"Startup nerd" (LOL) here. I linked to the article because I thought it was an insightful illustration of the life of the "motel homeless". No more, no less, no disagreement (with what, exactly?) intended or implied.

We're on Y Combinator's news aggregator and anything said in this environment is being read, voted on, and replied to by a bunch of startup nerds. That's largely what we are. It's not an insult, and it applies to me too. Along with the positive things about this cohort, this means that the easiest things to say around here are a combination of CS/engineering social cluelessness and startup founder "hey, look at this useless but trendy/interesting thing."

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Parent is posting about how there's something missing in the article -- a sense of normalcy in a motel room that comes from being able to do regular things for a moment.

The passage you quoted takes a contradictory tack, indicating that motels have a sad side as well for many homeless folks. You describe the sentiment as "quiet desperation," without really taking the time to say anything about the parent comment.

Neither is right, neither is wrong, both are simply vantage points on an experience.

However....

It's bizarre, to me at least, that one person shares thoughts from a deeply difficult personal experience and the response simply quotes a block of text from a magazine (...owned by Steve Jobs' billionaire widow, no less. Welcome to HN, where even the commentary about homelessness comes from the mouthpiece for a tech billionaire in Palo Alto.)

It's like there's a human element missing, a nonfunctioning ligand that would make it a bit easier to connect.

It's pretty obvious from the parent comment that you're talking to someone who has seen some rough times, but you literally just quoted a passage from an article that's contradictory to the parent's message without cribbing it in any sort of meaningful way.

I mean, this isn't even my thread. I've never been homeless and I like reading magazines too. But I see why the parent commenter reacted defensively, and I am trying to tell you what I see.

> without really taking the time to say anything about the parent comment.

I see this a lot on HN, including the whole "but my intentions" dance. "Contributing to the discussion[sic]" by talking past a comment, and then going "just saying" when asked what that's supposed to mean in the context it's posted in, or being offended when it's being interpreted as cold or dismissive. And people who put some of their own thoughts, or even life experiences, into a comment, deserve more than something that makes anyone trying to find a connection to what it's posted as reply to go "yes, and?". Why is it a reply and not a top-level comment? No good reason, but even pointing out it doesn't make sense as reply got downvoted.

It's perfectly cool to be cold towards the powerless, especially the absent powerless. But don't call anyone a "startup nerd", that gets you flagged dead. Stay classy, everybody. And keep the proof where it will keep eluding you -- right in the pudding.