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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 th
by 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 agoExactly my thoughts, reminded me very much of Into the Wild.
- bena 6y agoThe unsettling truth was that he was apparently an abusive malcontent who decided to run away from the problems he created once again.
- trianglem 6y agoBased on what? Some ex’s word?
- bena 6y agoOne 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 agoBut 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 agoSounds like she should have left him sooner
- trianglem 6y agoNot to diminish her problems, but at the same time this is extremely reminiscent of girlfriends that are super attention seeking and constantly have “problems” that need to be resolved immediately. Sounds like this guy wasn’t super emotional and was distressed by incessant calls for attention.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- TeaDrunk 6y agoA person who has such high levels of distress or lack of emotional regulation that they cannot manage by themselves the level of emotional turmoil they experience sounds... like PTSD, which uh, yeah, she has PTSD and this was a known behavior that he presumably chose and accepted when he was dating her. It makes no sense to date someone and then actively neglect their needs, even if their needs are greater than people who don't have a severe, chronic illness.
- objectivetruth 6y ago> Not to diminish her problems, but at the same time proceeds to diminish her post-terrorist-attack PTSD and compare her to his ex-girlfriends
- LatteLazy 6y agoMaybe I've become jaded living in a low socioeconomic area but this sounds like the people living 2 doors down from me. They're forever having screaming matches, both diagnosed with mental health issues, they rarely work. But they're not that unusual here at the bottom end of the income distribution. I was a little to flippant in my comment, maybe I should be more unsettled?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- f38zf5vdt 6y agoIt's a shame, he could have had a healthy and productive life just posting every day to the Linux kernel mailing list.
- nickthemagicman 6y agoYep. He just missed finding his people, unfortunate.
- Exmoor 6y agoAnd also that he basically left his life behind with no intention of ever coming back and hiked until he literally starved to death.
- 3131s 6y agoIt sounds like he was aware enough of these flaws that he decided to do something about it. That's a lot better than some people who go a lifetime without ever being self-aware.
- lovegoblin 6y ago> he decided to do something about it But not, apparently, therapy.
- rriepe 6y agoThe unsettling truth is that society really, really despises people with schizoid personality disorder. (EDIT: People with SPD are averse to violence and prone to all kinds of abuse. The he-said/she-said stuff is particularly useless here.)
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y agoYou’re not doing people with the disease any favors by equating it with spousal abuse.
- TeaDrunk 6y agoIME Society rarely notices people with schizoid personality disorder- most people with schizoid don't even go to a doctor and never get formally diagnosed. This is especially true compared to schizoid's siblings in the personality disorder categories (Category A), paranoid and schizotypal. (Minor edit: Also, committing spousal abuse is distinctly not a trait of schizoid personality disorder.)
- rriepe 6y agoI think they're both true. Despising without noticing is a good description, since it fits the homeless and so many of them are SPD.
- shrimp_emoji 6y agoSPD is fine when you're just a loner, but it's naturally less appealing for society when you're incapable of forming connections and reciprocating basic social contracts (some people even use the latter as the sole criterion of "personhood").
- mlang23 6y agoWhat an absurd story. Wikipedia lists one travel, in fact the first and last one. How sad. And why the heck do you venture out into the bushes only to live in a abandoned bus? I mean, yeah, how convenient. I can see that. But it is also weird.
- sedatk 6y agoWhen your goal is to be away from people, not necessarily shelter or technology.
- lqet 6y agoI read the book by Krakauer a few years ago. Tragically, he could've crossed the river he thought was blocking his way back to civilization by a hand-operated cable car only 800 meters away from his shelter. He wandered into the wild without a good map. To his credit, though, there is the possibility that he was simply unable to walk because he poisoned himself accidentally [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_McCandless#Lathyrism_due_to_ODAP_in_hedysarum_alpinum_seeds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_McCandless#Lathyrism_due...
- NikolaeVarius 6y agoBy being incredibly stupid mostly.
- ajkjk 6y agoWhat's absurd about it?
- mlang23 6y agoI would imagine that someone inclined to live in the bushes by themselves would be interested in/wanting to build their shelter themselves, or at least use something that has natural origin. At least that is how I imagine it. What did you achieve if you leave civilisation behind only to use something a shelter which wouldnt exist without civilisation?
- renewiltord 6y ago
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y agoThe unsettling truth is that he was deeply troubled, and, at times, an abusive asshole who didn’t necessarily warrant quite as much compassion from strangers as he was given. I’m open to the idea that it may not really matter, and everyone deserves the dignity to not be buried anonymously. But there were a lot of resources invested in this case because he looked very relatable in photos. He was very different from what people thought of him, and what motivated them, and therefore the truth is unsettling wrt that effort. This doesn’t mean the effort was wrong, or that he was a monster not worthy of compassion. He was clearly fighting some demons, sometimes winning, sometimes losing, sometimes unleashing them on others. It defies easy moral judgements, and I believe the article does an excellent job saying as much. But meanwhile, thousands die anonymously and unnoticed every year, and their photos and circumstances of death are far less compelling, but many if not most of them would have life stories that do not include multiple episodes of physically and psychologically abusing everyone close to them. Compassionate efforts often cannot be shifted according to utilitarian calculations (which is one argument for getting together and making them someone’s actual job, in a process usually called “government”). But stories like this do maybe serve to make some people think about the best allocation of such efforts. (The other unsettling truth is that HN can read this story and come away asking what people could possibly object to in his life story, and why one should believe the spouses (plural) that describe his dark side)
- throwaway56745 6y agoIt's a slippery slope (and mildly sociopathic) to start judging people's worthiness of being murdered (or sought justice for) based on whether they were a good or bad person. Allocating resources based on how charming someone's photo is is also wrong, and worthy of discussion, though presumably people at least aren't doing that consciously. Edit: I'm fairly disturbed that this appears to be controversial.
- zerocrates 6y agoI don't think there's any indication this person was murdered, nor that there's anybody to seek justice against.
- at-fates-hands 6y agoI was pretty interested in the McCandless story as well. Krakauer uncovering the possibility of him eating the Eskimo potato plant which may have ultimately killed him was really eye opening. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/05/01/403535274/into-the-wild-author-tries-science-to-solve-toxic-seed-mystery https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/05/01/403535274/in...
- goodcanadian 6y agoI think the "unsettling truth" was that he turned out to be a flawed human being rather than the person that people who didn't even know him built him up to be in their imaginations.
- fortran77 6y agoIt's even more banal than that. The "unsettling truth" is he's got an ex who is willing to spread some unsubstantiated dirt about him that may not be true, or may be exaggerated. (Was there ever a police report? A restraining order? Probably not, or it would be mentioned.) That's it. It's a non-story.