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Comment by jeremyt | Hacker News Reader

I don't need to have empathy, I have memory. I've been easily as poor as she was.

I lived a year and a half in Washington DC on $1000 per month. My living budget for working on the startup in SF was barely more than that.

I don't really care to be lectured about stress either. Living in SF and trying to do a startup was the most stressful part of my life, and at one point my doctor told me if I didn't get out I was going to die at 30. I was the sole technical founder of a startup, and I happened to have severe tendinitis in my forearms, which I had to work through. I didn't have enough money to actually get treatment or go to physical therapy, either.

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You were poor, like Talia.

But were you ever Talia?

Your experiences were not hers. Similar, maybe. But not the same. Drawing on your experiences without empathy means you are making decisions from the wrong data set.

And that is why memory without empathy serves no one but yourself.

My experiences were not hers, they were worse than hers.

She had a solid full-time job making more than I did, appears to be healthy, and signed a lease for an apartment on her own. By any measure that I see, her life was both more luxurious and less stressful than mine at the time.

If you can point out one aspect of her life that wasn't self-imposed and that ended up being more of a hardship than when I went through, I'm all ears. But so far it seems like all you're saying is that I can't criticize because I'm not actually her, which seems silly.

I judge neither you nor her.

I make observations. I then compare those observations to previous observations to better understand people. This helps me understand others better, just as it helps me understand myself.

We all have moments where we look back and realize we made bad decisions. It takes no effort to think "I should not have done that." Ditto for other people. Does that change anything? No. Does it inspire better decisions in the future? Maybe, if one is willing to learn. But simply judging what someone should or shouldn't do instead of listening and learning solves nothing.

We are all human beings. We all have hopes and fears and strengths and flaws. Just remember that the next time someone is not very nice to you.

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