10 ms·

Genuine question: what is the point made in the post? I feel like I'm missing something.

garrickvanburen 6y ago
In complete sincerity, I believe, for this particular post, the medium is the message.
unreal37 6y ago
It's a blog. The person is starting a blog. They want people to visit it. People visit it and liked it. And upvoted this post.
imjustsaying 6y ago
I was wondering this as well. I couldn't find the thesis and for a moment I wondered if this was posted as an example of an AI-generated post.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ryandrake 6y ago
  I read the whole thing and can’t figure it out either. Maybe there isn’t supposed to be a point. Just stream-of-consciousness words on a blog. Performance art? When the first thing someone tells me upon meeting me is that they have a medical condition, I think “uh oh, heeeere we go.” First of all, it’s none of my business. Second, why do you want me to know this? What am I supposed to do with that information? Is this what we are going to be talking about? And if not, why the need to share this fact? Such a confusing way to start out a conversation or blog. It’s like saying, “First of all, I really like pancakes. Now here’s my post about programming in Python.”
  - johntiger1 6y ago
    Was also similarly confused
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - thewebcount 6y ago
    Unfortunately, for people who suffer from a chronic illness, they have to deal with people like you. You might propose something that seems simple and normal to you, like, let's go here for lunch. They have to explain they can't because they have a very real medical condition, then they have to put up with people not believing them, thinking they're blowing it out of proportion, or just not wanting to make accommodations for them. It can be very degrading and isolating to live like this. One way to minimize the amount of BS like that that you put up with is by just stating up front, "I have this condition." If the other person listens and responds positively, then you can probably find common ground. If instead they think, "Uh oh, heeeeere we go," you know to dismiss them.
    - fastball 6y ago
      Ok, but since it's a very real medical condition, why not lead with "I have Atypical Cystic Fibrosis, so I can't do X", instead of being all mysterious about it? You can't really blame humans for being curious when you stoke but deliberately choose not to satisfy their curiosity. I mean, HN specifically wants you to post "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity". I don't know about others, but my intellectual curiosity certainly isn't gratified when someone leads with "I have a condition" but then gets all squirrelly about what it is. If you tell people what your condition is and they don't take it seriously, that's their problem. If you don't tell what it is, it might be "a mild fear of puppets" for all I know. Unfortunately there are people that make up medical conditions for themselves, so you can't really expect everyone to just automatically accept "I have this condition" as an excuse for any behavior. For example, I've taught a number of students that made up conditions for themselves right at the moment their homework was due.
      - Ewigkeit 6y ago
        Often when you have a medical condition that is not well understood by most people you cannot do x, y or z. It might be exhausting to explain your limitations which may change day to day depending on how you're doing at that particular moment on that particular day. People may not believe you, and it feels awful to have to be around someone who won't take you seriously or gets angry with you if you try their supposed "cure" and it doesn't work. An ex-boyfriend of mine suggested a micro dose of acid would treat my migraines. I tried it and it made my symptoms worse. He got terribly angry with me for not trying hard enough because I didn't want to do acid for the fourth day in a row. If I tell people I get migraines pretty much all of the time they think I get bad headaches, not that I can't see, lose my ability to talk, have my arm go numb and instead it feels like my jaw is stuck in a vise, I can't look at sunlight and every noise is painful. People don't want to hear about the ways someone they know is silently suffering.
maxden 6y ago
To get people to sign up to their patreon?
c3534l 6y ago
My guess is its one of those style over substance articles, like something by David Sedaris. Not really something we're used to on hackernews where we expect the author to argue X is bad, or we need more Y. The point is entertainment or poetry. Maybe I'm wrong and the author wants to achieve some rhetorical goal, but I think its just a blog post for the sake of it.
- fastball 6y ago
  Do you personally find it compelling in a stylistic sense? If I was going to judge the quality of this writing, I don't think I could rate it much higher than "mediocre". Obviously this is my own opinion, but I don't find this compelling in terms of style or substance. Honestly it comes across as more of a rant.
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    I gave up after getting about half way through and realizing it was just making the same vague references over and over without getting to any sort of point.
  - eplanit 6y ago
    Victimhood is today's Heroism. We're supposed to admire and respect her for her unnamed mystery ailment, and disparage the society around her.
    - jshevek 6y ago
      I agree that you describe a trend in our society, but I believe in this case you are misapplying a heuristic. You don't have enough information to declare that this is the intent in this specific case.
sradman 6y ago
“It’s too crowded”, the punchline to the Yogi Berra quote, is the point of the blog post. It is a sentiment that we can all now relate to due to COVID-19. Living with a genetic disorder that makes one susceptible to respiratory infections also reinforces the set of norms required to live with this virus in our society.
- knorker 6y ago
  Nothing improves a joke more than explaining it, like the article did. :-)
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  "I was social distancing before social distancing was cool, man."
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jshevek 6y ago
If your question is influenced by the apparent popularity of this post, in proportion to it's content, the author is a well known long time contributor to HN. The likely future content of this blog may have more to do with the signal boosting motivation than the content of this first post.

In complete sincerity, I believe, for this particular post, the medium is the message.

It's a blog. The person is starting a blog. They want people to visit it. People visit it and liked it. And upvoted this post.

imjustsaying 6y ago

I was wondering this as well. I couldn't find the thesis and for a moment I wondered if this was posted as an example of an AI-generated post.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ryandrake 6y ago
I read the whole thing and can’t figure it out either. Maybe there isn’t supposed to be a point. Just stream-of-consciousness words on a blog. Performance art? When the first thing someone tells me upon meeting me is that they have a medical condition, I think “uh oh, heeeere we go.” First of all, it’s none of my business. Second, why do you want me to know this? What am I supposed to do with that information? Is this what we are going to be talking about? And if not, why the need to share this fact? Such a confusing way to start out a conversation or blog. It’s like saying, “First of all, I really like pancakes. Now here’s my post about programming in Python.”
- johntiger1 6y ago
  Was also similarly confused
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- thewebcount 6y ago
  Unfortunately, for people who suffer from a chronic illness, they have to deal with people like you. You might propose something that seems simple and normal to you, like, let's go here for lunch. They have to explain they can't because they have a very real medical condition, then they have to put up with people not believing them, thinking they're blowing it out of proportion, or just not wanting to make accommodations for them. It can be very degrading and isolating to live like this. One way to minimize the amount of BS like that that you put up with is by just stating up front, "I have this condition." If the other person listens and responds positively, then you can probably find common ground. If instead they think, "Uh oh, heeeeere we go," you know to dismiss them.
  - fastball 6y ago
    Ok, but since it's a very real medical condition, why not lead with "I have Atypical Cystic Fibrosis, so I can't do X", instead of being all mysterious about it? You can't really blame humans for being curious when you stoke but deliberately choose not to satisfy their curiosity. I mean, HN specifically wants you to post "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity". I don't know about others, but my intellectual curiosity certainly isn't gratified when someone leads with "I have a condition" but then gets all squirrelly about what it is. If you tell people what your condition is and they don't take it seriously, that's their problem. If you don't tell what it is, it might be "a mild fear of puppets" for all I know. Unfortunately there are people that make up medical conditions for themselves, so you can't really expect everyone to just automatically accept "I have this condition" as an excuse for any behavior. For example, I've taught a number of students that made up conditions for themselves right at the moment their homework was due.
    - Ewigkeit 6y ago
      Often when you have a medical condition that is not well understood by most people you cannot do x, y or z. It might be exhausting to explain your limitations which may change day to day depending on how you're doing at that particular moment on that particular day. People may not believe you, and it feels awful to have to be around someone who won't take you seriously or gets angry with you if you try their supposed "cure" and it doesn't work. An ex-boyfriend of mine suggested a micro dose of acid would treat my migraines. I tried it and it made my symptoms worse. He got terribly angry with me for not trying hard enough because I didn't want to do acid for the fourth day in a row. If I tell people I get migraines pretty much all of the time they think I get bad headaches, not that I can't see, lose my ability to talk, have my arm go numb and instead it feels like my jaw is stuck in a vise, I can't look at sunlight and every noise is painful. People don't want to hear about the ways someone they know is silently suffering.

maxden 6y ago

To get people to sign up to their patreon?

c3534l 6y ago

My guess is its one of those style over substance articles, like something by David Sedaris. Not really something we're used to on hackernews where we expect the author to argue X is bad, or we need more Y. The point is entertainment or poetry. Maybe I'm wrong and the author wants to achieve some rhetorical goal, but I think its just a blog post for the sake of it.

fastball 6y ago
Do you personally find it compelling in a stylistic sense? If I was going to judge the quality of this writing, I don't think I could rate it much higher than "mediocre". Obviously this is my own opinion, but I don't find this compelling in terms of style or substance. Honestly it comes across as more of a rant.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  I gave up after getting about half way through and realizing it was just making the same vague references over and over without getting to any sort of point.
- eplanit 6y ago
  Victimhood is today's Heroism. We're supposed to admire and respect her for her unnamed mystery ailment, and disparage the society around her.
  - jshevek 6y ago
    I agree that you describe a trend in our society, but I believe in this case you are misapplying a heuristic. You don't have enough information to declare that this is the intent in this specific case.

sradman 6y ago

“It’s too crowded”, the punchline to the Yogi Berra quote, is the point of the blog post. It is a sentiment that we can all now relate to due to COVID-19. Living with a genetic disorder that makes one susceptible to respiratory infections also reinforces the set of norms required to live with this virus in our society.

knorker 6y ago
Nothing improves a joke more than explaining it, like the article did. :-)
DoreenMichele 6y ago
"I was social distancing before social distancing was cool, man."

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jshevek 6y ago

If your question is influenced by the apparent popularity of this post, in proportion to it's content, the author is a well known long time contributor to HN. The likely future content of this blog may have more to do with the signal boosting motivation than the content of this first post.