[zgoat]

So if yourself, or Sammi (below), experienced a partner or loved one gradually rotting away from terminal cancer, you would of course be as perfectly detached and rational in examining life while you were grieving over the event?

Responses to threads like this are why I always eventually regret being a frequent reader of hacker news. These comments can only come from people who have never experienced this kind of loss and think its appropriate to rationalise away the emotion of the event; or who are genuinely blunted enough emotionally that you cannot empathise with someone and appreciate why these replies aren't considerate or even remotely civil.

I refuse to believe that someone could experience this kind of loss and still genuinely hold the point of view that challenging grievers as to the correctness of their world view is a constructive or compassionate thing to do.

Of course death is a part of life. It doesn't mean it should be trivialised. It is one of the most significant events that will occur in your life, and grief absolutely shapes the way someone perceives the world while they recover from it.

Yes, "Life fucking sucks" is a statement that doesn't take into account the whole scope of life at that point in time, but I would estimate that from the grievers perspective it is a very accurate summary of how things feel.

Every time I see a topic on here relating to something other than technology or money I cringe before opening the comments section, because while a minority of participants, it is almost guaranteed that someone will be trying to rationalise away the significance of death, gender issues, class imbalance etc. It really wouldn't hurt some people here to step away from their collection of technical domains and deal with some people outside of their bubble once in a while.

[ACow_Adonis]

I've got no grandparent's left, having lived through watching/caring for several of them go through protracted dementia/alzheimers with my mother and our family as carers and the associated joys of that.

My cousin killed himself a year or two ago. My mother got a cancer diagnosis last year.

I'm not trying to rack up a body count, or post that to measure my e-penis, but it might stop you and other's like you dismissing this out of hand.

I think that guy up there you're responding to is spot on.

Death is part of life. My parents, and my wife's parents, are probably going to waste away, and probably get mistreated in a nursing home/hospital just like my grandparents were shuffled off and hidden from the living because we're all (i.e. our entire society) so chicken-shit scared of talking about this or dealing with it like adults. Instead we prod it with kiddy-gloves and pretend it doesn't happen.

Truthfully, i find your response more insulting and condescending than the person you're responding to. I don't mean that as a flame, its how i feel. I don't think your post should be downvoted. Its a valid perspective that you're obviously sincere about.

But one that needs to be taken with a counteragent like myself to point out that you're just telling us all there's one way we're all supposed to feel about and treat grief, that its your way, and the rest of us are wrong.

[zgoat]

Then I missed the intent of my post a bit - I'm not calling out the coping style, I'm trying to address the lack of empathy in the response to the Op. The guy is clearly grieving and depressed over what has happened, it's not a hard thing to interpret, so why address him as if he's failing to understand the logic in the situation? This isn't a technical topic, I'd like to think there's a capacity to switch gears and actually deal with people in a more complex way than "death happens, this is sensible, get used to it"

I don't consider your response a flame - I've just worked with people who are in grief and shock before and would never consider responding with my own beliefs on the topic if I thought it would injure them during the initial stages of grieving. Yes, in the mainstream we don't acknowledge it, and in the west we get people out of sight so they can die without us dealing with it, but it doesn't mean people just pretend it away when it happens to them. Some people just choose to deal with the topic indirectly when talking in public forums or with people outside of the family but I've certainly known the majority of people I've worked with to be very direct about the topic when they feel like they are in the right situation to do so.

Again, it's perfectly fine to have your own coping style but when you're engaging with someone else on a subject like death there has to be some measure of empathy towards their situation. They are not you, they have different processes and philosophies towards these events, it's not just a case of standing there and shouting your ideas at them until they "understand".

[waterlesscloud]

Why is it that posts about someone else lacking empathy always themselves lack empathy?

If someone ranted at you, telling you that you are a bad person and unable to relate to others, like you just did in these two posts, how would you feel?

You insist they couldn't possibly have lost anyone close to them, but of course you don't know that. You're merely imposing your style of coping on them. What if they have lost someone? Go back and re-read your post telling them they're coping with it all wrong.

[zgoat]

I would understand that something about how I'm communicating to other people might not be working as well as I think it is, at least with the person making the rant.

What I insisted was dramatised but the issue that I'm taking here stays the same - everyone is entitled to their own coping style, but the way you communicate to others has to take them into consideration.

Yes, I've done a very poor job at demonstrating that, I'm a bit outraged but not professing that I'm much better at any of this myself, but I want the point explored - where's the line, even online? Where do we stop ourselves short in terms of how we handle someone else's situation when there is a desire to shout "shit happens" at them from behind a screen?

Again, I've probably done this here. I've got a virginal, unused account and I'm anonymous and all of the usual factors relating to this kind of screwed online communication, but it just feels like a common theme in the responses here. Logic works! Logic works in programming so logic works in people! This person isn't being logical, the colour is outside the lines, quickly, correctness!

Seriously, HN taught me everything I know about a lot of the technology that I earn a living from but it's starting to feel less and less appropriate to make reference to around company that is over 25 and has more life experience than grinding in a SV startup. Yes, jump all over this statement, tear it to bits, ask me to reflect, etc. I'm speaking just in my own case, as someone who volunteers to come and read this, but it's definitely at a point where even though it's a vocal minority of very strange responses, it's an accepted minority that reflects on the rest of the community.

[zasz]

The parent comment isn't saying that death isn't a part of life. He's saying that it was pretty rude to say that in the context of the grandparent's comment. He's not telling you, or anyone else, how to feel. He's trying to tell you that sometimes you should look at the social context you're in, and not say the wrong damn thing. Ironically, he failed while chastising someone else who deserved it.