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What a strange life he lived. I'm not going to make a value judgement about whether or not he was a 'good' person, but I do applaud the fact that he dared to de
by sva_ 5y ago
What a strange life he lived. I'm not going to make a value judgement about whether or not he was a 'good' person, but I do applaud the fact that he dared to deviate from the norm.
"There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die."
-- Hunter S Thompson
RIP
- notyourwork 5y agoThat Thompson quote really resonates with me, thanks for sharing.
- gregschlom 5y agoRead the whole book, then if you haven't already (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas). Truly excellent.
- to1y 5y agoFar from excellent imo. Repetitive and disinteresting in tone and topics(drugs.) Ok if you're a teenager.
- pmoriarty 5y agoI second the recommendation. I loved the book, though (to be honest) I did read it when I was pretty young. It's not just about taking drugs, though plenty of drugs are taken. It's an outsider's look at just how weird society is. It's also absolutely hilarious.. but fully appreciating the humor may require experience with drugs.
- hallway_monitor 5y agoThis is the rare case when watching the movie is an acceptable substitute. Johnny Depp studied HST for months to get it right.
- ollran 5y agoThe Rum Diary by Hunter Thompson was also absorbing.
- belltaco 5y agoTaking hard drugs can lead to deviant behavior, so I am not sure if people should be applauded for it.
- stingraycharles 5y agoThat seems to imply that he lived a deviant life because he took drugs, rather than the other way around. This is precisely the type of judgement that the parent wanted to avoid. :)
- engineeringwoke 5y agoDrugs destroyed his life, and it wasn't glorious. I'm not sure what else there is to say
- echelon 5y agoHe lived a wealthy and colorful life full of ups and downs. I wouldn't want it for myself, but it probably worked out okay for him. We're all monkeys on a space rock. I think it's good we have such variety.
- dwighttk 5y ago> it probably worked out okay for him. He just committed suicide. And if you don’t believe he did I’m not sure that makes a case for it working out okay for him either.
- mitjak 5y agoor did he take drugs bc his life was shit? why did you decide to establish this direction of causality?
- dash2 5y agoMaybe most reasonably experienced adults know that drugs screw your life up.
- xadhominemx 5y agoHe’s a murderer and fraudster. You do not in fact have to applaud him for anything.
- bogwog 5y agoand allegedly a rapist
- f38zf5vdt 5y agoJust like many of our founding fathers!
- tptacek 5y agoAt least one of those rape accusations was made on camera, by Allison Adonizio. It's not a fuzzy Twitter rumor thing. She accuses him of drugging and raping her.
- skinkestek 5y agoNot saying it did or didn't happen but plenty of people has been accused not only on Twitter but also on TV for things they never did.
- tptacek 5y agoHe was convicted neither of rape nor of murder (though he was apparently found culpable for the murder by a US federal judge in a wrongful death suit). I believe he is guilty of both, as is my right; you might disagree, as is your right.
- skinkestek 5y agoMy point is only that I refuse to judge people just because someone has said it in a specific medium. (Generally I try not to judge people much at all.) I have dear friends that have been tarred and feathered by national broadcasters and I am supposedly one of the victims as are many of my closest friends and I can't relate to the story at all :-/
- hristov 5y agoIt should be noted that this Hunter S Thompson quote refers to Oscar Zeta Acosta. Acosta made a big difference fighting for the rights of poor and marginalized mexican-americans in east LA. He did something more with his life than just take a lot of drugs and be weird.
- antris 5y ago> did something more with his life than just take a lot of drugs and be weird. Not everything about a person is their public image though. Summing up a persons life like that, even if you disagree with his public image, is just inhumane. Did you know him? Did you ever even see him once?
- smoldesu 5y ago> Did you know him? Did you ever even see him once? We're going to need to rewrite an awful lot of history if our standards for judging people are "knowing them and seeing them even once"
- Stupulous 5y agoI think very little history is about passing judgment on historical figures.
- CRConrad 5y agoI think history is hardly about anything but passing judgment on historical figures.
- Stupulous 5y agoI'm a determinist- I believe that if I were in an identical environment with an identical brain, I would behave identically. Reading social media, I see a lot of value judgments on people that rub me the wrong way- this person should be hated, that person was evil, etc. Extrapolating from my premise, I feel like those judgments apply to me and it stings a little. Reading history, I encounter statements about what people did and about what motivated them to do it in a way that is aligned with my deterministic outlook. I never find myself bristling at a historical biography the way I do in, eg., this thread. The author might want me to judge someone, but they don't tell me to do so or even express directly that that is their belief. I don't think a rule like, "you can't say someone is good/bad if you didn't know them," would result in a change to any history texts I've read, though I expect there are exceptions that I have not seen.
- beprogrammed 5y agoYou win this comment section, there could not be a more appropriate quote for this news.
- nonce42 5y agoI came across a Wired article on McAfee from 2012 describing his life in Belize, and it's quite a story. Starting an antibiotic lab, hiring armed guards with automatic weapons, trying to clean up drug crime in a small town, sleeping with 17-year-olds (one of which tried to kill him), pointing a loaded gun to his own head, getting raided by the police and jailed, lots of paranoia, and that's just the highlights. It's worth a read. https://www.wired.com/2012/12/ff-john-mcafees-last-stand/ https://www.wired.com/2012/12/ff-john-mcafees-last-stand/
- twelve40 5y agothanks for re-sharing, what a great read to recap his crazy-ass life
- nigerian1981 5y agoI always remember by Geography teacher correcting me on my incorrect use of wether instead of whether and explaining that the former meant a castrated ram.
- sva_ 5y agoThanks, I'll remember that.
- layer8 5y agoThe way I remember how to write it is that "weather" and "whether" have the same number of letters.
- jonsen 5y agoThere’s a bunch of wh... words. Wouldn’t you know them by class? In my language they spell hv... Hvem, hvad, hvor = who, what, where etc.
- rOOb85 5y agoThat's one of my favorite quotes. I can really relate to it.
- 5cott0 5y ago"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
- goatse-4-u 5y agoI'll do it for you then, he was a 'shitty' person. Does working in tech bring about a condition of no longer making value judgements, so that you never have to turn that spotlight on yourselves?