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“The reality is different though. There is nothing in this world quite so soul crushingly painful as having your child die while doing something that the parent

“The reality is different though. There is nothing in this world quite so soul crushingly painful as having your child die while doing something that the parent and perhaps people in general, consider to be 'safe.'” Actually there is and by several orders of magnitude more painful, and it is this: Watching these same parents scream safety, proclaiming the presciouness of their children while simultaneously condemning entire populations to death by their implicit support of wars, racism, and the governments responsible. Granted it may not be as immediately appearant of a reaction than say watching your child suffer, but while experiencing the death or suffering of a child may heal with time, the systemic effects of these masses of “concerned parents” lingers on with us forever.

nemo1618 7y ago
Ridiculous. The two are not even remotely comparable.
- wizardforhire 7y ago
  It’s not ridiculous and I don’t want to get into a flame war over this, because clearly my statement is contentious! Rather I’d like to have the discussion and I feel this is a relevant/appropriate albeit esoteric forum. Yet I stand by my statement. To elaborate: yes the suffering by a parent when witness to the suffering or death of their child is painful beyond words. With few if any experiences comparable. However, the combined suffering of literally millions upon millions of people subjugated to the atrocities of war made possible by the implicit support and consent by literally the same set of said parents is beyond the ability to fully comprehend or experience as an individual. However despite our inadequacies as individuals at being able to emote in the face of such atrocities does nothing to diminish the pain felt by the victims whose combined suffering is orders of magnitude greater than that of an individual parent. Just because we lack the ability to comprend the suffering on such a scale does nothing to alleviate it. If anything it only exacerbates and obfuscates the phenomenon. I believe a term for it is The Tragedy of the Commons.
  - nemo1618 7y ago
    Your original comment claimed that merely watching the (alleged) hypocrisy of grieving parents was more painful than losing a child. That is very different from claiming that the collective suffering of millions outweighs the suffering of one parent. The latter is trivially true. Anyway, do yourself a favor and send your comment five years into the future, to your 2024-self, via https://futureme.org https://futureme.org. I guarantee you'll cringe, or your money back.
- dang 7y ago
  Please do not take HN threads further into flamewar, regardless of what another comment said. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
dang 7y ago
Please do not take HN threads into political or ideological flamewar. This is egregious, regardless of our opinions about the politics of war. "Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

nemo1618 7y ago

Ridiculous. The two are not even remotely comparable.

wizardforhire 7y ago
It’s not ridiculous and I don’t want to get into a flame war over this, because clearly my statement is contentious! Rather I’d like to have the discussion and I feel this is a relevant/appropriate albeit esoteric forum. Yet I stand by my statement. To elaborate: yes the suffering by a parent when witness to the suffering or death of their child is painful beyond words. With few if any experiences comparable. However, the combined suffering of literally millions upon millions of people subjugated to the atrocities of war made possible by the implicit support and consent by literally the same set of said parents is beyond the ability to fully comprehend or experience as an individual. However despite our inadequacies as individuals at being able to emote in the face of such atrocities does nothing to diminish the pain felt by the victims whose combined suffering is orders of magnitude greater than that of an individual parent. Just because we lack the ability to comprend the suffering on such a scale does nothing to alleviate it. If anything it only exacerbates and obfuscates the phenomenon. I believe a term for it is The Tragedy of the Commons.
- nemo1618 7y ago
  Your original comment claimed that merely watching the (alleged) hypocrisy of grieving parents was more painful than losing a child. That is very different from claiming that the collective suffering of millions outweighs the suffering of one parent. The latter is trivially true. Anyway, do yourself a favor and send your comment five years into the future, to your 2024-self, via https://futureme.org https://futureme.org. I guarantee you'll cringe, or your money back.
dang 7y ago
Please do not take HN threads further into flamewar, regardless of what another comment said. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

dang 7y ago

Please do not take HN threads into political or ideological flamewar. This is egregious, regardless of our opinions about the politics of war. "Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html