Near, the emulator developer of bsnes, higan, and more, has died
1–10 of 180 posts
Re: Near, the emulator developer of bsnes, higan, and more, has died
#2Kiwi Farms is the scum of the earth. Sadly it has many victims.
Re: Near, the emulator developer of bsnes, higan, and more, has died
#3It hasn't been confirmed by authorities, but may never be, since almost nobody knew his real full name or exactly where he lived. However, it definitely doesn't look good. :-(
Re: Near, the emulator developer of bsnes, higan, and more, has died
#4[cw: discussion of suicide]
Re: Near, the emulator developer of bsnes, higan, and more, has died
#5Kiwi Farms is the scum of the earth. Sadly it has many victims.
This terrifies me:
> Near survived that. Many wouldn’t, but Near was strong enough to overcome that level of emotional abuse. But Kiwi Farms is relentless. Not to be defeated in their pursuit of utter emotional and psychological destruction, they went after who Near treasured most: their friends. Doxing some, directly harassing others, and even specifically seeking out suicidal people to target.
> That broke Near.
[...]
> Some of you may be aware of Near’s notoriously paranoid opsec. After getting to know them, it became clear this was a defense mechanism; a product of all the abuse they received over their entire life.
Not that I'm doing anything particularly likely to attract the attention of the worst part of the internet (but then, you'd hope that "writing some emulators and going by 'they'" shouldn't either), but, I've thought about it and decided I can deal with people going after me. To some extent, I can be careful about opsec; to some extent, if someone goes after me, I'm all right with that.
But what if they go after other people in the name of targeting me? What if they go after my friends, or even my family, who has very little say in what I do? What if my parents, who have never had to care about opsec in their lives and like most people's parents own a house and have their real names on it, get SWATted because some monster on an internet forum hates me?
How am I supposed to respond except by deciding, I will not do anything with my life that could attract Kiwi Farms' attention?
This is terrorism, and I am terrified.
Re: Near, the emulator developer of bsnes, higan, and more, has died
#6I'm not really sure what to put here. I never spoke to them personally (except maybe once or twice here on HN) but their work on SNES emulation enabled communities to spring up that improved my life for the better. I'm not going to touch the debate on whether to hold Cloudflare+1776Hosting partially responsible here (I'm sure others will), but I do know that Near physically moved countries to get away from the harassment they were getting.
Just be respectful, ok?
Re: Near, the emulator developer of bsnes, higan, and more, has died
#7Instead of calling the Police to give Near’s address or employer’s name to organise some help.. this mutual friend (who often met Near for coffee) waits for an hour while listening to the music loop play on the Telegram call (the screen grab at the end). Then the mutual friend composes a calm, meticulous note for Hector to convey. It doesn’t make sense.
Re: Near, the emulator developer of bsnes, higan, and more, has died
#8Instead of calling the Police to give Near’s address or employer’s name to organise some help.. this mutual friend (who often met Near for coffee) waits for an hour while listening to the music loop play on the Telegram call (the screen grab at the end). Then the mutual friend composes a calm, meticulous note for Hector to convey. It doesn’t make sense.
When Robin Williams died, people were putting out images with "Genie, you're free" on it. This sort of behavior paints suicide as a valid means of escaping suffering.
When "13 Reasons Why" was released, it was criticized for romanticizing suicide as a tool to get people to listen to you "beyond the grave" or have some sort of impact.
While nothing has been confirmed by authorities, the behavior in this letter is extremely troubling, and seems to be the manifestation of how our society views suicide.
Instead of suicide being understood as a harmful decision that wouldn't be made in a better frame of mind, it's being portrayed as a valid decision -- and attempts at intervention are a violation of the person's autonomy. Or something to that extent.
There are other things I want to say and write, but I don't think it's appropriate until an official statement has been released from authorities.
Re: Near, the emulator developer of bsnes, higan, and more, has died
#9Instead of calling the Police to give Near’s address or employer’s name to organise some help.. this mutual friend (who often met Near for coffee) waits for an hour while listening to the music loop play on the Telegram call (the screen grab at the end). Then the mutual friend composes a calm, meticulous note for Hector to convey. It doesn’t make sense.
How do you know the author knew Near's address or employer? They were known to be very secretive about such real-life details, and in this day and age it's very much possible to regularly meet someone but have no idea where they actually live or work.
Moreover, you're making a leap by assuming the author didn't try to save their life.
Re: Near, the emulator developer of bsnes, higan, and more, has died
#10I don't really know what to say here. I didn't know them personally, but I saw their work and was truly stunned. Most people don't achieve in their entire lives what Near (aka Byuu) did in their comparatively short one. To say I was impressed is an understatement. I simply don't have the words.
What happened, shouldn't have happened. There needs to be a wider discussion of responsibility of hosting providers for the actions of their customers, and especially Cloudflare for shielding illegal acts. But that's a discussion for another day.
Tonight, the sky is darker, for the loss of one of its brightest stars.