[andreadallera]

Your reply makes me sad. I'll try to explain why:

Empathy should have nothing to do with your ability to evaluate facts. Empathy has an evil cousin, politically correctness. When politically correctness comes into play, you lose the game. You can't talk about anything with a straight perspective because, you know, somebody might get offended.

A 16 years old kid has died. That is a sad fact by itself. If she was the dumbest kid in Pakistan that wouldn't have made the fact less sad - only, you wouldn't have known it. If she was the poorest kid in Pakistan, same thing. Now, you know that a lot of 16 years old kids die in Pakistan? Most of them with family situations much worse than the one she was in? Do you feel empathy for them? I bet so. That's a good thing, a human thing to feel.

Now, as a thought experiment, let's say she wasn't a Pakistani little girl. Let's say she was a 16 years old boy coming from a rich US family. Even fat and greasy, to add to the image. Let's also add that this one didn't die - he's well off in his NY mansion eating Snickers all day. What would you have thought of the article? "16 years old kid from NY loves messing around with .NET". Wouldn't you have said: who cares? And rightly so?

Empathy drains perspective. Feeling empathy is the noblest thing in the world. At the same time, it doesn't mean that it should suspend your ability to evaluate situations. A big problem with our society and our communication channels is that they routinely employ this effect to steer public opinion where they want it to be. Don't be a sucker - be human, but use your brain.

[hythloday]

The reason why it's remarkable (and I use the word literally) is because 16-year-old girls from Pakistan do not start with the same advantages as 16-year-old boys in the US. It's not surprising, given that, if one outcome is ignored and the other is celebrated.

[andreadallera]

Again, perspective. On average, that's certainly true. In this specific instance, not so. Take a 16 year old boy from the ghetto in the US and compare it to a rich upper caste Pakistani girl. Who has the most advantages?

[hythloday]

I think, in changing your thought experiment, you're making my point for me.

If a 16-year-old boy from the ghetto in the US became the world's youngest MCP at the age of 9, I would absolutely expect that to be news.

I would also think it was particularly unworldly to comment on the reporting of his untimely death, "well, I, as a white man with excellent access to education, got an MCP at the age of 20, and it wasn't all that hard".

The challenges that Arfa, or your hypothetical ghetto programmer, faced, were entirely different, and quite probably greater to the ones you faced, and they achieved a specific milestone a long time before you did. I genuinely can't imagine the mindset that attempts to minimize rather than celebrating their achievements.

[lookelsewhere]

You could have at least stated that you felt sorry for the girl's death in your first post. Instead, it sounded more like you were focused on discrediting her skills without heed to the sensitivity of her passing. She might not've been a true prodigy, and you may be fed up with articles like this, but please show some dignity.

[joemoon]

> Empathy should have nothing to do with your ability to evaluate facts.

Frankly, your original post was extremely light on facts. The only relevant fact that you presented is that you think the MCP exam is easy. You wrote:

> the hype is widely unjustified

You really don't have enough information. You're looking at a single fact without context, and saying that it's nothing special. For some context, check out khalidmbajwa's comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3467046

[vl]

Spot-on. This entire thread is a good example of people stopping thinking rationally and trying to censor people who disagree with them just because once they got into irrational empathic state they think they have higher moral ground.

Feeling empathy and being sad for whatever reason is ok, but trying to project to other and decline them the right to ask the question or to make a statement in a respectful manner is not.

[Dn_Ab]

I strongly disagree with you but was planning on staying out of this conversation. But now I feel compelled to interject.

Your example fails in supporting your point. Your example person could not be more different from Arfa.

Your character: Fat Boy who enjoys messing with .NET is alive and enjoying his snickers bar.

Arfa: Young Intelligent, Motivated Girl Concretely acting in fulfilling her goals and bettering her environment dies at 16.

It does not matter her gender, age or privilege. Her outlook, her willingness to act in perusing her goals and enrichment - in spite of her "silver spoon" - puts her ahead of a lot of people. Do not underestimate the power of taking things for granted.

We agree that her early death is tragic. But is it fair that so many other people also die and no one notices? No it is not fair. I agree. But the reality of the matter is that attention is a scarce resource and will always be. Now, If I had somehow heard about the death of your rich fat kid from NYC then I would certainly feel empathy for the parents and the early loss. But the reality is, a random person hearing of that event is not a likely scenario. Most news outlets would not be interested.

Many people, some more technically accomplished than Arfa will not get similar coverage. But technical accomplishment is not the sole determinant of value as a person or worth in attention units. If you look at how we price people's worth in attention you will notice that it is only loosely correlated with the value of the labor they put into improving themselves and more correlated with how much demand for their attention they can create.

As for Arfa's case she actually does stands up to scrutiny of the worth of her accomplishments. The real loss is not her current skill but the time derivative of it, the rate of increase, her potential. The fact that she had already made news, met Bill Gates, lack of greed, willingness to give back and the inspirational aspect of it all. Those add to make hers a very uncommon situation and hence worth covering by the media.

Her dying is a very sad event as is the case for nearly all deaths. But make no mistake, this coverage is not due to the empathy of the news outlets but a calculated cost value decision. Fair or not that is the reality of it and there is no gain in focusing on how many others are not covered instead giving more weight to the tragic fact of her loss. She has gotten to your ellipsoid of attention. That alone justifies the attention she is receiving, not an accounting of how easy it is to replicate her accomplishments. Such a stance is not much difference from holding a belief that I could make stackoverflow in a week.

Finally I completely disagree that empathy drains perspective. Empathy gives perspective. You underestimate the value of social and emotional intelligence, which are vital in getting people to work together and overcome difficulties. Empathy is exactly trying to get someone's perspective and then using that to your mutual advantages (or manipulate to get ahead). Intelligence in species is correlated with complexity of social groups. Some argue Neanderthals were more IQ intelligent than us - closer to our savants but we overcame them by being more able to work together and having a superior Collective Intelligence.

Empathy is not an enemy of rationality. See Higher order intentionality. I have a pet theory that the empathetic mind is a simulation based intelligence, dual to the calculation based intelligence commonly linked to I.Q. You can run simulations, or run outright calculations to get at the same answer. Some things are easier to calculate others easier to simulate. Both add perspective and neither has ordinality.

[ascendant]

You are a true engineer right to the end. Sticking your foot in your mouth and then continually trying to use logic to climb out of the hole you dug for yourself. The next time someone of note passes away, resist the urge to take them down a notch and just keep your mouth shut.

[andreadallera]

And you're a true manager right to the end, my friend. Making decision with your heart alone and refusing to see logic and data when they're in front of you.

May our paths never cross in real life.

[ceol]

There's nothing logical about your post, because a logical post wouldn't ignore that she was a 9 year old girl from Pakistan when she became a MCP and you weren't a 9 year old girl from Pakistan when you became a MCP. You refuse to see the vast amount of differences between you and her and then continue to make a comparison as though it has any meaning.

That's not logic. That's jealousy.

[drx]

> limb out of the hole you dug for yourself

How delightfully patronizing.