so sad :(
Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
61–70 of 251 posts
Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
#62Why don't we wait for official comment before speculating on the cause of his death. The last thing his family/friends/coworkers need is false rumors. Not saying they're necessarily false or correct, I just think we should wait out of courtesy. I know I'd hope people do that if I died...
Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, you must not respond; you are not obliged to make any comment on his death. In fact, it would be nice if you specifically refrained from making a comment arguing about whether his death was important in the middle of a thread where everyone else is offering their condolences; including, I would assume, some people who knew him personally. This is a matter of being human.
> In fact, it would be nice if you specifically refrained from making a comment arguing about whether his death was important in the middle of a thread where everyone else is offering their condolences You just highlighted exactly what I tried to write about! Why have a thread full of condolences from strangers directed at strangers and shun any actual discussion? Most people clicked the story to find out the cause o…
Why have a thread full of condolences from strangers directed at strangers and shun any actual discussion?
Because this is how people deal with the existence of death, and they appreciate having a place to pay their respects independent of having an "actual discussion." Why do you think that ceremonial burial is a near-universal element of human culture? A breaking-news thread announcing a person's early death is a terrible place to have a discussion about "the stresses of life...related to tech." You should have that discussion inside your head, and then engage other people with it at a time when they did not just hear about someone's suicide.
Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, you must not respond; you are not obliged to make any comment on his death. In fact, it would be nice if you specifically refrained from making a comment arguing about whether his death was important in the middle of a thread where everyone else is offering their condolences; including, I would assume, some people who knew him personally. This is a matter of being human.
Respectfully, it's also about logistics. If we started posting deaths of everyone involved in startups or 'tech', that's all HN would be full of.
I appreciate the tradeoff, but I don't think that's the case. There are probably only a few thousand people who are on a level of notability to this audience as the young founder of a heavily-hyped project like this. There are many threads on the front page that seem a lot less newsworthy or thought-provoking.
Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
#65The death of the founder of any well-known startup merits mention here. The startup community is a close knit global one, we don't just meet each other at professional networking events, we share our lives with each other. Perhaps unlike any other profession we have a closeness that binds us, we socialize, we date, we make lifelong friends from within the startup community. Even if we don't know the startup founder d…
Completely agree, and for that reason I started a meetup here in London recently called London Tech Founders Anonymous (http://www.meetup.com/LTechFA); we've had two great sessions thus far, and indeed as you've noted, one of the points raised in support of the initiative by attendees present at the inaugural session was the liberation of the format due to the group's aims; viz., steering participants away from the ubiquitous "We're killing it!" in favour of actual truth and deeper bonding/learning that, in my opinion, seems underserved in the community generally.
That being said, great initiatives like FailCon (http://thefailcon.com/) do exist, however I personally don't believe a consumption-centric format (i.e. standard lecture/conference/meetup format) will cut it; deep interaction and open sharing on a regular basis is the only way.
We in LTFA adhere to Chatham House rules (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatham_House_Rule), so there is confidence when unburdening ourselves... and that's a big part of it, tbh!
Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
#66The founders of Diaspora were in a really unenviable position. They started off with a wave of national press as well as solid financial support from grassroot users. As time went on, it became increasingly clear that they would not be able to accomplish the goal they originally set out to do. They had failed. Publicly. This can be very devastating psychologically to someone who has always 'succeeded' in life. I'm no…
What are you saying, the stress of the Diaspora project killed him? Did you hear this from a close source or are you just guessing it?
Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
#67The founders of Diaspora were in a really unenviable position. They started off with a wave of national press as well as solid financial support from grassroot users. As time went on, it became increasingly clear that they would not be able to accomplish the goal they originally set out to do. They had failed. Publicly. This can be very devastating psychologically to someone who has always 'succeeded' in life. I'm no…
What are you saying, the stress of the Diaspora project killed him? Did you hear this from a close source or are you just guessing it?
I'd assume he is implicating suicide
Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
If suicide does turn out to be the cause of death, it is worth talking about. I won't say that there's nothing more tragic than suicide, but it is certainly senseless/needless in almost all cases. The more awareness of suicide, the risk factors, and how to not tread into that space, the better.
> The more awareness of suicide Suicide has a strong triggering effect; see "Werther effect". Talking about suicide has to be done carefully to avoid triggering further suicidal behaviour; especially after someone has just completed suicide. I'd agree that more awareness of suicide prevention is very important.
I receive annual suicide awareness training at work. One of the things they train us to do is, if we suspect someone might be considering suicide, to ask point-blank: "Are you thinking about hurting yourself." Most people will answer honestly, and then you can get them help if they need it. So while discussing suicide in the abstract can trigger others to commit suicide, discussing it directly with a potentially suicidal person is a critical first step in preventing suicide. Also, most people don't know what to do when dealing with someone suicidal, and the only way to teach them is to talk about it, which creates a bit of a catch-22 when you combine that with the Werther effect.
Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
#69Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
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