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Jake Seliger has died

marginalrevolution.com

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Re: Jake Seliger has died

#51

Post by painsucks »

phone8675309 wrote: post #27
delichon wrote: post #9

It's impressive to me that Jake managed to remain involved and communicative until so near the end. I withdraw into a personal shell when I get so much as a hang nail. Respect.

As the romantic partner of someone going through a degenerative disorder and as someone who watched my grandmother be consumed by dementia I can say that it's something most people develop over time instead of being born good at. If a hang nail is bad enough to make you withdraw then that means you don't have a lot of experience of getting sick to the point where you had to push through as it hasn't happened a lot. O…

Fully agree. I live with cronic pain and people ask me if I'm in pain, I say yes, then they want to stop whatever we're doing and I say no, if I stop living because of this, I have nothing else left but the pain. So yeah, you get used to doing things with it. Some days it's impossible and I indeed do nothing but most days, meh.. Screw it, I have stuff I actually want to do.

Re: Jake Seliger has died

#53

Post by slazaro »

fnord77 wrote: post #35

I've seen about a half dozen articles on his passing from cancer, but none of them say who he is. Googling his name doesn't help either. Who is he?

He was an active HN user and a writer, he had a very active blog for many years, and he and his wife had been documenting their struggles during his disease; some of those articles were voted high here and had a lot of discussion around them. So in the microcosm of HN, it's relevant news.

RIP Jake.

Re: Jake Seliger has died

#54

Post by Jimpulse »

dudus wrote: post #46

What happens to his hacker News account? What about email account, cloud servers, etc ...? I know Google has a nice tool to share your account after you are gone, as for the rest, I have no plans. Anyone has good suggestions on managing one's own digital legacy?

I believe he briefly talked about that in a post. I think he gave all the account info to his wife.

Re: Jake Seliger has died

#55

Post by 9dev »

@dang I don’t know what the criteria for the black top banner are, but Jake would have earned it, IMHO. I never met him personally, but his writing deeply moved me, and others too, judging from the reactions.

Re: Jake Seliger has died

#56

Post by ethbr1 »

painsucks wrote: post #51
phone8675309 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the romantic partner of someone going through a degenerative disorder and as someone who watched my grandmother be consumed by dementia I can say that it's something most people develop over time instead of being born good at. If a hang nail is bad enough to make you withdraw then that means you don't have a lot of experience of getting sick to the point where you had to push through as it hasn't happened a lot. O…

Fully agree. I live with cronic pain and people ask me if I'm in pain, I say yes, then they want to stop whatever we're doing and I say no, if I stop living because of this, I have nothing else left but the pain. So yeah, you get used to doing things with it. Some days it's impossible and I indeed do nothing but most days, meh.. Screw it, I have stuff I actually want to do.

Obama gave an answer in his Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee episode that stuck with me.

Seinfeld asked something like 'How do you deal with constant annoyances, all the time, when you're president?'

And Obama replied 'I expect it's similar to what you do -- you fall in love with the work. Sure, sometimes it's painful, annoying, backwards, foolish, etc. But in the end you fall in love with the work, and it saves you.'

That defined purpose in a way I'd never thought about it, and probably undergirds every religion.

It also made me try to open my heart more to people dealing with chronic pain or mental health issues, in terms of their subjective effort. Objectively, it may look like they're just doing {normal thing}, but subjectively that may be requiring 10x or 100x effort from them. And that effort (the work) deserves its own respect, independent of outome.

Re: Jake Seliger has died

#57

Post by pseudolus »

Profound condolences to his family and friends. Reading about his journey was heart-breaking, all the more so knowing that he would never be able to hold or know his daughter.

Re: Jake Seliger has died

#58

Post by dredmorbius »

Jake posted as jseliger on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jseliger

He blogged at https://jakeseliger.com/>, and numerous of his blog articles were submitted to HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=jakeseliger.com>. That includes numerous topics, over the past year or so his experience with cancer, often concerning frustrations with the process and mechanism.

His essay on agenticness especially strikes me as hugely insightful and underappreciated. It was submitted several times to HN but saw little discussion:

https://jakeseliger.com/2024/07/29/more-isnt-always-better-d...>

Jake's wife, now widow, Bess, blogs at Everything is an Emergency: https://bessstillman.substack.com>. That also details the cancer / caregiving experience, from the point of view of a wife, caregiver, expectant mother, and emergency-room doctor.

Re: Jake Seliger has died

#59

Post by dredmorbius »

9dev wrote: post #55

@dang I don’t know what the criteria for the black top banner are, but Jake would have earned it, IMHO. I never met him personally, but his writing deeply moved me, and others too, judging from the reactions.

Email such suggestions to mods at hn@ycombinator.com.

"@dang is a no-op": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36526450>

(Edit: I've emailed the suggestion, and we now have a black bar.)

Re: Jake Seliger has died

#60

Post by dredmorbius »

delichon wrote: post #9

It's impressive to me that Jake managed to remain involved and communicative until so near the end. I withdraw into a personal shell when I get so much as a hang nail. Respect.

If you look at the disease progression and his blogging history, it was a few months before he did open up about the situation.

(He may have discussed it earlier on HN, I haven't gone through his history to check on this.)

Once he began, however, he continued to the bitter end. And yes that is commendable.

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