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The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker

wired.com

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Re: The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker

#121

Post by suzzer99 »

johnnyb9 wrote: post #76
ChuckMcM wrote: post #68

Okay, this quote stood out -- “He was a crazy good coder. Except he would always code everything the hardest way possible, kind of like you hired Rembrandt to paint your bathroom. You know it is going to be lit, but over the top.” A good read and a good reminder that people are always much more complex than we think. I wonder sometimes if by being exposed so often to fairly flat depictions of characters in movies and…

This quote stood out for me as well, for the reason that my own depiction of a "good coder" has evolved into someone who codes a solution in the simplest way possible using the best tools, not the "hardest" or most "lit" way.

I was planning to post exactly this. Reminds me of that famous anecdote about the guy who was using different branches in the same source control repo for different functions - who everyone said was a genius but no one could figure out how to touch his code.

Re: The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker

#122

Post by StrictDabbler »

deeeeplearning wrote: post #103
IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unsettling truth is that he was deeply troubled, and, at times, an abusive asshole who didn’t necessarily warrant quite as much compassion from strangers as he was given. I’m open to the idea that it may not really matter, and everyone deserves the dignity to not be buried anonymously. But there were a lot of resources invested in this case because he looked very relatable in photos. He was very different from wh…

>The other unsettling truth is that HN can read this story and come away asking what people could possibly object to in his life story, and why one should believe the spouses (plural) that describe his dark side What's unsettling about thinking that hit pieces on a dead man with quotes from supposed "ex girlfriends" is obnoxious?

We are all chimpanzees of varying temperament.

The internet finds a story like this and spends a month on it.

"Good chimp killed? Good chimp killed on hike? Hiking good, hikers good. Must be good victim chimp. How can good chimp have bad thing happen?"

Then somebody finds out who the chimp is, and somebody gets a thousand bucks to write

"Good chimp not so good. Fought with other chimps. Shouted, got quiet, not share food. Not good chimp die on trail. Bad chimp wander off to die because bad. Sad but ok."

That's the natural cycle of news, it's been going on since the press was invented and it's mostly ok.

What's frustrating is the internet adding the layer of

"Bad chimp? Bad Chimp?! What kind bad chimp? Bad chimp have excuse to be bad? No? Put on list of Villain Chimps! Vvvvvvvvillllainous chimp."

Dysfunctional dude didn't do so well with his personal relationships on his way to an early grave. Ok-doke.

Re: The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker

#123

Post by dragonwriter »

bart_spoon wrote: post #108
jasonv wrote: post #34

Does anyone remember a Wired (?) story from the earliest days about a teenager who got mixed up in a geek subculture and disappeared into sewers under the city? A quick search on their site didn't really yield what I think I remember.

Perhaps its about the DnD kid? I vaguely remember hearing about that, in the early days of DnD there was a college kid in Michigan who disappeared, and it was thought he had been in the steam tunnels under the campus as part of a DnD campaign or something. I don't remember all of the details, or if it ended up being true, but I think it kind of became a trope surrounding DnD for a while, and there was a Tom Hanks mov…

> I don’t remember all of the details, or if it ended up being true

Not as far as any link between the disappearance and D&D, no:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Dallas_Egbert_III#Disapp...

> and there was a Tom Hanks movie about it.

Mazes and Monsters, the novel and the movie, were inspired by the (false) story of the event.

Re: The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker

#124

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

S_A_P wrote: post #82
tppiotrowski wrote: post #37

The article talks about his ability to be friendly to strangers but abusive to his long term acquaintances. I have observed this pattern and curious if anyone knows what drives this? My personal theory is that you have some sort of obligations to long term acquaintances but you owe nothing to strangers on the trail. It's this feeling of obligation that leads you to resent people over time.

Maybe this is oversharing, but maybe not. I have shades of this in myself. I have a much smaller friend group than many folks and a cynical take on most peoples motivations. I can say that some of why I feel this way is just "how Im bent" and some is from childhood experiences of having my trust betrayed or my naivety taken advantage of. Throw in a bit of unpredictable mom behavior and I generally dont want to owe an…

I have the same issue as well. Often I feel like people are taking advantage of me. I feel like I have a good sense of people's intentions even before they say them. Also if I don't receive reciprocation in any way, it further reinforces to me the taking advantage of belief.

Re: The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker

#125

Post by tartoran »

typefourpd wrote: post #115
tartoran wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's clear that this man developed a personality disorder as the result of suffering abuse as a child. I'd say that is pretty hard to tell from the hearsay and all these are just speculations, which are okay. We're learning more from these conversations anyway.

Thank you for your gentle and respectful method of disagreement. I agree that my assumption was based on hearsay. Fundamentally, I don't believe that children who are loved and protected by their primary caregivers shoot themselves in the stomach in an attempt to die.

You're welcome. Mental health is a very misunderstood topic because it is something we cannot directly peer into and the stigma associated with mental health makes people hide it very well.

It is possible to have a who child goes off the rails in a very nurturing and a generally normal family. I've seen cases where one of the many siblings gets to become a sociopath and the family never understands why and they continue to be normal and consistently try to get their sibling back on track. It is clear that abuse in the family doesn't always play a role. But quite often it does and while mental health has a hereditary component, a bad environment only makes things worse.

I recommend Ramsay's movie 'We need to talk about Kevin' to make an idea of how wrong it could go. Surely, it is a movie but it's not too far from reality.

Re: The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker

#126

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

adamc wrote: post #93
S_A_P wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this is oversharing, but maybe not. I have shades of this in myself. I have a much smaller friend group than many folks and a cynical take on most peoples motivations. I can say that some of why I feel this way is just "how Im bent" and some is from childhood experiences of having my trust betrayed or my naivety taken advantage of. Throw in a bit of unpredictable mom behavior and I generally dont want to owe an…

You might just be an HSP: https://www.amazon.com/Highly-Sensitive-Person-Thrive-Overwh... I've had this problem in many contexts. Some of it stems from childhood circumstances, but it's also that I often read people better than they seemingly know themselves, i.e., noticing anger that they don't think they have. This can cause a lot of stress.

From the about portion of that, it mostly reads like symptoms of people with Schizoid Personality Disorder or Avoidant Personality Disorder. While it can be a good survival trait in the grand scheme of things, culturally in the US it's as useful as being born poor.

Re: The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker

#127

Post by op03 »

dkarl wrote: post #46

Maybe Rodriguez’s story is similar to Cody’s. He was alone in a vast, unfamiliar city. He’d destroyed his relationships. He left his apartment in anger. And then, as he traversed the mountains, walking through sugar maple and oak, hickory and poplar, stepping over roots and rocks, he tamed his demons too. The many people who met him didn’t sense the dark, brooding, sometimes dangerous person who left Brooklyn. People…

>sugar maple and oak, hickory and poplar

I feel the trees mentioned are somehow involved too.

Re: The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker

#128

Post by cmehdy »

ska wrote: post #116
cmehdy wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, I can confirm that it's similar in essence and just overwhelmingly stronger in effect. It's a bit like having finally decided every single one of the big decisions of life in the same split second (because that's what it is in the moment). It's also stronger than that because the very likely "normal state" of your brain up to that point is severe depression, so you're not anywhere near what people might…

This is a thoughtful comment. I do think it is incredibly hard to gauge "relative effect" between people, so I don't think we can really rank them (except for ourselves, of course). There is some nuance here. I've also experienced a lot of variance in my social group in terms of what things have really seemed to set them back. I really like your point that seemingly "small" things can make a huge difference in someon…

I initially thought about writing what you're concluding, but after giving it more thought my conclusion wasn't that one has to strive to be kind but instead to be sincere. Kindness for its own sake might even be upsetting to me, instead of kindness "happening" alongside sincerity. But I realized that this was due to my own preferences (having more interactions that don't feel scripted, a human connection even with all the not-so-good parts), so I decided to leave it out of the message. Because I have no way to really prescribe anything to anybody, I don't know what is "best" if being kind and being sincere ever conflict, and I don't know what other people in such a vulnerable situation might react to or want. For all I know it might be diametrically opposed in a significant subset of people having gone through the same process.

From the other side of things, I have had decent outcomes attempting to be both at once when someone is in crisis. Using my better judgment to figure out what to prioritize if conflict arises between the two - often based on what I perceived from the other person. There's time for advice, there's time for being heard, there's time to be.

I'd hardly call that an exact science, but I remind myself and anyone who I think should hear it that you shouldn't beat yourself up for trying to help and not "succeeding". That it's not your fault, nor is it the fault of the person in pain to do something so violent because they want to stop feeling that pain. Faulting leads nowhere constructive, even though later on I could find strength to figure out (and own up to) my own part of responsibility in life - which can be constructive. I guess the HN-equivalent discussion is all the debate around the naming of "git blame" :)

We just simply don't have enough information about the universe to really know better most of the time, and as a consequence of that you can't reliably predict much of it all even with the best and most genuine attempts to help. (I realize I am saying obvious things, but I'll leave it there)

Re: The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker

#129

Post by as1mov »

Geminidog wrote: post #71

The more unsettling truth is how the world became interested in someone like him even though he was mostly an asshole. This article says more about human nature and our tendencies to make unwarranted assumptions based off of superficial qualities then it does about him. Would he garner the same amount of attention if he wasn't white or good looking?

This was my observation as well. I don't think this case would've gotten the same amount of attention if the person wasn't good looking. There are countless Doe's missing for whom an army of online strangers hasn't sprung up and made their mission to identify the person (and some unwarranted expectations based just on a bunch of photographs).

Re: The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker

#130

Post by holtalanm »

jgilias wrote: post #64
tppiotrowski wrote: post #37

The article talks about his ability to be friendly to strangers but abusive to his long term acquaintances. I have observed this pattern and curious if anyone knows what drives this? My personal theory is that you have some sort of obligations to long term acquaintances but you owe nothing to strangers on the trail. It's this feeling of obligation that leads you to resent people over time.

I believe it's called a mask. People with some personality disorders gradually develop a sort of behavioral mask to wear in public in order to fit in into the wider society and be able to achieve one's goals. However, having it 'on' is apparently taxing, so it comes off around people who are in one way or another part of some inner circle for whom there's no point to pretend.

> However, having it 'on' is apparently taxing

That just sounds like standard introvert, though.

The hiker in the article, on the other hand, seems to be off-the-deep-end introvert.

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