4 ms·

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

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