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Comment by slewis | Hacker News Reader

The blind-upvoting of celebrities on HN is sometimes appalling. This comment totally sidesteps the point of the article. OP is not asking for advice.

You are not being helpful here. She clearly points out "That no matter how tough I get, how thick my skin, the paper cuts still hurt." So telling her to get thicker skin really just adds one more papercut to the pile (and the rest of this thread will heap on a few more).

OP your post is well done and paints a clear picture. Hopefully you and others like you will continue to inspire folks to change.

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> You are not being helpful here. She clearly points out "That no matter how tough I get, how thick my skin, the paper cuts still hurt."

I find this strange. He is potentially suggesting a way for her to avoid around 99% of the paper cuts.

If it's death by 1000 cuts, then it could well be survival by 10.

He is allowed to share his life experiences and offer his advice to the readers of an online discussion forum, even if the author of the article linked at the top of the thread didn't solicit personal advice. He doesn't need anyone's permission.

Women aren't fragile creatures who need constant protecting. The author of the article is not your personal damsel in distress. She is a human who feels she has faced challenges.

So is edw519.

He's using his life experiences to explain how "if I can pull myself up by the bootstraps, you can too." He's essentially denying her experience, and he even implies that the two of them have had the exact same experiences in tech when he says that death by 1000 cuts wouldn't be his choice of analogy.

I don't think he's denying her experience. I read it as advice on how to deal with how things currently are.

The problem is change in the industry takes time, and so without changing how she personally deals with things currently, she is going to continue to be unhappy. Obviously this is a bad situation and we need to make things better in our industry, but arcing up at people trying to help other people cope with current conditions is hardly helpful.

> The problem is change in the industry takes time, and so without changing how she personally deals with things currently, she is going to continue to be unhappy.

Yeah, I'm not going to argue with an obvious concern troll. Next time, try to be more subtle.

> He is allowed to share his life experiences and offer his advice to the readers of an online discussion forum

Of course he is, but it's embarrassing that HN has voted his comment to the top.

He has one of the highest karma averages. I doubt it took many votes, if any.

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