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Why do you think you're smarter than he is, and not just luckier? Did you read his entire comment? Assuming he didn't edit it after your post (and it appears
by bmelton 14y ago
Why do you think you're smarter than he is, and not just luckier?
Did you read his entire comment? Assuming he didn't edit it after your post (and it appears he didn't, since he starts off admitting that half of him feels that way,) he concludes that "maybe I was just luckier."
He admits being torn on the subject, but that doesn't change that many able-bodied, mentally sound people can do more than they're necessarily capable of realizing while in the throes of despair.
"Pick yourself up by your own bootstraps" may not be the sort of advice that someone is able to grasp while depressed, but on the off chance they are able to hear it, it's sound advice. There's little doubt that many people, if not most people in the world could be trying harder than they do. It's also easy to get carried away with being down on your luck.
I don't disagree with many of the points you've made, but they also don't necessarily discount the points of the poster you responded to either. Self-teaching from a library might be a poor substitute for a proper university, but it's still miles and away better than sitting on your ass waiting for your situation to change.
Anyway, I'll apologize as well, because your knee-jerk reaction spurred one of my own, and I don't mean to seem harsh, but I think the criticism to the parent was unnecessary, and I feel like perhaps you missed the part where he bares empathy.
Edit: I completely blew my cool there. I don't think my narrative-voice was yelling, but it was definitely speaking in harsher tones than I like to, and for that, I owe you another apology.
I think I'm generally fed up with how unnecessarily mean HN has become lately, and how knee-jerk everything seems to be. This is me adding on to that, and for that I am genuinely sorry. I would like to ask though (of myself as well), in the future, if you could take 10 seconds and re-read a post before blasting its author, it would make a huge difference over all.
- falcolas 14y agoSaying that "maybe I was just luckier" at the end is a pretty lame cop-out after spending the remaining 90% of the comment belittling the person for not being so lucky. Personally, I see someone who is constantly applying to jobs and working as much as they can in the jobs they are able to get as having hoisted their bootstraps as high as they can reach. Frankly, if you're looking for mean posts, look at those belittling people in dire straits before blasting those that have the temerity to rise to defend them.
- bmelton 14y agoI'm not AVTizzle, and can't speak for the tone and timbre of his post, but I feel like you took it completely out of context, as he appears to question his own feelings on the matter. Regardless, I was acting out of frustration, and you're of course welcome to read it however you like, however wrong I might feel that it is.
- DanBC 14y agoAVTizzle's post was, to me, so ignorant it was bordering on bigotry. So it's not just falcolas who was offended by it. I tried hard not to respond to it as the hateful screed I felt it was. I had to cut lots from my post before I felt comfortable sending it. But, really, come on. Anyone posting paragraphs of "they just don't work hard enough" and "I took control" in response to personal stories of homelessness is going to get posts from people with different life experiences saying just how wrong that post is. Re-reading AVTizzle's post now I am still angered by it, but I don't think it's hateful. Just ignorant. {META} I agree that HN can be needlessly harsh, and I welcome people who work to avoid that. Normal advice is to save a post to drafts and go back to it later for sending. That's not easy on HN - there isn't any save to drafts (unless you use a script or weird text editor interface) and there's pretty big time pressure on posting. The guidelines are a good start to describing acceptable behaviour. I'm not sure about a good way to remind people of them. And recently there have been many 'hot button' ('shallowly, but intensely, interesting') topics, so maybe some over-enthusiastic posting has carried over from those.
- Tichy 14y agoWhat would you self-teach yourself at a library that would land you a job later? It might work for programming, but not for that much else? "Hi I'm your new physician, I learnt how to operate reading books in the library" :-)
- ionforce 14y agoCarpentry? Sewing?
- flyinRyan 14y agoCarpentry learned in a library! Wow, no wonder that people make ignorant "just pick yourself up by your bootstraps"-type comments. Complete and utter disconnection from reality.
- ionforce 14y agoTell us, what are the things you could learn at a library that could translate into earning income?
- flyinRyan 14y agoI don't recall saying there was anything that you could learn in a library that would translate into earning income. Though if I were in a situation where that was my only option, I'd personally pick web programming. That probably has the lowest barrier to entry of anything you could actually learn by just reading a book.
- Tichy 14y agoIs sewing still a viable source of income? There are a few shops where I live, but they all seem to be run by old people with immigrant background (no offense, it just might indicate that they are willing to work for little money). Carpentry takes years to learn the official way where I live. And you need tools.
- theycallmemorty 14y ago