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John McAfee found dead in Spanish jail after court approves extradition to US

bbc.com

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Re: John McAfee found dead in Spanish jail after court approves extradition to US

#411

Post by antris »

hristov wrote: post #373
sva_ wrote: post #23

What a strange life he lived. I'm not going to make a value judgement about whether or not he was a 'good' person, but I do applaud the fact that he dared to deviate from the norm. "There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die." -- Hunter S Thompson RIP

It should be noted that this Hunter S Thompson quote refers to Oscar Zeta Acosta. Acosta made a big difference fighting for the rights of poor and marginalized mexican-americans in east LA. He did something more with his life than just take a lot of drugs and be weird.

> did something more with his life than just take a lot of drugs and be weird.

Not everything about a person is their public image though. Summing up a persons life like that, even if you disagree with his public image, is just inhumane. Did you know him? Did you ever even see him once?

Re: John McAfee found dead in Spanish jail after court approves extradition to US

#412

Post by oauea »

fastball wrote: post #311
prvc wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He could have killed himself anyway--- that is obvious , but his past statements still need to be taken seriously, and extra care and doubt need to be applied to the reported story.

Do the past statements of a clearly unhinged individual need to be taken seriously?

Yes.

Re: John McAfee found dead in Spanish jail after court approves extradition to US

#413

Post by whydoyoucare »

handrous wrote: post #305
nodesocket wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in America we have something called innocent until proven guilty.

It is absurd to apply that to individual, or even social, judgement. We don't actually pretend to be ignorant and blind of a person's probable or apparent misdeeds if they haven't been proven in a court of law, nor should we. If, for instance, I notice a couple small, expensive items go missing each time my cousin visits, I'm not going to say "oh well, better not tell anyone else he's probably a thief and I'd better…

You shouldn't discount the possibility that your kid has been stealing from you all along, making things disappear when your cousin visited everytime to throw suspicion on him. ;-)

(Allright, I'm just trying to lighten the mood).

Re: John McAfee found dead in Spanish jail after court approves extradition to US

#414

Post by dragonwriter »

notafraudster wrote: post #160
colordrops wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is indeed an alternative possiblity, but the possiblity that he was murdered should not be discounted. Murdering those that challenge authority has been happening since the dawn of history and nothing has fundamentally changed. Well other than needing to make it look like a suicide since modern society likes to believe it's enlightened.

McAfee was an obviously unhinged lunatic peddling fringe nonsense. You can make an argument that cryptocurrency poses a threat to the state, but a 75 year old man who spends 16 hours a day rambling on twitter about fringe stuff does not. The available evidence points strongly to a deeply mentally ill guy facing life in prison and killing himself.

> You can make an argument that cryptocurrency poses a threat to the state, but a 75 year old man who spends 16 hours a day rambling on twitter about fringe stuff does not.

Unless they are, e.g., also head of state and government, but that’s not an issue with McAfee, though its not unheard of.

Re: John McAfee found dead in Spanish jail after court approves extradition to US

#415

Post by BitwiseFool »

steego wrote: post #328
prvc wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying "likely" as a hedge, when in fact you are instead merely expressing an opinion, without any knowledge of the actual numerical likelihood of such an event having happened.

I believe that’s how most people in society invoke a numerically void word like the word “likely”. Call my cynical, but time and experience has taught me that people do not back up qualifying words with the appropriate level of mathematical rigor. It’s as if they want to express an opinion without doing the leg work or providing any citations. Had he invested the time to calculate an estimate of likelihood, I’m willi…

"people do not back up qualifying words with the appropriate level of mathematical rigor."

To be fair, how in the world am I supposed to calculate such things and provide a satisfactory number?

The vast majority of my conversations and discourse don't require or benefit from giving a range or specific value to such words. Would the preceding sentence be better if I said 90%, 95%, 99.5% instead of 'vast majority'? And to be honest, most people - especially myself - aren't at all accurate with probability estimates, let alone calculations.

Re: John McAfee found dead in Spanish jail after court approves extradition to US

#416

Post by nigerian1981 »

sva_ wrote: post #23

What a strange life he lived. I'm not going to make a value judgement about whether or not he was a 'good' person, but I do applaud the fact that he dared to deviate from the norm. "There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die." -- Hunter S Thompson RIP

I always remember by Geography teacher correcting me on my incorrect use of wether instead of whether and explaining that the former meant a castrated ram.

Re: John McAfee found dead in Spanish jail after court approves extradition to US

#417

Post by dwighttk »

echelon wrote: post #278
engineeringwoke wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drugs destroyed his life, and it wasn't glorious. I'm not sure what else there is to say

He lived a wealthy and colorful life full of ups and downs. I wouldn't want it for myself, but it probably worked out okay for him. We're all monkeys on a space rock. I think it's good we have such variety.

> it probably worked out okay for him.

He just committed suicide.

And if you don’t believe he did I’m not sure that makes a case for it working out okay for him either.

Re: John McAfee found dead in Spanish jail after court approves extradition to US

#418

Post by G3rn0ti »

30 years for tax evasion? No wonder he preferred to die.

I mean, you’ll get jail time for severe cases of tax evasion in Germany, too, but it’s a couple of years at max and most of the time it’s on probation.

How do you justify your draconic punishments in the US which is supposed to be a free country?

Re: John McAfee found dead in Spanish jail after court approves extradition to US

#419

Post by dang »

mellosouls wrote: post #175
dang wrote: post #142

We changed the URL from https://elpais.com/economia/2021-06-23/el-fundador-del-antiv... to the most neutral English-language article that was easy to Google.

Not available to European readers. Alternative examples here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57589822 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/23/john-mcafee-...

Thanks to you both for letting me know. Let's go with the BBC link for now. (URL changed from https://www.nbc4i.com/news/u-s-world/john-mcafee-found-dead-...)

Re: John McAfee found dead in Spanish jail after court approves extradition to US

#420

Post by lavela »

jbverschoor wrote: post #276
cwkoss wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think he lost his mind, but rather decided that it was more fun to seek attention than credibility.

Exactly.. the art of not giving a fuck

Seeking attention is an opposite of not giving a fuck.
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