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

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

#661

Post by uzay »

StevenRayOrr wrote: post #393
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.

> his past statements still need to be taken seriously, and extra care and doubt need to be applied to the reported story. Why? The fact that he had a paranoid fantasy of being murdered by the US government doesn't make it so. I don't have to take extra care with the ramblings of conspiracy theorists with a long history of outright bullshit.

Why? Because the US government has a strong and long documented history of murdering dissidents, especially in south america. Side A is unhindged guy, Side B has a very long rap sheet for murder. McAfees relationship with the intelligence community should be further investigated by private parties, ignoring a rap sheet like that is just as fantastical as conspiracy.

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

#662

Post by marricks »

nostrademons wrote: post #659
marricks wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many rich people do get charged for tax avoidance? Often times I feel like there's a whole class of rules which mainly exist to punish you if you step out of line. Take for instance gun permits in blue states. Not saying that he didn't avoid taxes egregiously enough to get caught, just interesting to consider.

Most rich people evade taxes legally , by following the letter of the law but structuring their assets and income in a way that they just happen to owe no taxes. The IRS are consummate bureaucrats. They don't write the tax code, they just enforce it. They enforce it quite firmly, but if you happen to get a loophole written into the tax code and drive a billion-dollar LLC through it, they aren't going to care. McAfee…

Ah, ok. That makes complete sense.

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

#663

Post by brudgers »

antris wrote: post #411
hristov wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.al.com/news/2019/02/how-an-...

I briefly met McCafee in this context right before he announced his candidacy. I was using the cowork space to get out of the house. He was there to meet with Kyle, the COO, and what appeared to be potential investors.

Had a conversation with his meth-mouthed bodyguard who started talking about ducking behind me if someone came in with a gun.

At that point I left for the day and didn’t renew my coworking membership. Eventually, what was obvious to me about the place came out. I used it because it was the only coworking option in Auburn-Opelika at the time.

Having been on HN, I figured it was probably what it was. But also accepted I might be wrong…a bias for the sake of using the space perhaps.

Never mind running a con, they were the sort of assholes who didn’t mind putting my life at risk.

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

#665

Post by fastball »

FireBeyond wrote: post #635
fastball wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He hadn't been one of the richest people on the planet in more than a decade. Definitely did not have enough money for literally any lifestyle, especially seeing as it appears he owed a lot of money in back taxes.

Had a net worth of several hundred million in a country where the cost of living was 23% of the US might not be a "megayacht and private 787" lifestyle, but it would do pretty well. He owed a lot of money in back taxes because he made a point of specifically refusing to pay them, not inability to do so.

His net worth peaked at $100M right before the 2008 financial crisis, which apparently decimated his investments.

If you spend a lot of money without paying your taxes, you still owe those taxes, which means you have significantly less money than you think you do. So when his aforementioned wealth peaked at $100M, the real value (i.e. minus taxes) was probably much lower.

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

#666

Post by XorNot »

ljm wrote: post #641
gizdan wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t care if McAffee owed some taxes - leave the guy alone, he's obviously unstable This is ridiculous. Okay so let's leave all the rich people alone who claim they are unstable. McAfee made millions, from what I understand, he paid little taxes on that. That's stupid. I don't care how unstable you are, or how good you are donating your "fair share". You're still not excused from paying your taxes.

I see your point... but we do leave the rich people alone. That's why we have individual people who have more money than entire countries. We do a lot of counter-intuitive things to keep the rich people on board. We haven't evolved from aristocracy, I'm not sure we can.

The existence of injustice doesn't justify injustice.

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

#667

Post by oh_sigh »

smsm42 wrote: post #194
willis936 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reliable (and potentially even publicly accessible) surveillance. Just livestream every moment of your life and keep logs in multiple locations.

Well, unless you get taken to prison where you will be surveilled, but the surveillance will fail at exactly the moment you committed suicide, mysteriously, and all footage would disappear after a technician makes an innocent mistake while backing it up.

Or, non-conspiratorially, surveillance fails all the time, but no one cares or even knows if surveillance fails and there was no reason to go back through the footage.

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

#668

Post by oh_sigh »

H8crilA wrote: post #652
KVFinn wrote: post #502

Was just reading about McAfee freebasing bath salts from old posts on an old Joe Rogan forum and not paying taxes seems like the absolute least he was up to: >I've processed 23 kilos of this stuff in the past year or so, and bump it myself every day - in fair quantities the hypersexuality... is beyond belief. I have had a number of acquaintances (both male and female) who have rubbed their genitals way past the point…

What compound(s) is(are) those?

Presumably the one he had in Belize on the north end of Ambergris Caye.

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

#669

Post by neom »

erwinkle wrote: post #598
neom wrote: post #66

I met John in an Atlanta airport lounge years ago[1]. I recognized him immediately as I've always admired him, and I decided to go up to him and tell him as much. He invited me to sit down, and told him about when I was a teenager in the 90s learning about tech entrepreneurs at the time, I always thought he was pretty cool and had good ideas. I told him I respected him, and that I was sure he'd lived an incredible li…

I looked at that photo and realized I knew you Small world, my co-founer and I won 2 DigitalOcean awards at HackTech and LA Hacks that you awarded us

I recall both of them. Did you win an iPad? If so, I have a picture of me giving you that prize still!

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

#670

Post by XorNot »

H8crilA wrote: post #652
KVFinn wrote: post #502

Was just reading about McAfee freebasing bath salts from old posts on an old Joe Rogan forum and not paying taxes seems like the absolute least he was up to: >I've processed 23 kilos of this stuff in the past year or so, and bump it myself every day - in fair quantities the hypersexuality... is beyond belief. I have had a number of acquaintances (both male and female) who have rubbed their genitals way past the point…

What compound(s) is(are) those?

I suspect none that actually exist or have that effect.
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