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> Commenters here should be considering scenarios in which glee would not be a humane response. Maybe I'm just having a brainfart, but I simply don't understan

> Commenters here should be considering scenarios in which glee would not be a humane response. Maybe I'm just having a brainfart, but I simply don't understand this sentence at all, and I really would like to. I'm really not trying to troll you, I just feel like this is an interesting statement that could use some clarification :)

nilved 11y ago
I think they're suggesting that there's an explanation for Michael's errant behaviour that we should be more sympathetic toward. I don't buy it, though.
- denniskane 11y ago
  Ah, okay. So, there are possible scenarios that are going on in his life that we should be considering before laying certain gleefully harsh judgments on him. Gotcha.
- klapinat0r 11y ago
  I read it as, commenters should not resort to gleeful uproars following said comment. As in, let's not turn this: I've temporarily banned Michael's account Into a plethora of snarky/glee comments like "yay, finally" (contributing nothing but a lynch mob) I could be wrong though, but that's how I understood it.
  - dang 11y ago
    I meant glee about the whole thing. I added "to all this" to try to make that clearer.
- iaw 11y ago
  The mental illness hypothesis seems disturbingly close to home here. Nothing justifies egregious behavior but we could be more compassionate for the people involved.
dang 11y ago
Sorry, I don't usually go in for circumlocution but this is a tough one. Let me try again. There may be factors beyond 'obvious bad behavior deserving of mob wrath', which (if they knew what they were) would make some commenters here ashamed of what they've posted. For example, I think most people would be ashamed to publicly express glee over something that turned out to be, say, a health issue. Sometimes in cases like this, there's an information vaccuum for a reason. Unfortunately, since the Internet abhors a vaccuum, Schadenfreude rushes in, which brings out the ugliness in people and leads to frenzy. Normally we penalize such threads, but HN's policy is to intervene less when a bad story is YC-related, so we held off. But this morning, when I saw the dozens of comments that Michael had posted overnight, and the condemning and goading responses, it was dismayingly clear that this is something other than the usual trainwreck that people find so entertaining. The line between righteous indignation and cruelty is not obvious, and worse, is a line that feels great to cross. If we're not mindful of that, cruelty is the default, so let's be mindful of that.
- i336_ 11y ago
  I had absolutely no idea this was happening, I caught it on page 8 of the index long after everything that happened had gone down. This does to me look like something problematic might be going on health-wise. I can relate to a tiny extent: I sometimes have a harder time processing life than average due to high-functioning autism, and I reckon there are certainly circumstances and situations that might well overload my system and provoke Undefined Behavior due to the stress, but not nearly like this. I have showdead turned on, and DrMJG_HN's posts show a truly impressive level of paranoia that I don't think I've ever seen before. My reaction is an unobjective sort of pity (for want of a better way to say it; maybe I'm referring to empathy): there's a person behind those posts, and they deserve a better frame of mind than they seem to have right now. I reckon HN's reaction to this - and your explanation, for those who needed it - has been really great. Besides enabling showdead in Arc's settings (for objective purposes only, I should reiterate!), I thought the most informative post in this thread was https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10489225 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10489225, which mentioned https://www.reddit.com/r/timferriss/comments/3g2mjg/tim_ferriss_me_would_love_ama_ideas/ctuacjo https://www.reddit.com/r/timferriss/comments/3g2mjg/tim_ferr... written by livecoding.tv's cofounder.

nilved 11y ago

I think they're suggesting that there's an explanation for Michael's errant behaviour that we should be more sympathetic toward. I don't buy it, though.

denniskane 11y ago
Ah, okay. So, there are possible scenarios that are going on in his life that we should be considering before laying certain gleefully harsh judgments on him. Gotcha.
klapinat0r 11y ago
I read it as, commenters should not resort to gleeful uproars following said comment. As in, let's not turn this: I've temporarily banned Michael's account Into a plethora of snarky/glee comments like "yay, finally" (contributing nothing but a lynch mob) I could be wrong though, but that's how I understood it.
- dang 11y ago
  I meant glee about the whole thing. I added "to all this" to try to make that clearer.
iaw 11y ago
The mental illness hypothesis seems disturbingly close to home here. Nothing justifies egregious behavior but we could be more compassionate for the people involved.

dang 11y ago

Sorry, I don't usually go in for circumlocution but this is a tough one. Let me try again. There may be factors beyond 'obvious bad behavior deserving of mob wrath', which (if they knew what they were) would make some commenters here ashamed of what they've posted. For example, I think most people would be ashamed to publicly express glee over something that turned out to be, say, a health issue. Sometimes in cases like this, there's an information vaccuum for a reason. Unfortunately, since the Internet abhors a vaccuum, Schadenfreude rushes in, which brings out the ugliness in people and leads to frenzy. Normally we penalize such threads, but HN's policy is to intervene less when a bad story is YC-related, so we held off. But this morning, when I saw the dozens of comments that Michael had posted overnight, and the condemning and goading responses, it was dismayingly clear that this is something other than the usual trainwreck that people find so entertaining. The line between righteous indignation and cruelty is not obvious, and worse, is a line that feels great to cross. If we're not mindful of that, cruelty is the default, so let's be mindful of that.

i336_ 11y ago
I had absolutely no idea this was happening, I caught it on page 8 of the index long after everything that happened had gone down. This does to me look like something problematic might be going on health-wise. I can relate to a tiny extent: I sometimes have a harder time processing life than average due to high-functioning autism, and I reckon there are certainly circumstances and situations that might well overload my system and provoke Undefined Behavior due to the stress, but not nearly like this. I have showdead turned on, and DrMJG_HN's posts show a truly impressive level of paranoia that I don't think I've ever seen before. My reaction is an unobjective sort of pity (for want of a better way to say it; maybe I'm referring to empathy): there's a person behind those posts, and they deserve a better frame of mind than they seem to have right now. I reckon HN's reaction to this - and your explanation, for those who needed it - has been really great. Besides enabling showdead in Arc's settings (for objective purposes only, I should reiterate!), I thought the most informative post in this thread was https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10489225 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10489225, which mentioned https://www.reddit.com/r/timferriss/comments/3g2mjg/tim_ferriss_me_would_love_ama_ideas/ctuacjo https://www.reddit.com/r/timferriss/comments/3g2mjg/tim_ferr... written by livecoding.tv's cofounder.