In case the other thread won't bubble to the front page (though I expect it will):
CNN confirmed it was suicide: http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/14/technology/diaspora_cofounde...
Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
221–230 of 251 posts
Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
#222Earlier 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…
When you take yourself out, you take other people out too psychologically - relatives and close friends. Is that your right, and would you check with them beforehand? And what of the people you might have helped or saved had you lived?
If you have the right to your own life, then do you have any obligation to other people's lives? Also, how do you know you own yourself: did you create yourself or did your parents? And who created them? Would you ask your creator if it's okay to suicide, and then would you be open to answers?
Lastly, are you sure you die when you die: how do you know the pain won't go on someplace else?
From my reading, suicide thought is a transient state but with permanent consequences if acted upon.
Also, the best way to fix your mind, is to fix your body, rather than destroy it.
Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately, an outgoing personality is a great way to protect yourself from people asking you the very painful question of "what's wrong"...I know now, after wrestling with depression for years, that sometimes it's harder to face your depression and explain your pain to others than it is to simply be depressed in the first place. What better way to defend yourself than by acting exactly opposite of how you really…
If someone is at that stage where you are contemplating this, here is a tip....just do it. By that I mean commit suicide of your _current_ life, not of life. Most of what weights someone down are the fears, struggles, embarrassment, your peer groups, jobs, etc. If you can't find a way through it, just leave it. Give all your stuff away, give away your money, give up your computer, leave your friends and family, pack…
I'm not sure this is good advice. I have no experience of this kind of thing, but it seems to me that cutting yourself off from everybody who cares about you is one of the worst things you can do. Now you have no money, no friends, no family, and nothing to stop you when you next start to feel like jumping off a cliff.
It sounds like a good start to a story, but bad real-world advice.
I had an ex-gf who worked on a suicide hotline, and apparently one of the most powerful things they had in their arsenal were questions like "Who do you think would find your body?" and "How do you think it would affect them?" and other encouragements for suicidal person to think about how their suicide would affect those around them. If you're backpacking alone in Africa, having taken your leave from everybody in your life two months ago, it seems like there'd be a lot less to keep you.
Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately, an outgoing personality is a great way to protect yourself from people asking you the very painful question of "what's wrong"...I know now, after wrestling with depression for years, that sometimes it's harder to face your depression and explain your pain to others than it is to simply be depressed in the first place. What better way to defend yourself than by acting exactly opposite of how you really…
If someone is at that stage where you are contemplating this, here is a tip....just do it. By that I mean commit suicide of your _current_ life, not of life. Most of what weights someone down are the fears, struggles, embarrassment, your peer groups, jobs, etc. If you can't find a way through it, just leave it. Give all your stuff away, give away your money, give up your computer, leave your friends and family, pack…
you have a romanticized idea of depression.
Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> If you ever believe the possibility of something like happening is > .00001, do something, anything. If you don't know what to do, contact me (see my profile) and I'll help in any way I can. Its a nice thought, but people in this position often don't want help. My best Friend was doing a PHD in a Biochemistry related field at University College London back in 2003. He was an outgoing person, had a hot girlfriend a…
Unfortunately, an outgoing personality is a great way to protect yourself from people asking you the very painful question of "what's wrong"...I know now, after wrestling with depression for years, that sometimes it's harder to face your depression and explain your pain to others than it is to simply be depressed in the first place. What better way to defend yourself than by acting exactly opposite of how you really…
*just to confirm to anyone who read this and was concerned about my well-being: I am not suicidal. I appreciate the responses though and am glad to have contributed to this conversation. I think the stigma around mental health discussions is horrible and to see these things discussed in a public forum is fantastic, though the circumstances leading to this discussion are obviously very sad and grim. Hopefully events like this will open more people's eyes to the realization that depression is very common (especially amongst techies and startup founders) and it becomes easier for people to discuss this stuff moving forward as it literally can save lives if it's discussed more freely.
Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
#226[deleted]
Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
If someone is at that stage where you are contemplating this, here is a tip....just do it. By that I mean commit suicide of your _current_ life, not of life. Most of what weights someone down are the fears, struggles, embarrassment, your peer groups, jobs, etc. If you can't find a way through it, just leave it. Give all your stuff away, give away your money, give up your computer, leave your friends and family, pack…
I'm not sure this is good advice. I have no experience of this kind of thing, but it seems to me that cutting yourself off from everybody who cares about you is one of the worst things you can do. Now you have no money, no friends, no family, and nothing to stop you when you next start to feel like jumping off a cliff. It sounds like a good start to a story , but bad real-world advice. I had an ex-gf who worked on a…
You miss the point. You would have already jumped off a cliff. This is one thing you do before. Of course try all the other things. But if you _are_ on the ledge, consider this before. If you think about it, is the consideration of this is similar to "who will find your body, how will they feel".
It's one additional stop gap to prevent the worse outcome.
Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
#228The 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'…
As s startup owner I feel like I am a sinking man and each floating wood chip around is a hope - Learning to float between moving from one wood chip to other is the key to me.
I guess I will fail that day when I will conclude that I am too tired of trying (not really, really tried -- and still failed).
I don't believe "The truth is ... that it takes a special and lucky person". The truth is we need one or two hands on our shoulder and someone to stand during the darkest hours and say "darkest hours are always before the sun comes". ..sad to read about Ilya Zhitomirskiy.
Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
#229this somehow reminds me of the movie "Antitrust" ...
Young programmer working on an open source competitor to large company suddenly dies.
Insensitive perhaps, and I don't believe anything similar happened, but FWIW I had the same thought.
Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
#230I 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 "m…
When I save the state of RAM to nonvolatile storage, then later put it back into RAM and continue executing, there are senses in which you could legitimately say it's not the same program. But they're not the senses I care about.