[fishyjoe]

You admit not having experience with a certain field and then laugh at the terminology they commonly use?

Your comment is unhelpful and barely related to the article. Then you get mad at a group for presumably downvoting your irrelevant comment?

Also, I don't feel like "empathizing with animals" is a huge insight that you've cracked. Most people do it.

[rcarr]

Yes, genuine people who aren't playing social games laugh spontaneously, they don't contact the moral police to determine whether they can laugh or not. Other people who are more prone to going with the herd will wait to see what other people are doing and then determine whether they should laugh or not. You actually can see this in real time watching stand up comedians - for certain jokes the majority of the crowd will laugh in a different manner to normal to feedback to the comedian that the joke is funny but dancing on the line of acceptability. A good comedian uses that information and either addresses it immediately or changes their set accordingly.

So yes, I found the use of the word "patient" funny because the context shift is funny to me. Like seriously what is your attitude to life, that you're only allowed to laugh about things specific to your own profession? That at all other times you must be deferential with head bowed and no sense of humour? The whole point of comedy is the coming together of unexpected and differing viewpoints on topics, which is an inevitable part of being human, because we all have own own unique backstories which have gone on to shape our views of the world.

> Your comment is unhelpful and barely related to the article.

I would love to know what you deem qualifies you to be the arbitrer of what is and isn't helpful. My comment may be unhelpful to you but your experience is not everyone's experience, I would wager that for anyone not familiar with this terminology or what vet's face on a day to day basis, then it is likely helpful and relevant.

> Also, I don't feel like "empathizing with animals" is a huge insight that you've cracked. Most people do it.

I am no longer, but I spent a year as vegan, primarily for reasons of animal empathy, years prior to finding out about this patient terminology. And it still altered my perception. There is more than one way to gain insight and there are different levels of insight. Things look different from different angles. This was a new angle for me.

> Then you get mad at a group for presumably downvoting your irrelevant comment?

You're downvoting someone for sharing their personal growth experience. After a certain amount of downvotes a post gets flagged and can no longer be seen. So you're essentially trying to silence me, not because I've said anything hateful, but purely because what I've said doesn't align with your own views. And I consider that to be pretty fascist behaviour and I will call it out when I see it because it doesn't lead to good outcomes.

[philipkglass]

After a certain amount of downvotes a post gets flagged and can no longer be seen.

A post must be flagged separately from downvoting to become dead. It might look like heavily downvoted posts get killed automatically, but those are just correlated events. A post that attracts a lot of downvoting is also more likely to attract flagging. A post that is already in the most-downvoted-possible state (-5, I think) can get more downvotes but those just won't do anything at that point.

I have not flagged or downvoted your posts. I just want to clarify this point of HN comment logic.

[fishyjoe]

I did not downvote you.

It's barely related to the article because it is about suicide and you come in to tell an anecdote about how funny you find it that they use a certain word. Just completely tone-deaf. It's the word they use, nothing funny about it, and an article about suicide among vets is not the place for it.

People having different viewpoints does not make you immune to criticism. You could just not talk, you're not the center of the universe.