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Monday was my 46th birthday and likely my last (2013)
- itazula 5y agoThinking about his family, the cryonics option raises a lot of questions.
- ca98am79 5y agofyi, I posted this story a while ago on Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5893505 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5893505 But the link no longer worked, the website is down. I found his obituary: https://obits.pennlive.com/us/obituaries/pennlive/name/jeffrey-winborn-obituary?pid=174488229 https://obits.pennlive.com/us/obituaries/pennlive/name/jeffr... It looks like he made it to 47.
- Yuioup 5y agoOk but... why post it now?
- fragmede 5y agoWho knows? the answer only serves to let you judge u/Yuioup. Maybe they know someone with ALS, maybe they are a troll looking to use sympathy points for fake Internet points (now convertible to crypto currency and real world currency!) Maybe they knew the person who died and are trying to commemorate them. Hopefully your prompt will let them answer with grace. If not, why did you ask... and so rudely, too
- javert 5y agoI didn't find the question to be rude.
- happytoexplain 5y ago"OK, but why now" can be rude in certain contexts, especially sensitive ones like this, but the ellipses push it over the edge into "definitely has a rude tone" (which maybe they did not intend, but I'm only explaining what creates a rude tone in the written word).
- Yuioup 5y agoOh sorry. Didn't mean to be rude. Just wondering why a post from 2013 was put up on HN. Apologies.
- seibelj 5y agoMy uncle died of ALS. I find it less scary than Alzheimer's disease but still a truly awful way to go. He wasted away. He was unable to really sleep because every time he fell asleep he would have a subconscious reaction to the breathing machine that triggered panic and woke him up. So he was pumped full of benzos in order to keep his anxiety lower, which made him quite out of it. He was in a medicare-accepting full time care facility which was extremely dirty, smelly, and full of workers who honestly didn't give a fuck, and they expressed this in many overt and subtle ways. The only comfort he got was from his family who visited every day to speak and read to him. He was 78 years old, so at least my uncle had a much fuller life than Aaron, as dying of that at 46 is a pure tragedy.
- busterarm 5y ago> He was in a medicare-accepting full time care facility which was extremely dirty, smelly, and full of workers who honestly didn't give a fuck, and they expressed this in many overt and subtle ways. The only comfort he got was from his family who visited every day to speak and read to him. This is a very uncomfortable reality about our care system and the way our society is structured in general. Nobody deserves this kind of treatment, but we also don't really have the lattitude in our lives to spend time caring for our family. Also this kind of care is commoditized by our insurance system where paying for these kinds of systems is more supported than assisted care in-home. I'm hoping that as a result of COVID with people finding more lattitude to work flexibly from home and more people focussing on their families that more people can avoid this kind of end-of-life care.
- User23 5y agoThis is one of the more obvious reasons to have as many children as possible and to raise them as well as possible. Fact is otherwise nobody is liable to care about you when you’re old and even if one of your peer friends does they’ll be in the same boat. It doesn’t matter how much money you have, because without someone to actively advocate for you it won’t go well.
- busterarm 5y ago
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- dvt 5y agoI personally like posts like this; a sobering reminder of our own mortality: memento mori. It hopefully motivates us to thrive, flourish, and cherish what really matters -- friendship, kindness, humility, love -- and to leave the world a little better than we found it. And if you're curious, the Aaaron Winborn Award is still going strong[1]! [1] https://www.drupal.org/community/cwg/aaron-winborn-award https://www.drupal.org/community/cwg/aaron-winborn-award
- xvector 5y agoHopefully it also starts us on a path of treating death as a problem to solve, so we can die on our own terms instead of being forced to do so by a cruel reality. https://www.sens.org/ https://www.sens.org/ https://www.lifespan.io/ https://www.lifespan.io/ https://www.buckinstitute.org/ https://www.buckinstitute.org/
- GreenWatermelon 5y agoI would rather we change our view on death. Death has always been a constant since life became a thing. Even the mightiest stars in the skies are destined to die one day. After you die, your consciousness fades, and so do all your desires and regrets. To me, death is the ultimate respite.
- nitrogen 5y agoTo me, death is the ultimate respite. To me, this makes a virtue of necessity. We have deep philosophies around death only because it's inescapable. But if we could change that, then we could also change those philosophies.
- Barrin92 5y agodeath is more complex than just being inescapable. Death is also a change agent that wipes the slate clean and makes place for the new. It's how all organic life adopts collectively. The first thing that's going to be immortal when death isn't inescapable is Kim Jong Un. No thanks, if you want to see a world without death read Altered Carbon
- wombatmobile 5y agoWhat's special about Aaron Winborn is not that he died. We are all going to die. Aaron Winborn lived.
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- SEJeff 5y agoThis reminds me of the Last Lecture by Professor Andy Pausch. It is a lecture that will really hit you in the feels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7zzQpvoYcQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7zzQpvoYcQ It is also an excellent book.
- grecy 5y agoI read that book on a cross-country flight to see my parents, and it impacted me deeply. We never know what life has in store for us, and the best thing we can do is to enjoy each and every day to the fullest. Sooner or later, it's going to be our last.
- SquibblesRedux 5y agoGiven what I would consider the eternal preciousness of a human, and the fleeting insignificance of computer software, I found it strange he opened with "I am a developer for Drupal." For example, why did he place that before his being a father? I think people too often miss the significance of their own existence, independent of their relatively brief tasks and accomplishments. I certainly do not mean to belittle or speak poorly of anyone's accomplishments, but the importance of simply being is so significant and people so rarely appreciate that significance.
- trentnix 5y agoGiven what I would consider the eternal preciousness of a human, and the fleeting insignificance of computer software, I found it strange he opened with "I am a developer for Drupal." For example, why did he place that before his being a father? Maybe he just knew the audience that he was speaking to. After all, if it wasn't for that he probably wouldn't be linked here. No need to overanalyze.
- xfer 5y agoWhy do you think being a father is anymore of an achievement?
- TedDoesntTalk 5y agoRaising a child by being a father is a much larger achievement than writing any software. I’d say the same if you mentioned someone like Linus Torvalds.
- whytaka 5y agoDoes Linus even have children? I don’t know cause I never cared what he did in that area of his life. It has never affected me certainly. I am certainly in awe of his accomplishments with Linux/git though.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
- busterarm 5y agoHe also wrote this book for his children before his passing. https://www.amazon.com/Where-Did-Daddy-Aaron-Winborn/dp/1533134103 https://www.amazon.com/Where-Did-Daddy-Aaron-Winborn/dp/1533...
- husarcik 5y agoThank you for posting Aaron's story.
- robertwt7 5y agoThis reminds us of our mortality. Live life to the fullest, do what makes you happy. I'm glad that he already finds his peace. Seems like a genuine and nice person that is grateful for everything.
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- clircle 5y agoThis hits me. I went to college with Kim Suozzi, referenced in the article.
- ToddWBurgess 5y agoMy mother passed away from ALS at 53. It is a terrible way to go
- idiotsecant 5y agoThis really hit me. Nothing to add other than that.
- narrator 5y agoThe strange irony to me of this post is that anyone who is older than about 80 could write about how this is likely their last birthday. Death comes for everyone eventually. I think to myself sometimes, "How long till I'm 80?" From that point on it's just waiting to die. What am I going to do and accomplish in the time between now and then?
- Zenst 5y agoAge and health are funny things, sometimes it slowly creeps along, other times it jumps. At 20 my perspective of old age was different from when I was 30,40,50... One concern as I get older is the whole aspect that you can reach a point of so much pain and limitations that life becomes a living torture, and with that - my appreciation of the need for legal euthanasia is something that my support grows with age. After all, it's not worth worrying about death and I don't. What worries me is how I die. Dignity goes a long way and I sure don't want to husk out for days on end in so much pain and medication to combat the pain that I'm dribbling wreck unable to function. That's not my idea of life and I'd like to have that choice and whilst living wills have some carry, the limitations due to dated laws regarding euthanasia and ending ones life early are in need of revision.
- stakkur 5y agoGenerally speaking, the Way of the warrior is resolute acceptance of death. —Miyamoto Musashi
- soheil 5y agoIt's dangerous to see acceptance of death as a kind of virtue, I see many comments here showing that sentiment. The amount of funding dedicated to anti-aging research is very small, it's a tiny subset of funding for Alzheimer's disease by the NIH, $3.2b in 2021 down from $3.5b in 2020 [0]. I think it's precisely this line of thinking that explains the lack of funding and the extremely slow progress in this field. Seeing death in a neutral light is wrong, seeing it as a virtue is absolutely sadistic. We need to stop this medieval way of thinking. [0] https://www.nia.nih.gov/about/budget/fiscal-year-2021-budget https://www.nia.nih.gov/about/budget/fiscal-year-2021-budget
- gameman144 5y ago> Seeing death in a neutral light is wrong, seeing it as a virtue is absolutely sadistic. I don't know many people that think death itself is virtuous, but I think seeing sacrifice (even of life) for something good can be extremely virtuous. I would, however, disagree with the view that seeing death in a neutral light is wrong. I very much enjoy life and I'm looking forward to a long time living it, but I think it's totally fine that I'll die one day. Granted I'm not looking forward to it, but I don't think it's a bad thing that it'll happen.
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- ChrisArchitect 5y agoAnything new to add to this? Previous discussion (as noted in this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28150698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28150698): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5893505 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5893505
- xvector 5y agoI see a lot of cool discussion about whether death itself is worth solving, that wasn't really present in the previous thread. Likely because awareness about such efforts in culture has really skyrocketed since the previous thread. It is interesting and valuable to see new discussion threads emerge over the course of almost a decade, as culture changes and the lens through which we view our lives and problems evolves.
- ChrisArchitect 5y agofairplay about the new reflections/discussion that wasn't present in previous -- so maybe write a new blog post about it, referencing this old, as an expansion/update instead of reposting an archive link etc, if it is about new thoughts/updates.
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y agoJust came across this. Two weeks ago, Bill died. Bill was an old friend of mine. We'd known each other for 25 years or more. His wife used to work at the company that employed me, and Bill and I shared extracurricular interests. Bill was trained as a Maritime Engineer. Due to a story that is not mine to tell, his engineering career was destroyed, and he became a housepainter. A really good one. Because of his erudite approach, he got high-dollar customers. Many of his jobs brought in six-figure gross. He sent his three kids to college. They all did awesome. He left his wife in great shape, financially. Bill died of kidney disease. He had been on home dialysis for years. It sucked. Even with the dialysis, his body started to deteriorate. It was getting worse and worse. a couple of months ago, he made the decision to stop dialysis, and just check out. His bags were packed. He had done his job, and left the world a better place. The last few weeks, I made a point of popping by his house as often as possible. I'd usually pop in five or six days a week, and sit with him for an hour or so. Towards the end, it was ten minutes, because he was in a parallel universe, and my being there didn't do more than make it a pain for his family. Helping him to die was a deep Honor.