore if they are in the middle of a lake and wouldn't handle a current really well. Heck, even if you swim well, exhaustion is a danger. Life jackets help folks. Period.

Agreed. Wear your lifejackets.

Re: A remarkable kid has died in Newcastle, Utah

#132

Post by fzeroracer »

TrispusAttucks wrote: post #89
egypturnash wrote: post #88

I feel like there is a huge elephant in the room here of how shitty Utah’s support system evidently is. No money to assist his disabled parents and his autistic brother. This whole family was living in desperate, grinding poverty, and that gave this kid a super strong urge to try and get out of it instead of having a childhood.

I disagree with this sentiment. You wish to take away the very condition which made him uniquely special. He seems like he was enjoying his childhood. Adversity breeds character and this kid had more than character than some entire classrooms.

I lost a significant number of my teeth as a teenager because I grew up in poverty and decided that what little money I had was better put towards my career rather than fixing dental issues.

Do you think this is a positive example of how adversity breeds character?

Re: A remarkable kid has died in Newcastle, Utah

#133

Post by sgt101 »

kiba wrote: post #109
greenthrow wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true. What the people who "lead the world" have in common most often is coming from a very privileged background. The idea that they are all iconoclasts or inherently in some way "better" than other people is a myth the wealthy tell themselves.

This is not true. What the people who "lead the world" have in common most often is coming from a very privileged background. The idea that they are all iconoclasts or inherently in some way "better" than other people is a myth the wealthy tell themselves. The best of the best likely come from privileged background simply because of the access to resources. The idea that meritocracy is some of egalitarianism is a myt…

Even where wealth and privilege aren't important (and they have considerable effects in many fields) luck is also critical : https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328939222_Exploring...

We need to get rid of this idea of meritocracy.

Re: A remarkable kid has died in Newcastle, Utah

#134

Post by didibus »

peteforde wrote: post #95
9935c101ab17a66 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's weird to me is that somebody would have such a hard time accepting verifiable facts about a gifted outlier who happens to be remarkably young Where are the verifiable facts? Where are the citations? You may see the story as just a list of 'verifiable facts,' but that's absolutely not what it is. I'm not saying I think the whole thing is made up, but it isn't simply a collection of attestations that any indiv…

I consider this rebuttal to be exceptionally well-argued, and I thank you for it. You do raise several excellent points, and I have no interest in being a shill for the LDS church. And yes, Bari Weiss should be considered a red flag. My bad for letting her name slide past without a sniff test. I stand by my point that we shouldn't be so damn skeptical that there are exceptional young people, because I've known them p…

I remember reading some article about why there are no adult prodigy, only child prodigy.

It went something like, the reason there are only child prodigy, and no adult prodigy, is because other kids eventually catch up. And that child prodigies are basically just children that are ahead compared to other kids of the same age.

It looked at the data, and showed that once adult, child prodigies just distribute themselves similarly accross all levels of accomplishments, success and failures as any other adult.

It also said that, once adult, the difference between the best, second best, third best, and all following is much less pronounced, and therefore no one looks so far superior to anyone else who had similar training, opportunity, luck, etc.

Whereas with children, the difference is stark, so people take notice, and that's where the "prodigy" is born.

I can't remember the source, so take it all with a grain of salt, but I always thought it was an interesting article, and a good question, where are all the adult prodigies?

Edit: Also, I vaguely remember it saying that the data shows a higher level of depression and general less happiness in now adult child prodigees, which the article hypothesized might be either from the loss of "being special", or from the weird childhood that "being special" created.

Re: A remarkable kid has died in Newcastle, Utah

#135

Post by freetime2 »

jxramos wrote: post #126
aerovistae wrote: post #99

Okay so, I have to say, at first this was a pretty feel-bad story for me. I then noticed a tidbit of information in another article about it that somehow made me feel different: Cole Summers didn't know how to swim. He was out on the water in a kayak, with no life jacket, with only an autistic child for company - and didn't know how to swim. Somehow it stopped feeling like a tragic accident and more like carelessness…

This reminds me I need to teach my kids how to swim. I realized it recently having been around a bunch of rivers and lakes recently that they don’t have that skill and I forgot all about that while we were enjoying the water.

Yup, drowning is a leading cause of death for children in the US [1]:

> More children ages 1–4 die from drowning than any other cause of death except birth defects. For children ages 1–14, drowning is the second leading cause of unintentional injury death after motor vehicle crashes.

Definitely worth taking seriously - and not being able to swim is a risk factor. My kids have been taking lessons since they were in preschool, but even then I don't let them out of sight when we're in the water because they still aren't very strong swimmers.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/drowning/facts/index.html

Re: A remarkable kid has died in Newcastle, Utah

#136

Post by pjbk »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #106
soared wrote: post #36

I mean, do we believe any of this? An 8 year old isn’t running a business and selling to restaurants in a different state. No business would purchase from an 8 year, no business would ship goods from an 8 year old, no bank gives a loan to a 9 year old. The list goes on and on. Incredibly sad that a child has died, but this reads as pure fantasy.

You may be underestimating the traditionally rural parts of America, which empower and encourage kids to start adulting at an age that may be surprising to many people. If you are from those regions, seeing a precocious young kid who is mature beyond his years is surprising but not entirely unexpected. As a frame of reference, where I grew up, you could legally drive heavy agricultural lorries (think 5/10 ton dump tr…

This. It is impressive to realize how distant the lifestyle of people living in cities and rural towns has become. I was raised in a rural area (30+ years ago, not in the US) and was direct witness of kids my age or younger doing things that only "adults" should do to survive and maintain their families. They didn't know better and considered their situation a totally natural and common thing for the lack of a comparison point. If they were lucky, their environment was supportive and it was not rare to see people in charge stretching the law for them if needed. The unlucky ones were abused with responsibilities and labor that no child should be exposed to.

I cannot attest about this particular case, but I can believe that in a similar situation today with all the access to resources through technology we have, the things that capable kids under these conditions could do would be far more reaching than ever.

Re: A remarkable kid has died in Newcastle, Utah

#137

Post by aerovistae »

rendall wrote: post #130
blobbers wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it was blatant stupidity of all the people surrounding him. Life jackets exist for a reason. They save people who can't swim! It's tragic that it is such a stupid preventable death, not an accident. It's like saying someone drove around their whole life without a seatbelt and then died in a car accident at 14. Angry at his stupid parents, or whoever gave him the kayak.

Sure, have feelings, whatever those are. Anger is valid. This is more what I was responding to: ...and I just didn't feel as bad . I wonder if your anger matches that which his caretakers feel at themselves.

To clarify my words, what makes me feel bad is fate reaching out of nowhere in an inevitable way to take someone away. A drunk driver driving in the wrong direction on the highway - literally nothing you can do but hope it doesn't happen to you, or that you're in a different lane (which I was - he passed by me on the inside lane, or I wouldn't be here typing this.) I dread something like this happening to someone I care about, and I hate hearing that it happened to anyone else, even a stranger.

By contrast I don't feel that bad hearing secondhand stories about easily preventable deaths. There were like 4 ways to prevent this - use a lifejacket, know how to swim, be with an adult, or at least don't fall out of your boat. I don't spend time worrying about how people I care about could die if they made a series of specific stupid decisions stacked on top of one another.

It's still sad for those involved, but from a distance I can no longer relate to it emotionally.

Re: A remarkable kid has died in Newcastle, Utah

#138

Post by Firmwarrior »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #129
blobbers wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it was blatant stupidity of all the people surrounding him. Life jackets exist for a reason. They save people who can't swim! It's tragic that it is such a stupid preventable death, not an accident. It's like saying someone drove around their whole life without a seatbelt and then died in a car accident at 14. Angry at his stupid parents, or whoever gave him the kayak.

"Life jackets exist for a reason. They save people who can't swim!" Just wanted to add that they save folks that can swim as well. A lot of folks can swim a little, but not enough to get to shore if they are in the middle of a lake and wouldn't handle a current really well. Heck, even if you swim well, exhaustion is a danger. Life jackets help folks. Period.

To tack onto this a little, I can easily swim across a lake, but when I tried swimming in a peaceful looking patch of open ocean, I could barely keep my head above water. Play it safe out there!

Re: A remarkable kid has died in Newcastle, Utah

#139

Post by freetime2 »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #129
blobbers wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it was blatant stupidity of all the people surrounding him. Life jackets exist for a reason. They save people who can't swim! It's tragic that it is such a stupid preventable death, not an accident. It's like saying someone drove around their whole life without a seatbelt and then died in a car accident at 14. Angry at his stupid parents, or whoever gave him the kayak.

"Life jackets exist for a reason. They save people who can't swim!" Just wanted to add that they save folks that can swim as well. A lot of folks can swim a little, but not enough to get to shore if they are in the middle of a lake and wouldn't handle a current really well. Heck, even if you swim well, exhaustion is a danger. Life jackets help folks. Period.

Yup I think it's really easy to overestimate your swimming ability. The first time I swam laps in a 50m pool, I remember being really surprised at how much effort it took to swim the length of the pool. And after about 500m or so I got a cramp in my leg.

If I were 500m from shore, weighed down by clothing, and dealing with waves and/or currents, that could be a disaster.

Re: A remarkable kid has died in Newcastle, Utah

#140

Post by actionfromafar »

aerovistae wrote: post #137
rendall wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, have feelings, whatever those are. Anger is valid. This is more what I was responding to: ...and I just didn't feel as bad . I wonder if your anger matches that which his caretakers feel at themselves.

To clarify my words, what makes me feel bad is fate reaching out of nowhere in an inevitable way to take someone away. A drunk driver driving in the wrong direction on the highway - literally nothing you can do but hope it doesn't happen to you, or that you're in a different lane (which I was - he passed by me on the inside lane, or I wouldn't be here typing this.) I dread something like this happening to someone I c…

Maybe it would be good practice to try. :) Just as an experiment.
Post reply on HN