A Protocol for Dying

Pieter, in the article you wrote "Think of the Children" and wanted readers to write stories, which is a really nice idea.. How about we think of the children and donate some money? Is it possible to share a donation address/endpoint ?

The author has cancer and explains what he prefers to hear and live before he dies.

I've never known anyone who knew their death was imminent, and it pains me to see cancer strike another beloved member of the tech community, but I am fascinated by how Pieter is handling his situation. Delegating his tasks away, being frank about his condition and its progress, and now this protocol article. Even though his life is being cut way short, it almost seems as if he has extra time to get his ducks in a row and share wisdom. Many others die suddenly or after losing mental faculties and don't quite have the same opportunity.

To anyone who does not know, Pieter Hintjens is the CEO of iMatix, where they build AMQP, ZMQ etc.

Take care /u/PieterH.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Hintjens 2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11520888 3. https://twitter.com/hintjens

It is not every day we see much written about death on upvote lists like Reddit or HN. So it means a ton to see the perspective of a smart hacker who is indeed met with the undeniable future of his own time. I'm only 26 and I have been thinking about life and death a lot lately. Not because I would commit suicide -- but rather because the very stupifying fact of "I'm alive!" evades most of media and content we consume.

But it has huge implications for us in the very soon battle for understanding if turing-complete high-level-abstracting machines would experience "consciousness" like we do. In terms of medical care, rights, and other aspects for thinking entities.

And Pieter, if you are reading this, I wish you well in whatever lies ahead for your mind, and for your actions which will surely echo through the sands of time for people. Because like you said, even if life is indeed finite -- that we take a sensible approach, our legacy should be able to give us comfort that our actions do get magnified by time -- so do what you love, and it will speak through future generations.