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

Hunting Down My Son's Killer

matt.might.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 339 posts

Re: Hunting Down My Son's Killer

#301

Post by luminaobscura »

perlgeek wrote: post #294
luminaobscura wrote: post #124

why not just perform euthanasia and focus your energy into raising the healthy child?

It took me a while to realize what exactly it was that disturbed me about your question. I don't have any problems with talking about euthanasia, but the casualness with which you mention it shocks me. Would you "just" kill your son if he wasn't healthy enough?

"just" refers to easiness of the alternative route, nothing more. i didn't mean it should be an easy decision.(I am not a native English speaker.) I realize that this is a very painful situation for the family.

regarding your question, there are two different scenarios:

1- my son reaches the necessary neural development stage so that he is conscious, self-aware, interacts with other humans etc. then we can't kill him unless he requests it.

2- he has never reached that stage so he has not any personality, memory etc. then we can kill him. because there is not really a "son" here, not yet.

in fact, we humans continously kill pigs, dolphins and other animals that are more intelligent and conscious than a newborn.

Re: Hunting Down My Son's Killer

#302

Post by kernelPanicked »

btilly wrote: post #183
CWuestefeld wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I know what you're trying to say: that it's not hard for us to learn some facts, but they're less useful without a broader knowledge of human physiology that an MD would be presumed to have, and we don't. And there's certainly truth to that. On the other hand, there really are things the lay person can learn and understand well, even in the complex human body. I have an unusual, if not rare, condition (Crohn'…

Just curious. Have you tried Helmetic therapy? I have a friend with Crohn's disease. After 10 years on medication he injected himself with hookworm. He has now been medicine free for over a year with fewer symptoms than he had before.

There was a This American Life/Radiolab story about a guy who rolled his own Helminthic Therapy. If it weren't for the fact that the therapy was illegal (which is a whole other issue) and therefore very difficult for him to get, it would hardly have been a "story." Just an amazing cure for allergies/autoimmune problems. But the story was really in how he had to wander all over Africa shuffling through latrines to get a few hookworms. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/404/e... . It's act 3.

Re: Hunting Down My Son's Killer

#303

Post by alexrson »

I stongly urge you to look into Ataluren (also referred to as PTC124, in the literature). It has a number of advantages over gentamicin and may be a better long term solution. It is currently in clinical trials for a number of premature termination codon (PTC) diseases. Check out this paper: http://ajrccm.atsjournals.org/content/182/10/1262.long

Re: Hunting Down My Son's Killer

#304

Post by e40 »

its_so_on wrote: post #149
postfuturist wrote: post #54

It pays to become an expert in your own (or your family members') medical conditions, because you'll quickly become more of an expert than 99% of the doctors you will rely on for care. It helps when they all ask the same dumb questions, which they will do. If your condition is mildly rare, you'll notice when you see a new doctor, that their knowledge will be limited to what you found out in the first hour of internet…

I don't like your tone. I have no horse in the race and am not a doctor, but doctors aren't Gods. They learn certain foundational things (names of bones and muscles; organic chemistry) then they learn thing related to the practice that doesn't necessarily rely on any of that stuff. (Diseases; drugs) For diseases, you should try reading through the Merck manual (available online). Everything from gynecology, oncology,…

I don't like your tone.

Wow, I love it when people make an accusation and it's better leveled at them. It's your tone that I don't like.

The original posted was expressing a well-formed opinion, one that is backed up by a lifetime of experience, his and mine.

I can't claim to have an exotic or serious disease, but I do have a lot of chronic medical issues. I cannot tell you how many years I've wasted dealing with Dr's that 1) thought they knew what they were doing (YES, behaving God like!), and 2) had no clue.

The problem with Dr's is they are taught to project confidence, at the expense of their patients.

Re: Hunting Down My Son's Killer

#305

Post by hob196 »

sneak wrote: post #169
mcmatterson wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a parent of a child who was born with a near-fatal congenital disorder (malignant sacrococcygeal teratoma), I can attest that the decision to try for #2 is a difficult one that we're still wrestling with. On the one hand ours was a one-off event and subsequent kids should be fine. We've always wanted two, and it's been such a wonderful experience that we want more of. So there's that. On the other hand, the months…

To be clear: I think it's unconscionable to conceive a child while there are un-adopted ones, even if it's your first and guaranteed to be healthy. There are perfectly good babies out there that need love and care, and by making your own you are basically saying "fuck them, the one that shares my DNA is better".

I used to feel that way when I was young. Sadly there really is no way to explain it to you until you want / have your own. If you still feel like adopting at that time then that's great, well done. But I would caution you against defining people having children as being 'unconscionable' as it won't help you make your point.

Re: Hunting Down My Son's Killer

#306

Post by antman »

If one's condition is a usual one then the doctor is the best approach. Similar symptoms can appear in meningitits or west nile virus (arbitrary example) but the doctor knows how many people he treated in the area recently and can quickly come up with an answer. Others can't have sense of analogy and size. It's the same thing as reading posts regarding NOSQL databases where the best way to learn the caveats is to wait a little for the "why it was a bad idea for us" posts. If you have some rare condition and you have reached to the conclusion that you can't find what it is, a solution is to try and improve on the symptoms by using simple statistics or machine learning. Here is a simple tutorial of machine learning with WEKA where the guy uses data from his heart condition: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7kpIBGEdkI If you have a rare condition and you found what it is, then be prepared yourself. Unfortunately reproducibility in scientific experiments has problems http://blog.scienceexchange.com/2012/04/the-need-for-reprodu... so it is better to use books that come from established groups or organizations. What if research was absolutely trustworthy? For more daily things you can read forever (try putting "cognitive" and "daily" to pubmed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed to see thousands of post relating to cognitive function). It's too much work, so stick to what's important for you. If you have some rare condition and you have reached to the conclusion that you can't find what it is, a solution is to try and improve on the symptoms by using simple statistics or machine learning. Here is a simple tutorial of machine learning with WEKA where the guy uses data from his heart condition: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7kpIBGEdkI If you have a rare condition and you found what it is, then be prepared yourself. Unfortunately reproducibility in scientific experiments has problems http://blog.scienceexchange.com/2012/04/the-need-for-reprodu... so it is better to use books that come from established groups or organizations. What if research was absolutely trustworthy? For more daily things you can read forever (try putting "cognitive" and "daily" to pubmed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed to see thousands of post relating to brain function). It's too much work, so stick to what's important for you.

Re: Hunting Down My Son's Killer

#307

Post by sevenstar »

nitrogen wrote: post #296
nitrogen wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just so you are aware, your posts on this thread have probably gotten your account automatically banned for excessive downvotes and flags. You are probably being downvoted because you are giving potentially life-threateningly bad advice, not because "they" are trying to bury your post.

Once again, just to make sure you are aware of the outcome of your posts, your account is dead. I cannot reply to your response to this comment, because it is [dead]. If you try and succeed getting your account unbanned, please consider posting more supporting evidence when giving advice of the form "Eat poison...because medical industry conspiracy!"

Give it up... what is your problem? Plain English... not banned. Stop lying, then read the link, please... ( http://www.naturalnews.com/010038.html )

Re: Hunting Down My Son's Killer

#308

Post by slurgfest »

mcmatterson wrote: post #133
aidenn0 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A non-parent could similarly argue that you don't get to pass judgement since you are under the influence of cognitive dissonance. Regardless, I have met parents who feel that way, and it can often turn out poorly for the child, though it really depends. One person I know who feels this way is a DBA who earns more than enough for his wife to raise the kids. She works part-time more to escape cabin-fever than to earn…

This is already a busy topic, and this is as good of a chance as I'll have to get something off my chest, so here goes... There's an obsession verging on dogma in much of the hacker world that rationality is the only path to correct action; that by virtue of being hackers we are all somehow divested of otherwise human frailties like emotion, love, and irrational behaviour. As one of the commenters on this thread so w…

There is no dichotomy between rational decision making and having kids, or any other thing that you might want to do for yourself or others.

Thinking decisions through and being honest with yourself is a GOOD thing, particularly in the case where it will affect the rest of your life and the welfare of one or more children. Rationality is a value.

Nobody has claimed to be an amazing savant. People do have different priorities and not everyone is the same as you. If I like salt and you do not like salt, then each of us can be rational while doing a completely different thing.

If you mean to show that reason has limits and that it has terrible consequences then unfortunately you must use reason to show that, and I cannot see that you have done that.

Re: Hunting Down My Son's Killer

#309

Post by slurgfest »

valencourt wrote: post #271
sneak wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear: I think it's unconscionable to conceive a child while there are un-adopted ones, even if it's your first and guaranteed to be healthy. There are perfectly good babies out there that need love and care, and by making your own you are basically saying "fuck them, the one that shares my DNA is better".

Do you have children? Do you have a good relationship with your parents? I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that my kids will turn out to have traits that I liked in me and my parents. Just because of that, I would rather conceive.

Nobody has any idea how your kids will turn out - we have even less control over this than over how our marriages will turn out. But best of luck to you.

Re: Hunting Down My Son's Killer

#310

Post by slurgfest »

sofal wrote: post #241
run4yourlives wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure where you are hearing the "everyone should have kids" refrain in 2012. Perhaps this is from your parents or friends? I'd submit too that perhaps a lot of it is self imposed, as witnessed by your comments in this thread that immediately assumed more than one person was of the opinion that we are somehow insinuating you are a lesser person from not having kids. Outside of your own family, there's not a hec…

It actually feels good to me to see you talk about the idea of society pushing you to have kids with such incredulity. You clearly haven't experienced the religious culture that I have, which pushed my wife and I to have children ASAP, and continually preaches that if you don't find parenthood (particularly motherhood) extremely fulfilling then there is something wrong with you. I assure you that this culture is stil…

I can confirm that this is the mainstream view any place I've lived in the US as well.

I don't know what it's like in San Francisco.

Post reply on HN