[ineedtosleep]

In reply to _delirium:

Right. I guess the thing that bothers me about the entire thing is that this is done at such a bigger scale than other similar requests, especially from the past.

Requesting help from a small group, like family is one thing, but requesting help from the internet doesn't settle right for some reason.

[jstn]

If you were facing death and your best hope at survival was crowdsourcing help on the internet you'd... what, politely decline to bother anyone in the internet community you've been a major part of? Skip the chance to raise awareness for something that could save the lives of many others besides yourself? Die alone knowing you saved someone half a second reading an HN headline that wasn't directly relevant to them?

[mikeash]

The help they requested will go to help an entire ethnic group of people, not just one person. This effectively a massive charity operation using an individual story as a hook. I don't understand how anyone could possibly criticize this as being selfish.