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Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21

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Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21

#201

Post by kaiwen1 »

adrianwaj wrote: post #193
thomasgerbe wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well at least suicide is a legitimate personal choice. Murder is not.

To me, suicide is murder of self. Who's sicker: the one murdering another, or the one murdering oneself? Also, many murderers kills others first, then themselves. Maybe this Diaspora fellow thought people wanted to kill him, so he thought he'd do it himself to save them the trouble because he'd already let them down once. Who knows.. but that's an ill thought process to have.

I may be the odd man out here, but I have to say that I think suicide is a inalienable right. If I own nothing else in this world, the one thing I most certainly do own is my person. If I choose to dispose of myself, that's my right and it should be respected. While I agree that depression and other mental issues are often serious and require serious help, ultimately the decision to stay or go should be mine and should be respected. If I insist on checking out, then law and community ought to allow me to do it.

Tangentially, there should be a streamlined euthanasia option to those serving very long prison sentences.

Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21

#202

Post by mattdeboard »

pckhoi wrote: post #200
ryan-allen wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like how Depression is a choice and OCD is a choice and Schizophrenia is a choice. Your views on mental health are a bit last century.

Depression is a choice? You surely don't know how Depression work. You don't choose getting into a car accident, in the same way you don't choose Depression. Stuffs happen, not because people "chose" it.

The person you're replying to was being sarcastic. He was not being serious when he said "depression is a choice", etc. He was trying to highlight what he saw as the absurdity of the post to which he was replying.

Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21

#203

Post by dholowiski »

ig1 wrote: post #34

The 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…

Startups Anonymous - that's actually a brilliant idea.

Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21

#204

Post by mindcrime »

kaiwen1 wrote: post #201
adrianwaj wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, suicide is murder of self. Who's sicker: the one murdering another, or the one murdering oneself? Also, many murderers kills others first, then themselves. Maybe this Diaspora fellow thought people wanted to kill him, so he thought he'd do it himself to save them the trouble because he'd already let them down once. Who knows.. but that's an ill thought process to have.

I may be the odd man out here, but I have to say that I think suicide is a inalienable right. If I own nothing else in this world, the one thing I most certainly do own is my person. If I choose to dispose of myself, that's my right and it should be respected. While I agree that depression and other mental issues are often serious and require serious help, ultimately the decision to stay or go should be mine and shou…

I may be the odd man out here, but I have to say that I think suicide is a inalienable right. If I own nothing else in this world, the one thing I most certainly do own is my person. If I choose to dispose of myself, that's my right and it should be respected.

For what it's worth, you're not the only one who believes that. My world-view is also heavily rooted in the notion of "self ownership," and I hold that an individual has a right to end their life whenever they want.

That's not to say that suicide is (often|ever|usually|whatever) a good idea; and I'd be the last to encourage someone to commit suicide. But it is a right, and I believe it can even be a totally rational choice in some cases.

Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21

#205

Post by dlikhten »

thomasgerbe wrote: post #116
robg wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just our community. There are twice as many suicides as homicides in the U.S.[1] Yet, every nightly newscast is sure to cover the murders. How many talk about the suicides? Worse, suicide is the leading cause of death among college students [2]. It's an epidemic that no one talks about. We've already lost two freshman at MIT this year. [1] http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/09/01/suicide-vs-homicide-b... [2] h…

Well at least suicide is a legitimate personal choice. Murder is not.

Depression is a choice as much as feeling pain is a choice. Some people can cope with it, others cannot. Persistence will break down any coping mechanisms.

I remember being depressed with suicidal thoughts, and basically spending the full night telling myself to stfu because I refuse to do it, yet I could not control the thoughts, only the actions taken. It was very difficult, basically the rational part of the brain desperately battling with the emotional part, and that emotional part does not seem to get tired... I cannot imagine people living this way for extended periods of time, would require help from people who care, and reaching out to em.

The down side is that depression has a component of hopelessness to it which prevents people from reaching out to others where had they had a well balanced state of mind they would.

Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21

#206

Post by dlikhten »

temphn wrote: post #49
DevX101 wrote: post #25

The 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…

Very important comment. The biggest risk in doing a startup is not the financial risk per se. It's the psychological risk of knowing you really, really tried -- and still failed. That is the hard part, because everyone goes in with Dilbert/mass media notions of how easy it is to be a CEO or (just as bad) Social Network illusions of how easy it is to grow meteorically while fighting off lawsuits. The truth is that it'…

It also takes a lot of support, and circular support as even if you are feeling down, your partner may be too, and its both your jobs to keep the other happy. Its very stressful being in the limbo state with everyone trying to kill you, you are trying to build something, you want to get money to continue working, nobody thinks its a good idea till you prove it which takes time, etc.

It definitely takes a mental fortitude and a dash of ignorance to do this stuff.

Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21

#207

Post by evanprodromou »

So sorry to hear that Ilya's gone. I only had a chance to meet him a few times, but I found him intelligent, thoughtful and friendly.

I don't know the circumstances of his death, but I do hope that his family and colleagues get to see what an impact it's had on the hacker community.

I look forward to hearing ways that they'd like us to honour his passing; until then I'm going to do it the way I know best -- keep hacking.

Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21

#208

Post by karlzt »

Udo wrote: post #192
Nessuss wrote: post #138

I hope he had a cryonics contract. .... In reading the above, some people might think it insensitive to 'peddle' this here, and I almost censored myself because of that. But that's not helpful at all. People are dying unnecessarily because they don't understand physics, cognitive neuroscience, and the possibilities the future allows. May he live again conditional on him being cryo-preserved. Otherwise, it is sad news…

I agree with your sentiment - it is, however, questionable to bring this up in threads like these where the community is still reeling from a loss. While I believe cryo preservation is a good idea in general, you must know that most people don't do this and are in fact strongly opposed to the idea. That means you are unlikely to convince people who are not already in favor of the concept. Also in this special case pl…

>> Also in this special case please keep in mind that the guy committed suicide

from the article:

"The cause of death is currently unconfirmed."

Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21

#209

Post by _THE_PLAGUE »

Nessuss wrote: post #138

I hope he had a cryonics contract. .... In reading the above, some people might think it insensitive to 'peddle' this here, and I almost censored myself because of that. But that's not helpful at all. People are dying unnecessarily because they don't understand physics, cognitive neuroscience, and the possibilities the future allows. May he live again conditional on him being cryo-preserved. Otherwise, it is sad news…

With due respect, cryonics won't work. Why? Because "I am a strange loop" as Hofstadter would put it. We are NOT the code. We are the code execution. Think of the human subject as a really complicated, recursive sort of while(1) loop. When the program ends, we end. You can freeze the source code all you want - possibly even restart it but there is no reason I know of to think that such a restarted program would be "me", more like a fascmile of "me". I could be wrong, but not sure why I would be.
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