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I can see why it was killed. What a load of drivel... I mean, seriously, who ends a blog post with "[w]e’re in this together"?

by araneae 17y ago

RevRal 17y ago
Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned what I thought of the article, instead just said that it didn't deserve to get killed. I am a very discerning reader and the article resonated well with me. I'm glad I read it and I'm sure there are more people who would have enjoyed it. That's why I brought it up. It was killed before more people could have read it. The only reason I found my way to the article was because I'm also discerning on HN, using the five "tips" I outlined more than the points on submissions.
unalone 17y ago
I do. Since that post went up, I've received quite a few emails from people thanking me for that drivel, too. So I guess it's not drivel after all? If my goal was to write simplistic, overemoting drivel, I'd have namedropped Bukowski instead of Joyce.
- araneae 17y ago
  No, your goal was to sound smart. It's cliche... just like saying "we're all in this together." I'll break your essay down for you. A) A section in which you say you hate small talk. You use this fact to claim that you are deep, because small talk is shallow. B) A section in which you talk about your love of James Joyce, an author that pretty much no one can read, in order to sound smart. C) A section in which you talk about how lonely you are, because you're emo. You are very sad and lonely because the girls you date like different music than you. D) The conclusion, in which you try but fail to connect the fact that you are a) deep, b) smart, and c) lonely, by saying that we're all in this together. wipes away a tear If this sounds harsh, I've spent all day grading essays, so I'm out of tolerance for bullshit.
  - RevRal 17y ago
    This is the sort of comment I would have liked to have seen in the submission about the article. Unfortunately, those submissions are dead. The recent article on Ribbon Farm might explain unalone's character: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/21/morality-compassion-and-the-sociopath/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/21/morality-compassion-and... . Maybe that's assuming too much.... I don't normally say things like this, but your analysis is wrong. I'm 22 years old, and I still haven't figured out how to respond to things like this. Your thought process is simply... wrong. It'd be like trying to explain something fundamental and simple. Something that people should just "get," and I'm just baffled when they don't. When they respond like this and completely miss out on something good. There's a certain dignity and standard that people like us hold ourselves to, and we resent those who don't. That's the point of "we're all in this together." We don't often meet people like us. And when we do... I don't know how to explain it. It's just great. Though he could have maybe picked better words... he didn't. It still communicates what he was trying to say. You have to look at things like this through a certain lens. It isn't published work. If he wanted to, he could edit it all day. It is on his personal website so he shouldn't have to. When I said I'm a discerning reader, and am discerning on HN... well, I'm discerning with everything. And it literally breaks my heart that almost everyone I meet is not like this. ---- Addendum: So unalone, what did you think of Circulatory System?
    - unalone 17y ago
      Oh! I didn't realize it was you. :-) I'll be the first to accuse me of a certain sloppiness. I usually try to write as quickly as possible and I don't look back over what I write before I publish. For pieces I want to submit places I do a much more thorough job — I'm writing one piece specifically for Hacker News that's like that right now, and I'm taking however many weeks it takes to make sure it gleams. re:Circulatory System — I'm not totally sure. It didn't hook me instantly like some of the other Elephant Six bands have, but the harmonies were pretty impressive. I'm going to give it another listen a few days from now; I feel like it's something I ought to take some time and let seep in.
  - unalone 17y ago
    You don't sound harsh. You sound like any other punkass with a short patience. Take five seconds and look at anything else I've done. It's not like I'm coming out of nowhere and saying these things. I'm the Hacker News presence that writes essay responses to everything. It's not that I dislike people who small talk, it's that — honestly — when I talk these minute little essays shoot out. The people I hang out with tend to be people who talk about things comprehensively. It's not particularly deep. If anything, it's an inherently nerdy trait. But it's who I am. My love for Joyce is similarly something that I talk about a lot. He was the first major artist I fell in love with. Beckett was probably the second. Understand that I came across Joyce and Beckett before I developed a diverse taste in movies/music/art, and so they stick out in my mind in a way other things don't. But Joyce is utterly readable, if you know how to read him. I read Ulysses to thirteen-year-olds. They were stitching up. People that call Joyce unreadable are people who never learned to hear an author's voice in their head. Anybody with half an ear for tone can translate him into the hilarious Irish comic that he is. I mean, his hero masturbates and fantasizes about sex! It's a Seth Rogen comedy in the making. I thought that I clarified the whole "lonely existence" thing in my writing. In fact, I'm sure I did, because you're the first person to complain about that. The issue's not that I'm lonely, because I'm not lonely. The issue's that there's an inherent disconnect between the secular God I worship and the various things other people worship. My idea of a good time is different from a lot of other people's. I don't need to brag about the girls I date. The fact that I write about girls is because that happens to be a part of my life, as much as Joyce is. So I'm not allowed to write about smart people things or social people things? What am I allowed to write about? Lisp? I wrote what I did for other people, not for me. Last year I was in a shitty place; this year I'm in an awesome place and life is great. It's just that I happen to have an audience of hundreds of people, and I do my best to follow them when I have free time, and a good part of my audience is alienated/isolated/heartbroken/generally human, and I thought I had some ideas that might help them. I wrote that article, a lot of people loved it, and when it got posted to Hacker News it got a more fiercely emotional response than anything else I've posted here. I didn't post it, and I wasn't expecting HN of all places to react the way they did. It was not an article I wrote for Hacker News. But I'm glad that people found it and got some sort of strength out of it. If this sounds harsh, it's because you remind me of certain former professors of mine who were vain assholes and who killed my former ambition to become a teacher. Let's not mince words: I pity your students students if you're always such a nagging fucker.
- algorias 17y ago
  I really liked that article, it was moving in a strange way. It was also pretty off-topic for HN, so I understand why it was killed. Submitting with the vague title "God" didn't help, either.
  - noonespecial 17y ago
    I think the title alone did more to get it quickly flagged dead than any other factor. I know I went in with the safety off on my flagger (as it were) and almost did so when words like worship, Allah, and Yahweh (I'm a scatter reader) jumped out at me.

I can see why it was killed. What a load of drivel... I mean, seriously, who ends a blog post with "[w]e’re in this together"?

by araneae 17y ago

I can see why it was killed. What a load of drivel... I mean, seriously, who ends a blog post with "[w]e’re in this together"?

RevRal 17y ago

Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned what I thought of the article, instead just said that it didn't deserve to get killed. I am a very discerning reader and the article resonated well with me. I'm glad I read it and I'm sure there are more people who would have enjoyed it. That's why I brought it up. It was killed before more people could have read it. The only reason I found my way to the article was because I'm also discerning on HN, using the five "tips" I outlined more than the points on submissions.

unalone 17y ago

I do. Since that post went up, I've received quite a few emails from people thanking me for that drivel, too. So I guess it's not drivel after all? If my goal was to write simplistic, overemoting drivel, I'd have namedropped Bukowski instead of Joyce.

araneae 17y ago
No, your goal was to sound smart. It's cliche... just like saying "we're all in this together." I'll break your essay down for you. A) A section in which you say you hate small talk. You use this fact to claim that you are deep, because small talk is shallow. B) A section in which you talk about your love of James Joyce, an author that pretty much no one can read, in order to sound smart. C) A section in which you talk about how lonely you are, because you're emo. You are very sad and lonely because the girls you date like different music than you. D) The conclusion, in which you try but fail to connect the fact that you are a) deep, b) smart, and c) lonely, by saying that we're all in this together. wipes away a tear If this sounds harsh, I've spent all day grading essays, so I'm out of tolerance for bullshit.
- RevRal 17y ago
  This is the sort of comment I would have liked to have seen in the submission about the article. Unfortunately, those submissions are dead. The recent article on Ribbon Farm might explain unalone's character: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/21/morality-compassion-and-the-sociopath/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/21/morality-compassion-and... . Maybe that's assuming too much.... I don't normally say things like this, but your analysis is wrong. I'm 22 years old, and I still haven't figured out how to respond to things like this. Your thought process is simply... wrong. It'd be like trying to explain something fundamental and simple. Something that people should just "get," and I'm just baffled when they don't. When they respond like this and completely miss out on something good. There's a certain dignity and standard that people like us hold ourselves to, and we resent those who don't. That's the point of "we're all in this together." We don't often meet people like us. And when we do... I don't know how to explain it. It's just great. Though he could have maybe picked better words... he didn't. It still communicates what he was trying to say. You have to look at things like this through a certain lens. It isn't published work. If he wanted to, he could edit it all day. It is on his personal website so he shouldn't have to. When I said I'm a discerning reader, and am discerning on HN... well, I'm discerning with everything. And it literally breaks my heart that almost everyone I meet is not like this. ---- Addendum: So unalone, what did you think of Circulatory System?
  - unalone 17y ago
    Oh! I didn't realize it was you. :-) I'll be the first to accuse me of a certain sloppiness. I usually try to write as quickly as possible and I don't look back over what I write before I publish. For pieces I want to submit places I do a much more thorough job — I'm writing one piece specifically for Hacker News that's like that right now, and I'm taking however many weeks it takes to make sure it gleams. re:Circulatory System — I'm not totally sure. It didn't hook me instantly like some of the other Elephant Six bands have, but the harmonies were pretty impressive. I'm going to give it another listen a few days from now; I feel like it's something I ought to take some time and let seep in.
- unalone 17y ago
  You don't sound harsh. You sound like any other punkass with a short patience. Take five seconds and look at anything else I've done. It's not like I'm coming out of nowhere and saying these things. I'm the Hacker News presence that writes essay responses to everything. It's not that I dislike people who small talk, it's that — honestly — when I talk these minute little essays shoot out. The people I hang out with tend to be people who talk about things comprehensively. It's not particularly deep. If anything, it's an inherently nerdy trait. But it's who I am. My love for Joyce is similarly something that I talk about a lot. He was the first major artist I fell in love with. Beckett was probably the second. Understand that I came across Joyce and Beckett before I developed a diverse taste in movies/music/art, and so they stick out in my mind in a way other things don't. But Joyce is utterly readable, if you know how to read him. I read Ulysses to thirteen-year-olds. They were stitching up. People that call Joyce unreadable are people who never learned to hear an author's voice in their head. Anybody with half an ear for tone can translate him into the hilarious Irish comic that he is. I mean, his hero masturbates and fantasizes about sex! It's a Seth Rogen comedy in the making. I thought that I clarified the whole "lonely existence" thing in my writing. In fact, I'm sure I did, because you're the first person to complain about that. The issue's not that I'm lonely, because I'm not lonely. The issue's that there's an inherent disconnect between the secular God I worship and the various things other people worship. My idea of a good time is different from a lot of other people's. I don't need to brag about the girls I date. The fact that I write about girls is because that happens to be a part of my life, as much as Joyce is. So I'm not allowed to write about smart people things or social people things? What am I allowed to write about? Lisp? I wrote what I did for other people, not for me. Last year I was in a shitty place; this year I'm in an awesome place and life is great. It's just that I happen to have an audience of hundreds of people, and I do my best to follow them when I have free time, and a good part of my audience is alienated/isolated/heartbroken/generally human, and I thought I had some ideas that might help them. I wrote that article, a lot of people loved it, and when it got posted to Hacker News it got a more fiercely emotional response than anything else I've posted here. I didn't post it, and I wasn't expecting HN of all places to react the way they did. It was not an article I wrote for Hacker News. But I'm glad that people found it and got some sort of strength out of it. If this sounds harsh, it's because you remind me of certain former professors of mine who were vain assholes and who killed my former ambition to become a teacher. Let's not mince words: I pity your students students if you're always such a nagging fucker.
algorias 17y ago
I really liked that article, it was moving in a strange way. It was also pretty off-topic for HN, so I understand why it was killed. Submitting with the vague title "God" didn't help, either.
- noonespecial 17y ago
  I think the title alone did more to get it quickly flagged dead than any other factor. I know I went in with the safety off on my flagger (as it were) and almost did so when words like worship, Allah, and Yahweh (I'm a scatter reader) jumped out at me.