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It 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

It 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 ago
    I think very little history is about passing judgment on historical figures.
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      I think history is hardly about anything but passing judgment on historical figures.
      - Stupulous 5y ago
        I'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.
        CRConrad 5y ago
        Yeah, sorry, unclear: Not for the author to pass judgment, but the reader.
  - 1123581321 5y ago
    We would only need to rewrite the bad history books, which are, to be fair to you, an awful lot of them. :)
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - antris 5y ago
    Historians do document public figures' personal lives all the time. It's a regular part of the research and not at all uncommon.
- amznthrwaway 5y ago
  True. McAfee was also a murderer. That’s worth including in the summary. Weird, drug-addled murderer.
- brudgers 5y ago
  https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.al.com/news/2019/02/how-an-alabama-city-fell-for-a-massive-19-million-scam.html%3foutputType=amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.al.com/news/2019/02/how-an-... I briefly met McCafee in this context right before he announced his candidacy. I was using the cowork space to get out of the house. He was there to meet with Kyle, the COO, and what appeared to be potential investors. Had a conversation with his meth-mouthed bodyguard who started talking about ducking behind me if someone came in with a gun. At that point I left for the day and didn’t renew my coworking membership. Eventually, what was obvious to me about the place came out. I used it because it was the only coworking option in Auburn-Opelika at the time. Having been on HN, I figured it was probably what it was. But also accepted I might be wrong…a bias for the sake of using the space perhaps. Never mind running a con, they were the sort of assholes who didn’t mind putting my life at risk.
dleslie 5y ago
FWIW, if HST is to be believed, I think McAfee and Acosta would have gotten along: Oscar was not into serious street-fighting, but he was hell on wheels in a bar brawl. Any combination of a 250 lb Mexican and LSD-25 is a potentially terminal menace for anything it can reach – but when the alleged Mexican is in fact a profoundly angry Chicano lawyer with no fear at all of anything that walks on less than three legs and a de facto suicidal conviction that he will die at the age of 33 – just like Jesus Christ – you have a serious piece of work on your hands. Especially if the bastard is already 33½ years old with a head full of Sandoz acid, a loaded .357 Magnum in his belt, a hatchet-wielding Chicano bodyguard on his elbow at all times, and a disconcerting habit of projectile vomiting geysers of pure blood off the front porch every 30 or 40 minutes, or whenever his malignant ulcer can't handle any more raw tequila. — Hunter S. Thompson
- dash2 5y ago
  Reading this quote made me again think Hunter S Thompson is overrated. It's all like "Woo! this guy SO EXTREME!" Not a patch on Tom Wolfe.
drvdevd 5y ago
This is true. But he did also do a lot of drugs and he was also weird. See Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas for examples where he was portrayed as Dr. Gonzo.
- thatcat 5y ago
  He did a lot more than that, it's a shame that is what people know him for.
  - drvdevd 5y ago
    Because I agree but only know of him through Hunter Thompson, I will plug his own book here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobiography_of_a_Brown_Buffalo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobiography_of_a_Brown_Buf... - and give it a read some time.
syndacks 5y ago
HST did a lot more than do drugs and be weird, but I wouldn't imagine a computer nerd who clacks on a keyboard to know much about Gonzojournalism or the effects it's had on American culture.
- wcarss 5y ago
  Just a note on a reason you likely got so many downvotes, beyond the tone: the parent was likely referring to McAfee with that remark, not to Thompson.
  - NikolaNovak 5y ago
    (and the tone)
serf 5y ago
should also be noted that Oscar Zeta Acosta disappeared during alleged involvement with drug-runners, and defended groups and people who now-a-days would likely be considered domestic terrorists (like early Brown Beret members before their first dissolution in the early 70s).
drcode 5y ago
...he also protected people from computer viruses.

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 ago
  I think very little history is about passing judgment on historical figures.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    I think history is hardly about anything but passing judgment on historical figures.
    - Stupulous 5y ago
      I'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.
      - CRConrad 5y ago
        Yeah, sorry, unclear: Not for the author to pass judgment, but the reader.
- 1123581321 5y ago
  We would only need to rewrite the bad history books, which are, to be fair to you, an awful lot of them. :)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- antris 5y ago
  Historians do document public figures' personal lives all the time. It's a regular part of the research and not at all uncommon.
amznthrwaway 5y ago
True. McAfee was also a murderer. That’s worth including in the summary. Weird, drug-addled murderer.
brudgers 5y ago
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.al.com/news/2019/02/how-an-alabama-city-fell-for-a-massive-19-million-scam.html%3foutputType=amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.al.com/news/2019/02/how-an-... I briefly met McCafee in this context right before he announced his candidacy. I was using the cowork space to get out of the house. He was there to meet with Kyle, the COO, and what appeared to be potential investors. Had a conversation with his meth-mouthed bodyguard who started talking about ducking behind me if someone came in with a gun. At that point I left for the day and didn’t renew my coworking membership. Eventually, what was obvious to me about the place came out. I used it because it was the only coworking option in Auburn-Opelika at the time. Having been on HN, I figured it was probably what it was. But also accepted I might be wrong…a bias for the sake of using the space perhaps. Never mind running a con, they were the sort of assholes who didn’t mind putting my life at risk.

dleslie 5y ago

FWIW, if HST is to be believed, I think McAfee and Acosta would have gotten along: Oscar was not into serious street-fighting, but he was hell on wheels in a bar brawl. Any combination of a 250 lb Mexican and LSD-25 is a potentially terminal menace for anything it can reach – but when the alleged Mexican is in fact a profoundly angry Chicano lawyer with no fear at all of anything that walks on less than three legs and a de facto suicidal conviction that he will die at the age of 33 – just like Jesus Christ – you have a serious piece of work on your hands. Especially if the bastard is already 33½ years old with a head full of Sandoz acid, a loaded .357 Magnum in his belt, a hatchet-wielding Chicano bodyguard on his elbow at all times, and a disconcerting habit of projectile vomiting geysers of pure blood off the front porch every 30 or 40 minutes, or whenever his malignant ulcer can't handle any more raw tequila. — Hunter S. Thompson

dash2 5y ago
Reading this quote made me again think Hunter S Thompson is overrated. It's all like "Woo! this guy SO EXTREME!" Not a patch on Tom Wolfe.

drvdevd 5y ago

This is true. But he did also do a lot of drugs and he was also weird. See Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas for examples where he was portrayed as Dr. Gonzo.

thatcat 5y ago
He did a lot more than that, it's a shame that is what people know him for.
- drvdevd 5y ago
  Because I agree but only know of him through Hunter Thompson, I will plug his own book here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobiography_of_a_Brown_Buffalo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobiography_of_a_Brown_Buf... - and give it a read some time.

syndacks 5y ago

HST did a lot more than do drugs and be weird, but I wouldn't imagine a computer nerd who clacks on a keyboard to know much about Gonzojournalism or the effects it's had on American culture.

wcarss 5y ago
Just a note on a reason you likely got so many downvotes, beyond the tone: the parent was likely referring to McAfee with that remark, not to Thompson.
- NikolaNovak 5y ago
  (and the tone)

serf 5y ago

should also be noted that Oscar Zeta Acosta disappeared during alleged involvement with drug-runners, and defended groups and people who now-a-days would likely be considered domestic terrorists (like early Brown Beret members before their first dissolution in the early 70s).

drcode 5y ago

...he also protected people from computer viruses.