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

91–100 of 339 posts

Re: Hunting Down My Son's Killer

#91

Post by mcdowall »

maratd wrote: post #75
jonmb wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Saying children are not worth it is an extreme position, but saying that life is pointless without children is perhaps even more extreme. It's like saying life is pointless without a wife, or without God.

The point of all life is to reproduce. It's one of the qualifications to be considered alive. So yeah, without children, life literally loses its meaning =)

Your position is aggressive and invalid.

I personally have never leaned towards having children, I have friends and family with young children and I see the benefit and joy they get, but for me its never been a personal goal or desire. Maybe one day it will be and my viewpoint will change.

I consider the fact that I travel the world and experience amazing things, have tried a startup and am socially active most evenings a pretty good testament to having 'lived' as you would call it.

Re: Hunting Down My Son's Killer

#92

Post by fluidcruft »

waffle_ss wrote: post #50
tomjen3 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is only 'worth it' because your genes needs you to protect the next generation. Rationally there is no point in having children at all. And speaking statistically, research shows that parents are no more happy than are those who are not parents.

Rationally, there is no point in a lot of things (up to and including just sitting idle as a respiring organism). Do you get your sustenance from an IV bag of the basic chemicals your body needs to survive, or do you eat food that you enjoy the taste of? Do you cover yourself with a burlap sap, or do you wear clothing of a design you prefer? Do you get to work on your own locomotive power (walk, ride bicycle) or use…

Apparently it's all been downhill since we were algae.

Re: Hunting Down My Son's Killer

#93

Post by mcmatterson »

sneak wrote: post #26

Why on Earth would you conceive another child with the risks involved here? There are thousands of unwanted children that would benefit from having such a thoughtful and dedicated set of parents. Is it pure egocentrism that keeps high-risk parents from adopting?

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 of treatment after diagnosis were the most emotionally draining experience we've ever gone through, and we don't know if we have it in us to go for number two. We're still in the early days (diagnosis + 9 months, all signs pointing to cured) so this may change, but active parenting causes healing and recovery to happen much slower.

My wife (and her brother) are also both adopted, so we're well aware of the dynamics involved there. We've said since before we started trying for kids that we weren't going to beat ourselves up if we'd had problems conceiving (we gave ourselves nine months of trying before we'd look at adoption. As it turns out it only took us one). One could probably argue that the truly optimal thing to do would have been to forego trying biologically at all and to jump right into adoption, but that didn't feel right either.

All of which is to say that I don't think it's egocentricity per se, but a natural desire to at least try and see your genes successfully expressed in the world. While that's not ideal from a rational perspective, I don't think you can go too far down that line of thinking without verging into eugenics.

Re: Hunting Down My Son's Killer

#94

Post by crag »

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…

From 1995 though 1998 I had full blown AIDS. I knew more about care, medication and treatments for AIDS then (almost) any doctor I met.

It was one of the reason so many AIDS patient groups formed (I sat on the board of PWAC and was a member of ACTUP). Because at that time, either doctors did not or could not educate themselves on the subject.

Now, of course, it's a different matter. With HIV being a "manageable" condition (in the West anyway)every ID doctor worth his weight can talk on the subject.

From experience I can tell you, you have to manage your care. You can not expect (nor should you either) a doctor to do it for you.

Re: Hunting Down My Son's Killer

#96

Post by ceejayoz »

altrego99 wrote: post #20
jasonlotito wrote: post #9

As a father with a son with severe autism (not to suggest it's equivalent to Bertrand's condition), there is an important lesson here that might not be apparent at first read. Before you have children, understand that it's for the rest of your life. Really understand the impact. Your concerns are second, beyond anything you've ever understood. Marriage is about compromise. Children, however, afford no such privilege.…

Sorry, not worth it at all. Years 1-10 - you will loose all your time - cleaning diapers, making the child eat, making it study, teaching it values - waking up at night - and doing a lot of things for it. Yes you'll see it learn, smile, grow up and you're genetically conditioned to like it. But you will not be able to play your games, go to your parties - read book or contemplate on life, or code without expecting in…

> Yes you'll see it learn, smile, grow up and you're genetically conditioned to like it. But you will not be able to play your games, go to your parties - read book or contemplate on life, or code without expecting interruptions.

Enjoying parties, games, books, and coding has its roots in genetic conditioning, too.

Re: Hunting Down My Son's Killer

#98

Post by Morcane »

tomjen3 wrote: post #21
jasonlotito wrote: post #9

As a father with a son with severe autism (not to suggest it's equivalent to Bertrand's condition), there is an important lesson here that might not be apparent at first read. Before you have children, understand that it's for the rest of your life. Really understand the impact. Your concerns are second, beyond anything you've ever understood. Marriage is about compromise. Children, however, afford no such privilege.…

It is only 'worth it' because your genes needs you to protect the next generation. Rationally there is no point in having children at all. And speaking statistically, research shows that parents are no more happy than are those who are not parents.

'Rationally there is no point in having children at all.'

You get older as well, and when you look at having kies purely from a rational view point...children are your insurance when you yourself get older, lose physical and mental strength and the ability to do stuff.

Of course, this all depends on actually being a good parent and having good relationships with your children, but since most people are selfish dicks these days...

Re: Hunting Down My Son's Killer

#99

Post by mcmatterson »

aidenn0 wrote: post #47
mcmatterson wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Balls to this. As your sibling commenter says, you simply don't get to pass judgement on this if you haven't had a child of your own. Sure, we're programmed to behave with an otherwise inexcusable amount of irrationality with our kids, but that's not by accident. If anything, it demonstrates the level of evolutionary importance in keeping our offspring healthy and ensuring their success: it's such an important direct…

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…

I don't even pretend to understand what you're getting at with your second paragraph, and since this is HN and not reddit, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you mean no harm. That being said, I might caution you to choose your words wisely and delicately when it comes to commenting on other people's parenting methods. There are few minefields more fraught with peril than those surrounding parenting. Someone less accommodating than I may well take offense to statements like that, so tread lightly.

Re: Hunting Down My Son's Killer

#100

Post by lmm »

chaud wrote: post #65
waffle_ss wrote: post #38

Thanks so much for the fascinating and emotionally stirring article. I will definitely be passing this on to others I know. The thing I kept thinking during the article is, "Is there something that I, as a programmer, can do to help people like Bertrand?" Is there some way that we programmers could use our talent to augment or advance existing technology in this area? I realize that the science involved here is non-t…

Sure, go in to bioinformatics research. You might even end up doing something that benefits humanity more than trying to make the next Facebook! Data is piling up faster than we know what to do with it. There are a lot of problems to be solved that might benefit from computer science. De novo Protein structure and function prediction, better alignment from noisy data, drug target discovery, homology modeling in the t…

>You might even end up doing something that benefits humanity more than trying to make the next Facebook! Data is piling up faster than we know what to do with it.

It's worth mentioning that some of the best tools for letting us do something with it come from the current facebook. I'm constantly tempted to move into academic research rather than helping people get their porn faster, but it seems like a very superficial judgement to say that would be better for humanity in the long run.

Post reply on HN