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Comment by prpon | Hacker News Reader

Dude, you probably haven't seen anyone close by suffer from a debilitating disease and pass away in the recent times. It is painful for everyone involved and it takes tremendous amount of dedication to work on something like gnome. He could have said who gives a shit.

No one dying from a disease ever thinks that 'Oh, next week is gonna be my last, let me enjoy it'. Every day is a struggle trying to find something that might help you live better or longer. Working on an OS project is the last thing you would think of if you don't believe it passionately.

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At which point did I state the opposite of any of that, or even imply it? You're agreeing with me. "No one dying from a disease ever thinks that..." is precisely my point, instead people look for things with meaning.

Like contributing to community projects.

My point is more that people go all hero-worshipy when someone does something cool when they are dying, and take everything out of context and set them on a pedestal and it's ludicrous. All rationality goes out the window. "... they all suddenly seem pretty lame" is a flawed way of looking at the world, a loss of context, and it helps nobody.

When you are dying, All rationality goes out the window. Working on open source project is the last thing they worry about.

Let me ask you something. Whom do you respect?

>When you are dying, All rationality goes out the window.

This is ALS. A progressive, multiple-year disease. Via Wikipedia[1]: Death usually occurs within two to five years of diagnosis.

I've met plenty of rational dying people. Except when it comes on extremely quickly, most everyone I've encountered or heard about has been more rational than the people around them, not the reverse. People don't suddenly become invalids when they have to face their own mortality.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amyotrophic_lateral_sclerosis#D...

A certain theoretical physicist and cosmologist would disagree.

> When you are dying, All rationality goes out the window.

Are you "not dying"? I ask because I've never met anyone who wasn't dying. Yes, most of us don't have a good idea as to what the attending MD will blame or when, but nevertheless, the vast majority of us are dying and know it.

the emphasis in the original comment was on bangs out a patch with his knees using morse code not on the fact he was dying.

and yes "I am not dying so have to spend my time at work" is a lame excuse in relation.

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