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The last day

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Re: The last day

#161

Post by koide »

aidenn0 wrote: post #159
koide wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that this line of reasoning can be applied to whatever painful event suffered by anybody who's better than "most people" and especially gasp "most Americans." Where do you draw the line and why there and not elsewhere? What's "proper pain"? To be honest, I'm somewhat on your side and tend to take the "shut up and grow up already" mentality regarding people whining (suffering) about painful life events, b…

It's fine to have pain, but to say "nobody can understand this pain" when huge numbers of people are almost certainly worse off is hyperbole.

True. "Nobody can understand this pain" is either self evidently false (at the very least other indebted, divorced start up founders understand it and likely many other people who are worse off) or a tautology (everybody suffers differently and thus nobody can understand the pain of anybody else.)

I personally don't get worked up about that kind of self commiserating sentences.

Re: The last day

#162

Post by jbrains »

tptacek wrote: post #54

The amount of privilege built into this "painful failure" is disquieting. Here's a person whose biggest problem in life appears to be that he's in debt and, for the moment, unemployed. But: he was the CEO of a company funded to the tune of 8xFTE, and can thus almost certainly walk into hundreds of VP/Product Management or Business Development roles immediately, all of which will pay him more than any of his technical…

The dearth of empathy built into this "comment" is disquieting.

You make many assumptions here. Can you count them? What if you've got only half of them wrong?

No matter how good we have it, failure will disappoint us. I don't see a problem with that. Even if that failure is good for the universe, it will disappoint us in the moment. I think that's just human nature, no?

I don't understand it when someone tells me, "Don't feel so bad." Fuck you; I feel bad right now. Just because you wouldn't feel the same amount and kind of bad doesn't mean that I have to stop. If you want to judge me, feel free, then fuck off.

Stories like this highlight a particular application of Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everyone is crap.

Re: The last day

#163

Post by jbrains »

tptacek wrote: post #76
chernevik wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fuck you. I daresay my problems are somewhat worse than those of the OP's CEO. He isn't in a divorce, doesn't have kids, does he? And yeah, even if my problems are worse, they're still distinctly First World. It isn't as if I have trouble finding potable water for my kids, or have to worry about teenager "soldiers" raping my daughter. So maybe I too am Entitled. And perhaps I too should just Shut Up. But I don't thin…

Again: it's not that there are people in the world who are worse off. There are always people in the world that are worse off. Most people in the world are much worse off than most Americans. It's that most Americans are worse off than this person. This is startup exceptionalism. It is the intersection between nerd exceptionalism and the myth of the heroic entrepreneur, both of which are virulent memes in our culture…

The only person who may feel pain is the person with the greatest problems in the world? Really? By whose measure? Where will we track this? How will we update the leaderboard?

I know: I'll buy theonlypersonintheworldallowedtofeelpaintoday.org and you set up the hosting. Deal?

Re: The last day

#164

Post by rmc »

pbiggar wrote: post #154
patio11 wrote: post #108

If this is in the general vicinity of "Worst. Day. Ever." for you, your life is pretty effing awesome now isn't it. One Thanksgiving a year seems inadequate under the circumstances. (I respectfully suggest that anyone unable to put death of a startup in perspective invest some effort in rekindling ties with folks outside our little bubble. Again, it's Thanksgiving, so you've got a built-in excuse.)

That's a little callous, no (even if it is a fictional character)? Imagine if everything you worked for over the last 5 year dried up, and you had for some reason to go back to life as a salaryman. Not the end of the world probably, but you'd be pretty depressed. The lack of empathy in this thread bothers me.

Now imagine everything dries up, and there is nothing to go back to. No possibility of a job to fall back on.

Re: The last day

#165

Post by lifeformed »

Haha geeze, the crowd here is brutal. I don't think the writer is saying that he has the objectively worst life, and everyone should feel bad for him. It's just a microcosm of the human experience. This article is showing that, even in our prosperous country, a relatively successful person can feel the same pain of failure and rejection that everyone feels at some point. The rich and poor all struggle to find out who they are and what their place in life is.

This isn't a contest of who suffered the most. Even though dying is common, it doesn't mean a death is trivial. Personal experiences should be able to be shared without marginalization.

Re: The last day

#166

Post by pbiggar »

rmc wrote: post #164
pbiggar wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a little callous, no (even if it is a fictional character)? Imagine if everything you worked for over the last 5 year dried up, and you had for some reason to go back to life as a salaryman. Not the end of the world probably, but you'd be pretty depressed. The lack of empathy in this thread bothers me.

Now imagine everything dries up, and there is nothing to go back to. No possibility of a job to fall back on.

Now imagine they killed our families and razed our crops and burned our villages - leaving desolation and famine in their wake!

We can imagine any kind of nightmarish scenario we like, but that doesn't mean we should ignore all the people who are doing better. Imagine if our social policy was to only help people who had escaped war-torn famine, and tell everyone else to suck it up!

So the protagonist in the story could be in a much worse place, but it still sucks for him. You have to be pretty callous not to have some empathy for him.

Re: The last day

#167

Post by intenex »

kayloos wrote: post #112
intenex wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I'm with chernevik on this one. Both perspectives were great to be brought up, but frankly, what's the difference with most Americans being worse off than this person and most of the people in the world being worse off? You are in fact saying the same thing - this guy has less right than he feels to be so sorry for himself. Hacker News fosters a prominent startup community. Of course we're going to commiserate w…

I wish you could make your point in fewer words.

Yeah..I'm always worried I'm not thoroughly elucidating how I feel. The words, they just keep coming!
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