4 ms·

> 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

by 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.

by antris 5y ago

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.