13 ms·

The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker

272 points by spking 6y ago

cjohnson318 6y ago
Is there an official term for people that appear to be charming and outgoing to strangers, but often moody and/or distant to people they know well?
- tsjq 6y ago
  This sub thread here goes into some detail. I'm also very curious about the same. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25793526 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25793526
  - cjohnson318 6y ago
    Thank you, I'll check it out.
gavreh 6y ago
repost? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25756931 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25756931
- gavreh 6y ago
  also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25786699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25786699
blakesterz 6y ago
Somehow I read this and I'm not sure what the actual Unsettling Truth was, but it still was interesting, I learned a few new things, and I've been following this one pretty close. The more I read about this the more I'm reminded of Chris McCandless. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_McCandless https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_McCandless
- fiftyfifty 6y ago
  Exactly my thoughts, reminded me very much of Into the Wild.
- bena 6y ago
  The unsettling truth was that he was apparently an abusive malcontent who decided to run away from the problems he created once again.
  - trianglem 6y ago
    Based on what? Some ex’s word?
    - bena 6y ago
      One person could be an aberration. But when multiple people all say similar things, it's a pattern. It's not just "some ex's" word. It's her word and the words of the other people who knew him.
    - LatteLazy 6y ago
      But he told obscure jokes! But yeah, I think the title is clickbait, nothing here actually seems unsettling.
      - elliekelly 6y ago
        > On a Saturday night in September 2016, K was injured when a terrorist set off a bomb on West 23rd Street in Manhattan. “I had pretty bad PTSD to which he hated caring for me, even kept a dated log of every time I needed help, to the point where he left me outside in the dark—knowing that at that time I couldn't be outside alone or be in the dark without panicking,” she recalls, before adding, “and this is only the light stuff.” You don’t find this behavior unsettling? How about this anecdote being characterized as “this only the light stuff”?
        DeafSquid 6y ago
lisper 6y ago
TL;DR: This is about a hiker who went by the name Mostly Harmless who was found dead in his tent. No one knows how he died. That's it. But for the unusual name, it seems safe to say that this would not be on the front page of HN.
- edmundsauto 6y ago
  For fans of the hitch hikers guide series, the name isn’t unusual. It’s the name of one of the books.
  - Dig1t 6y ago
    (and the entire entry for the planet Earth inside the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book) ;)
  - c22 6y ago
    It's an unusual name for a person.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - NikolaeVarius 6y ago
      Many communities have nicknames that are unusual
    - guerrilla 6y ago
      Much like c22. It was just a trail name.
- 542458 6y ago
  I think the way they ID’ed this John Doe (trawling forum posts, DNA testing and advertising) is pretty interesting and I upvoted on that basis. It’s also a partial answer to a mystery that was pretty widely shared around the internet, so is interesting on that basis as well.
- 6y ago
jasonv 6y ago
Does anyone remember a Wired (?) story from the earliest days about a teenager who got mixed up in a geek subculture and disappeared into sewers under the city? A quick search on their site didn't really yield what I think I remember.
- lqet 6y ago
  > disappeared into sewers under the city This might interest you: I watched the quite disturbing documentary "Dark Days" a few years ago about homeless people living in subway and sewage tunnels under New York. They had built small apartments down there and even had electricity. Here are the first 10 minutes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh4s78Db5OQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh4s78Db5OQ
  - tessierashpool 6y ago
    there's an excellent book about this called Mole People by Jennifer Toth.
    - me_me_me 6y ago
      Suddenly Futurama is a little bit less funny for me.
- gonzus 6y ago
  This rings a bell. I remember reading a book that sounds like this, some 35 years ago... It was my gateway to discover The Hobbit, since one sentence in this book (which wasn't that good) mentioned these geeks getting together to play "Tolkian" (maybe "Tolkienian") games. It may have been this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dungeon_Master https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dungeon_Master
- bart_spoon 6y ago
  Perhaps its about the DnD kid? I vaguely remember hearing about that, in the early days of DnD there was a college kid in Michigan who disappeared, and it was thought he had been in the steam tunnels under the campus as part of a DnD campaign or something. I don't remember all of the details, or if it ended up being true, but I think it kind of became a trope surrounding DnD for a while, and there was a Tom Hanks movie about it.
bpodgursky 6y ago
It's only unsettling if you don't believe in redemption.
tppiotrowski 6y ago
The article talks about his ability to be friendly to strangers but abusive to his long term acquaintances. I have observed this pattern and curious if anyone knows what drives this? My personal theory is that you have some sort of obligations to long term acquaintances but you owe nothing to strangers on the trail. It's this feeling of obligation that leads you to resent people over time.
- alfl 6y ago
  Could be politeness as a response to social uncertainty followed by aggression once things are more clear. Like how some people fight with loved ones because they can’t just walk.
- bagacrap 6y ago
  It's a trademark of sociopathy to be superficially charming.
- lolbrels 6y ago
  I think introverts have a tendency to shut down when relationships get too involved and outside of their comfort zone. Shallow acquaintances are usually just to make an impression and there are no pre-conceived notions so it's easier to be more comfortable having a quick interaction with someone you'll never see again. Maybe because it feels fresh and there isn't any baggage. I didn't particularly like the ex-girlfriends responses regarding him because I think speaking ill of the dead is lame when they aren't there to give their side of the story. Also, it sounded like she has issues of her own - which for someone who is already suffering with mental illness, trying to care for another person who also has mental illness is just a fool's errand. But often time these sort of relationships happen where there is so much negativity but due to illness both parties continue with it despite that.
- at-fates-hands 6y ago
  Agreed. Its the idea that the more you learn about people and have to be around them, you start to judge them and then realize they aren't like you, so you push them away and crater relationships on purpose so you can be alone and unencumbered by other people's problems. It sounds to me like he did just that. Easier to have short-term relationships and human contact when you need it, but not long enough where you start to get bitter about having to continue being around people you don't like. He created a world that seemed to fit his personality better than what he had been doing most of his life. It must have been beneficial in some way if he continued doing it for so long.
dkarl 6y ago
Maybe Rodriguez’s story is similar to Cody’s. He was alone in a vast, unfamiliar city. He’d destroyed his relationships. He left his apartment in anger. And then, as he traversed the mountains, walking through sugar maple and oak, hickory and poplar, stepping over roots and rocks, he tamed his demons too. The many people who met him didn’t sense the dark, brooding, sometimes dangerous person who left Brooklyn. People who decide to commit suicide sometimes appear to others to be feeling a lot better in the time between the decision and the final act. It can look externally like an upswing, like they've gained a new perspective and things aren't weighing on them as heavily. It sounds like he was conscious that his behavior was bad for other people, and he didn't believe he could change. That's a terrible position to be in: to feel you can't fully function in the presence of others but to feel their absence keenly as well, to be incapable of being with others without hurting them, but also incapable of being alone. I can't imagine how bad it would have to be to starve yourself to death, but I can't help wondering if that's what he did.
- ska 6y ago
  > People who decide to commit suicide sometimes appear to others to be feeling a lot better in the time between the decision and the final act. I suspect this is just an instance of the pretty common response to having made a decision that was weighing on you. If it's a big one (divorce, career change, etc.) I'm sure most of us have experienced this at least 2nd hand.
  - cmehdy 6y ago
    Anecdotally, I can confirm that it's similar in essence and just overwhelmingly stronger in effect. It's a bit like having finally decided every single one of the big decisions of life in the same split second (because that's what it is in the moment). It's also stronger than that because the very likely "normal state" of your brain up to that point is severe depression, so you're not anywhere near what people might consider an average state of mind, and you're getting that strong of a kick. You can ride that euphoria for quite a while even through some of the nagging doubts clawing their way back between the initial feeling and the last action. I doubt much research can be done for what I'm about to say (and I might be very wrong), but I have the feeling that when you're alone (mentally) you can ride that wave for a decent amount of time yet with just a very brief REAL interaction with another human being you can snap out of it. It might not fully dissipate but still break the trance-like state. Not a lot of interactions might feel real like that, but when they do they can be life-changing (for obvious reasons) even when the subject matter is frivolous. You'll likely never know just how many you changed, nor why. We often notice how "easy"/quick it is to hurt somebody by saying something even light-hearted, but when it comes to that extreme you'd be surprised how very few words about mundane things can prevent a collapse (at least that time).
ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
Sounds like he was HFA (High-Functioning Autistic), with some extra Trauma Sauce. It can be quite difficult for folks like this (Disclaimer: IR1) to find happiness. Crowds, high-stimulus environments, external expectations can be quite chafing. It can also be tempting to latch onto external things and people, to try to heal something that can't really be healed; but only mitigated (long story, but I went through that kind of thing, myself). I can understand anger, when they don't "fix" us. I can also relate to the "sleep it off" thing. It would be sort of like Miranda, in Serenity. It's a really sad story. There are quite a few people like that.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- kayodelycaon 6y ago
  > Sounds like he was HFA (High-Functioning Autistic), with some extra Trauma Sauce. Or he could have bipolar, schizophrenia, anxiety, C-PTSD or a number of other things. All of those would explain what I’m seeing. Personally, I’m bipolar and I share an a lot of traits with autism. You can’t know what’s happening in a person’s head unless you take time to talk to them or they’ve left a detailed journal.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
    Absolutely. I can only speak to what I know, and this, I happen to know, all too well. I just found that I could relate to pretty much everything he was about (check out my code for some truly anal coding), with the exception of the abuse, but I could also easily see myself getting into that, if I had the trauma background (although I don't have that, exactly, I am quite familiar with what trauma can do to even neurotypicals).
- lwigo 6y ago
  How is it like Miranda (just trying to figure out your metaphor)? One possible response to extreme over stimulation or aggression is to completely shutdown?
thefurman 6y ago
Was he abused by his father or something? Sounds like it should be investigated further. People usually don't just become like this without a good reason.
- code_duck 6y ago
  The history in the article strongly suggests he was abused by his father.
- stuckindider 6y ago
  Sounds like it none of your business. Speculating about the metal state of others and playing internet doctor is insulting.
  - oh_sigh 6y ago
    Dead people generally don't have the need for a doctor.
dickbar 6y ago
In this thread: It’s Friday. We do the usual and judge someone we know nothing about, whom we have never met, and begin by call them an asshole and a psychopath. This is the top story on Hacker News. Brought to you by Wired, Inc.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- deeeeplearning 6y ago
  bbbut 2 whole ex girlfriends said he was meeaaaan!! /s
ChuckMcM 6y ago
Okay, this quote stood out -- “He was a crazy good coder. Except he would always code everything the hardest way possible, kind of like you hired Rembrandt to paint your bathroom. You know it is going to be lit, but over the top.” A good read and a good reminder that people are always much more complex than we think. I wonder sometimes if by being exposed so often to fairly flat depictions of characters in movies and on TV if folks forget that. I know I do sometimes.
- johnnyb9 6y ago
  This quote stood out for me as well, for the reason that my own depiction of a "good coder" has evolved into someone who codes a solution in the simplest way possible using the best tools, not the "hardest" or most "lit" way.
  - CameronNemo 6y ago
    Yeah this screams "antisocial coder" to me. Coding with an audience of one.
  - suzzer99 6y ago
    I was planning to post exactly this. Reminds me of that famous anecdote about the guy who was using different branches in the same source control repo for different functions - who everyone said was a genius but no one could figure out how to touch his code.
    - tiborsaas 6y ago
      I have a similar story, a friend of mine had (and still has) a webdev shop and he said he has a slightly autistic programmer who is his best employee and he's a genius, nobody can understand his code. One day they called me because at 8PM they were still at the office trying to crack a problem. After a short discussion, I suggested to use a (.*) regex to solve it, without seeing the code, that was the best I could do. Another call 30 min later, I suggested the same but on a different level. At the third call I told them that if they need to keep doing that, something is deeply flawed and they should rewrite it. No more calls came :) I kinda see where this sentiment is coming from and it's really hard to convince people otherwise. People see movies like Rain Man and they see scientists with huge blackboards and they can't understand a thing so it must be a work of a genius.
Geminidog 6y ago
The more unsettling truth is how the world became interested in someone like him even though he was mostly an asshole. This article says more about human nature and our tendencies to make unwarranted assumptions based off of superficial qualities then it does about him. Would he garner the same amount of attention if he wasn't white or good looking?
- as1mov 6y ago
  This was my observation as well. I don't think this case would've gotten the same amount of attention if the person wasn't good looking. There are countless Doe's missing for whom an army of online strangers hasn't sprung up and made their mission to identify the person (and some unwarranted expectations based just on a bunch of photographs).
- mbrodersen 6y ago
  Agree. I have noticed that when bad things happen to good looking white people it gets 100x more attention than if it happens to ugly/non-white people.
34679 6y ago
The graphic designer in me wants to flog whoever is responsible for that graphic at the top. The drop shadows go 3 different directions and the one on the taped paper has way too much offset.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ogre_codes 6y ago
> It reminded everyone that it is still possible to disappear. It's possible to disappear if nobody is looking for you and you have enough cash. Even the latter is somewhat optional, it just means you are much less comfortable. Fundamentally in this world, many (most?) of us are redundant. A person missing here or there is only missed if their social web is wide enough.
deeeeplearning 6y ago
This stuff is disturbing. These articles read like hit pieces. The guy can't even defend himself and you have all these wild claims from supposed ex-girlfriends. It's just bizarre. Let the guy lie in peace.
- stuckindider 6y ago
  It's honestly disgusting how people have made it into a game of trying to figure out who he was. Cutting him open for bone fragments. He died alone in the woods. Was there any reason to think it was caused by malace? No. Then fuck off and let him be.
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    Sure, you have a high sanctity moral foundation. Many others do not. To me, a dead man with no family ties is just a sequence of tissue arranged in a certain way. I will deal with it as I deal with bark or fungus. There is no person left.
  - xsmasher 6y ago
    There may have been family waiting for word of him. No one knew at the time.
  - astura 6y ago
    It's not a "game." Identifying an unknown deceased person so the next of kin can be notified is part of a normal death investigation, even when there is no foul play. He seems to have made a positive impact on people who met him on the trail, which is why those people wanted to find out who he was. They wanted to give his friends and family closure.
ed25519FUUU 6y ago
> Nothing Else Matters” by Metallica on the piano. “I could be quiet around him,” she wrote, “and it never felt awkward.” Listen to a piano cover while you read the story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmL12NRE4hQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmL12NRE4hQ And if you liked this story, you will probably also like "The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans" https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans/ https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hu...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rootsudo 6y ago
How is it unsettling? Everything in that article is, average for Americans. People just applied romantic notions to something they didn't know, in attempt to understand. It got popular, people joined in, and the mystery was the thrill, the chase. I don't think it's any different from when you ask a person to describe their pet, they describe themselves. The fearful part is, how, everyone, decided that in good faith, they should work together, to unlock this past vs just leaving it to the government. This is a case where it seemed he didn't like his parents, and probably didn't want/care to let them know of his demise. His romantic life, same, probably didn't care to know either. But, Mystery solved? We did it Reddit! /s
anonAndOn 6y ago
AIUI, being shot in the gut is a long (it can take hours) and incredibly agonizing way to die. It appears he was not merciful on any substantive relationships, including with himself.
99_00 6y ago
I see this story as extremely positive. Technology can bring closure to unknown number of families. Many cold cases will be solved. This is just the start. >A genomics company, Othram, had taken his DNA and started to do cutting-edge genetic analysis to identify him. Collier County had sent them a bone fragment; they had extracted the hiker’s DNA and then begun searching for genetic similarities among people in a database called GEDmatch to build a tree of potential relatives. They learned that the hiker had Cajun roots; that his family had come from Assumption Parish, Louisiana; and that there were family members with the name Rodriguez. The founder of the company, David Mittelman, went on Facebook to talk about the case. I bought Facebook ads on my personal page to promote my story in the region of Louisiana where I thought his relatives likely lived.
johncessna 6y ago
From the article > It reminded everyone that it is still possible to disappear. Actually, it did the opposite > No, she said. “I don't think I was committed to Vance as a human. I detached myself as a person to Vance, in that I didn't want to get too attached to a dead stranger. But I was committed to solving the case with others because it would be a great way to prove that people can do great things together.” This sums up what I thought about the whole thing. The unsettling truth is that a man went off grid and strangers, looking for nothing more than a selfish desire to know, put him right back on it.
JeremyNT 6y ago
I would like to mention that Mostly Harmless's identity and history were first reported by Jason Nark of Adventure Journal way back in December (and discussed on HN [0] at that time). His piece [1] is now fully updated to include the original article as well as the updates. Nark isn't credited in this particular Wired article (although he was credited in Thomson's first article for Wired [2]). This is the despite the fact that Nark, as far as I can tell, wrote the first mainstream article about Mostly Harmless and also was the first reporter to determine his identity. I suppose Nicholas Thomson must have researched it independently for this new wired piece, explaining why it's being released so much later and with no mention of the reporter who "broke" the story. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25526104 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25526104 [1] https://www.adventure-journal.com/2020/12/the-mystery-of-deceased-hiker-mostly-harmless-is-at-long-last-solved/ https://www.adventure-journal.com/2020/12/the-mystery-of-dec... [2] https://www.wired.com/story/nameless-hiker-mostly-harmless-internet-mystery/ https://www.wired.com/story/nameless-hiker-mostly-harmless-i...
freetime2 6y ago
Whenever I read a biography about some person I admire, I always end up disliking that person. Failed relationships and abandoned responsibilities are exceedingly common (especially among artists and people who are highly driven to success). I think that most of us have some “unsettling” details in our past. People are imperfect. The allegations of physical and mental abuse here are particularly bad, and I’m not trying to make any excuses for Rodriguez. But they aren’t exactly uncommon in this world, either. The tone of this article feels a little too judgmental to me. Like Rodriguez somehow had an obligation to all the people who were interested in his story, and has let them down. But is it really surprising that someone who died in such unusual conditions, with no friends or family to report him as missing, would have had a rough past? The author also says at one point “maybe that’s the prettiest bow you can put on the box that contains this strange story”. But why should we as interested observers feel the need or be entitled to “put a bow” on this other man’s life?
- ianai 6y ago
  Well, the guy's dead. People should probably back off. An inability to change is almost a functional definition of death. If anything, those judging him could look in the mirror. Why the need to seek answers about someone? Why the need to judge whatever you find out? As someone who has only ever read a few comments on HN about this story - because I have no interest in this sort of thing - I'm judging society for how they handle this person. Harshly. Edit-Why not check your egos and ids for once and let it go?
pengaru 6y ago
If I had to live in a NYC apartment with an ex-girlfriend, I'd probably respond by disappearing into the woods, living away from civilization too.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
aaron695 6y ago
> The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker This is the "unsettling truth", the last paragraph, we all been so Twitter'ed everyone needs to look for more - > Yet it’s hard not to look at this story with anything but sadness. The boy who raised his hand to get help from a passing truck—and whose body still bore the scar of that Louisiana field—had grown into the man who didn’t seek help as he died in a Florida swamp. A man was able to disappear in no small part because no one was looking for him. A man was harmed and maybe harmful. And then he went into the woods and became Mostly Harmless.

272 points by spking 6y ago

Is there an official term for people that appear to be charming and outgoing to strangers, but often moody and/or distant to people they know well?

tsjq 6y ago
This sub thread here goes into some detail. I'm also very curious about the same. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25793526 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25793526
- cjohnson318 6y ago
  Thank you, I'll check it out.

gavreh 6y ago

repost? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25756931 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25756931

gavreh 6y ago
also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25786699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25786699

blakesterz 6y ago

Somehow I read this and I'm not sure what the actual Unsettling Truth was, but it still was interesting, I learned a few new things, and I've been following this one pretty close. The more I read about this the more I'm reminded of Chris McCandless. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_McCandless https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_McCandless

fiftyfifty 6y ago
Exactly my thoughts, reminded me very much of Into the Wild.
bena 6y ago
The unsettling truth was that he was apparently an abusive malcontent who decided to run away from the problems he created once again.
- trianglem 6y ago
  Based on what? Some ex’s word?
  - bena 6y ago
    One person could be an aberration. But when multiple people all say similar things, it's a pattern. It's not just "some ex's" word. It's her word and the words of the other people who knew him.
  - LatteLazy 6y ago
    But he told obscure jokes! But yeah, I think the title is clickbait, nothing here actually seems unsettling.
    - elliekelly 6y ago
      > On a Saturday night in September 2016, K was injured when a terrorist set off a bomb on West 23rd Street in Manhattan. “I had pretty bad PTSD to which he hated caring for me, even kept a dated log of every time I needed help, to the point where he left me outside in the dark—knowing that at that time I couldn't be outside alone or be in the dark without panicking,” she recalls, before adding, “and this is only the light stuff.” You don’t find this behavior unsettling? How about this anecdote being characterized as “this only the light stuff”?
      - DeafSquid 6y ago

lisper 6y ago

TL;DR: This is about a hiker who went by the name Mostly Harmless who was found dead in his tent. No one knows how he died. That's it. But for the unusual name, it seems safe to say that this would not be on the front page of HN.

edmundsauto 6y ago
For fans of the hitch hikers guide series, the name isn’t unusual. It’s the name of one of the books.
- Dig1t 6y ago
  (and the entire entry for the planet Earth inside the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book) ;)
- c22 6y ago
  It's an unusual name for a person.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - NikolaeVarius 6y ago
    Many communities have nicknames that are unusual
  - guerrilla 6y ago
    Much like c22. It was just a trail name.
542458 6y ago
I think the way they ID’ed this John Doe (trawling forum posts, DNA testing and advertising) is pretty interesting and I upvoted on that basis. It’s also a partial answer to a mystery that was pretty widely shared around the internet, so is interesting on that basis as well.
6y ago

jasonv 6y ago

Does anyone remember a Wired (?) story from the earliest days about a teenager who got mixed up in a geek subculture and disappeared into sewers under the city? A quick search on their site didn't really yield what I think I remember.

lqet 6y ago
> disappeared into sewers under the city This might interest you: I watched the quite disturbing documentary "Dark Days" a few years ago about homeless people living in subway and sewage tunnels under New York. They had built small apartments down there and even had electricity. Here are the first 10 minutes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh4s78Db5OQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh4s78Db5OQ
- tessierashpool 6y ago
  there's an excellent book about this called Mole People by Jennifer Toth.
  - me_me_me 6y ago
    Suddenly Futurama is a little bit less funny for me.
gonzus 6y ago
This rings a bell. I remember reading a book that sounds like this, some 35 years ago... It was my gateway to discover The Hobbit, since one sentence in this book (which wasn't that good) mentioned these geeks getting together to play "Tolkian" (maybe "Tolkienian") games. It may have been this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dungeon_Master https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dungeon_Master
bart_spoon 6y ago
Perhaps its about the DnD kid? I vaguely remember hearing about that, in the early days of DnD there was a college kid in Michigan who disappeared, and it was thought he had been in the steam tunnels under the campus as part of a DnD campaign or something. I don't remember all of the details, or if it ended up being true, but I think it kind of became a trope surrounding DnD for a while, and there was a Tom Hanks movie about it.

bpodgursky 6y ago

It's only unsettling if you don't believe in redemption.

tppiotrowski 6y ago

The article talks about his ability to be friendly to strangers but abusive to his long term acquaintances. I have observed this pattern and curious if anyone knows what drives this? My personal theory is that you have some sort of obligations to long term acquaintances but you owe nothing to strangers on the trail. It's this feeling of obligation that leads you to resent people over time.

alfl 6y ago
Could be politeness as a response to social uncertainty followed by aggression once things are more clear. Like how some people fight with loved ones because they can’t just walk.
bagacrap 6y ago
It's a trademark of sociopathy to be superficially charming.
lolbrels 6y ago
I think introverts have a tendency to shut down when relationships get too involved and outside of their comfort zone. Shallow acquaintances are usually just to make an impression and there are no pre-conceived notions so it's easier to be more comfortable having a quick interaction with someone you'll never see again. Maybe because it feels fresh and there isn't any baggage. I didn't particularly like the ex-girlfriends responses regarding him because I think speaking ill of the dead is lame when they aren't there to give their side of the story. Also, it sounded like she has issues of her own - which for someone who is already suffering with mental illness, trying to care for another person who also has mental illness is just a fool's errand. But often time these sort of relationships happen where there is so much negativity but due to illness both parties continue with it despite that.
at-fates-hands 6y ago
Agreed. Its the idea that the more you learn about people and have to be around them, you start to judge them and then realize they aren't like you, so you push them away and crater relationships on purpose so you can be alone and unencumbered by other people's problems. It sounds to me like he did just that. Easier to have short-term relationships and human contact when you need it, but not long enough where you start to get bitter about having to continue being around people you don't like. He created a world that seemed to fit his personality better than what he had been doing most of his life. It must have been beneficial in some way if he continued doing it for so long.

dkarl 6y ago

Maybe Rodriguez’s story is similar to Cody’s. He was alone in a vast, unfamiliar city. He’d destroyed his relationships. He left his apartment in anger. And then, as he traversed the mountains, walking through sugar maple and oak, hickory and poplar, stepping over roots and rocks, he tamed his demons too. The many people who met him didn’t sense the dark, brooding, sometimes dangerous person who left Brooklyn. People who decide to commit suicide sometimes appear to others to be feeling a lot better in the time between the decision and the final act. It can look externally like an upswing, like they've gained a new perspective and things aren't weighing on them as heavily. It sounds like he was conscious that his behavior was bad for other people, and he didn't believe he could change. That's a terrible position to be in: to feel you can't fully function in the presence of others but to feel their absence keenly as well, to be incapable of being with others without hurting them, but also incapable of being alone. I can't imagine how bad it would have to be to starve yourself to death, but I can't help wondering if that's what he did.

ska 6y ago
> People who decide to commit suicide sometimes appear to others to be feeling a lot better in the time between the decision and the final act. I suspect this is just an instance of the pretty common response to having made a decision that was weighing on you. If it's a big one (divorce, career change, etc.) I'm sure most of us have experienced this at least 2nd hand.
- cmehdy 6y ago
  Anecdotally, I can confirm that it's similar in essence and just overwhelmingly stronger in effect. It's a bit like having finally decided every single one of the big decisions of life in the same split second (because that's what it is in the moment). It's also stronger than that because the very likely "normal state" of your brain up to that point is severe depression, so you're not anywhere near what people might consider an average state of mind, and you're getting that strong of a kick. You can ride that euphoria for quite a while even through some of the nagging doubts clawing their way back between the initial feeling and the last action. I doubt much research can be done for what I'm about to say (and I might be very wrong), but I have the feeling that when you're alone (mentally) you can ride that wave for a decent amount of time yet with just a very brief REAL interaction with another human being you can snap out of it. It might not fully dissipate but still break the trance-like state. Not a lot of interactions might feel real like that, but when they do they can be life-changing (for obvious reasons) even when the subject matter is frivolous. You'll likely never know just how many you changed, nor why. We often notice how "easy"/quick it is to hurt somebody by saying something even light-hearted, but when it comes to that extreme you'd be surprised how very few words about mundane things can prevent a collapse (at least that time).

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago

Sounds like he was HFA (High-Functioning Autistic), with some extra Trauma Sauce. It can be quite difficult for folks like this (Disclaimer: IR1) to find happiness. Crowds, high-stimulus environments, external expectations can be quite chafing. It can also be tempting to latch onto external things and people, to try to heal something that can't really be healed; but only mitigated (long story, but I went through that kind of thing, myself). I can understand anger, when they don't "fix" us. I can also relate to the "sleep it off" thing. It would be sort of like Miranda, in Serenity. It's a really sad story. There are quite a few people like that.

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kayodelycaon 6y ago
> Sounds like he was HFA (High-Functioning Autistic), with some extra Trauma Sauce. Or he could have bipolar, schizophrenia, anxiety, C-PTSD or a number of other things. All of those would explain what I’m seeing. Personally, I’m bipolar and I share an a lot of traits with autism. You can’t know what’s happening in a person’s head unless you take time to talk to them or they’ve left a detailed journal.
- ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
  Absolutely. I can only speak to what I know, and this, I happen to know, all too well. I just found that I could relate to pretty much everything he was about (check out my code for some truly anal coding), with the exception of the abuse, but I could also easily see myself getting into that, if I had the trauma background (although I don't have that, exactly, I am quite familiar with what trauma can do to even neurotypicals).
lwigo 6y ago
How is it like Miranda (just trying to figure out your metaphor)? One possible response to extreme over stimulation or aggression is to completely shutdown?

thefurman 6y ago

Was he abused by his father or something? Sounds like it should be investigated further. People usually don't just become like this without a good reason.

code_duck 6y ago
The history in the article strongly suggests he was abused by his father.
stuckindider 6y ago
Sounds like it none of your business. Speculating about the metal state of others and playing internet doctor is insulting.
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  Dead people generally don't have the need for a doctor.

dickbar 6y ago

In this thread: It’s Friday. We do the usual and judge someone we know nothing about, whom we have never met, and begin by call them an asshole and a psychopath. This is the top story on Hacker News. Brought to you by Wired, Inc.

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deeeeplearning 6y ago
bbbut 2 whole ex girlfriends said he was meeaaaan!! /s

ChuckMcM 6y ago

Okay, this quote stood out -- “He was a crazy good coder. Except he would always code everything the hardest way possible, kind of like you hired Rembrandt to paint your bathroom. You know it is going to be lit, but over the top.” A good read and a good reminder that people are always much more complex than we think. I wonder sometimes if by being exposed so often to fairly flat depictions of characters in movies and on TV if folks forget that. I know I do sometimes.

johnnyb9 6y ago
This quote stood out for me as well, for the reason that my own depiction of a "good coder" has evolved into someone who codes a solution in the simplest way possible using the best tools, not the "hardest" or most "lit" way.
- CameronNemo 6y ago
  Yeah this screams "antisocial coder" to me. Coding with an audience of one.
- suzzer99 6y ago
  I was planning to post exactly this. Reminds me of that famous anecdote about the guy who was using different branches in the same source control repo for different functions - who everyone said was a genius but no one could figure out how to touch his code.
  - tiborsaas 6y ago
    I have a similar story, a friend of mine had (and still has) a webdev shop and he said he has a slightly autistic programmer who is his best employee and he's a genius, nobody can understand his code. One day they called me because at 8PM they were still at the office trying to crack a problem. After a short discussion, I suggested to use a (.*) regex to solve it, without seeing the code, that was the best I could do. Another call 30 min later, I suggested the same but on a different level. At the third call I told them that if they need to keep doing that, something is deeply flawed and they should rewrite it. No more calls came :) I kinda see where this sentiment is coming from and it's really hard to convince people otherwise. People see movies like Rain Man and they see scientists with huge blackboards and they can't understand a thing so it must be a work of a genius.

Geminidog 6y ago

The more unsettling truth is how the world became interested in someone like him even though he was mostly an asshole. This article says more about human nature and our tendencies to make unwarranted assumptions based off of superficial qualities then it does about him. Would he garner the same amount of attention if he wasn't white or good looking?

as1mov 6y ago
This was my observation as well. I don't think this case would've gotten the same amount of attention if the person wasn't good looking. There are countless Doe's missing for whom an army of online strangers hasn't sprung up and made their mission to identify the person (and some unwarranted expectations based just on a bunch of photographs).
mbrodersen 6y ago
Agree. I have noticed that when bad things happen to good looking white people it gets 100x more attention than if it happens to ugly/non-white people.

34679 6y ago

The graphic designer in me wants to flog whoever is responsible for that graphic at the top. The drop shadows go 3 different directions and the one on the taped paper has way too much offset.

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ogre_codes 6y ago

> It reminded everyone that it is still possible to disappear. It's possible to disappear if nobody is looking for you and you have enough cash. Even the latter is somewhat optional, it just means you are much less comfortable. Fundamentally in this world, many (most?) of us are redundant. A person missing here or there is only missed if their social web is wide enough.

deeeeplearning 6y ago

This stuff is disturbing. These articles read like hit pieces. The guy can't even defend himself and you have all these wild claims from supposed ex-girlfriends. It's just bizarre. Let the guy lie in peace.

stuckindider 6y ago
It's honestly disgusting how people have made it into a game of trying to figure out who he was. Cutting him open for bone fragments. He died alone in the woods. Was there any reason to think it was caused by malace? No. Then fuck off and let him be.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  Sure, you have a high sanctity moral foundation. Many others do not. To me, a dead man with no family ties is just a sequence of tissue arranged in a certain way. I will deal with it as I deal with bark or fungus. There is no person left.
- xsmasher 6y ago
  There may have been family waiting for word of him. No one knew at the time.
- astura 6y ago
  It's not a "game." Identifying an unknown deceased person so the next of kin can be notified is part of a normal death investigation, even when there is no foul play. He seems to have made a positive impact on people who met him on the trail, which is why those people wanted to find out who he was. They wanted to give his friends and family closure.

ed25519FUUU 6y ago

> Nothing Else Matters” by Metallica on the piano. “I could be quiet around him,” she wrote, “and it never felt awkward.” Listen to a piano cover while you read the story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmL12NRE4hQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmL12NRE4hQ And if you liked this story, you will probably also like "The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans" https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans/ https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hu...

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rootsudo 6y ago

How is it unsettling? Everything in that article is, average for Americans. People just applied romantic notions to something they didn't know, in attempt to understand. It got popular, people joined in, and the mystery was the thrill, the chase. I don't think it's any different from when you ask a person to describe their pet, they describe themselves. The fearful part is, how, everyone, decided that in good faith, they should work together, to unlock this past vs just leaving it to the government. This is a case where it seemed he didn't like his parents, and probably didn't want/care to let them know of his demise. His romantic life, same, probably didn't care to know either. But, Mystery solved? We did it Reddit! /s

anonAndOn 6y ago

AIUI, being shot in the gut is a long (it can take hours) and incredibly agonizing way to die. It appears he was not merciful on any substantive relationships, including with himself.

99_00 6y ago

I see this story as extremely positive. Technology can bring closure to unknown number of families. Many cold cases will be solved. This is just the start. >A genomics company, Othram, had taken his DNA and started to do cutting-edge genetic analysis to identify him. Collier County had sent them a bone fragment; they had extracted the hiker’s DNA and then begun searching for genetic similarities among people in a database called GEDmatch to build a tree of potential relatives. They learned that the hiker had Cajun roots; that his family had come from Assumption Parish, Louisiana; and that there were family members with the name Rodriguez. The founder of the company, David Mittelman, went on Facebook to talk about the case. I bought Facebook ads on my personal page to promote my story in the region of Louisiana where I thought his relatives likely lived.

johncessna 6y ago

From the article > It reminded everyone that it is still possible to disappear. Actually, it did the opposite > No, she said. “I don't think I was committed to Vance as a human. I detached myself as a person to Vance, in that I didn't want to get too attached to a dead stranger. But I was committed to solving the case with others because it would be a great way to prove that people can do great things together.” This sums up what I thought about the whole thing. The unsettling truth is that a man went off grid and strangers, looking for nothing more than a selfish desire to know, put him right back on it.

JeremyNT 6y ago

I would like to mention that Mostly Harmless's identity and history were first reported by Jason Nark of Adventure Journal way back in December (and discussed on HN [0] at that time). His piece [1] is now fully updated to include the original article as well as the updates. Nark isn't credited in this particular Wired article (although he was credited in Thomson's first article for Wired [2]). This is the despite the fact that Nark, as far as I can tell, wrote the first mainstream article about Mostly Harmless and also was the first reporter to determine his identity. I suppose Nicholas Thomson must have researched it independently for this new wired piece, explaining why it's being released so much later and with no mention of the reporter who "broke" the story. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25526104 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25526104 [1] https://www.adventure-journal.com/2020/12/the-mystery-of-deceased-hiker-mostly-harmless-is-at-long-last-solved/ https://www.adventure-journal.com/2020/12/the-mystery-of-dec... [2] https://www.wired.com/story/nameless-hiker-mostly-harmless-internet-mystery/ https://www.wired.com/story/nameless-hiker-mostly-harmless-i...

freetime2 6y ago

Whenever I read a biography about some person I admire, I always end up disliking that person. Failed relationships and abandoned responsibilities are exceedingly common (especially among artists and people who are highly driven to success). I think that most of us have some “unsettling” details in our past. People are imperfect. The allegations of physical and mental abuse here are particularly bad, and I’m not trying to make any excuses for Rodriguez. But they aren’t exactly uncommon in this world, either. The tone of this article feels a little too judgmental to me. Like Rodriguez somehow had an obligation to all the people who were interested in his story, and has let them down. But is it really surprising that someone who died in such unusual conditions, with no friends or family to report him as missing, would have had a rough past? The author also says at one point “maybe that’s the prettiest bow you can put on the box that contains this strange story”. But why should we as interested observers feel the need or be entitled to “put a bow” on this other man’s life?

ianai 6y ago
Well, the guy's dead. People should probably back off. An inability to change is almost a functional definition of death. If anything, those judging him could look in the mirror. Why the need to seek answers about someone? Why the need to judge whatever you find out? As someone who has only ever read a few comments on HN about this story - because I have no interest in this sort of thing - I'm judging society for how they handle this person. Harshly. Edit-Why not check your egos and ids for once and let it go?

pengaru 6y ago

If I had to live in a NYC apartment with an ex-girlfriend, I'd probably respond by disappearing into the woods, living away from civilization too.

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aaron695 6y ago

> The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker This is the "unsettling truth", the last paragraph, we all been so Twitter'ed everyone needs to look for more - > Yet it’s hard not to look at this story with anything but sadness. The boy who raised his hand to get help from a passing truck—and whose body still bore the scar of that Louisiana field—had grown into the man who didn’t seek help as he died in a Florida swamp. A man was able to disappear in no small part because no one was looking for him. A man was harmed and maybe harmful. And then he went into the woods and became Mostly Harmless.