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It's heartbreaking. I think there's an uncomfortable novelty in having access to such personal period in this person's life. Sometimes, technology can create

by lwhi 16y ago

It's heartbreaking. I think there's an uncomfortable novelty in having access to such personal period in this person's life. Sometimes, technology can create distance and remove immediacy and impact - but I don't think that's true in this case. There's an obvious undeniable gravity at work - it's important. This kind of story usually only touches us if we're unlucky enough to have friends or family who are experiencing the same. But I find it so difficult to comprehend. Life is fleeting. I know every stage is finite - but it's easy to forget that everything really is temporary. This brings that home for me.

DanielBMarkham 16y ago
I agree, and I would have never posted my comment over on the reddit thread. It was displeasurable enough to post it here. I have thought that when faced with my last days, I would like to write a blog article (or, knowing me, a freaking series) kind of wrapping things up. I consider HN sort of my home audience, so I would post these articles over here. But this has got me rethinking that idea. The problem is that then people's lives and final words start competing against each other. What if nobody upvoted my life? Would pg's final words be more important than say, tptacek's? It's just too weird. So yes, every now and then it is humbling and good to be reminded of the extremely temporary nature of our existence. As an existentialist, I try to do so on a daily basis. But in a community of 100K, sadly, somebody is going to be dying on a fairly regular basis. I cannot imagine that having their words competing with the latest iPad for the community's attention. It is not something I want to participate in. But I might be wrong. Like I said, it got me thinking. I am still unsure how I feel about it. My heart goes out to the author of the post over on reddit.
- Mz 16y ago
  Not to argue with you or anything, but the guy is really not going to see if other people get upvoted more or something. And he recently got an ipad. He was not lucid enough to do stuff on the internet for a long time. He lost his house to his medical bills. The ipad he was probably given as a last wish is probably the coolest, most alive thing he has gotten to do in a long, long time. Talking to a jillion people at the same time when you have had no real social life in ages is like snorting cocaine or something -- woohoo! give me more of that shit! He said it was his best hour of 2011. I hope your final days or hours are good enough that some of the concerns you have expressed will still be relevant for you. But I really don't see how any of them apply in this particular instance.
  - DanielBMarkham 16y ago
    I think you're arguing with me, but that's fine. I'm still trying to figure out how I feel :) It's not whether the person in question experiences one thing or another from their posting. The question is whether or not the tools that the community uses to rank tech gossip should be the same tools as it uses to process final words. I find that a form of monetization of human life, and I'm not in favor of heading down that road. It leads to bad places. Not for the posters, but for the rest of the community. I think your mistake, if you made one, was assuming that my concern was for the feelings of those posting. It is not. It is for the continuing devaluing of human life by technology. The commnenter said that this article reached out and touched him, and I think that's great. If we had 50 on here a week, it would not. And I think that is unacceptable.
    - Mz 16y ago
      If we had 50 on here a week, it would not. And I think that is unacceptable. I am sure you are right about that. But what I have found personally is that a) I didn't learn how to live until I spent a lot of time at death's door and b) most people who speak with me are invigorated by exposure to ..whatever I got out of that experience. They get to get some perspective on their own lives and problems and sometimes decided that the concerns they are obsessing over are just stupid and not that important. I have terrible financial problems, which are a real issue. I would likely have them had I pursued conventional treatments as well only I wouldn't be getting well. But my creditors aren't going to come cut out my lungs or the lungs of my 23 year old son (who has the same diagnosis I have), which is basically what I would be facing otherwise (lung transplants are really common with my condition). So I just can't find it in me to be as upset about my financial situation as other people sometimes seem to think I should be. Technology went a long way towards saving my life, both literally and figuratively. It gave me a social life when I as unable to leave my house. It gave me access to research when I was too sick to go to a library. It gave me a means to occupy my time when having nothing to do but go crazy from constant unrelieved pain was a fate worse than death. I don't really see the issue with the post on Reddit. I would agree with you if someone posted here that they have a new startup idea and plan to make a site specifically to have exactly this kind of post as its sole purpose. I thought the community was very supportive and kind and humane in its treatment of the situation, suprisingly so given how much trash gets talked about Reddit on HN. But then I am some feverish twit just hanging out here tonight because I can't sleep and can't focus to do anything more than shoot the breeze with strangers...etc...what the hell do I know? Edit: And it's really not intended as argument. It's intended as conversation. Since I spent some time at death's door and spent a lot of time online during that time, I have this silly idea that my thoughts on this topic might be of interest to your soul-searching...or whatever.
- lwhi 16y ago
  I think, the issue is - we're still figuring out how to have conversations in crowds. This is still relatively new to human society. Twitter provides a way to shout out sentences to the world in general - and to listen out for voices that we care about. Forums allow us to converse with multiple people and actually form relationships - relationships which might eventually cross over into meatspace. The ability to converse in this way - in a 'third space', provides a lot of opportunities to encounter things that we're not used to encountering. This is an example of that. What will happen in the future? Well - if there's a sharp increase in communication with people who are choosing to end their lives due to suffering, my guess is we'll all learn more about what those people are feeling and thinking. We'll all be a lot more educated and a lot more understanding as a result. It will be a positive thing. I suppose that there's a chance that we'll become desensitized - but I think, when the stakes are this high and the subject is so earth-shatteringly significant to every one of us, it probably won't ever become so. I really think that our society is worse off by treating death as a taboo. I don't particularly enjoy thinking about it, or talking about it - but I think it's worthwhile.
  - DanielBMarkham 16y ago
    It's interesting that right now on HN there's another post about Facebook and how having one place for all of your conversations is harmful. I think the two topics are related. It's not a matter of ignoring or running away from death, it's a matter of treating every piece of conversation that comes from my keyboard as all being the same. There's been no time in human history where we had such a "flat" model of interactivity. Even in small hunter-gatherer societies it's common for information to be withheld from some, shared with only a select few, etc. Man is a social animal, and these types of channel-selection and social posturing are a critical part of his healthy existence. We programmers have created the internet, and to us all of that social posturing stuff is just nonsense. Everything is just a bit on a disk somewhere. While that's true in a physical sense, it's tragically false in practice. The way we discuss philosophy, death, religion, politics, science, history, and the rest of it varies according to the crowd and the mood. It's not all just bits. But your point is spot on: we're still trying to figure out how to have conversations online. I think we are making a LOT of mistakes that are going to come back and bite us one day, one of which is thinking that democratic metaphors are applicable in all situations, but that day may be many decades off, after I'm dead myself, so aside from complaining about it I'm really not worried about it too much :)

by lwhi 16y ago

DanielBMarkham 16y ago

I agree, and I would have never posted my comment over on the reddit thread. It was displeasurable enough to post it here. I have thought that when faced with my last days, I would like to write a blog article (or, knowing me, a freaking series) kind of wrapping things up. I consider HN sort of my home audience, so I would post these articles over here. But this has got me rethinking that idea. The problem is that then people's lives and final words start competing against each other. What if nobody upvoted my life? Would pg's final words be more important than say, tptacek's? It's just too weird. So yes, every now and then it is humbling and good to be reminded of the extremely temporary nature of our existence. As an existentialist, I try to do so on a daily basis. But in a community of 100K, sadly, somebody is going to be dying on a fairly regular basis. I cannot imagine that having their words competing with the latest iPad for the community's attention. It is not something I want to participate in. But I might be wrong. Like I said, it got me thinking. I am still unsure how I feel about it. My heart goes out to the author of the post over on reddit.

Mz 16y ago
Not to argue with you or anything, but the guy is really not going to see if other people get upvoted more or something. And he recently got an ipad. He was not lucid enough to do stuff on the internet for a long time. He lost his house to his medical bills. The ipad he was probably given as a last wish is probably the coolest, most alive thing he has gotten to do in a long, long time. Talking to a jillion people at the same time when you have had no real social life in ages is like snorting cocaine or something -- woohoo! give me more of that shit! He said it was his best hour of 2011. I hope your final days or hours are good enough that some of the concerns you have expressed will still be relevant for you. But I really don't see how any of them apply in this particular instance.
- DanielBMarkham 16y ago
  I think you're arguing with me, but that's fine. I'm still trying to figure out how I feel :) It's not whether the person in question experiences one thing or another from their posting. The question is whether or not the tools that the community uses to rank tech gossip should be the same tools as it uses to process final words. I find that a form of monetization of human life, and I'm not in favor of heading down that road. It leads to bad places. Not for the posters, but for the rest of the community. I think your mistake, if you made one, was assuming that my concern was for the feelings of those posting. It is not. It is for the continuing devaluing of human life by technology. The commnenter said that this article reached out and touched him, and I think that's great. If we had 50 on here a week, it would not. And I think that is unacceptable.
  - Mz 16y ago
    If we had 50 on here a week, it would not. And I think that is unacceptable. I am sure you are right about that. But what I have found personally is that a) I didn't learn how to live until I spent a lot of time at death's door and b) most people who speak with me are invigorated by exposure to ..whatever I got out of that experience. They get to get some perspective on their own lives and problems and sometimes decided that the concerns they are obsessing over are just stupid and not that important. I have terrible financial problems, which are a real issue. I would likely have them had I pursued conventional treatments as well only I wouldn't be getting well. But my creditors aren't going to come cut out my lungs or the lungs of my 23 year old son (who has the same diagnosis I have), which is basically what I would be facing otherwise (lung transplants are really common with my condition). So I just can't find it in me to be as upset about my financial situation as other people sometimes seem to think I should be. Technology went a long way towards saving my life, both literally and figuratively. It gave me a social life when I as unable to leave my house. It gave me access to research when I was too sick to go to a library. It gave me a means to occupy my time when having nothing to do but go crazy from constant unrelieved pain was a fate worse than death. I don't really see the issue with the post on Reddit. I would agree with you if someone posted here that they have a new startup idea and plan to make a site specifically to have exactly this kind of post as its sole purpose. I thought the community was very supportive and kind and humane in its treatment of the situation, suprisingly so given how much trash gets talked about Reddit on HN. But then I am some feverish twit just hanging out here tonight because I can't sleep and can't focus to do anything more than shoot the breeze with strangers...etc...what the hell do I know? Edit: And it's really not intended as argument. It's intended as conversation. Since I spent some time at death's door and spent a lot of time online during that time, I have this silly idea that my thoughts on this topic might be of interest to your soul-searching...or whatever.
lwhi 16y ago
I think, the issue is - we're still figuring out how to have conversations in crowds. This is still relatively new to human society. Twitter provides a way to shout out sentences to the world in general - and to listen out for voices that we care about. Forums allow us to converse with multiple people and actually form relationships - relationships which might eventually cross over into meatspace. The ability to converse in this way - in a 'third space', provides a lot of opportunities to encounter things that we're not used to encountering. This is an example of that. What will happen in the future? Well - if there's a sharp increase in communication with people who are choosing to end their lives due to suffering, my guess is we'll all learn more about what those people are feeling and thinking. We'll all be a lot more educated and a lot more understanding as a result. It will be a positive thing. I suppose that there's a chance that we'll become desensitized - but I think, when the stakes are this high and the subject is so earth-shatteringly significant to every one of us, it probably won't ever become so. I really think that our society is worse off by treating death as a taboo. I don't particularly enjoy thinking about it, or talking about it - but I think it's worthwhile.
- DanielBMarkham 16y ago
  It's interesting that right now on HN there's another post about Facebook and how having one place for all of your conversations is harmful. I think the two topics are related. It's not a matter of ignoring or running away from death, it's a matter of treating every piece of conversation that comes from my keyboard as all being the same. There's been no time in human history where we had such a "flat" model of interactivity. Even in small hunter-gatherer societies it's common for information to be withheld from some, shared with only a select few, etc. Man is a social animal, and these types of channel-selection and social posturing are a critical part of his healthy existence. We programmers have created the internet, and to us all of that social posturing stuff is just nonsense. Everything is just a bit on a disk somewhere. While that's true in a physical sense, it's tragically false in practice. The way we discuss philosophy, death, religion, politics, science, history, and the rest of it varies according to the crowd and the mood. It's not all just bits. But your point is spot on: we're still trying to figure out how to have conversations online. I think we are making a LOT of mistakes that are going to come back and bite us one day, one of which is thinking that democratic metaphors are applicable in all situations, but that day may be many decades off, after I'm dead myself, so aside from complaining about it I'm really not worried about it too much :)