[HN Gopher] Near, the emulator developer of bsnes, higan, and mo...
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Near, the emulator developer of bsnes, higan, and more, has died
Author : aquova
Score : 98 points
Date : 2021-06-27 16:19 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| BreezyBoats wrote:
| Instead 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.
| bjt2n3904 wrote:
| 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.
| to11mtm wrote:
| > This sort of behavior paints suicide as a valid means of
| escaping suffering.
|
| It's your typical person's way of trying to excuse their own
| action or lack of inaction, by making a statement that
| provides them some comfort, rather than face the way that
| their own inaction/belittling/bullying towards depressed
| people in their lives, might be part of the problem.
| bjt2n3904 wrote:
| Perhaps, but the statement is wrong because of how it
| portrays suicide, not because of the motivations for making
| it.
|
| Furthermore, I believe trying to understand suicide as
| driven by a single cause is detrimental. Suicide is a
| complicated issue, and is driven by numerous factors.
|
| Trying to reduce any complex issue to a single factor sets
| anyone who wants to help at a disadvantage, and may
| contribute to the problem.
| TazeTSchnitzel wrote:
| 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.
| kwthrowaway wrote:
| Mid-time kiwifarms poster here. AMA I guess? Not sure what
| happened here.
|
| Related thread: https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-
| setsunakun0.430...
| mmebane wrote:
| It 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. :-(
| jepler wrote:
| [cw: discussion of suicide]
| philpem wrote:
| Posted this on the other thread
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27653450), I'll copy it
| here...
|
| I 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.
| umvi wrote:
| > There needs to be a wider discussion of responsibility of
| hosting providers for the actions of their customers
|
| How about holding the actual bullies accountable instead of
| shifting accountability to the ISP/Host? What happens in real
| life (i.e. outside the context of the internet) if bullies
| harass someone with hate mail until that person commits
| suicide? Does the blame shift away from the bullies to USPS or
| FedEx for failing to shield the recipient from the hate mail?
|
| I could see a case made against kiwi farms, but cloudflare?
| They are infrastructure level and should not get in user
| content moderation imo
| TazeTSchnitzel wrote:
| Kiwi Farms is the scum of the earth. Sadly it has many victims.
| geofft wrote:
| 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.
| ngcazz wrote:
| Looked them up. How is it that they aren't getting prosecuted
| _right now_?
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(page generated 2021-06-27 23:02 UTC)