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Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounded like he was complaining that the downvotes were out of "PC", as if we were offended that suicide could be the cause. I downvoted him because I don't think speculation without evidence is useful.
Speculation without evidence is a fundamental tool to figure stuff out. You are given a situation you don't understand (He died young). You make a speculation that seems plausible (Maybe suicide). You look for evidence (They asked here). Seems naively fine to me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Speculation without evidence is a fundamental tool to figure stuff out. You are given a situation you don't understand (He died young). You make a speculation that seems plausible (Maybe suicide). You look for evidence (They asked here). Seems naively fine to me.
This is someone whose cause of death is unknown because, as far as we know at this point, the revelation of his death is new, not because it's a scientific field of inquiry and experiment.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Topology of course is fundamental to all of physics, but in that context my guess would be on topological quantum computing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topological_quantum_computer I once attended a talk on the subject by Michael Freedman who is with Microsoft Station Q. They are trying to build just such a computer.
Since you didn't include it, but it's relevant to the topic at hand -- Michael Freedman is also a Fields medalist that did substantial work in topology. Which is, ultimately, why he's involved with Station Q -- he was part of the group that realized you could use the topological structure of certain interactions to encode general computations, and was part of convincing MS to pursue that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're getting downvoted because putting forward suicide as an explanation without any evidence is, well, "bad taste" doesn't really cut it. If you're going to speculate about it, at the very least give some justification.
A sincere question: Why is it bad to speculate that it was suicide? I assume there is some intention-guessing or social norm coming into play that I don't see. Could you explain your reasoning? Edit: Is it that it is not considered okay to consider suicide a plausible explanation? Is suicide a taboo, or something that would make a person seem less?
https://hn.algolia.com/?query=suicide&sort=byPopularity&pref...
https://hn.algolia.com/?query=depression&sort=byPopularity&p...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're getting downvoted because putting forward suicide as an explanation without any evidence is, well, "bad taste" doesn't really cut it. If you're going to speculate about it, at the very least give some justification.
A sincere question: Why is it bad to speculate that it was suicide? I assume there is some intention-guessing or social norm coming into play that I don't see. Could you explain your reasoning? Edit: Is it that it is not considered okay to consider suicide a plausible explanation? Is suicide a taboo, or something that would make a person seem less?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A sincere question: Why is it bad to speculate that it was suicide? I assume there is some intention-guessing or social norm coming into play that I don't see. Could you explain your reasoning? Edit: Is it that it is not considered okay to consider suicide a plausible explanation? Is suicide a taboo, or something that would make a person seem less?
Suicide is a very sensitive topic. There's issues of blame and justifiability and stuff (like what you mentioned in your edit) that are highly emotionally fraught. It's better not to open that can of worms without a good reason. To just casually toss out the idea in a low-effort content with no evidence appears to make light of suicide and the surrounding issues, and/or be insensitive to the stressful, unproductive d…
There is a certain emotional dryness to scientific curiosity, at least to me, social norms do not have a say. The boundary for me are ethics. I did not see unethical behaviour, so I do not sympethize with the silent/vague outrage.
I wish we could talk about suicide more freely. Why do we talk about breast cancer but not suicide? I think because the illusion of free will is still so prevalent, and psychological problems are fallout-causingly considered connected with the concept of guilt. These archaic ideas do not stand the test of time. Science and ethics supplant them.
I once read that reports about suicide increase the likelihood of others committing suicide. Is that reason enough to censor debate about it? That is a hard ethical question. I would say it depends on the medium where the discussion is held. HN seems acceptable to me, though I see arguments against it.
Does anyone know what happened ? Was he sick ? Was it cancer ?
He struggled deeply with alcoholism, but the cause of his death has not been announced.