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Comment by jvanderbot | Hacker News Reader

GP is not responsible for the life decisions of other people.

I read this as "I also saw a microcosm of this larger toxicity, and I'm glad I got out of it".

That reading doesn't make much sense though, because it was toxicity in a group working in a very different context: hep-th and hep-ex are such different fields by now they had to formally create positions for people bridging the two subjects.

He could just as well used the story about the PhD student in computer science studying in Florida that committed suicide because their supervisor was trying to force them to publish incorrect results. (And then added how smug they felt about that group not getting awards).

I don't understand your points. Obviously the person was stating their anecdotal experience and how it made them feel. We engage in similar reasoning. We make decisions and draw conclusions based on our experience. It's a not a mathematical proof where the person is proving that the entire field is toxic. They are glad they got out of there.

The anecdote doesn’t reveal a great deal about toxicity though does it?

The list of things the anecdote doesn't reveal must surely be infinite. Do we need to list them?

I thought it was very interesting.

The anecdote claims to offer something about toxicity, it seems reasonable to consider whether it achieves this.

Maybe I missed something but I don’t see where they claim to offer anything, so I don’t see why they should try adhering to this (completely unreasonable) standard.

Besides, the anecdote actually offers something: a perspective from someone who escaped the grinder just in time. I don’t have a cohort study at hand, but I know both first- and second-hand that the situation described is not the norm, but all too common. In such cases, the correct response is what was described: jump ship whilst you can. You don’t need a double blind study to demonstrate this when simple logic is enough.

Perhaps we are using claim in different ways.

In the anecdote the author claims that the former group was toxic and that this was one of the reasons that influenced choosing a different group.

There are two claims about toxic behaviour. They are not the only claims, topics, or other interesting things one could draw from it.

If I am a not responsible for other people’s life choices it is OK to revel in their misfortune. No one is responsible for other people’s actions. Therefore it is always OK to revel in other people’s misfortune?

Or is the mechanism different?

Can't someone feel good that they dodged a bullet that another person was not willing to dodge?

That's whats going on here. OP isn't going to a buffet and mocking starving kids - both folks were intelligent people, one of whom is justifying their life trajectory, and the other is taking a different tack.

I bet you'd be able to conjure up instances where you go "whew I'm glad I didn't do what that person did". We all can. That's not reveling in their misfortune, it's learning.

I would argue that the difference in phrasing is what makes OP come across badly. "I'm glad I didn't do what that person did" just evokes satisfaction with your decision, perhaps relief that you made the choice you did. Saying you felt "so smug I didn't do what that person did", definitely comes off worse IMO. Now you are not just happy with your choice, there's this sense of self satisfaction/superiority that's a bit unsavoury.

That is true, but a generous interpretation of the post leaves plenty of room for a benign intent.

My pleasure in avoiding being shot isn’t enhanced if someone else is.

If someone dies in a car accident I can be glad it wasn’t me, but I haven’t learned anything.

If I do learn something from someone else’s misfortune, I could be pleased, relieved, possibly proud but I’m less sure about being smug.

I still don’t quite grasp the point about not being responsible for other people’s actions. If it’s never true then I’m not sure it’s all that useful.

It seems more like this is about our perception of other people’s responsibility?

This is quite pedantic at this point - A generous reading of my posts and OPs shouldn't trigger this kind of vitriol. I apologize if my statement came off as dismissive of others' misfortune. I maintain the spirit of my statement: There is nothing malign about being glad at avoiding misfortune that others could also avoid (not random things like shootings - jeez this is nuts to compare "choice of lab" to "random acts of violence").

This is an interesting way to raise good faith interpretation of discussion.

> A generous reading of my posts and OPs shouldn't trigger this kind of vitriol.

It should not, and you should not have to defend yourself against this kind of behaviour. I would not have phrased it like that, but I agree with your message.

Could you help me understand which posts enjoy generous reading and which are not so lucky please? Can I always assume the generosity to ignore what’s written? There’s a post in this very thread that dismisses the parent comment as stupid of all things. I wasn’t sure how much generosity it warranted. Thanks.

> Can't someone feel good that they dodged a bullet that another person was not willing to dodge?

Sure. But that doesn't mean you can't show some basic human sympathy to the people who didn't "dodge the bullet".

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