11 ms·

A video game community filled my nephew's final days with joy

734 points by mattkevan 7y ago

mothsonasloth 7y ago
Great read, there are many other examples. One example I read in a Wired magazine many years back, of a World of Warcraft mass funeral and mourning in some place.
- xaner4 7y ago
  Or like the one from Norway from a few monthes ago, where the parents did not know he had friends until WOW players meet up in his funeral and a lot of players around the world mourned him in the game https://www.bbc.com/news/disability-47064773 https://www.bbc.com/news/disability-47064773
  - alluro2 7y ago
    Huh, that hits hard...
  - galeaspablo 7y ago
    I was just going to post this link. Glad others remember it too. I highly recommend a read of this one too.
  - em-bee 7y ago
    HN threads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19122079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19122079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19104044 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19104044
applecrazy 7y ago
This is beautiful. It's amazing how the good side of the Internet really shines through in these pieces. Things like the 7,000-word script and professionally-narrated audio story for the kid to listen to are examples of how people sometimes go out of their way to do an amazing thing for little to no recognition, and that's what makes it even more wonderful. I believe this is what Internet communities should aspire to be like, to cut through the toxicity and memetic warfare and just do something great together.
- em-bee 7y ago
  according to the original post, the audio story should be shared with the elite dangerous community. i tried looking for it without luck. maybe it's not out yet. i look forward to listening to it.
  - who-knows95 7y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_Q7JB-ku-Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_Q7JB-ku-Q this is it here.
    - em-bee 7y ago
      you are my new hero! thank you! i'll ad that to my lineup of audio dramas and books that i am currently listening to right at the top so i'll get to it soon.
- fatnoah 7y ago
  > Things like the 7,000-word script and professionally-narrated audio story for the kid to listen to are examples of how people sometimes go out of their way to do an amazing thing for little to no recognition, and that's what makes it even more wonderful. ...and these things happen far more than we realize. My "dad" wasn't my biological dad. He married my mother when I was four and he was the one who was there for me for my entire life, so much so that I've never even known (or cared to know, beyond a passing interest in my health history) who my biological father is. One quirk of that is that my "dad" never formally adopted me. About a week before he passed away, we had one last time alone as a family before inviting friends & relatives for a last visit. During that, he mentioned that he regretted not officially adopted me. Thanks to several local folks, including a local lawyer, local probate judge, a city clerk in another state, and probably a couple more, were were able to complete the adoption and present my dad with the paperwork and an updated birth certificate that lists him as the father within four days. With the Internet especially, we see the worst of the worst, but I personally feel that it's overwhelmed by the good, and stories like Michael's show the power to bring people together.
headmelted 7y ago
I was holding it together until the end when I saw the Elite tribute in the Hearst (a hand flipping the bird with the message "PILOTS NEVER DIE THEY JUST RESPAWN ON ANOTHER STATION"). This is the Internet at its best for sure, but I'm more taken aback at the resolve of this kid - staying positive and doing what he loved right up until his last moment. It's heartbreaking and inspiring all at the same time. Godspeed, Commander.
anbop 7y ago
I couldn’t find it inspiring, only heartbreaking and anger-inducing. It makes me so geared up to think how shitty the world is to some people who have done nothing to deserve it and so generous to some who have done everything to not deserve it. Just one more reminder of how the world really feels like one wretchedly sick joke concocted in the mind of a wretchedly sick fuck.
- mrmonkeyman 7y ago
  Karma
- sk0g 7y ago
  That's an extremely negative take on a beautiful, if sad, story. I'd rather focus on the positive, beautiful aspects, like the heart-touching gestures of his friends and how he hope when nothing was going his way. Sometimes that's really all you can do.
  - trevyn 7y ago
    I agree that, at the individual level, focusing on the beautiful aspects seems like a reasonable coping strategy, and I can’t help but think that on larger scales of time and space, it only helps perpetuate the horrors.
- jpmoral 7y ago
  The world being as you say it is would make the story even more inspiring for me.
- vijayr02 7y ago
  And that's fine; cold impersonal anger can be a very powerful motivator if channeled properly. My question is what are WE going to do about it? For me: 1/ support the Grauniad [0]: the gulf between the quality of their journalism and the rest of the market is gaping. I may not agree with all their views but the world is a better place with their investigative push 2/ let's leverage the HN community: one of the constant messages I've seen in my limited time on HN is how diverse and capable the community is. Surely we can do this and more if we set our heart to it? It may not be the most popular view at the moment but I do believe "The Arc of the Moral Universe Is Long, But It Bends Toward Justice". But this doesn't happen automatically; each of us need to push the pendulum, and a billion pushes can outweigh quite a bit of unfairness...
MrGilbert 7y ago
Man... just woke up, checked HN as usual, and now I‘m up in tears. Communities like the ones from Elite Dangerous or EVE Online really tend to shine in such moments. I‘m... I don‘t know what else to write. Dang it. o7
- tugkancengiz 7y ago
  Exactly the same happened. I've never been a community like this but I'm truly feeling appreciation.
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  Game communities focus, but IRL most people don't until it is way too late. Why is it so?
- sundvor 7y ago
  Yes, this story really got to me as well. The Eve Online and E:D communities are very supportive; players truly do care about each other underneath all the other layers. The communities have existed now for so long that they go deep. Also there's a fair bit of commitment needed to get into them, from a learning cliff perspective, so perhaps this is a factor as well? Common to both is how they are highly social communities. (For others seeing this) look up "Broadcast 4 Reps", how Eve players encourage each other not to stay silent, but to call out when you need help. This is referring to the in game mechanic of letting logistics (a supportive fleet role) know to direct repairs your way, that you are in trouble. It's really an amazing thing to see the message spread that it is _ok_ to need help and talk about it. o7
- Duladian 7y ago
  Speaking of Eve. A good friend of mine died young. Captain Luke Lonestar was a well loved director of our corp and friend to many. For his funeral, the group had our own send off for him. This included multiple people flying to New York from as far away as California. It is incredibly surprising how close knit a gaming community can be. How much support each and everyone provides each other. I can say I'm a better person for knowing him and for what he had done for me and our group. It is truly amazing how far a good community will go to help each other.
SigSeg0wl 7y ago
o7
pageandrew 7y ago
beautiful tribute by the community. o7
Tepix 7y ago
Right on, Commander!
tugkancengiz 7y ago
o7
scwinji 7y ago
When a close friend's body was starting to fail from lung cancer (and it was clear that it was his final days), I think we were very lucky that we both enjoyed video games. He was bedridden, slowly losing his motor functions, and it was hard to talk since breathing started to become difficult - but in a multiplayer video game with a controller and large buttons, he could be very expressive! There were goofy moments (where he would make his character wear something silly, and I'm pretty sure he was fishing for a reaction from me, too) or moments where I could see him emote through the in-game characters (like making a character's animation look like it's panicking by moving controls around arbitrarily, and you can see the video game character flail wildly). Through these actions I could see my friend's personality clearly, and I think being able to express yourself is important when you've been in the hospital for a while. I can only assume that he also found some joy from it as well, since it could have been difficult to express the same emotions when you're attached to machinery and often short of breath. I think it's important to connect with people using the time we have alive, and I really think anyone in palliative care (or knows someone in palliative care) could consider video games as another option for connecting with your friends and family. With the right game/accessibility of controls, and an appropriate level of energy/attention span, it could be something that brings people closer even as we hit our physical limits.
- LilBytes 7y ago
  I've been fortunate that I've not had a close friend pass in my life at the young age of 31. The day it comes around, I hope to share your world view. Thank you for sharing your story, and I'm sorry for the pain you must have experienced. Thank you. Small edit: my partner in life is about to finish her Physician training to become specialised in Palliative care, her wounds motivate her to be a carer and lover for those who need her specialised care. I'm quite honestly humbled and grateful people like you and her exist in the world who can bring joy and love in moments of anguish.
em-bee 7y ago
the original longer version of this article is here: https://westhorpe.net/2019/07/an-open-letter-to-frontier-and-friends/ https://westhorpe.net/2019/07/an-open-letter-to-frontier-and...
- shdon 7y ago
  I literally could not read this, or the comments underneath, without being reduced to a sobbing wreck.
- em-bee 7y ago
  another relevant link taken from the youtube post of the audio story: http://www.drewwagar.com/elite-dangerous-saga/michaels-story/ http://www.drewwagar.com/elite-dangerous-saga/michaels-story...
  - em-bee 7y ago
    was anyone able to download the audiobook from this page? i don't see any clickable links.
Theodores 7y ago
My sister plays this game called Bakery Story. I played for a while too and shared a lot of my sister's online friends. There were a few people who had exquisite bakeries, each a world of intricate design and my sister was in the top tier of that type of thing. My bakery was a bit more functional, I was there for sibling rivalry reasons rather than the global community. We had not heard from one online friend for a while. But then we got a message from the daughter of the lady who had the neatest bakery in the American mid-West. As you can imagine it was doom and gloom, she had not made it out of the hospital. Both my sister and myself were shocked by the news, however, we had been there for this lady, her life coming to a premature end in a hospital. Online her world was nothing like the sad reality of her real life. We envied her in this online world, she was in the handful of true greats, not just for the bakery but for the personality. We did not have time for anything too fanciful, we heard our online friend was poorly and two weeks later we had the message from the daughter who was not yet teenage. Everyone in the game added a tombstone - a game prop - in memory, there was mourning going on, nobody knowing what to say for the weeks after that. I can remember telling my workmates that I was in stunned silence due to an in-game incident, but you just don't expect online friends to die and you don't imagine that you could be stunned into silence by such an event. We also had no further messages from the daughter so that was that, abrupt. But, if I think now of how ill she must have been and how we lavished praise on her for her creations without knowing that she was at death's door, I think we helped provide an escape. In our own special way we visited her online every day during those difficult times and talked about what mattered to her in her world. Games can be special like that.
professorTuring 7y ago
So many kudos to the Elite Dangerous team! I salute you guys! Rest in Peace CMDR.
di4na 7y ago
o7
- nrmn 7y ago
  fyi to the downvotes: o7 is a farewell salute. https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/3sdixv/what_in_the_world_is_07/ https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/3sdixv/what...
  - codingdave 7y ago
    Just because it has a meaning does not mean it is adding constructively to the conversation.
    - Lutzb 7y ago
      You are right, but maybe once, we can just see it as what it means in this context. o7
  - di4na 7y ago
    Coming from Eve Online, it is even older :D. I have no problem with the downvote. What matters is to do it.
trax 7y ago
f
sdegutis 7y ago
Or alternatively, these are very important days in a person's life where serious thought and reflection might actually be needed, in the event that there really is something after this life, and our decisions in this life do actually have consequences on that. But instead, this person was offered constant distraction until the very end.
- Arbalest 7y ago
  Pascals wager is garbage, it underestimates the time, effort and thought cost if there is no god. What sort of reflections would otherwise be meaningful? All the regrets they have? It's a kid, he had cancer, what could he have done differently?
  - dkersten 7y ago
    Also, if there is a god, (s)he surely knows the difference between true belief/faith and pretending just in case.
  - scotty79 7y ago
    Also Pascal wager is wrong because it assumes that believing in god is free or almost free, but if there's no god then the only thing you have is your life and by believing in god you are giving up the only opportunity to live your life the best way you can. Instead you taint everything you got with twisted and wicked thoughts like the one user 'sdegutis' presented: "Kid should suffer more before he died. Because supernatural reasons." Cost of believing in god in Pascal's wager is infinite because you have to spoil the only thing you got.
    - clmul 7y ago
      You presume that by believing in a God you're not living life in the best way you can, but is there really an objective (non-religious) "best way" to live life? I would assume that for the average religious person, the way they live their life feels just about right (barring any intrinsic human shortcomings).
hirundo 7y ago
The Hermitcraft gang played Minecraft with a dying kid this season. I wonder if it was the same one, or if this is becoming a (wondeful) trend. Hermitcraft is a bunch of adults doing their best to play with the spirit of children, and they're good at it. The energy and creativity they spent playing with this kid were impressive. They seemed to get a lot out of it. In fact they should probably make a point of inviting a kid to play regularly, terminal or not, because it seems that they gain from it about as much as the kid.
- em-bee 7y ago
  i have seen other stories like this, even here on hackernews, so this was surely another one.
paulgibbs 7y ago
o7
bloopernova 7y ago
o7 right on, commander. ("right on, commander" is the phrase from the original Elite when your combat score reached Elite status) Not much else I can think of that adds to the conversation here. Poor little guy, I'm glad he had happiness before he left.
dappcoder 7y ago
什么情况
bracobama 7y ago
Thank you for posting this Matt. What a wonderful story! It's small acts of kindness like these that make the world a better place.
flywithdolp 7y ago
I just got into HN, looking for some cool new tech updates as usally and this article hit me hard Got me into such an emotional mode This community is amazing
sebastianconcpt 7y ago
Which happens to be a legendary glorious game BTW.
libraryatnight 7y ago
I love when I read stories like this. Sometimes I feel so hopeless over how toxic and awful the internet can be, but then moments like this remind me that there are lots of good communities still out there. o7
bitwize 7y ago
Meanwhile, Disnarvel won't let a kid's family put Spider-Man on his headstone. As much as Disney has been trying to pivot into social consciousness in its various media properties, it's the direct fan support that the Elite Dangerous crew showed Michael here that stands out as truly magnanimous.
- gambiting 7y ago
  I'm sorry, but putting whatever character on a tombstone does nothing for the kid, he's already dead. Like, this kind of thing makes no sense to me - gestures towards dying people are fantastic....while they are still alive. Also, if the family really cares about it this much they could just do it and then Disney has to consider the bad optics of suing a family over a kids gravestone. Most likely unless someone goes and tell them no one will notice - my local cementary has plenty of children's graves with Mickey mouse and donald duck on them and I'm 1000% certain no one asked disney for permission either.

734 points by mattkevan 7y ago

Great read, there are many other examples. One example I read in a Wired magazine many years back, of a World of Warcraft mass funeral and mourning in some place.

xaner4 7y ago
Or like the one from Norway from a few monthes ago, where the parents did not know he had friends until WOW players meet up in his funeral and a lot of players around the world mourned him in the game https://www.bbc.com/news/disability-47064773 https://www.bbc.com/news/disability-47064773
- alluro2 7y ago
  Huh, that hits hard...
- galeaspablo 7y ago
  I was just going to post this link. Glad others remember it too. I highly recommend a read of this one too.
- em-bee 7y ago
  HN threads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19122079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19122079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19104044 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19104044

applecrazy 7y ago

This is beautiful. It's amazing how the good side of the Internet really shines through in these pieces. Things like the 7,000-word script and professionally-narrated audio story for the kid to listen to are examples of how people sometimes go out of their way to do an amazing thing for little to no recognition, and that's what makes it even more wonderful. I believe this is what Internet communities should aspire to be like, to cut through the toxicity and memetic warfare and just do something great together.

em-bee 7y ago
according to the original post, the audio story should be shared with the elite dangerous community. i tried looking for it without luck. maybe it's not out yet. i look forward to listening to it.
- who-knows95 7y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_Q7JB-ku-Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_Q7JB-ku-Q this is it here.
  - em-bee 7y ago
    you are my new hero! thank you! i'll ad that to my lineup of audio dramas and books that i am currently listening to right at the top so i'll get to it soon.
fatnoah 7y ago
> Things like the 7,000-word script and professionally-narrated audio story for the kid to listen to are examples of how people sometimes go out of their way to do an amazing thing for little to no recognition, and that's what makes it even more wonderful. ...and these things happen far more than we realize. My "dad" wasn't my biological dad. He married my mother when I was four and he was the one who was there for me for my entire life, so much so that I've never even known (or cared to know, beyond a passing interest in my health history) who my biological father is. One quirk of that is that my "dad" never formally adopted me. About a week before he passed away, we had one last time alone as a family before inviting friends & relatives for a last visit. During that, he mentioned that he regretted not officially adopted me. Thanks to several local folks, including a local lawyer, local probate judge, a city clerk in another state, and probably a couple more, were were able to complete the adoption and present my dad with the paperwork and an updated birth certificate that lists him as the father within four days. With the Internet especially, we see the worst of the worst, but I personally feel that it's overwhelmed by the good, and stories like Michael's show the power to bring people together.

headmelted 7y ago

I was holding it together until the end when I saw the Elite tribute in the Hearst (a hand flipping the bird with the message "PILOTS NEVER DIE THEY JUST RESPAWN ON ANOTHER STATION"). This is the Internet at its best for sure, but I'm more taken aback at the resolve of this kid - staying positive and doing what he loved right up until his last moment. It's heartbreaking and inspiring all at the same time. Godspeed, Commander.

anbop 7y ago

I couldn’t find it inspiring, only heartbreaking and anger-inducing. It makes me so geared up to think how shitty the world is to some people who have done nothing to deserve it and so generous to some who have done everything to not deserve it. Just one more reminder of how the world really feels like one wretchedly sick joke concocted in the mind of a wretchedly sick fuck.

mrmonkeyman 7y ago
Karma
sk0g 7y ago
That's an extremely negative take on a beautiful, if sad, story. I'd rather focus on the positive, beautiful aspects, like the heart-touching gestures of his friends and how he hope when nothing was going his way. Sometimes that's really all you can do.
- trevyn 7y ago
  I agree that, at the individual level, focusing on the beautiful aspects seems like a reasonable coping strategy, and I can’t help but think that on larger scales of time and space, it only helps perpetuate the horrors.
jpmoral 7y ago
The world being as you say it is would make the story even more inspiring for me.
vijayr02 7y ago
And that's fine; cold impersonal anger can be a very powerful motivator if channeled properly. My question is what are WE going to do about it? For me: 1/ support the Grauniad [0]: the gulf between the quality of their journalism and the rest of the market is gaping. I may not agree with all their views but the world is a better place with their investigative push 2/ let's leverage the HN community: one of the constant messages I've seen in my limited time on HN is how diverse and capable the community is. Surely we can do this and more if we set our heart to it? It may not be the most popular view at the moment but I do believe "The Arc of the Moral Universe Is Long, But It Bends Toward Justice". But this doesn't happen automatically; each of us need to push the pendulum, and a billion pushes can outweigh quite a bit of unfairness...

MrGilbert 7y ago

Man... just woke up, checked HN as usual, and now I‘m up in tears. Communities like the ones from Elite Dangerous or EVE Online really tend to shine in such moments. I‘m... I don‘t know what else to write. Dang it. o7

tugkancengiz 7y ago
Exactly the same happened. I've never been a community like this but I'm truly feeling appreciation.
AstralStorm 7y ago
Game communities focus, but IRL most people don't until it is way too late. Why is it so?
sundvor 7y ago
Yes, this story really got to me as well. The Eve Online and E:D communities are very supportive; players truly do care about each other underneath all the other layers. The communities have existed now for so long that they go deep. Also there's a fair bit of commitment needed to get into them, from a learning cliff perspective, so perhaps this is a factor as well? Common to both is how they are highly social communities. (For others seeing this) look up "Broadcast 4 Reps", how Eve players encourage each other not to stay silent, but to call out when you need help. This is referring to the in game mechanic of letting logistics (a supportive fleet role) know to direct repairs your way, that you are in trouble. It's really an amazing thing to see the message spread that it is _ok_ to need help and talk about it. o7
Duladian 7y ago
Speaking of Eve. A good friend of mine died young. Captain Luke Lonestar was a well loved director of our corp and friend to many. For his funeral, the group had our own send off for him. This included multiple people flying to New York from as far away as California. It is incredibly surprising how close knit a gaming community can be. How much support each and everyone provides each other. I can say I'm a better person for knowing him and for what he had done for me and our group. It is truly amazing how far a good community will go to help each other.

SigSeg0wl 7y ago

pageandrew 7y ago

beautiful tribute by the community. o7

Tepix 7y ago

Right on, Commander!

tugkancengiz 7y ago

scwinji 7y ago

When a close friend's body was starting to fail from lung cancer (and it was clear that it was his final days), I think we were very lucky that we both enjoyed video games. He was bedridden, slowly losing his motor functions, and it was hard to talk since breathing started to become difficult - but in a multiplayer video game with a controller and large buttons, he could be very expressive! There were goofy moments (where he would make his character wear something silly, and I'm pretty sure he was fishing for a reaction from me, too) or moments where I could see him emote through the in-game characters (like making a character's animation look like it's panicking by moving controls around arbitrarily, and you can see the video game character flail wildly). Through these actions I could see my friend's personality clearly, and I think being able to express yourself is important when you've been in the hospital for a while. I can only assume that he also found some joy from it as well, since it could have been difficult to express the same emotions when you're attached to machinery and often short of breath. I think it's important to connect with people using the time we have alive, and I really think anyone in palliative care (or knows someone in palliative care) could consider video games as another option for connecting with your friends and family. With the right game/accessibility of controls, and an appropriate level of energy/attention span, it could be something that brings people closer even as we hit our physical limits.

LilBytes 7y ago
I've been fortunate that I've not had a close friend pass in my life at the young age of 31. The day it comes around, I hope to share your world view. Thank you for sharing your story, and I'm sorry for the pain you must have experienced. Thank you. Small edit: my partner in life is about to finish her Physician training to become specialised in Palliative care, her wounds motivate her to be a carer and lover for those who need her specialised care. I'm quite honestly humbled and grateful people like you and her exist in the world who can bring joy and love in moments of anguish.

em-bee 7y ago

the original longer version of this article is here: https://westhorpe.net/2019/07/an-open-letter-to-frontier-and-friends/ https://westhorpe.net/2019/07/an-open-letter-to-frontier-and...

shdon 7y ago
I literally could not read this, or the comments underneath, without being reduced to a sobbing wreck.
em-bee 7y ago
another relevant link taken from the youtube post of the audio story: http://www.drewwagar.com/elite-dangerous-saga/michaels-story/ http://www.drewwagar.com/elite-dangerous-saga/michaels-story...
- em-bee 7y ago
  was anyone able to download the audiobook from this page? i don't see any clickable links.

Theodores 7y ago

My sister plays this game called Bakery Story. I played for a while too and shared a lot of my sister's online friends. There were a few people who had exquisite bakeries, each a world of intricate design and my sister was in the top tier of that type of thing. My bakery was a bit more functional, I was there for sibling rivalry reasons rather than the global community. We had not heard from one online friend for a while. But then we got a message from the daughter of the lady who had the neatest bakery in the American mid-West. As you can imagine it was doom and gloom, she had not made it out of the hospital. Both my sister and myself were shocked by the news, however, we had been there for this lady, her life coming to a premature end in a hospital. Online her world was nothing like the sad reality of her real life. We envied her in this online world, she was in the handful of true greats, not just for the bakery but for the personality. We did not have time for anything too fanciful, we heard our online friend was poorly and two weeks later we had the message from the daughter who was not yet teenage. Everyone in the game added a tombstone - a game prop - in memory, there was mourning going on, nobody knowing what to say for the weeks after that. I can remember telling my workmates that I was in stunned silence due to an in-game incident, but you just don't expect online friends to die and you don't imagine that you could be stunned into silence by such an event. We also had no further messages from the daughter so that was that, abrupt. But, if I think now of how ill she must have been and how we lavished praise on her for her creations without knowing that she was at death's door, I think we helped provide an escape. In our own special way we visited her online every day during those difficult times and talked about what mattered to her in her world. Games can be special like that.

professorTuring 7y ago

So many kudos to the Elite Dangerous team! I salute you guys! Rest in Peace CMDR.

di4na 7y ago

nrmn 7y ago
fyi to the downvotes: o7 is a farewell salute. https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/3sdixv/what_in_the_world_is_07/ https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/3sdixv/what...
- codingdave 7y ago
  Just because it has a meaning does not mean it is adding constructively to the conversation.
  - Lutzb 7y ago
    You are right, but maybe once, we can just see it as what it means in this context. o7
- di4na 7y ago
  Coming from Eve Online, it is even older :D. I have no problem with the downvote. What matters is to do it.

trax 7y ago

sdegutis 7y ago

Or alternatively, these are very important days in a person's life where serious thought and reflection might actually be needed, in the event that there really is something after this life, and our decisions in this life do actually have consequences on that. But instead, this person was offered constant distraction until the very end.

Arbalest 7y ago
Pascals wager is garbage, it underestimates the time, effort and thought cost if there is no god. What sort of reflections would otherwise be meaningful? All the regrets they have? It's a kid, he had cancer, what could he have done differently?
- dkersten 7y ago
  Also, if there is a god, (s)he surely knows the difference between true belief/faith and pretending just in case.
- scotty79 7y ago
  Also Pascal wager is wrong because it assumes that believing in god is free or almost free, but if there's no god then the only thing you have is your life and by believing in god you are giving up the only opportunity to live your life the best way you can. Instead you taint everything you got with twisted and wicked thoughts like the one user 'sdegutis' presented: "Kid should suffer more before he died. Because supernatural reasons." Cost of believing in god in Pascal's wager is infinite because you have to spoil the only thing you got.
  - clmul 7y ago
    You presume that by believing in a God you're not living life in the best way you can, but is there really an objective (non-religious) "best way" to live life? I would assume that for the average religious person, the way they live their life feels just about right (barring any intrinsic human shortcomings).

hirundo 7y ago

The Hermitcraft gang played Minecraft with a dying kid this season. I wonder if it was the same one, or if this is becoming a (wondeful) trend. Hermitcraft is a bunch of adults doing their best to play with the spirit of children, and they're good at it. The energy and creativity they spent playing with this kid were impressive. They seemed to get a lot out of it. In fact they should probably make a point of inviting a kid to play regularly, terminal or not, because it seems that they gain from it about as much as the kid.

em-bee 7y ago
i have seen other stories like this, even here on hackernews, so this was surely another one.

paulgibbs 7y ago

bloopernova 7y ago

o7 right on, commander. ("right on, commander" is the phrase from the original Elite when your combat score reached Elite status) Not much else I can think of that adds to the conversation here. Poor little guy, I'm glad he had happiness before he left.

dappcoder 7y ago

什么情况

bracobama 7y ago

Thank you for posting this Matt. What a wonderful story! It's small acts of kindness like these that make the world a better place.

flywithdolp 7y ago

I just got into HN, looking for some cool new tech updates as usally and this article hit me hard Got me into such an emotional mode This community is amazing

sebastianconcpt 7y ago

Which happens to be a legendary glorious game BTW.

libraryatnight 7y ago

I love when I read stories like this. Sometimes I feel so hopeless over how toxic and awful the internet can be, but then moments like this remind me that there are lots of good communities still out there. o7

bitwize 7y ago

Meanwhile, Disnarvel won't let a kid's family put Spider-Man on his headstone. As much as Disney has been trying to pivot into social consciousness in its various media properties, it's the direct fan support that the Elite Dangerous crew showed Michael here that stands out as truly magnanimous.

gambiting 7y ago
I'm sorry, but putting whatever character on a tombstone does nothing for the kid, he's already dead. Like, this kind of thing makes no sense to me - gestures towards dying people are fantastic....while they are still alive. Also, if the family really cares about it this much they could just do it and then Disney has to consider the bad optics of suing a family over a kids gravestone. Most likely unless someone goes and tell them no one will notice - my local cementary has plenty of children's graves with Mickey mouse and donald duck on them and I'm 1000% certain no one asked disney for permission either.