The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by aaron695 » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 11:14 PM UTC

> The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker

This is the "unsettling truth", the last paragraph, we all been so Twitter'ed everyone needs to look for more -

> Yet it’s hard not to look at this story with anything but sadness. The boy who raised his hand to get help from a passing truck—and whose body still bore the scar of that Louisiana field—had grown into the man who didn’t seek help as he died in a Florida swamp. A man was able to disappear in no small part because no one was looking for him. A man was harmed and maybe harmful. And then he went into the woods and became Mostly Harmless.

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

#202

Post by demadog » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 11:21 PM UTC

Pet_Ant wrote: post #161

demadog wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a thought, but what if you set a daily time limit of being fully engaged and present with your wife, say for an hour or two, but then it is understood that you need ~3 hrs of alone time. Sounds like you’re an introvert and need time to recharge from managing a team and you’re burnt out from that. I think she’d be delighted with an hour a day of full presence, perhaps more on the weekend.

I’m not sure how I would feel if my partner wanted to spend 3 times as much time alone as with me. That’s kind of degrading unless you are both into that. What are you getting out of the relationship at all? Sounds like they should leave and be alone.

Yea for sure but I think the message is that 1 hour of engaged time - such as going on a short date (at home or other) is much better than 4 hours disengaged and thinking of work while watching Netflix

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

#203

Post by foobiekr » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 11:22 PM UTC

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.

That theory really seems sensible to me.

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

#204

Post by rriepe » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 11:48 PM UTC

TeaDrunk wrote: post #33

rriepe wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unsettling truth is that society really, really despises people with schizoid personality disorder. (EDIT: People with SPD are averse to violence and prone to all kinds of abuse. The he-said/she-said stuff is particularly useless here.)

IME Society rarely notices people with schizoid personality disorder- most people with schizoid don't even go to a doctor and never get formally diagnosed. This is especially true compared to schizoid's siblings in the personality disorder categories (Category A), paranoid and schizotypal. (Minor edit: Also, committing spousal abuse is distinctly not a trait of schizoid personality disorder.)

I think they're both true. Despising without noticing is a good description, since it fits the homeless and so many of them are SPD.

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

#205

Post by menotyou » Sat, Jan 16, 2021, 12:05 AM UTC

rel-throwaway wrote: post #170

throwaway6299 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How strange, just created an account to say that I am the same way and was thinking about this a lot last night. (Although, I don’t think I am emotionally abusive, as I feel my spouse demands things that are entirely unreasonable, like frequently asking me to leave work in the middle of the day to come help with something or buying a house and dog when we had less than $1,000 in our account). All I wanted my whole li…

There has been plenty of unreasonable stuff over the years. Early in our marriage she spent close to 1000$ at the mall which left us short of funds to pay her grad school tuition that I had been saving to pay for her. Till date she refuses to understand our financial picture and will be completely lost if I were to get hit by a bus tomorrow. Also, she has not worked for >90% of our ~10 year marriage to follow her pas…

I agree 100% with 08-15s reply. Looks more that she is abusing you.

I was married to a woman who behaved in a similar fashion. Calling me during work days for ridiculous reasons. Never satisfied. Needed constant attention. Took all disagreements as personal attacks. Needy, prickly, never thankful to anyone. In the end we separated as everything in the marriage was one way street in her direction.

Today I regret that I did not leave her more early but tried to rescue the family by letting everything her way.

Looking back she had a Narcistic Personality Disorder (which was meanwhile confirmed by a psychologist).

Get books on narcissism. Try to speak to a professional if you believe she is narcistic. But NPS is (almost) not treatable. So the only solution is to leave if she is narcistic.

Luckily I managed that our kids stayed with me after separation. And for the kids protection, don't leave the kid with her when you leave. (Recommended Reading: "Children of the self absorbed" by Nina Brown).

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

#206

Post by ska » Sat, Jan 16, 2021, 12:45 AM UTC

cmehdy wrote: post #128

ska wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

It's a good point, but perhaps mostly a semantic one. "Kindness" here was not meant to imply insincere but I think I get the distinction you are drawing. I guess I was mostly thinking along the lines that it's impossible to have a good model of the mental state of the person you are dealing with, so you simultaneously should be forgiving of rough edges in their treatment of you, and thoughtful about your treatment of them - absolutely I think this includes the sort of judgment you are talking about.

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

#207

Post by throwaway5232 » Sat, Jan 16, 2021, 1:40 AM UTC

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #126

adamc wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When people talk about survival traits they are taking an evolutionary perspective not a cultural perspective. In the grand scheme of things poor people are more successful than rich biologically speaking: https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-fam...

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

#208

Post by tartoran » Sat, Jan 16, 2021, 2:58 AM UTC

kayodelycaon wrote: post #149

kayodelycaon wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love to. I’m a card-carrying member of the Over-sharers Club The way I think and care about people has changed. I no longer care what people think about me. At the same time, I have a depth of compassion and empathy I couldn’t have had before. I have no obligation to anyone. This lets me choose to care about someone without getting unnecessarily attracted. As a result, I can share my love and support freely without w…

Another note on masks. If you’ve always been known for your positive traits and your negative ones can be overlooked by people who like you, many people won’t notice if your positive traits get better and your negative ones become smoothed out. If they do notice, they chalk it up to maturity.

Yes, this happens quite a bit as we can’t really see what’s going on inside other people’s minds. It is very interesting to say your sexuality took over spirituality in your case. How old were you when this happens? During puberty, adolescence and early adulthood we go trough transformations that are in a way not very well understood, in regard to sexuality I mean, think all the hormonal production going through the roof and stabilizing later on in life, but this is connected to mental health as well. Although I am not suffering of serious mental issues, just some anxiety and depression here and there for short periods of time, I remember first experiencing anxiety as an adolescent and didn’t know what it was then. It was mild though.

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

#209

Post by mbrodersen » Sat, Jan 16, 2021, 3:23 AM UTC

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?

Agree. I have noticed that when bad things happen to good looking white people it gets 100x more attention than if it happens to ugly/non-white people.

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

#210

Post by astura » Sat, Jan 16, 2021, 4:14 AM UTC

stuckindider wrote: post #134

deeeeplearning wrote: post #102

This stuff is disturbing. These articles read like hit pieces. The guy can't even defend himself and you have all these wild claims from supposed ex-girlfriends. It's just bizarre. Let the guy lie in peace.

It's honestly disgusting how people have made it into a game of trying to figure out who he was. Cutting him open for bone fragments. He died alone in the woods. Was there any reason to think it was caused by malace? No. Then fuck off and let him be.

It's not a "game."

Identifying an unknown deceased person so the next of kin can be notified is part of a normal death investigation, even when there is no foul play.

He seems to have made a positive impact on people who met him on the trail, which is why those people wanted to find out who he was. They wanted to give his friends and family closure.