[HN Gopher] Jake Seliger has died
___________________________________________________________________
Jake Seliger has died
Author : A_D_E_P_T
Score : 644 points
Date : 2024-08-09 13:19 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (marginalrevolution.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (marginalrevolution.com)
| A_D_E_P_T wrote:
| Confirmed by his brother on his GoFundMe:
| https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-the-fight-against-cancer-wit...
|
| May he rest in peace.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Thanks for the link.
|
| Bizarrely, the post on Marginal Revolution links to a post from
| 5 days ago, and it's easy to confirm that Jake was still alive
| when that post was published. (And, apparently, for almost a
| week afterwards.) The gofundme appears to be the only source
| that states he's died, and the MR report doesn't even mention
| it. (Other than to include a link to it in a quote from someone
| else.)
| NhanH wrote:
| Jake's writing was on hacker news 4 days ago and he was still
| replying to the comment at the time:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41157974
|
| Rest in Peace, Jake.
| sgseliger wrote:
| This is his brother. He passed away around 8:30pm on
| Wednesday. He was still reading, writing, hearing from loved
| ones up until the end.
| voisin wrote:
| Hope you and Bess are doing as well as can be hoped for
| under the circumstances.
| canucker2016 wrote:
| His brother also posted a comment,
| https://jakeseliger.com/2024/08/04/starting-hospice-the-end/...
| , about his brother's death - slightly different wording than
| the GoFundMe update.
| aestetix wrote:
| Fuck cancer :(
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Indeed. I had never even heard of Jake before the post a few
| days ago about him going into hospice, so I had no personal
| attachment to the guy. But even so, reading about what he and
| his loved ones went through struck me as brutally unfair.
| Nobody should have to suffer (or watch someone they love
| suffer) like he did. Not just the disease itself but the
| extreme measures he had to go through just to try to keep it at
| bay. May he rest in peace.
| michaelsbradley wrote:
| Within each form of suffering endured by man, and at the same
| time at the basis of the whole world of suffering, there
| inevitably arises the question: why? It is a question about
| the cause, the reason, and equally, about the purpose of
| suffering, and, in brief, a question about its meaning. Not
| only does it accompany human suffering, but it seems even to
| determine its human content, what makes suffering precisely
| human suffering.
|
| It is obvious that pain, especially physical pain, is
| widespread in the animal world. But only the suffering human
| being knows that he is suffering and wonders why; and he
| suffers in a humanly speaking still deeper way if he does not
| find a satisfactory answer. This is a difficult question,
| just as is a question closely akin to it, the question of
| evil. Why does evil exist? Why is there evil in the world?
| When we put the question in this way, we are always, at least
| to a certain extent, asking a question about suffering too.
|
| https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-
| ii/en/apost_letters...
| cancerboi wrote:
| It ain't fun!
| vinnyvichy wrote:
| Jake's wife on FDA deregulation
|
| https://bessstillman.substack.com/p/the-drugs-killing-dying-...
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Thanks - it's so helpful for them to have documented this for
| us to understand a very complex and opaque process. All while
| they were under extreme stress.
| fatnoah wrote:
| I've experienced this from both sides. First with my father who
| was dying of cancer and was informed that while some promising
| treatments were in trials, he was not eligible. Balancing
| potential harm from unapproved drugs vs. certain death within
| 12 months feels like an easy task.
|
| On the other side, my wife worked for a mid-sized pharma in the
| past. After several rounds of trials that each cost tens of
| millions of dollars, the FDA couldn't be convinced to approve
| the drug, despite hearings full of people who were either alive
| because the drug saved their lives or were hoping to have it
| approved for future use. After a couple more trials, the
| company ended up cutting losses and moving on to something
| else. Again, it feels like there should be some pathway here.
| Such a drug shouldn't be the first option if others are
| available, but if there's nothing else or other treatments
| haven't worked, what's the real harm in letting someone who's
| going to die anyway give it a shot.
| newzisforsukas wrote:
| What was the drug?
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Part of the harm is in people no longer trusting drugs. We're
| very fortunate to be able to get prescribed a drug and have
| certainty the risk-reward tradeoffs have been evaluated to
| extreme depth by experts far more equipped than we are.
| barry-cotter wrote:
| You are past of the reason the world is a worse place than
| it could be. Without people like you defending excessive
| caution as good for the PR of drug regulatory agencies
| millions of people who are dead would be alive, possibly
| tens of millions.
| bena wrote:
| This is a complicated subject.
|
| Because those rules are in place for reasons. And some of those
| reasons are to prevent drug companies from turning the poor
| into lab rats with no regard to their safety. And I guarantee
| you, you let "terminal" patients skirt rules, there will be a
| hell of a lot more "terminal" patients.
|
| And I'm sure there are some non-regulation reasons to limit
| various therapies. They are trying to see if thing X can help.
| And if thing X only helps when combined with thing Y, you don't
| exactly get that information when focusing on thing X. Or the
| worse scenarios of thing Y making thing X ineffective or
| harmful.
|
| This was written from a very emotional place, and
| understandably so. But that state means they are not exactly in
| a position to consider all the reasons. And it must be
| frustrating as hell to have tried 40 things that didn't work to
| only be denied the 41st because you tried too many other
| things. Especially if that 41st thing turns out to be something
| that works.
|
| But I don't think the answer is let terminal patients take
| whatever they feel like.
| Zak wrote:
| > _But I don 't think the answer is let terminal patients
| take whatever they feel like._
|
| I don't think anyone has the moral authority to tell anyone
| else what they can take, especially terminal patients.
|
| I do, however think governments have a responsibility to
| regulate how drug companies conduct trials so as to minimize
| harm to patients. This probably has the same outcome in
| practice, but I find the moral distinction important.
| somerandomqaguy wrote:
| I don't think it's just that. Imagine the kind of money the
| more unscrupulous could make selling sugar pills for $100
| each saying that it's the cure for whatever is killing you.
|
| Desperation can cloud even the most rational of minds.
| Zak wrote:
| People selling stuff are in the same category as the drug
| companies; I have no objection to regulating them, and
| imprisoning them for fraud, with an enhanced penalty for
| preying on particularly vulnerable people in the case you
| described.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| How exactly are you going to prove fraud without, you
| know, the clinical trial data that you've just allowed
| them not to produce in the first place?
|
| Fraud is one risk -- the much bigger one is well-
| intentioned people trying to save lives seeing positive
| outcomes where there aren't any.
| samstave wrote:
| "Sugar Pills"
|
| Yeah it happens a lot more than you think - the entire
| everything - about USA pharma is absolute evil.
|
| I've pissed off a lot of people in my statements about
| how chemists are a very unscrupulous profession, and many
| are downright evil. (you need to really learn about the
| history of Sandoz, Bayer, Novartis, Du Pont, J&J,
| Monsanto, and all the others.... <--- LONG history of
| chemical weapons, chemical poisons, super-sites, deformed
| babies. The lack of regulation and oversight in the
| chemical industry has enabled these scandals to occur.
|
| Watch the Devil We Know, for example about Teflon
|
| https://i.imgur.com/vGIcL0d.png
|
| --- [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2023/09/
| 12/heres-wh...
| Nasrudith wrote:
| If I recall correctly, that is why it is illegal for
| clinical trials to charge for experimental and unapproved
| medication. The patient's "payment" is in taking the
| risk, and the 'pay-off' towards the experimenter is that
| it helps get their drug approved to a saleable state, if
| it works. That part sounds like a good ethical system
| design to avoid perverse incentives - the drug maker
| doesn't gain anything unless it works and even then it is
| indirectly.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Is it illegal? Or does it just not make any sense to ask
| someone taking an experimental drug to pay you for it?
| It's ridiculously hard to get people to participate in a
| trial even when pharma is _paying them_ (granted though,
| also under the same ethics umbrella, such payments are
| not supposed to incentivize a decision to participate,
| only to remove the disincentives to participation, like
| having to pay for Ubers to /from the trial site).
|
| Actually the way that we prevent pharma companies from
| using trials to commit fraud of this type is by tightly (
| _very_ tightly) controlling the language they use to
| describe drugs that are still under evaluation. Basically
| every sentence that a researcher makes to a trial
| participant needs to pass an ethics review board to make
| sure it 's not overselling the promise or underselling
| the risk.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > I don't think anyone has the moral authority to tell
| anyone else what they can take, especially terminal
| patients
|
| Yet euthanasia is a very fraught subject in the land of the
| free. The country may be coming less religious, but the
| puritanical values remain; every life is precious, even one
| that's in unbearable, irreversible agony, and those who
| suffer probably deserve it.
| bena wrote:
| That's really the perspective I'm coming from. When I say
| the answer isn't to let terminal patients take whatever
| they feel like, it's to say that they shouldn't be the one
| to make the decision that a developing drug is safe enough
| for them to trial.
|
| Just because one is terminal, it does not make one an
| expert in medicine or pharmaceuticals. So it shouldn't be
| used an exception to the processes in place.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Yep individual rights and autonomy over our bodies are
| fundamental
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| As someone that works in drug discovery as an academic and
| has patented drugs, I can tell you that the current process
| is biased way too far towards safety for optimal life saving
| outcomes if you look at it in a cold utilitarian way. A lot
| of lives would be saved by fast-tracking the approval
| process, despite the fact that there would also be an
| increase in negative outcomes.
|
| However, it is probably not socially or politically tenable
| to kill or harm people with experimental drugs even if it
| saves a greater number of people. Realistically, I don't see
| things changing much.
|
| I don't think its fair to dismiss this perspective as
| "written from an emotional place." As Alex Tabarrok wrote
| above, both Jake and his wife (a medical doctor) were
| involved with this issue before his diagnosis.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| May Jake rest in peace and may his memory be a blessing to his
| wife and daughter.
|
| Their views on clinical trials were understandable given the
| circumstances. Those regulations were written in blood,
| miscarriage/birth defects, autoimmune conditions, genetic
| damage, and other horrors. This is a complicated ethical topic
| because clinical trials can harm patients and families of
| patients as much as they can help, and sometimes many years
| after the fact of the trial. It's not an appropriate discussion
| in a memorial post.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| > It's not an appropriate discussion in a memorial post.
|
| When else do we discuss it? This is bound to just disappear
| into history and the government will carry on with business
| as usual. I feel now's the time to get people educated and
| discussing it at depth, when they care about it.
| barry-cotter wrote:
| May you be treated as a free man and not the slave you wish
| others to be treated as.
| david_allison wrote:
| Rest in peace
| kristofferR wrote:
| For those who missed the "reference":
|
| "Starting hospice. The end" - 1178 points 4 days ago
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41157974
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Further related:
|
| _How to let go: Jake 's life ends as his daughter's begins_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41174621
| onemoresoop wrote:
| RIP Jake
| kstrauser wrote:
| So quickly. He must've been very ill indeed when he came in to
| say his goodbyes. RIP Jake.
| delichon wrote:
| It's impressive to me that Jake managed to remain involved and
| communicative until so near the end. I withdraw into a personal
| shell when I get so much as a hang nail. Respect.
| phone8675309 wrote:
| As the romantic partner of someone going through a degenerative
| disorder and as someone who watched my grandmother be consumed
| by dementia I can say that it's something most people develop
| over time instead of being born good at.
|
| If a hang nail is bad enough to make you withdraw then that
| means you don't have a lot of experience of getting sick to the
| point where you had to push through as it hasn't happened a
| lot. Over the course of the 14 years I've had with my partner
| (started year 15 last month!) I've seen how she's had to adapt
| to remain involved and communicative - and a lot of days,
| that's a struggle for her that she puts herself through to stay
| connected to the people she loves.
|
| tl;dr: It's an adaptation, and I'm glad that you've not had to
| build that adaptation.
| painsucks wrote:
| Fully agree. I live with cronic pain and people ask me if I'm
| in pain, I say yes, then they want to stop whatever we're
| doing and I say no, if I stop living because of this, I have
| nothing else left but the pain. So yeah, you get used to
| doing things with it. Some days it's impossible and I indeed
| do nothing but most days, meh.. Screw it, I have stuff I
| actually want to do.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Obama gave an answer in his _Comedians in Cars Getting
| Coffee_ episode that stuck with me.
|
| Seinfeld asked something like 'How do you deal with
| constant annoyances, all the time, when you're president?'
|
| And Obama replied 'I expect it's similar to what you do --
| you fall in love with the work. Sure, sometimes it's
| painful, annoying, backwards, foolish, etc. But in the end
| you fall in love with the work, and it saves you.'
|
| That defined purpose in a way I'd never thought about it,
| and probably undergirds every religion.
|
| It also made me try to open my heart more to people dealing
| with chronic pain or mental health issues, in terms of
| their subjective effort. Objectively, it may look like
| they're just doing {normal thing}, but subjectively that
| may be requiring 10x or 100x effort from them. And that
| effort (the work) deserves its own respect, independent of
| outome.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| If you look at the disease progression and his blogging
| history, it was a few months before he _did_ open up about the
| situation.
|
| (He may have discussed it earlier on HN, I haven't gone through
| his history to check on this.)
|
| Once he began, however, he continued to the bitter end. And yes
| that is commendable.
| danielvaughn wrote:
| Reading his post was like a gut punch, and I didn't even know the
| guy. It breaks your heart to hear someone speak with certainty
| about their own demise, and to face it with such grace and
| clarity makes it all the more heart-wrenching. It sounds like he
| was with his family in his final moments, and I hope he wasn't in
| much pain. Rest in peace.
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| I can't remember where I read this, but it's always stuck with
| me: "Healthy is merely the slowest form of
| dying"
| layer8 wrote:
| About 160,000 people die each day on this planet. It's probably
| safe to assume that a good number of them are facing it with
| grace and clarity. The fact that many aren't able to, for one
| reason or another, is maybe more heart-breaking, in a way.
| passion__desire wrote:
| After reading "A Sister's Eulogy for Steve Jobs", I felt Steve
| Jobs was finally happy with the way he lived life.
| samstave wrote:
| For some weird reason, I know exactly where I was when Jobs
| died. (Driving upper market street in SF on a sunny morning)
|
| But Ill never for get what he was claimed to have said as his
| last words: " _Oh.. wow_ "
| kalaksi wrote:
| I just relatively recently found his posts through HN. Even
| though I've only read something like 5-8 posts, I quickly
| became "attached", for lack of a better word, as I truly
| enjoyed the writing and openness. It brought me closer to that
| kind of situation, and the people in it, than I've (yet) ever
| been. I wish them all the best.
| cheez0r wrote:
| RIP, Jake. The world is lesser without you.
| NaOH wrote:
| Mensch
| NeutralForest wrote:
| RIP, his later articles really echoed some of my personal
| experiences. Thanks Jake for taking the time to write what many
| others couldn't.
|
| Spend time with your loved ones.
| Bluestein wrote:
| A black bar might be in order.-
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Much as I followed Jake's story I don't think it fits. Though I
| would be for it.
| progre wrote:
| Niklaus Wirth didn't get one
| sctb wrote:
| No way that's true. Indeed:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38864375. It would be
| good if there was less Black Bar Bikeshedding.
| s5300 wrote:
| Terrible day for rain.
|
| I like to think some day his daughter will appreciate getting to
| go through his HN comments & such.
| OuterVale wrote:
| I've been following his story for quite a while. I knew this was
| coming when I opened up Hacker News today; I just had that
| feeling -- not that it made seeing it in type any easier.
|
| He had a way with words that I was impressed to see him cling
| onto until the very end.
|
| Thanks Jake, you'll be missed.
| benopal64 wrote:
| Rest in peace, Jake.
|
| His blog post recently was moving and eye-opening. If you are in
| the headspace for tough topics, read it and you won't regret it.
| churchill wrote:
| RIP, Jake.
| aubanel wrote:
| Impressive to see the positivity that both him and his wife Bess
| maintained in their last posts, despite the constant pain and
| oncoming death. Real strength.
|
| Rest in Peace Jake, and I wish you the best on the path forward
| Bess!
| fnord77 wrote:
| I've seen about a half dozen articles on his passing from cancer,
| but none of them say who he is.
|
| Googling his name doesn't help either.
|
| Who is he?
| n1b0m wrote:
| Based on his LinkedIn profile: a writer, editor and researcher
|
| https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-seliger-03363819
| sgt wrote:
| I think the whole story about Jake touched a lot of and in a
| way it kind of felt like we knew him a bit. I told my wife
| about him and what his brother and his wife had written, and
| their circumstances. Now I will tell her tomorrow that the
| guy died and we will both be sad about it.
| slazaro wrote:
| He was an active HN user and a writer, he had a very active
| blog for many years, and he and his wife had been documenting
| their struggles during his disease; some of those articles were
| voted high here and had a lot of discussion around them. So in
| the microcosm of HN, it's relevant news.
|
| RIP Jake.
| efilife wrote:
| so what was this guy known for? for a blog? for his illness?
| thom wrote:
| Yes. He was an academic who wrote about writing, authored
| two inconsequential novels, and was very open about his
| cancer. Many people here interacted with him or his work,
| but there's no shame if you didn't. A black bar on HN means
| people asked for it, it's not a new entry on life's high
| score table that needs to be rigorously justified.
| whisper_yb wrote:
| RIP, Jake.
| dudus wrote:
| What happens to his hacker News account? What about email
| account, cloud servers, etc ...?
|
| I know Google has a nice tool to share your account after you are
| gone, as for the rest, I have no plans.
|
| Anyone has good suggestions on managing one's own digital legacy?
| Jimpulse wrote:
| I believe he briefly talked about that in a post. I think he
| gave all the account info to his wife.
| flobosg wrote:
| * Get Your Shit Together - https://getyourshittogether.org/
|
| * What to Do Before You Die: A Tech Checklist -
| https://archive.is/6vjqQ
|
| * Cheat Sheet For If I'm Gone - https://archive.is/lnWX6 -
| https://github.com/christophercalm/if-im-gone/blob/main/exam...
| (HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31748553)
| 9dev wrote:
| @dang I don't know what the criteria for the black top banner
| are, but Jake would have earned it, IMHO. I never met him
| personally, but his writing deeply moved me, and others too,
| judging from the reactions.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Email such suggestions to mods at hn@ycombinator.com.
|
| "@dang is a no-op":
| <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36526450>
|
| (Edit: I've emailed the suggestion, and we now have a black
| bar.)
| pseudolus wrote:
| Profound condolences to his family and friends. Reading about his
| journey was heart-breaking, all the more so knowing that he would
| never be able to hold or know his daughter.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Jake posted as jseliger on HN:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jseliger
|
| He blogged at <https://jakeseliger.com/>, and numerous of his
| blog articles were submitted to HN:
| <https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=jakeseliger.com>. That
| includes numerous topics, over the past year or so his experience
| with cancer, often concerning frustrations with the process and
| mechanism.
|
| His essay on agenticness especially strikes me as hugely
| insightful and underappreciated. It was submitted several times
| to HN but saw little discussion:
|
| <https://jakeseliger.com/2024/07/29/more-isnt-always-better-d...>
|
| Jake's wife, now widow, Bess, blogs at Everything is an
| Emergency: <https://bessstillman.substack.com>. That also details
| the cancer / caregiving experience, from the point of view of a
| wife, caregiver, expectant mother, and emergency-room doctor.
| canucker2016 wrote:
| In an August 2023 post about regrets,
| https://jakeseliger.com/2023/08/12/regrets/, his last regret
| is: * Not looking into that thing on my
| tongue in July 2022, when I first noticed it, but that is very
| specific to me and probably not generalizable.
|
| In https://jakeseliger.com/2024/05/16/the-financial-costs-of-
| he..., he mentions "...I got a partial
| glossectomy in Oct. 2022. Mine had some high-risk features, but
| I was assured that, with radiation therapy, it wouldn't recur
| (Bess recalls the exact words being, "Don't worry, this won't
| be what kills you"). ... In retrospect, however, I obviously
| should've been given chemo with the radiation, but at the time
| I was pleased to not need chemo, and I foolishly didn't look
| deeper into the data on recurrence--which is common for HNSCC--
| and I didn't seek second opinions. Some of those second
| opinions might've said: "Get the chemotherapy."
|
| Followed by radiation treatments, mentioned in
| https://jakeseliger.com/2023/11/14/the-more-things-go-wrong-...
|
| He posted about his followup investigation and the treatment of
| his tongue one year after the treatment -
| https://jakeseliger.com/2024/05/25/the-one-year-anniversary-...
| "By July 21, less than two months later, another six to eight
| tumors had grown. If I'd known how things would shake out, I
| likely would've pivoted to chemo and clinical trials the moment
| the surgical biopsy came back. But I didn't and couldn't."
|
| His first public announcement of his cancer -
| https://jakeseliger.com/2023/07/22/i-am-dying-of-squamous-ce...
|
| Followed by https://jakeseliger.com/2023/07/23/how-do-we-
| evaluate-our-li...
|
| From his wife's perspective:
| https://jakeseliger.com/2023/07/24/what-its-like-to-be-marri...
|
| His wife had several posts about their search for an
| appropriate trial for his cancer and how they dealt with his
| cancer.
|
| His outlook in May 2024: "The likelihood of me living to see
| another anniversary is low--probably under 20%--but not 0%."
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Cancer is insidious in all kinds of ways. One in particular
| is that insight into the _current_ and _possible_ state(s) of
| a tumor are are _really_ difficult to assess. With all our
| current imaging and testing capabilities, the human body is
| _still_ largely a black box. Especially after multiple
| surgeries, distinguishing new tumour growth from scar and
| necrotic tissues is difficult.
|
| And ... for suitably aggressive tumours, even what appears to
| be complete removal ("clean margins") ... often isn't, and
| what minuscule remnants remain can grow back with
| discouraging ferocity. I'd visited a friend a few weeks after
| they'd had a growth removed, and subsequently begun radiation
| treatments and chemotherapy. _In that brief interval between
| surgery and treatment_ the lips of the incision had spread
| apart by several centimetres. That turned out to be an
| ominous portent.
|
| Second-guessing is also par for the course, and without
| comparative study it's hard to know if more immediate or
| aggressive treatment (e.g., immediate chemo in Jake's case)
| might have helped. Looking up survival stats on particular
| cancers can be illuminating. The one which took my friend
| three decades ago _still_ has a < 20% five-year survival.
| gammondorf wrote:
| I'm interested in his vague comments about age and how saying
| age is just a number is coping. Do you know what he might be
| referring to in his life, or of any posts he's made where he
| talks about that sort of thing?
| JohnMakin wrote:
| The craziest thing to me is he was still posting up to the very
| end. I've seen this multiple times in end-stage cancers, my
| grandfather's pancreatic cancer, he seemed "fine" (other than
| looking incredibly sick) til the last ~12 hours or so - he was
| even doing some yard work the day or two before he died. He knew
| the entire time how much time was left, too. I don't know why I
| find this so crazy, other than I hope I never have to go through
| it - you're very aware of what's going on for a long, long time
| up until the end.
|
| Glad he is no longer suffering.
| JamesSwift wrote:
| I think thats why cancer is such a vicious illness to have a
| loved one experience. Its a long drawn-out suffering, with an
| inevitability at the end of it. The body shuts down gradually
| as the cancer wins out. For my sister it was the same with
| 'good days' vs 'bad days'. At first bad days were the minority
| and over time the ratio changed.
| wood_spirit wrote:
| Yes I remember the shock to hear that The Hermit, who kinda run
| The Register forums, died on the same day I had a chat with
| him. He quietly messaged me to give me some advice that was
| spot on. I had no idea and there was no hint that he was at the
| tail end of a protracted illness. They closed the forums and
| the website continued to change and be less of a community
| after that.
| khazhoux wrote:
| > posting up to the very end
|
| 8 days ago he posted a random comment about housing in Austin.
| So mundane.
|
| Life and death are strange. I'm embarrassed to know that if I
| had 1 month to live, I'd probably still spend a couple of hours
| a day watching random youtube videos and commenting on
| meaningless HN and reddit threads.
| divbzero wrote:
| > _meaningless HN and reddit threads_
|
| Maybe they aren't so meaningless. Congregating in public
| forums to exchange ideas is something humans have done for
| millennia. I should hope that, amid the noise, we find value
| in the conversations here and leave a bit more enlightened or
| entertained.
| yawboakye wrote:
| i've come to believe that we're more terrified of a situation
| while we're not in it. once in there, and especially when
| there's no way out, our bodies make the necessary adjustments
| for the new normal. and soon our minds/being follow. it's often
| characterized as extraordinary strength by onlookers when in
| fact the person going through the experience had no way out. in
| my mother tongue, we have a proverb which roughly translates to
| 'bravery is situational.' therefore there are no cowards, just
| people without the necessary conditions to demonstrate bravery.
| if you're lucky, you find it.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| putting this in this context was helpful, thank you. I have a
| few chronic medical conditions that when people learn about
| it sometimes remark "i dont know how you deal with that" and
| the answer really is a shrug and "there's no choice." humans
| are good at adapting for sure
| yawboakye wrote:
| wishing you much strength! even though there may be no way
| out, your composure remains a valid demonstration of
| fortitude, imho. god be with you!
| Jeema101 wrote:
| It's very strange - some people are lucid and mobile up until
| nearly the end, and others are 'out of it' for a long time. My
| mother was mostly delirious and bedridden for the entire last
| month of her life before dying from cancer.
|
| I suppose if the person is able to find peace with what's
| happening, then maybe it's better to be lucid, but for others,
| maybe being 'out of it' is a blessing.
| dole wrote:
| Cheers and good journey to a bonafide hacker.
| zh3 wrote:
| Puts me in mind of Randy Pausch's last lecture [0]; only reminded
| of it by this, which also reminds me I've lost my mother, father
| in law recently plus close one going through it right now.
| Horrible disease, hard to find the words sometimes (edit: which
| he did).
|
| May he rest in peace.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo
| JohnMakin wrote:
| Been following along with this for a while. Jake seemed like a
| genuinely good guy. I find it very heartwarming that yesterday
| his very last HN comment was to post an archive link (which are
| always the most heroic people on this forum):
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=jseliger
| surrTurr wrote:
| https://jakeseliger.com/2023/08/30/turning-two-lives-into-on...
| cancerboi wrote:
| Jake was strong. He was so prolific throughout his death process.
| Truly an inspration, especially to those dying of this disease.
|
| It is a terrible disease. I would not wish it on my worst enemy.
| The horror, pain and lethargy that you experience... Having
| chunks of your body cut out periodically... Slowly dying from the
| inside out... Watching your loved ones fall apart... I can barely
| put into words how difficult it is. If you know someone who has
| this disease, reach out to them, they need love and support.
|
| Rest in peace Jake. You will be missed. But more importantly, you
| will be remembered.
| minimax-touch wrote:
| And yet... an invaluable opportunity to say goodbye and "get
| affairs in order". The suffering for all affected, I completely
| agree, I would not want anyone to go through. But compared to a
| recent bereavement I experienced where this person just did not
| come home, having died suddenly, unexpectedly, tragically alone
| and unseen. Would that I could choose, I think I would like the
| notice, despite the downsides. Love to all dealing with grief.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| The work he did with clinical trials and navigating the system
| was very impressive. We need more people that are willing to push
| the envelope on cancer trials. I have my own challenges and his
| work is greatly appreciated.
|
| We still need to beat cancer, all types. Let's keep going where
| Jake left off.
| adaml_623 wrote:
| I agree with you in spirit but would suggest that pushing for
| more funding of schools, universities, basic research, and
| applied research is something that we should all be doing.
| Imagine if all the smart people tried to cure cancer instead of
| working in Wall Street and Adtech
| rottencupcakes wrote:
| Funding poorly run institutions isn't the way.
|
| Make it appealing for smart grads, like the type that apply
| for YC.
|
| That involves removing red tape and shutting down the AMA.
| akavi wrote:
| That's going to be hard to do so long as we continue
| regarding someone who makes a billion from a new cancer drug
| as as a price-gouging murderer while regarding someone who
| makes a billion from starting an adtech company with mere
| indifference.
| jordanpg wrote:
| To put a finer point on this, the capitalistic enterprises
| that many are very excited about and believe will solve
| problems via the invisible hand, may not not pursue basic
| research because you can't demonstrate potential profit in it
| to an investor.
|
| But of course basic research, including all of its false
| starts, failures, and irrelevant discoveries, are precisely
| what lays the groundwork for the for-profit enterprises that
| come later.
| quonn wrote:
| Think about how difficult it is to make a significant
| contribution in your particular field of expertise that is
| not about to be done right now anyway because the time is
| right. Very difficult indeed.
|
| It is the same with cancer research. Not saying the world
| can't be better, but science cannot be done faster, probably.
| jaggederest wrote:
| > Think about how difficult it is to make a significant
| contribution in your particular field of expertise that is
| not about to be done right now anyway because the time is
| right. Very difficult indeed.
|
| The absolute opposite of my experience. Every one of the
| fields I've gained expertise in over the years indicates to
| me that more human effort would pay not just dividends but
| increasing returns. Particularly so with research. The
| biggest thing I learn when I gain expertise is just exactly
| how much _we don 't know_.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| > _Think about how difficult it is to make a significant
| contribution in your particular field of expertise that is
| not about to be done right now anyway because the time is
| right._
|
| I independently reinvented my entire field of research _by
| accident_ , because I didn't know it existed; and I'm
| pretty sure I did a better job. There are a few puzzle
| pieces and key insights it probably would've taken me a few
| years (or decades) to discover, without which I couldn't
| demonstrate (or, if I'm being honest, _know_ ) the immense
| superiority of my approach, but I'm pretty sure the
| majority of the field is obsoleted by the ideas I've had.
|
| Oh, look at me, I'm so clever... right? Good guess, but
| actually no. When I ask the right questions to my peers
| (outside the field), they usually propose a similar
| approach. (The main differences can be attributed to the
| fact I've thought about this for years, and they've thought
| about it for minutes: a few of the obvious things don't
| work, but then things get _elegant_ when you replace them
| with ones that do.)
|
| That must mean the time's right, then? I did suspect it was
| this... until I found a few dozen publications by a widely-
| respected expert, from _half a century ago_ , talking about
| a (slightly underdeveloped, idiosyncratic) version of the
| approach like it was common sense, remarking that people
| were a lot more receptive to this idea than they used to
| be, but still it was not being adopted.
|
| A minor application of this approach to a different field
| would _completely_ revolutionise it (even moreso than it
| does my field). I briefly fantasised about doing that,
| before dismissing as "something to investigate later"
| (i.e. "a childish fantasy I haven't found the holes in
| yet"). But not only _does_ that application work, it was
| implemented _and trialled_. The results were published _18
| years ago_ , in a paper that concludes by confusedly asking
| why nobody was doing this. After reading the paper (which I
| found _completely by accident_ while looking for something
| else), I felt much the same way. (Still nobody is doing it,
| in case you 're wondering. It's been cited six times - once
| in its field, two years after publication, and five times
| in other fields in papers where it isn't really relevant.)
|
| In physics, parts of chemistry, and parts of mathematics,
| there is room for revolution. I'm not sure any of the
| softer fields (counting mathematics qua philosophy as soft)
| are particularly good at being revolutionised. (Economics
| is particularly bad: nearly every economist knows that
| economics is wrong, and yet it persists.) And it's not
| because new ideas are slow to be adopted: at least 10% of
| my field's practitioners dropped everything to try to solve
| its Hard Problems with LLMs. (Those I know, I talked out of
| this, by describing - with non-rigorous theoretical
| arguments - what they would find. After years of work, the
| best result I've seen is only slightly better than the
| bound I predicted.)
|
| I'm sure there's some way to solve this problem, but I
| don't know it. I wouldn't be surprised if the solution has
| been identified, written down, published, forgotten,
| independently reinvented, tested, found to work, published
| again, ignored...
|
| I don't say this to cast aspersions on science, or the
| academic system; nor to blame people or institutions for
| their failings. This problem is well-known. It's not a
| matter of people being stuck in their ways: if anything,
| academics are _too_ credulous, too willing to believe that
| things work which don 't. But I don't think adjusting the
| "credulity" dial, or the "speed" dial, or the "try novel
| approaches" dial, is a solution. Science, as it stands,
| cannot be done faster, because the system doesn't know how.
|
| All I'm saying is, watch out for this. Support people who
| think they have a better way, check the literature for
| interesting things (and then confirm them, if you can).
| Question not whether your current approaches are good, but
| what they actually _do_ - and ask whether that is really
| what you want to be doing, or a proxy goal that everybody
| 's lost sight of.
|
| And if you find yourself along with your peers, dismissing
| something out-of-hand without having tried it, maybe don't
| lend your voice to the snubbing crowd. Maybe it's bogus,
| maybe its proponents are wrong about its merits, but it
| _might_ have merits. We can 't afford not to know.
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| Universities have their own problem such as no one attempting
| to replicate each others work [1] and keep on publishing or
| they won't get promoted. We should fund replication trials in
| universities . Also , cancer is not some kind of monolithic
| problem nearly every cell has some mechanism to mutate so it
| becomes cancer. For example new cancer techniques come from
| mRNA research [2] . The problem of solving cancer isn't some
| monolithic problem that throwing any amount of people will
| solve and even if they tried they would probably get burned
| out which is why they work for Wall Street or Adtech in the
| first place. One of the people that developed the research in
| mRNA got her career torpedoed to work for John Hopkins
| University [3]
|
| [1] https://www.science.org/content/article/more-half-high-
| impac....
|
| [2] https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-
| blog/2024....
|
| [3] In 1988, Kariko accepted a job at Johns Hopkins
| University without first informing her lab advisor Suhadolnik
| of her intention to leave Temple, as recounted in Gregory
| Zuckerman's 2021 book A Shot to Save the World. Suhadolnik
| told her that if she went to Johns Hopkins, he would have her
| deported, and subsequently reported her to U.S. immigration
| authorities, claiming that she was "illegally" in the United
| States. In the time it took her to successfully challenge the
| resulting extradition order, Johns Hopkins withdrew the job
| offer. Suhadolnik "continued bad-mouthing Kariko, making it
| impossible for her to get a new position" at other
| institutions, until she met a researcher at Bethesda Naval
| Hospital who "had his own difficult history with Suhadolnik".
| jpeloquin wrote:
| Yes, the general spirit is good but the clinical trial stage
| is the very end of a long process. The clinical trial the
| most visible part of getting a new cancer treatment to
| patients, but the bulk of delay in developing a new treatment
| is waiting for the basic science. More aggressive clinical
| trials could save ~ years. More aggressive education and
| fundamental research could save ~ decades. Can't run a trial
| on a treatment that doesn't exist yet.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_law
| renewiltord wrote:
| The good thing about finance and ad-tech (both of which I've
| successfully worked in) is that if you're good your clients
| (if any) are happy to pay you lots. With cancer, if you
| succeed, you're supposed to give away what you've got since
| not doing so is going to kill people. If you don't, you are
| the Great Satan.
|
| Since most people subscribe to the Copenhagen Interpretation
| of Ethics, I think I'd rather not touch the field at all. Let
| those who are altruistic be altruistic. If I never create a
| cure, I need never be considered evil for not giving it away.
| zdw wrote:
| I actually met Jake in person, more than a decade ago, when I was
| doing freelance tech support and his parents needed some
| networking help.
|
| Extremely driven guy, and also super interested in the why of
| everything I was doing and the debugging process.
|
| Also he had the first kinesis keyboard I ever saw in person,
| which kind of pushed me down the build your own keyboard route,
| which really helped later when I was having RSI issues.
|
| He left us far too soon.
| tzury wrote:
| Devastating.
|
| https://x.com/seligerj/status/1820883556509565121?s=46
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Archive: <https://archive.is/76NRN>
|
| The post in question was shared to HN, though without much
| comment:
|
| <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41173695>
|
| And the blog entry itself:
| <https://bessstillman.substack.com/p/how-to-let-go-one-
| life-e...>
| umvi wrote:
| I'm sort of afraid to ask since everyone seems to know, but...
| what is he known for? Usually black bar means a tech giant has
| died, but absent a wiki page I'm having a hard time finding
| anything on google about him except the news of his death...
| samatman wrote:
| Jake joined HN in 2008, and has (had?) 80000 karma and change.
|
| He was one of us. I'm sure if you refresh this thread a few
| times you'll learn more about him, as it happens I hadn't heard
| of the man until the thread about him entering hospice, so I'm
| looking forward to that.
|
| But the first part of this post is enough for a black bar imho.
| It means that a lot of the community will recognize and know
| who he is, and miss him now that he's gone. That's enough.
| tivert wrote:
| >> I'm sort of afraid to ask since everyone seems to know,
| but... what is he known for?
|
| > Jake joined HN in 2008, and has (had?) 80000 karma and
| change.
|
| Is that all though? I kind of find it hard to believe he'd be
| getting this much attention because he has a lot of internet
| points.
|
| The OP makes it seem like he was some kind of libertarian
| activist. It looks like he wrote some kind of 50 Shades of
| Grey-like novel ten years ago.
|
| Is answer that he's a long time blogger known for writing
| very personal blog posts about dying of cancer?
| Jach wrote:
| You and the GGP author joined in 2018, so maybe you haven't
| noticed yet, but the black bar has always very much been an
| "at the whims of the site operator" thing. If you try to
| apply any other metric (like "tech giant"), you'll be
| scratching your head at who gets one and who gets left out.
| (I don't think you're missing anything, the only thing I
| know about this person is that according to my browser
| history I visited his July 2023 post, but I had no
| recollection of that as to me it was just another in the
| long line of sad posts about cancer and terrible government
| barriers in attempts to treat it.)
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Some of that's addressed in my own (currently top) comment on
| this thread:
|
| <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41203548>
|
| I'll admit I largely know Jake through this site and his
| blogging, though he's got a broader biography.
|
| His disease progression and commentary on it have been a
| significant aspect of HN discussion over the past six months or
| so.
| nailer wrote:
| @dang can we please unflag this recent submission from Jake?
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40928248
| ETH_start wrote:
| Two causes that Seliger believed in, that are after my own heart,
| are:
|
| Removing FDA restrictions, to speed up drug discovery:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40894632
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40746156
|
| And removing regulatory restrictions on housing, to build more
| homes:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41125739
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40942621
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40746156
| wayeq wrote:
| I have an MRI for two suspicious masses on my pancreas and liver
| tomorrow. Fear for my wife and toddler more than myself.
| rseliger wrote:
| This is Jake's sister. He was reading and replying to as much as
| he could up until the end. He loved this community and would in
| turn be touched by this entire thread. Thank you all who
| supported him and read and shared his writing. He said it was
| bittersweet to go out on top.
| appel wrote:
| I'm so sorry. I only learned about Jake due to his post the
| other day. I understood this was coming but still felt shock
| and sadness when I learned just now he has passed. Wishing you
| much strength.
| urda wrote:
| I'm sorry for your loss. Thank you for the support.
| dang wrote:
| Love and condolences from all of us.
| MrGilbert wrote:
| I am deeply sorry. <3
| keeptrying wrote:
| My deepest condolences.
|
| Much strength to you.
| nickpeterson wrote:
| This is heartbreaking, my sincere condolences.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| I remember exchanging some comments with him here a few months
| back. My mother passed from gastric cancer back in December, so
| this hits very close to home even if I never personally knew him.
|
| Death eventually comes for us all, but the sheer pain and agony
| of witnessing someone pass from cancer is particularly
| unbearable.
|
| My sincere condolences to his family and friends.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-08-09 23:00 UTC)