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Comment by bobmaxup | Hacker News Reader

Cool story, but why end it gloating over someone else's misery?

It's the feeling of vindication that perhaps there is some justice in the world.

Indeed, if you hurl printers at people, there is something so wrong with you mentally, the only fair response is compassion and pity in my view.

Really? You think the rational and common reaction is to express compassion and pity for the person throwing the printer?

I wouldn’t throw printers at people. For one thing, they might throw it back. For two, I don’t violently attack people…

The rational and common reaction is to duck.

depends on the angle the object is coming at you. with a heavy object that's being hurled at your feet the chance that it flies high enough to pass over your head and back if you duck is low.

Don’t you understand how terrible things must be for you in your head to get to a point where you can’t resist throwing printers at people?

Normal people don't throw printers at other people, because they're aware it's against social convention and liable to get them fired (or worse).

And because it might hurt somebody. Actually, that's the main reason people don't do it.

There are plenty of assholes who do shitty things because they're just entitled. There's no need to pathologize shitty people.

That's such a convenient and easy answer.

Shitty behavior is just evidence of shitty behavior. "Throwing things at coworkers" isn't a symptom of any mental illness, and without evidence of actual mental illness, pathologizing such behavior is conjecture at best.

That's such a convenient and easy answer.

That’s not gloating.

> He went from partner at a well funded firm to east LA metal salvage work. It was such an amazing feeling.

I read it as such. Any specific reason that you disagree?

It probably fits an exact definition of gloating “X experienced Y, and I felt amazed.” But it’s a pretty minimal statement. Gloating, real gloating, requires a bit more verbiage. OP just related what would have otherwise gone known by the reader but unsaid. No one should be held to pure stoicism - especially not when a printer is thrown at them.

OP even later expresses compassion for the person. That’s far from gloating. And before someone intones that that is itself gloating - again, you still need more.

It's hard not to gloat over the misery of someone who, guaranteed, caused at least as much misery to multiple other people.

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