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Succumbing to conspiracism is a surprisingly common response to grief. Being egged on by folk Twitter, who clearly do not know any better, won’t have helped. H

Succumbing to conspiracism is a surprisingly common response to grief. Being egged on by folk Twitter, who clearly do not know any better, won’t have helped. Hopefully the autopsy will bring them some kind of closure.

Alupis 2y ago
Similar to the recent Boeing whistleblower conspiracies, despite video evidence of the suicide etc. Currently we're in some sort of weird anti-business mood, so anything that's negative about a perceived mega-corp is taken literally on social media, and amplified up to 11 by karma-farming bots.
- Mistletoe 2y ago
  But America didn’t vote anti-business at all so it’s just more rage posting on Facebook and Reddit that doesn’t do anything. If they want to blame someone, they need to look in the mirror.
  - Alupis 2y ago
    I think I agree with you here. However, one cannot use Reddit currently without seeing 42 smiling pictures of a murderer, with thousands of fawning comments. Many are bots, manipulating people on social media. Unfortunately, too many people are pulled into that bubble and become convinced it represents reality. It doesn't anymore than the flood of Harris posts that suddenly stopped on a dime election night, leaving millions of young people wondering where all the support went (not realizing the support was never there to begin with).
    - talldayo 2y ago
      > too many people are pulled into that bubble and become convinced it represents reality I don't think you're describing any particular political phenomenon though. We saw the same thing happen in 2016 and 2020 overnight - people go from Facebook pundits to sheepish and sore losers in just 12 hours. Bots certainly play a role in all this, but I think you're wrong to blame them as the deus-ex-machina when human behavior explains it all just fine. Support bases are real for Luigi Mangione and Harris in the same way it's real for MAGA and Elon. People are truly sucked into the cult of personality because it's big, and they don't understand how to contextualize politics outside of celebrity. In a world where people virtue-signal on their favorite politically-aligned platform, it's not hard at all to imagine the majority of this support being entirely genuine. A lot of people thought the "Stop the Steal" folks were bots, until they showed up and rioted and subsequently hid their identities out of fear that they'd be lambasted for supporting an anti-populist movement. In a post-Jan 6th world I don't quite understand how you can still blame bots for stupid opinions that real people clearly hold.
      - snypher 2y ago
        Well it used to be that people would form their opinions on others around them, not online misinformation campaigns. Evidence of this is how much content gets retweeted, but not so much is original content from the poster.
  - apsec112 2y ago
    A non-trivial percentage of young Trump voters also supported the UHC assassination, presumably from some kind of general anti-institution vibe
  - ParetoOptimal 2y ago
    > But America didn’t vote anti-business at all so it’s just more rage posting on Facebook and Reddit that doesn’t do anything Most of America (somehow) didn't know what they were voting for and just believed the empty promises. See the recent regrets of steelworkers and trends of people searching "can I change my vote". Oh yeah, and all of the people mad that President Musk is gonna increase H1Bs.
- mentalgear 2y ago
  they are not anti business, they are anti-establishment politics. But misunderstand that big business does big politics in 'merica.
- kilna 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - Alupis 2y ago
    > broadly gestures to the late stage capitalism hellscape To quote The Dude - "that is like, your opinion... man". People are better off than any time in history. Some people are more better off than others... and some people perceive other people's success as the cause/reason for their own personal failures. Jeff Bezos has made every single person's life in America better by making products accessible to everyone regardless of economic bracket. Bezos' Amazon has compelled all other ecommerce companies to do better and offer better service to compete with Amazon. Literally everyone has won - except now that Bezos has been rewarded for creating one of the most important companies in the US, people want to tear him down. How dare he have more money than me! Let's pick any wealthy successful person, the story is the same. Those who believe the people who've built these mega companies don't actually provide value and/or earn their rewards are the very same people who have never and will never attempt to start a business and employ other people. The work only gets harder and there's more of it... Someone like Bezos is responsible for hundreds of thousands of jobs, perhaps millions when you consider all of the 3rd party sellers operating on Amazon these days. But, it's much easier to just scream "LaTe StAgE cApItAlIsM!" than do anything about our own situations. Read some books, work in industry to develop skills, then start your own business. Let's talk again in five years about this anti-business mood.
    - gosub100 2y ago
      Amazon was successful because for the first 10+ years they paid no sales tax (edit: they exploited interstate laws to enable buyers to circumvent paying sales tax. This was true for eBay as well). This is not competition, in fact it's the opposite. thats nothing revolutionary. In fact, 'exploitative' is the adjective that comes to my mind (which coincidentally, also applies to his laborers)
      - Alupis 2y ago
        > Amazon was successful because for the first 10+ years they paid no sales tax Quite a history revision. 1. Businesses do not pay sales tax - customers do. No online webstore collected taxes until recently. That was not something special for Amazon... 2. The business employs hundreds of thousands of people. All of which pay taxes. Even if the business itself literally paid zero dollars in taxes (lol), it is responsible for millions of dollars of taxes every month via payroll and employees buying things. 3. More taxes is not inherently better. What is up with people demanding more taxes be paid to the black hole that is the government? This idea that businesses don't pay taxes and therefore are bad is totally naïve.
abeppu 2y ago
I think this kind of framing, suggesting that seeking more information is some kind of irrational-yet-understandable emotional response, is kind of disrespectful and presumptuous. The family knows more about the situation that online commenters do, and they're choosing to get more information which they can only choose to do now. Isn't that appropriate and reasonable in the context? I've never dealt with such a situation before. But after something bad and unexpected happens, shouldn't it be considered generally a good idea to collect/record a lot of information while it's still possible? After production outages we ensure logs and records and traces are preserved. After bad car crashes you get witness statements, take photos, etc. Further, nowhere in the article are any family members quoted saying anything conspiratorial. It's people online who are talking about assassination by BigCorp. There are other possibilities besides suicide and being murdered specifically because of the whistleblowing. I think we should take seriously the possibility that an autopsy can be an appropriate and rational choice even without any conspiracy theory being true.
- lostmsu 2y ago
  > The family knows more about the situation that online commenters do Do they though? I wouldn't say my mom would know anything, or even understand matters at hand. On the contrary, random HN folk could feasibly imagine themselves in my shoes.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  sure, but i think its valid that a lot of families go through this process. for instance, the guy who disappeared hiking the tiger leaping gorge trail but his family became convinced he was kidnapped and trafficked to North Korea (David Louis Sneddon)
throwaway123127 2y ago
It is not "conspiracism" to assume foul play if a witness is murdered. There is a thing like witness protection programs. Are these set up by conspiracy theorists? For the people who say he had no important information: We do not know that, perhaps he had surprise information.
- omolobo 2y ago
  How is this comment down-voted? Makes absolutely no sense. These are simple facts stated here.
- nerdponx 2y ago
  Not to mention several high-profile whistleblowers in various unrelated situations have all suspiciously "committed suicide" in the last few years. Suspicion should be high at this point.

Alupis 2y ago

Similar to the recent Boeing whistleblower conspiracies, despite video evidence of the suicide etc. Currently we're in some sort of weird anti-business mood, so anything that's negative about a perceived mega-corp is taken literally on social media, and amplified up to 11 by karma-farming bots.

Mistletoe 2y ago
But America didn’t vote anti-business at all so it’s just more rage posting on Facebook and Reddit that doesn’t do anything. If they want to blame someone, they need to look in the mirror.
- Alupis 2y ago
  I think I agree with you here. However, one cannot use Reddit currently without seeing 42 smiling pictures of a murderer, with thousands of fawning comments. Many are bots, manipulating people on social media. Unfortunately, too many people are pulled into that bubble and become convinced it represents reality. It doesn't anymore than the flood of Harris posts that suddenly stopped on a dime election night, leaving millions of young people wondering where all the support went (not realizing the support was never there to begin with).
  - talldayo 2y ago
    > too many people are pulled into that bubble and become convinced it represents reality I don't think you're describing any particular political phenomenon though. We saw the same thing happen in 2016 and 2020 overnight - people go from Facebook pundits to sheepish and sore losers in just 12 hours. Bots certainly play a role in all this, but I think you're wrong to blame them as the deus-ex-machina when human behavior explains it all just fine. Support bases are real for Luigi Mangione and Harris in the same way it's real for MAGA and Elon. People are truly sucked into the cult of personality because it's big, and they don't understand how to contextualize politics outside of celebrity. In a world where people virtue-signal on their favorite politically-aligned platform, it's not hard at all to imagine the majority of this support being entirely genuine. A lot of people thought the "Stop the Steal" folks were bots, until they showed up and rioted and subsequently hid their identities out of fear that they'd be lambasted for supporting an anti-populist movement. In a post-Jan 6th world I don't quite understand how you can still blame bots for stupid opinions that real people clearly hold.
    - snypher 2y ago
      Well it used to be that people would form their opinions on others around them, not online misinformation campaigns. Evidence of this is how much content gets retweeted, but not so much is original content from the poster.
- apsec112 2y ago
  A non-trivial percentage of young Trump voters also supported the UHC assassination, presumably from some kind of general anti-institution vibe
- ParetoOptimal 2y ago
  > But America didn’t vote anti-business at all so it’s just more rage posting on Facebook and Reddit that doesn’t do anything Most of America (somehow) didn't know what they were voting for and just believed the empty promises. See the recent regrets of steelworkers and trends of people searching "can I change my vote". Oh yeah, and all of the people mad that President Musk is gonna increase H1Bs.
mentalgear 2y ago
they are not anti business, they are anti-establishment politics. But misunderstand that big business does big politics in 'merica.
kilna 2y ago
[flagged]
- Alupis 2y ago
  > broadly gestures to the late stage capitalism hellscape To quote The Dude - "that is like, your opinion... man". People are better off than any time in history. Some people are more better off than others... and some people perceive other people's success as the cause/reason for their own personal failures. Jeff Bezos has made every single person's life in America better by making products accessible to everyone regardless of economic bracket. Bezos' Amazon has compelled all other ecommerce companies to do better and offer better service to compete with Amazon. Literally everyone has won - except now that Bezos has been rewarded for creating one of the most important companies in the US, people want to tear him down. How dare he have more money than me! Let's pick any wealthy successful person, the story is the same. Those who believe the people who've built these mega companies don't actually provide value and/or earn their rewards are the very same people who have never and will never attempt to start a business and employ other people. The work only gets harder and there's more of it... Someone like Bezos is responsible for hundreds of thousands of jobs, perhaps millions when you consider all of the 3rd party sellers operating on Amazon these days. But, it's much easier to just scream "LaTe StAgE cApItAlIsM!" than do anything about our own situations. Read some books, work in industry to develop skills, then start your own business. Let's talk again in five years about this anti-business mood.
  - gosub100 2y ago
    Amazon was successful because for the first 10+ years they paid no sales tax (edit: they exploited interstate laws to enable buyers to circumvent paying sales tax. This was true for eBay as well). This is not competition, in fact it's the opposite. thats nothing revolutionary. In fact, 'exploitative' is the adjective that comes to my mind (which coincidentally, also applies to his laborers)
    - Alupis 2y ago
      > Amazon was successful because for the first 10+ years they paid no sales tax Quite a history revision. 1. Businesses do not pay sales tax - customers do. No online webstore collected taxes until recently. That was not something special for Amazon... 2. The business employs hundreds of thousands of people. All of which pay taxes. Even if the business itself literally paid zero dollars in taxes (lol), it is responsible for millions of dollars of taxes every month via payroll and employees buying things. 3. More taxes is not inherently better. What is up with people demanding more taxes be paid to the black hole that is the government? This idea that businesses don't pay taxes and therefore are bad is totally naïve.

abeppu 2y ago

I think this kind of framing, suggesting that seeking more information is some kind of irrational-yet-understandable emotional response, is kind of disrespectful and presumptuous. The family knows more about the situation that online commenters do, and they're choosing to get more information which they can only choose to do now. Isn't that appropriate and reasonable in the context? I've never dealt with such a situation before. But after something bad and unexpected happens, shouldn't it be considered generally a good idea to collect/record a lot of information while it's still possible? After production outages we ensure logs and records and traces are preserved. After bad car crashes you get witness statements, take photos, etc. Further, nowhere in the article are any family members quoted saying anything conspiratorial. It's people online who are talking about assassination by BigCorp. There are other possibilities besides suicide and being murdered specifically because of the whistleblowing. I think we should take seriously the possibility that an autopsy can be an appropriate and rational choice even without any conspiracy theory being true.

lostmsu 2y ago
> The family knows more about the situation that online commenters do Do they though? I wouldn't say my mom would know anything, or even understand matters at hand. On the contrary, random HN folk could feasibly imagine themselves in my shoes.
whimsicalism 2y ago
sure, but i think its valid that a lot of families go through this process. for instance, the guy who disappeared hiking the tiger leaping gorge trail but his family became convinced he was kidnapped and trafficked to North Korea (David Louis Sneddon)

throwaway123127 2y ago

It is not "conspiracism" to assume foul play if a witness is murdered. There is a thing like witness protection programs. Are these set up by conspiracy theorists? For the people who say he had no important information: We do not know that, perhaps he had surprise information.

omolobo 2y ago
How is this comment down-voted? Makes absolutely no sense. These are simple facts stated here.
nerdponx 2y ago
Not to mention several high-profile whistleblowers in various unrelated situations have all suspiciously "committed suicide" in the last few years. Suspicion should be high at this point.