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Comment by gooeyblob | Hacker News Reader

It is very weird to write all this about a nice series of photographs

This is less about the series of photograph and more of a response to a bunch of other disjoint top-level responses in this thread.

to me this makes it all the more odd - at a glace the top level responses are about how the piece made them emotional/sad or are reminisces about their own parents.

What's wrong with that? Because these folks experienced the "best outcome" (presumably to see their parents live to old age) they shouldn't get emotional about it?

"Emotional" is the kind of half-truth word. There are many different emotions. The emotion in question is what's responsible for the response. Saying "emotional" is omitting the important part. It's like saying "involved in road accident" w/o saying whether one caused the said accident or was the victim of.

The top-level response in question is disgusting. It's like listening to someone who won a million dollars in a lottery complain that they didn't win ten millions. Should I really feel compassionate towards a "victim" of such a bad luck of only winning a single million? Even if the "victim" genuinely feels bad about themselves?

No one is asking for your compassion or complaining, they're largely just expressing how the piece made them feel - and again, reminiscing about their own parents.

you're characterizing them as ungrateful, which isn't really coming across for me at all.

> No one is asking for your compassion or complaining,

That's a straight-up lie. Read the comments here. People declaring themselves miserable are asking for compassion.

Silly comparison, but you should feel compassion when someone is hurting, yes. It doesn't matter if you think it's justified pain. It's still pain.

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