> "Though if this is your first real crazy caller I could understand where the fascination came from. ... It took me a while to get that this was not someone I could save by argument."
Here's a bit of Hacker News "empathy" that I find fascinating. Likely in the same sense that you find the mentally ill fascinating.
The comment reads like some kind of bizzaro water-cooler advice on how to deal with that neighborhood "crazy caller" problem. Like when someone commiserates with Jane from accounting when she tells them she's worried because she can't keep the neighborhood kids out of the family pool.
On the surface, it's empathetic: "If this is your first... I can understand..." In fact, the comment does (correctly) assert that professionals are better inclined to help the mentally ill than the lay-person. But underneath, the comment reeks of an unseemly attitude that suggests the mentally ill are a burden to be cast aside at all costs (with the requisite sigh).
Perhaps it's a bit unfair of me to parse out those bits of your comment and infer so much. But, seriously?
Have we really reached the point where we are calculating the likelihood of "sav[ing] someone by argument" vs. the risk of civil liability?
Are these people merely objects of amusement and fascination?
I wish I were a better writer, so I could flesh out exactly why your comment bothers me. I think it has something to do with the clinically detached tone and the casual implication that the mentally ill are at best a passing amusement; and, at worst, a liability to be avoided.
Maybe I just need to take a break. I must be misunderstanding your comment.