Ask HN: Why doesn't HN celebrate people's achievements before they die?

9 points·amichail··6 comments

For example, this could be done when people retire or are terminally ill.

I'm sure the people in question would like to see public forums remember and celebrate their work while they are still alive.

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HN stories are user-submitted. If you want to celebrate the somebody’s accomplishments, post things they worked on, or post your writings about things they worked on.

I agree. For mathematicians it's getting usual that if you are famous enough, at your 60th birthday you organize a congress where you invite your famous enough colleagues (bonus points if they are from other universities or countries, I guess you have a few if you are famous enough).

I'm not sure if other professions have a similar event praising you before you are dead.

Fake Edit: Sport players have some ceremony when they retire.

I think the hard part is knowing when someone will die. There are plenty of 80 year olds in heart surgery who make it through and live to almost 100. There's people like Monty Oum who die young to an allergic reaction.

Literally, there is "show" page on HN where a lot of people congratulates people for their achievements.

We don't do it for them. We do it to to bring closure for ourselves. Outside of death, it's usually "What have you done for me lately?"

Some do it to have closure themselves too, e.g. Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture, which he said he wrote despite his family's wishes to just spend more time with him.

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