For those like me that are wondering what is going on, apparently some Silicon Valley executive died recently.
Death may not be your typical HN fare, but it is a subject that touches all of us eventually, so far with no exception. I am glad that she was willing to write this and share it. My life is richer for having read it.
It's also good practice to critically examine any written piece, regardless of whom it may come from. While you may derive aesthetic and ostensibly emotional value from it, not everybody may necessarily feel that way.
In fact, my life wasn't changed or impacted in any profound sense after reading this. You should keep in mind that not everyone may think the same way as you, or even share the same reality.
That's an interesting assertion, and itself worth examining critically. Is it generally good practice to critically examine any written piece? Possibly. Probably even. Is it always good practice? Perhaps even that is true. Is it always good practice to state the outcome of your critical examination in public? At this point, if your answer is still yes, we diverge. There's a time for stating your critical analysis, and a time for keeping it to yourself.
Death is one of those topics where critical analysis is generally unwelcome. To use a slightly extreme but actually fairly relevant analogy, if someone very close to you died and you were mourning them at their funeral a few days later, and someone there presents you with some kind of critical theory of the chemical nature of grief, while it might appear to be some critical analysis of the present moment it would nevertheless be most unwelcome.
Which brings me to your second point:
> In fact, my life wasn't changed or impacted in any profound sense after reading this. You should keep in mind that not everyone may think the same way as you, or even share the same reality.
There's nothing wrong with that, but I think you can tell fairly easily from the comments that other people were moved by this post. In some, it has brought up feelings of grief that they wished to share too. In effect, the original post by Sheryl Sandberg has made this thread a place of grief for many of the commenters here.
They will have come to it from many places, both real and imagined. For me it is imagining how I would feel if my wife died, or how she might feel if I died. For others it is remembering the death of a loved one. Either way, what they express is real and deeply felt.
I think this "promotes" this thread to a place of grief, and as a human being who respects other humans' right to such places, it is reasonable to keep your critical evaluations to yourself in such a place. There are other places to express your critical views of this. Yes, you have a right to express them here if you wish, but you should also be aware of the implicit request to let this space be what it is.
I know this is the internet and so expecting people to respect other people's feelings is somewhat extraordinary here, but I guess I have a high opinion of humanity in general.
So, I know who, roughly, the affected parties are here. But if you look close, that's not actually contextually obvious. People who don't know who the affected parties are click "Back" and then look at the comments, because Sheryl Sandberg is very unlikely to tell Facebook exactly who she is, who her husband was, and how he died. So they will come to our HN comments with a, "not to diminish anybody's grief, but who is this and why do I care, again?" approach. A simple comment of "her husband was a Silicon Valley executive" is great there. I mean, maybe I'd have added "and she is the COO of Facebook" too, since I've personally never heard of the companies he was a part of, but I remember hearing about his death a while back.
It's just supremely ironic. Here you are, inappropriately critically analyzing the appropriateness of critical analysis and disrespecting the real expressions of others' feelings while decrying how the Internet disrespects the real expressions of others' feelings.
I'm totally with you that there is a deep sympathetic response here where you and I both imagine living without that love that we're presently consumed by, or forcing someone else to live without that love. Yes, our feelings are real. Their feelings are also real. It's not the time to perceive slights in terse comments and expand short sentences into philosophical analyses. The phrase "which brings me to your second point" should be barred from this context. It's not just us and our sympathetic grief; they and their confusion are also very valid responses to a totally-ambiguous out-of-nowhere post.
In order to come across as less pejorative, maybe I would have changed "some Silicon Valley executive" to "a Silicon Valley executive". But the rest is fine on the face of it.
Coming from the UK, this made no sense whatsoever to me.
It's all about FIFA bribes and rollercoaster accidents.
With that said, I don't do Football and was part of the Runaway Mine Train crash.
I've been on it once since that day to try and get over it, I spent the entire time shaking and holding on to my partner very tightly, heh.
Thanks :)
However, it wouldn't take much reading to realise that a) this wasn't just some dude who died and b) this isn't just some wifey who is talking about her grief.
Way to devalue 99.999% of the population.
My wife was a palliative care nurse. She taught me that everyone is remarkable but when it comes to dying, for one person to be valued higher than another based on social standing, celebrity status or perceived societal worth.
This is merely voyeurism.
You might want to consider their feelings.
A quick google search reveals a bbc.co.uk news story about the death.
The fact that he was Sheryl Sandberg's husband (and the very fact the he was proud to be described as such) is what put him on the front of the BBC.
Hacker News is first-and-foremost a forum of that tech startup community. I'm not one, but many people who frequent here will have known and looked up to if not one then both of the people mentioned here.
It might have been nice to have considered them before reacting like this to the death of their friend.