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As cynical as it might seem, there is an alternative possibility: in spite of getting a tattoo saying he would not kill himself, and in spite of posting a tweet
by okamiueru 5y ago
As cynical as it might seem, there is an alternative possibility: in spite of getting a tattoo saying he would not kill himself, and in spite of posting a tweet saying he would not kill himself, he went ahead and killed himself.
- moralestapia 5y agoAs they saying goes, they dig their own graves.
- fridif 5y agoThe better questions are, did he deserve to be imprisoned and did he deserve to die?
- vbo 5y agoWhy is this downvoted? Was he actually convicted?
- tylersmith 5y agoHe was in jail pending extradition hearings. Extradition was approved today and he was soon to be relocated to the US to stand trial.
- dntrkv 5y ago> did he deserve to be imprisoned I mean, that's kinda what happens when you don't pay your taxes and run from the government. He would've gotten a trial if he didn't commit suicide. > did he deserve to die No, I don't think anyone deserves to die. But, the most likely case here is he did kill himself, in which case, it's kinda on him.
- tiernano 5y ago> No, I don't think anyone deserves to die. technically, everyone dies... the question should be, did he deserve to be killed, if he was (not saying he was) or did he deserve to think that was his only way out?
- CRConrad 5y ago> or did he deserve to think that was his only way out? Hm, "deserve to think"... We're all totally responsible for our own thoughts, aren't we? I mean, who else could be; how could anyone else be?[1] If McAfee had addled his brain with drugs so as to suffer paranoid-delusional fantasies; or even without drugs, if he had pondered weird conspiracy theories to the extent that he self-induced a persecution complex... Who's to blame for that but he himself; how could one claim that he didn't "deserve" it? ___ [1 -- EDIT]: Besides "long-term brainwash" scenarios, that is. James Bond in a North Korean prison cell, a cowed and battered spouse / child(ren), members of an oppressive cult, shit like that. McAfee was none of those.
- vesinisa 5y agoYou are aware that he was wanted for murder in Belize?
- chris11 5y agoNo, the best outcome would have been a trial with a fair outcome. But he went down to South America, started making drugs, and got accused of rape and murder. The legal system should assume innocence before trial, though in my personal opinion he was an evil man.
- beebeepka 5y agoWhat ecil did he do? Take drugs?
- viro 5y agohe was wanted for murder in Belize....
- weare138 5y agoI don't think anyone here is arguing he deserved to die, but he definitely wasn't innocent either.
- SquishyPanda23 5y ago> did he deserve to die? Is there a coherent answer to this in the case of suicide? I feel like we enter a liar's paradox since the entity who decides whether you deserve to die is yourself.
- fridif 5y agoAaron Swartz?
- babypuncher 5y agoWhether or not someone deserves to die doesn't seem like much of a question when the cause of death is intentionally self-inflicted.
- bingidingi 5y agoThose really aren't good questions at all. He was imprisoned awaiting extradition for tax evasion charges, so guilt wasn't really determined yet. He did flee the US to avoid these charges and has since racked up a considerable trail of charges from foreign governments. We'll probably never see direct evidence of his death. But suicide is plausible, given his history, I'd certainly believe he'd contemplate suicide when faced with a life in prison.
- smsm42 5y agoWhich poses the question - if you're absolutely sure you're not going to kill yourself, how could you make sure that everybody knows it and believes it? Is there a way?
- willis936 5y agoReliable (and potentially even publicly accessible) surveillance. Just livestream every moment of your life and keep logs in multiple locations.
- prometheus76 5y agoHow does that work if you are in prison?
- willis936 5y agoYou can't. That's the job of the prison. This is why people get upset when there is a "CCTV malfunction" when high profile prisoners supposedly kill themselves.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- lrae 5y agoNot an option though if you're jailed in Barcelona.
- smsm42 5y agoWell, unless you get taken to prison where you will be surveilled, but the surveillance will fail at exactly the moment you committed suicide, mysteriously, and all footage would disappear after a technician makes an innocent mistake while backing it up.
- willis936 5y agoRight, so then obviously in that case there was foul play. Is that what happened here or are people believing what they want to believe rather than striving to perceive a fact-based reality?
- colordrops 5y agoIt is indeed an alternative possiblity, but the possiblity that he was murdered should not be discounted. Murdering those that challenge authority has been happening since the dawn of history and nothing has fundamentally changed. Well other than needing to make it look like a suicide since modern society likes to believe it's enlightened.
- notafraudster 5y agoMcAfee was an obviously unhinged lunatic peddling fringe nonsense. You can make an argument that cryptocurrency poses a threat to the state, but a 75 year old man who spends 16 hours a day rambling on twitter about fringe stuff does not. The available evidence points strongly to a deeply mentally ill guy facing life in prison and killing himself.
- colordrops 5y ago"obviously an unhinged lunatic". That's a very strong statement that doesn't add to the discussion other than to trigger fear of association among commenters here. Facts are always better than ad hominem.
- zamadatix 5y agoI'm not sure ad hominem applies here. Based on the background facts from the article alone "unhinged lunatic" isn't an irrelevant insult on character which ignores the subject matter rather a relevant point of refutation that the guy was truly unhinged and that should legitimately play a strong role in considering his claims. Could you always add more background? Sure, but I think there is more than enough in the article to point to him being genuinely unhinged.
- colordrops 5y agoI read the same article as everyone else here and didn't see anything that qualified the label "unhinged lunatic". You should perhaps look up the meaning of ad hominem by the way - it absolutely applies.
- willis936 5y agoAn unstable personality that hates the US saying the US government would stage a suicide is much more likely to actually kill themselves than your regular run-of-the-mill evil billionaire with powerful enemies saying nothing about how they will die. I don't think Mcafee really thought things through enough to come to this conclusion.
- madememakeacct 5y ago"I'd never kill myself" is exactly what a suicidal person _would_ say.. Great post.
- willis936 5y agoThey even had it tattoo'd on their arm in a cringey fashion to show how down-to-Earth and committed to this plane of existence they were.
- meepmorp 5y agoThat's like 300% sane!
- Broken_Hippo 5y agoIt is also what folks with absolutely no intention of killing themselves would say. Sure, you could parse out situations where they might and you could probably make someone's life so unimaginably miserable that the would eventually turn to it, but these are fringes.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- moate 5y agoI mean, I haven't done the analysis myself but "I'll tell this story so that if I take the cowardly way out my reputation will still be protected and the conspiracy theorists will keep my legend alive forever" has a > 0% chance of being the motivator here.
- prvc 5y agoHe could have killed himself anyway--- that is obvious, but his past statements still need to be taken seriously, and extra care and doubt need to be applied to the reported story.
- fastball 5y agoDo the past statements of a clearly unhinged individual need to be taken seriously?
- whydoyoucare 5y agoUnless you are very sure that McAfee was "clearly unhinged individual", it is a strong statement and ad hominem. Doesn't help add to the discussion than mere gossip.
- fastball 5y agoThe man said he would eat his own dick on TV[1] if Bitcoin didn't hit $500k in 2020. There are credible reports he paid women to shit in his mouth from a hammock. There is his entire twitter feed. I am very sure McAfee was a "clearly unhinged individual", and if you're not I'd like to know what kind of evidence you need. [1] http://dickening.com/ http://dickening.com/
- StevenRayOrr 5y agoWe don't have to go any further than the tweet that started this thread: McAfee claimed to be "getting subtle messages" from officials in the American government threatening to kill him. He was a clearly unhinged individual.
- read_if_gay_ 5y agoNice circular logic.
- oauea 5y agoYes.
- HNfriend234 5y agoTrue but it is also possible that he was assisnated. People get assisnate all the time for political reasons.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> As cynical as it might seem, there is an alternative possibility: in spite of getting a tattoo saying he would not kill himself, and in spite of posting a tweet saying he would not kill himself, he went ahead and killed himself In fact, if you have people who will believe you (either becuase of who you are or who your target is), and a beef against someone, and see a confluence of circumstances likely to lead to a place where suicide is your only way out, why wouldn’t you set them up to take the blame if it got to that point (especially if you blamed them for the situation driving in that direction, so you might feel that it was a lie in only peripheral details, but not grand narrative.)
- read_if_gay_ 5y agoThat would have been a very long con since he has been tweeting things like this since 2019.
- cwyers 5y agoWell, seeing as 2019 is when he fled the US to avoid prosecution for tax fraud, it's not like it took a lot of foresight to say "hrm, maybe the US government will catch me."
- read_if_gay_ 5y agoStill that’s quite petty motivation for such a long con.
- dragonwriter 5y ago“Such a long con” kind of assumes that McAfee thought if he got caught, it would take this long.
- cwyers 5y agoHow is this a long con? It's two years. According to the indictments he was being extradited for, that's _not the longest con John McAfee has been involved in_.
- RotANobot 5y agoFor some reason I couldn’t help but read this in the voice of the narrator from Arrested Development.