Hacker News Reader

Comment by xlnt | Hacker News Reader

You still haven't thought about what his words meant.

You said you were facing a certain problem "now", 2 months after the child was born.

You could have made your decision about how to handle it prior to the child being born. If you'd done that, you would not be facing the problem now, it would be decided. But you didn't.

He asked about why you didn't decide in advance. You got offended by the implication that you hadn't decided in advance. That was something you said yourself, so it's unreasonable to be offended by it, or to blame him for noticing you said it.

View on HN

Do you have any kids? Do you realize how unpredictable it is to plan things for your child, for example, how sick the child is going to be, or how well-tempered?

My post is simply about logic and who said what. Nothing more. Why can't you read it rationally?

And, BTW, if you and other parents can't read it rationally, why should I believe you handle parenting matters rationally? Parenting matters are more difficult and more emotional than reading a simple forum post.

Here is the rational answer you seem to want. (a) This problem is so hard you can probably never solve it satisfactorily, and (b) you can't know what it's going to be like to have kids before you have them, or what your kids will be like. So however much thought you expend on the question before having kids, you're still going to be working on it afterward.

I didn't argue with that, or ask for an answer of that type, or say that davidw did anything wrong other than misread lisper's post.

I thought the waterfall development link basically answered the question about advanced planning. I'm mostly interested in the emotional fragility of parents and wanted to see what would happen if I pointed out that logic does not back up his reaction.

"I'm mostly interested in the emotional fragility of parents and wanted to see what would happen if I pointed out that logic does not back up his reaction."

= trolling

The form of my post was to make correct, logical points. That is not trolling. The fact I had an honorable motivation -- learning -- does not suddenly make my posts worse.

xlnt isn't a troll. He just operates within a zone of disembodied rationality so robotic as to make Spock look like Oprah.

Can I have my DH rating now? :)

Heh. Someone else told me today that I use "a lot of very emotive language" like a "preacher".

"and wanted to see what would happen"

So you didn't really care what people had to say, you were just trying to bait them? i.e. you were being a troll on purpose?

Did you consider whether I would enjoy your post, prior to posting it?

I wanted to learn something. Why did you post?

To point out that you are a troll. Wasn't that evident in my posting?

How does doing that benefit you? What's the reason to do it?

Society has a response to (a) and (b). It is called a social net, based on solidarity: it works like insurance schemes should (not speaking of fraudulent market schemes, e.g. the US health insurance). I think the biggest problem is, that you despise pooling resources into social systems purportedly designed to help in (a) and (b). "Old" Europe has suffered enough in WWII to recognize the importance of it, and erect such a system, which is frowned upon by "risk tolerant entrepreneurship" (they have enough personal wealth to fall back on). This social net you are missing is being therefore dismantled in the EU as well, since it is regarded as uncompetitive compared to the US or China. It is a race to the bottom (if you compete with slaves, you become a slave*), of which the GOOG kindergarten is just a sign.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Norbert_Wiener

We live in Europe, and no, handouts not really the answer we're looking for. We're aiming at a flexible schedule for both of us in order to both have time with our daughter. The safety net stuff is nice in some ways, but it's not really what we're after.

The thing is - one of the biggest factors in making the decision is the child! And you cannot know what the child is like, until it is there, and even then it takes a while to get to know it. Children are unique, and very different, one from another. What will be best for one will not be for another.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com