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Comment by Kim_Bruning | Hacker News Reader

You're denying a person's lived experience and telling them to stop doing what they love. That's not very nice.

And I know what they're talking about. I'll put it a bit more politely: You can't help people who aren't willing to help themselves.

It's a thing. When you start helping out people in forums or on irc or what have you, sooner or later you'll encounter people who either can't be helped or just require far too much energy. No matter how much you'd like to help everyone, you just can't. It happens.

I believe parent poster has already calmed down, but I can understand their feelings. It's frustrating sometimes!

The many people you are able to help make up for it though.

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like I said it's better to not help people at all than to evolve the attitude that some people don't want to help themselves. people typically want to help themselves but don't know how, and might have self-defeating habits - that's not a moral failing though, that's just how people are, and what educators must overcome.

When a helper fails to advocate for these people, it's wrong to conclude that they didn't want the help - a moral judgement. The help being offerred might not have been good enough, or the person might not have been ready for help.

In the end, whenever we do get to help someone we should be happy (since that improves the work. But when we fail someone - or we think someone has failed themselves - we should not be bitter, but become better at finding those who we can help, and improving what we offer to those we help.

I don't think you would doubt any of what I said. Instead, I think you're here to defend a morally negative view of students and others who "do not want to work" for the help. And I think that's wrong.

In roughly 90-99% of all cases, we are in agreement. And if you only encounter a few difficult <students> a year, it can definitely be worth the effort.

On the other hand, if you're in a situation where you're encountering random people on the internet at a rate of say 10-100 (or more) per day (possibly never to return); then the way you deal with it is you look for signs that the person has been trying. If they have: you go out of your way to help them, you absolutely do. But if they haven't, sometimes all you can do is hope that one day they'll run across someone like you in real life, who can teach them kindness and respect and humility.

I'm curious now, in what kind of environment have you worked? Are you a teacher?

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