I meet people all the time whose sole source of information is their doctor. And, I said 'FWIW' as the very first word.
I realize this is the internet but that's a stretch to find an insult.
I realize this is the internet but that's a stretch to find an insult.
The assumption of providing advisement is 1) your advice might be helpful, 2) advising isn't itself a harmful act, 3) you have something worth advising about. In the specific case of a chonic illness, the probability is high that all these assumptions are not correct. Therefore, advising a chronically ill person requires exceptional behavior compared to someone who is not chronically ill.
It's also important that this(unwanted advice) is a common issue that adversely affects a person's QoL, as they are forced to re-address the same ground consistently when they already have limited productive resources.
But that's not what happened here. Steve didn't prompt anyone for a response of any kind. He offered a quick one-liner of a suggestion. Shakna wasn't even part of that thread, and just dropped in to tell him to shut up.
It's the internet man. You're quite free to disregard the advice.
By criticizing Shakna, you are also participating in a social cue to try and prevent Shakna from continuing to apply inappropriate social behavior (in this case, criticizing others unnecessarily). Does "It's the internet man. You're quite free to disregard Shakna's criticism." not apply also to you?
Don't get me wrong, I'm totally capable of being offended by inane low-content posts on the internet. But I also put some effort into filtering my responses in deference to the recognition of my own biases and insular perspective. I fail a lot, but I try.
Shakna's response seemed to lack any such self awareness. Maybe I'm wrong; maybe i'm speaking from a bubble again. But I do know, and I hate to point out the obvious here, that this is HN -- pretty much the opposite of any sort of health-issue-specific forum. If you post a note regarding a health issue here, you will get advice, likely involving keto nowadays.
I understand Shakna's desire to mold HN into a place better suited to the specific needs of folks like Shakna. Nothing wrong with that. But Shakna's "decade of experience in the nuances of social dynamics in the context of chronic illness" is a lot of weight to expect a random techy internet forum thread to bear, and politely hand-slapping a random dude in a forum replete with dedicated keto experimenters is... well... it clearly risks frustration, right?
Does this mean this behavior should be considered acceptable, or that criticizing such behavior should be considered above criticism?
> is a lot of weight to expect a random techy internet forum thread to bear,
It is also weight to engage in it by providing unsolicited advice. By choosing to engage with the heavy subject, people can choose to engage with their engagement. This is normal human interaction regardless of its weight.
> it clearly risks frustration, right?
Is that for you to decide? I like to believe Shakna is intelligent enough to choose to engage in what they please, even if they are frustrated by it. It isn't my place to judge or advise them, and I'm frankly entirely uninterested in engaging with them about how frustrated they're allowed to get. I'm more interested in engaging with you about how much you should get to tell Shakna how they should react while reacting yourself.
Certainly not! It's critical that criticism not be criticized, however I assure you that your overly critical appraisal of my criticism will not be left uncritiqued. By me, right now.
> It is also weight to engage in it by providing unsolicited advice.
No it's not. That's the whole point. There's nothing weighty about Internet User Steve's unsolicited two cents. Shakna can take it or leave it. Or, he can complain about it, tell Steve he was wrong to open his mouth, and then meet the inevitable pushback with disgusted indignance while two other frisky threadmates get all meta in the corner. Personally, I'm left none the wiser for having witnessed Shakna's precipitated grievances, whereas I feel it would be a bit of a shame if Steve was made to curtail his freewheeling expression, which in this case included a link to a horrifying story about the NEJM (thanks for that BTW Steve).
> I'm frankly entirely uninterested in engaging with them about how frustrated they're allowed to get.
You're right, that would be bad! So don't do that. Instead, gently encourage Shakna to cut poor Steve a bit of slack. You can, without judgment, point out that Shakna's reflexes, gained through years of pain and frustration, are maybe not a productive criteria by which to interact with well-meaning random internet folk, and that some extra persistence in grace, instead of descending into remonstrance after a just one exchange, is far likelier to win converts to Shakna's way of thinking.
Go ahead, try it. Let me know how it works out.
If another comment was somehow insensitive, it's fine to gently offer some information about that. It's not fine to blame one another or take a thread massively off topic.
I seriously doubt that. Everyone who has a chronic illness is bombarded constantly by friends, family, acquaintances, and strangers with unsolicited "advice" as to how to cure their disease with diets, exercise, oils, herbs, craniosacral therapy, prayer, meditation, homeopathy, enemas, chiropractic adjustments, talk therapy, vitamins, supplements, and every other crazy thing you can think of.