[bmer]

I disagree: I don't think there's a pure natural impulse to want to help others. It's usually coated with a bunch of other stuff, inadvertently (e.g. when dealing with attractive members of the opposite sex: wanting to prove our value; or when dealing with requests for help within an organization beyond what our job descriptions require: we hope that people will recognize that as we stand we are "undervalued").

I don't think the suggested "requirement" (?) to avoid microagression is to answer both X and Y. I think the suggestion to avoid microagression is to avoid using the term microagression in the first place.

Another one would be to recognize that you are fully within your rights to not offer help where it's not your job to offer help. No one cares if you choose not to answer support requests for your open source project, nor will the world suffer for it.

On the flip side, you can't expect those you do help to care enough to show you respect for your help either. If being respected and/or people making special allowances for your tone is something you do care about, well, then don't help to begin with. Contrary to our self-centered worries, the world will go on fine without us. It might even go on better without us; who is to say, after all? Most certainly not us.

Here's a piece of advice I keep hearing from people who are more powerful than me (Usually, these were also people older than me, but that is becoming less true as I grow older myself.): you're owed absolutely nothing. No one is.

Most human beings on this planet live in full awareness of that fact. So its only a matter of time until those who don't, end up learning that too.

[cjbgkagh]

You're strawmanning, I never stated that the impulse was pure - i.e. solely to help. I would suggest that if helping is discouraged that the proportion of those doing it to self aggrandize will increase as for those people the signaling effect increases with the added risk. Then you're left with an environment the vast majority of those who remain are doing it for self aggrandizing reasons which is probably why young people start with that as a prior assumption.

Lol, meta-microaggressions that'll fix microaggressions.

I'm aware I'm within my rights to keep quiet and have stated as much. HN is the last place I continue to post and eventually I will stop posting here as well. I do this for my own sake, I live in a cloistered environment protected by wealth, and others who are similarly wealthy, where it continues to remain the 1990s. I engage with people outside of my environment to help myself better understand the cultural phenomenons I see occurring around the world, make a few statements for posterity, and perhaps let some people know it wasn't always like this.

"So its only a matter of time until those who don't, end up learning that too." - yes you will win, but what are you winning really. If future generations cannot learn enough quickly enough in order to produce sufficient value to support their lifestyles then why would they remain entitled to a future brighter than those from 3rd world countries who are quickly catching up with the knowledge work. How do they expect expected to stay ahead of AI. The 1st world middle class is going to be sacrificed on the altar of financialization - I see young people clinging to hope that the specter of communism will come and save them. They can't all be commissars and baristas - someone has to man the work labor camps.

[bmer]

Wanting to help others isn't being discouraged. You helping others is being discouraged (apparently? that's your claim, because you believe the market has expectations that you believe should not apply to you?).

Anyway, are two different things.

> "Lol, meta-microaggressions that'll fix microaggressions."

I have no clue what this means. Do you?

> "yes, you will win..."

What? This isn't "me", winning. This is the age-old reality of "you are owed absolutely nothing", and that "if you are owed something, you will know because people will be paying you for it". This is capitalism at its core.

When it comes specifically to helping others:

1) you are either paid for it by an employer, in which case you ought to do it based on the employer's requirements, and all extraneous complaints are null and void unless

2) you create your own business off of your expertise, where you get to choose what precisely you offer people, and people get to choose whether they value your expertise; or

3) you do it for free, because you get something out of the experience which is entirely unrelated to how others treat you. If you're doing it for free to establish yourself through "loss-leader" tactics, but you cannot turn your losses into said leadership, then you can't complain. The world considers you to be an overvalued commodity. End of story.

Welcome to reality! You can rage if you'd like. The world will not care. There's business to do, money to be made, and entertainment to be had in the form of people who think they are worth more than what the market prices them. Either they are right and they eventually get movies made out of their life stories ("rags to riches!"), or they are wrong and they serve as living comedy (which can also be converted into money).

This is hardcore Reaganomics I am suggesting, not "youth-communism" (lol, wtf? where does that even come from...). Either you are rich enough to earn respect, or you are sensible enough to know you're not worth any. Which one is it?

If you believe you can be rich enough to be shown respect, then why are you wasting your time commenting on HN, instead of turning the apparent coming-doom into a business opportunity? The wealth you earn this way can then be convert into concrete respect if you so choose?