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Comment by esses | Hacker News Reader

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esses·

i often just refer to it as waterboarding.

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whiterboarding?

I just call it "whiteboarding".

Seems to convey the subjective experience quite aptly.

I think they really downplay how much of a panic/anxiety these type of closed room with no ventiliation with solemn looking people judging your every move.

I could never calm down and think but the interviewers wanted to test how you would code on a whiteboard under duress

Have you ever been waterboarded? Putting waterboarding on the same level as whiteboard coding interviews is minimizing the horrific experience of those who have been waterboarded.

Not many people have been waterboarded, and most were terrorists, so it's not the same as a holocaust joke. In a world where we're not allowed to laugh at anything connected to some kind of injustice, then yes, that wasn't funny.

But I laughed.

>and most were terrorists

Do you have a source on this?

Putting waterboarding on the same level as whiteboard coding interviews is minimizing the horrific experience of those who have been waterboarded.

I guess it is, if you read it literally. But I don't think people mean it literally when they joke about it, nor are they making a serious comparison between the two experiences.

ok sure, but this conversation is figurative not literal. it would be horribly wrong to literally put whiteboarding on the same level as waterboarding. I don't see any problem with using figurative language and expressive metaphors to help convey a particular emotion felt about something that is common to the lives of those participating in the conversation.

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