371–380 of 530 posts
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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.
I'll be honest, I thought the same thing as Ed originally. It's a tragic story and I'm sure there is much to learn but let the family grieve rather than make click bait and throw people to the wolves ( ironically what this article is commenting on)
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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.
I am surprised people have taken issue with the words man up. It's only connotation was that Aaron should pay for his own defense, a reasonable statement. I am more taken aback by the overall tone implying that Aaron had some golden-ticket-chance-of-a-lifetime...In hindsight, I don't think anyone would have wanted to shoulder his burdens. I don't think anyone would still say he had a golden ticket. Probably the great…
I think it only becomes reasonable after you present a well thought though argument for why the world is better off when Aaron pays for his own bills vs volunteers helping him with is bills. Until that it is just a statement and opinion.
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Not merely mentally ill. Mental health in general should be taken more seriously. Many of our institutional systems (schools, prisons, etc.) are not conducive to habits that promote good mental health. Please be assured I am not dismissive of the importance of it. Also, people can have lapses in their mental health and then recover. There are also most certainly lots of factors that can push people to their limits. I…
I have a genetic disorder. At the time I attempted suicide, I was undiagnosed. In part for that reason, I ended up with severe low blood sugar while also under severe social duress. The short version is that relatives who knew the man I was arguing with had molested me as a child were telling me to "behave" instead of telling him to stfu. The severe low blood sugar interfered with my plans to slash my wrists. Had I b…
I did want to mention that the new DSM (and even the current one) does cover situations such as yours. I understand the reluctance to call duress (whether that be social, emotional, etc) "mental illness" and surely an argument can be made that it is not, however in some ways it is.
I think the real point here is that there are forms of therapies that can help someone through these tough times. Of course that takes finding the right psychologist; which takes effort.
Anyways, the main reason I commented was just to say that "mental illness" doesn't necessarily mean you are crazy or have a chemical imbalance. It is a much broader term. The opening paragraph on the wiki page for mental illness describes it well.
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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…
This is raging hindsight bias all over the place. "Next time you feel like making a 'meh' post, just say nothing at all?" Please.
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I don't understand this sentiment at all. What's wrong with simply not commenting? HN isn't a semi-private coffee shop; this whole post illustrates quite nicely that what is said here is public and long-lasting. Let's try this on for a little more discomfort: what do you think the odds are that Aaron himself read the comments of a few threads posted here about his case? Your entire argument here seems predicated upon…
"Not commenting" means no discussion. No discussion mean no learning.
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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.
You can also "man up" and admit you might have been wrong to characterize a hacker, however successful, asking for financial help in the face of a very serious legal battle as "seriously wrong". No shame in that. Or, alternatively, you can "man up" and own your original opinion.
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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 believe he was referring to the top voted post from 4 months ago. We, as a community, did not come around for one of us, instead some of you bashed the guy when he was down, now he's dead. Shame. Edit: ameliorated ending
edit: Thank you for editing your comment. :-)
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It was, evidently, demoralization that killed Aaron. Ed took away moral support. So don't say he doesn't partly bear some responsibility. Whether you think he deserves a measure of blame or not depends on whether you think his original remark was just or not. Evidently some could not tell ahead of time that the remarks were unjust, and evidently, this sort of person makes up the majority on HN, and it is just this so…
What am I missing here? Did Ed know Aaron and tell him this publicly? Or are you simply saying the act of making the original post on HN amounts to taking away moral support and consequently Ed bears some responsibility? If so (and please correct me if that's not what you are saying) then I don't agree with that. What you are implying is that people can't speak their mind in a public forum about how they feel about s…
The argument that he could have had the foresight to not do what he did is a separate matter.
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That's not an observation, it's a conjecture, and one that is fairly baseless. many things operate according to a power law. If karma is like that, a small number of users will end up with a shitload of karma points even if they aren't attempting to game the system. There are many factors that could contribute to a power law for karma distribution. One conjecture is that other users tend to "trust" high-karma users a…
Both conjectures bear out in my experience. A third one: High-karma users have followers. I've left comments on very old stories in out-of-the-way places and found them voted up. So we accumulate karma faster in part because people are simply more likely to see our posts, because they go out of their way to do so.
high karma people have a halo effect (while that sounds a little like one of the others ones mentioned) I think it's distinct.
I had an experience the other week with the halo effect as follows.
I was somewhere and struck up a conversation with a man that I believed to be the actual head of a top 10 law firm in the US (a distant relative who I met for the first time). With a private jet, home in Aspen and a few thousand lawyers under him. While I was talking to him, I was noticeably aware of literally how important he seemed on one hand, and how "down to earth" he seemed on the other. (He actually didn't seem that sharp to go with who I believed him to be, in a George Bush kind of way.)
But the halo was still there (I was doubting my instincts all along).
After speaking to him for 45 minutes or so I asked for his card. It turned out that he wasn't the head of the firm, he was the son of the head of the firm (he was a senior partner none the less).
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I have a genetic disorder. At the time I attempted suicide, I was undiagnosed. In part for that reason, I ended up with severe low blood sugar while also under severe social duress. The short version is that relatives who knew the man I was arguing with had molested me as a child were telling me to "behave" instead of telling him to stfu. The severe low blood sugar interfered with my plans to slash my wrists. Had I b…
I'm really sorry to hear about your struggles, and I sincerely hope you are doing better now. I did want to mention that the new DSM (and even the current one) does cover situations such as yours. I understand the reluctance to call duress (whether that be social, emotional, etc) "mental illness" and surely an argument can be made that it is not, however in some ways it is. I think the real point here is that there a…
Have a great day/evening/whatever.