Ironically, the article seems to briefly forget that we're dealing with a fellow human being here. How cruel is it to discuss him publicly, and diagnose him publicly? Do you think it's impossible that he'd end up reading any of this? How would that feel, to have a bunch of people discussing what they guess your health problems to be?
People generally cannot be helped unless they want to be. Sharing his personal information in some misguided attempt to "help" is not likely to turn out well. And unfortunately, as a practical matter, no community should be expected to tolerate a stream of senseless diatribes just because of the person writing them.
To some extent, everyone is responsible for their own well-being. Very few people completely lack any self-awareness; if you know you have a health problem, whether mental or otherwise, it is your responsibility to seek help. It's a responsibility you owe yourself, your family and friends, and society.
Other than that, we shouldn't be discussing people like this.
Hi I'm the author of the article. Thanks for your comment.
* I didn't post the article here and I wrote it in about 70 minutes; I had no intention of opening up this discussion in HN.
* All the information is very public, most of it authored by the gentleman in promotional materials.
* The article is about accepting and awareness. There's been much harsher words said about the individual and his project.
* The article is mostly in praise of his accomplishments.
* I have known very similar people and so this hit me on a personal level.
* As an article there's some general rules that yield a good read. I guess I could have been non-specific, or asked for consent of the family, I didn't know this was going to gain so much traction.
You say this hit you on a personal level because you have known similar people .. I watched a close friend fall apart from mental illness who was an amazingly talented coder and I can say without any doubt that your article will do nothing but harm to this guy.
That's horrible. Should I just take it down? I mean really, I don't want to do anything bad like that. I could try to stay up and remove the stuff referring to him ... but I've been struggling to build context without using him as a concrete example.
Edit: I'm re-editing it now. (I should be in bed, ug tired)
03:45 I think it is a better job now ... hopefully you find it more acceptable; I'm starting to become a bit incoherent myself and need to catch a wink.
04:25 Just finished another round of editing. I do really hope everything is better. (4:50 still going ... )
If you're dead-set on publishing a lengthy article about somebody's private business, it at least behooves you to spend some time on it. You even managed to get his name wrong.
It is simply not true that the article is "mostly in praise of his accomplishments," either. There is a brief description of LoseThos at the start and a vacuous upbeat sentence about workflows and usability near the end. In the middle sits an illustrated description of Mr. Davis's antics and a rather uninformative discussion about how mentally ill people are mentally ill. You cap it off with a quote from the DSM describing behavior similar to his, and reflect that you can "understand and appreciate" someone's illness now that you have blurb, even one which says nothing more than "yeah, schizos do that sometimes."
The article, aside from rubbernecking at a mentally ill man, has almost no actual content. It seems you were more interested in telling a "tortured genius" story. You insinuate that mental illness would be some sort of creative advantage if only society were more accommodating, that his mental illness and his writing an operating system are somehow two sides of the same coin.
He's been unemployed and stuck at home for 7 years. I don't think it so notable that a programmer in that situation might do some programming. LoseThos is neat, but let's be level headed. Writing a basic kernel (and this one doesn't even have virtual memory or preemptive multitasking) and a basic compiler are both common projects for CS undergrads. To produce this over 7 years isn't some unfathomable feat, though I can't imagine being sick and medicated made it any easier. I absolutely don't mean to be critical of him, and the treatment he received on Something Awful was really unappetizing. But it does seem that you're building his accomplishments up a little. And it seems that you're doing it because you want to write a moving story and parade his personal tragedy through the streets like some nerd Oprah.
This post is too long already, but I also want to say your blaming the community's lack of acceptance for the progression of diseases is ridiculous and trivializes mental illness. Smiling and nodding at his PRNG won't make him better. Finally, your stamping the article with a little self-aggrandizing blurb about yourself and a link to your github account leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
"Writing a basic kernel (and this one doesn't even have virtual memory or preemptive multitasking) and a basic compiler are both common projects for CS undergrads."
Did you notice the part where he also runs goofy JIT/linking, or has annotated source code with pictures and compiler for same, and that the virtual memory/preemptive multitasking was explicitly omitted? Or several other nifty/quirky features of the OS? (http://www.losethos.com/LTHtml/Doc/Features.html)
He's done work that any of us should respect as fellow programmers, crazy or not.
Also, his source comments are...colorful in some cases. :)
I'm not entirely clear on what you hope to achieve, really. If you are trading off possible harm for this guy against something vague like "more acceptance of mental illness in the hacker community", I'm not sure the ethical calculus comes out in your favor. You probably know more than I do.
(OTOH, he's fairly public already, and I'm sure he's been called insane before.)
Have you seen the kind of abuse that is dealt to Davis whenever he shows up, writing incoherent prose all over? He has come and gone on just about every programmer forum out there, even on 4chan's, and every single time he depleted the patience of their hosts and has been either banned, ran off the place or programmatically ignored, like here (or 4chan, with userscripts).
He is a public figure already, as you say so yourself, regardless of whether we can hold him responsible of it. If anything, this piece served to humanize him, and spreading knowledge of his condition may, at least, serve to secure better treatment for him from his peers.
I read about him in comments after seeing his dead posts on HN weeks ago and I had the same conclusions. Your article makes a very important point about community intolerance.
Did the spellcheck .. I do things in vim and dont have spellcheck turned on, sorry about that.
I also removed all references to his name except for the initial one where I cite him as the author of the software. I've also made more of the paragraphs general, trying to remove him as the focus of the article, and instead just as a topic.
> As an article there's some general rules that yield a good read. I guess I could have been non-specific, or asked for consent of the family, I didn't know this was going to gain so much traction.
I think publishing an article like this is not only distasteful, I for one find it deeply disturbing. We all have a right to dignity.
You guess you could have been non-specific or asked for consent of the family? You bet.
Even if you claim you only tried to help, say that all the information is available publicly or even make efforts to edit it after publishing, discussing a fellow human being's mental condition this way is just morally wrong.
>Very few people completely lack any self-awareness; if you know you have a health problem, whether mental or otherwise, it is your responsibility to seek help. It's a responsibility you owe yourself, your family and friends, and society.
Clearly you've had the good luck to never have had to deal with any mental health problem ever. The problem with mental health problems is that when your mind isn't functioning properly, how can you be expected to diagnosis yourself and seek treatment? It's like expecting a broken robot to repair itself. For example, when depression robs you of all motivation and the very will to live, how can you be expected to recognize the symptoms and go out there and seek help?
>when depression robs you of all motivation and the very will to live, how can you be expected to recognize the symptoms and go out there and seek help?
I, for one, didn't realise I'd become depressed. It took my partner and my best friend to take me to get diagnosed and treated.
On reflection, it's frightening to think I didn't realise.
Also, when people do find effective treatment there is a tendency to feel they are healthy, and cease treatment. This results in an endless cycle of being symptomatic and not getting help, getting help and managing mental health issues, and letting go of the help that is making someone healthy.
Exactly this. To think that doctors can diagnose a person over the internet is already far stretched, since some health problems need examinations, tests and proper studying about the nature of the problem and the ones that they do are doing it by using specific websites and they emphasize how they cannot do a proper diagnosis but just interpret the symptoms - not talking about psychological issues exclusively here.
But for members of community to point their finger saying "this guy has this, can't you tell?" is brutal. Just brutal. If you really care about a person's health (especially when it's psychological) you don't do this. Instead, you try to come in contact with him or family or at worst with some professional around his town and treat him with the dignity an ill human deserves to be treated. This feels like we're all discussing about him in the town square and when he comes by we'll just give him the stare while he walks around. How's that helpful?
Cruel? It's sick. Mo matter how much "socially acceptable" it is, it doesn't make it less wrong.
With most things that can be seen as contentious, it's worth asking 'what good could come from this?'. In the case of this article, I think that people might be reminded to be more sympathetic when they encounter someone who is experiencing mental illness.
However, the way a person actually relates to their own experiences while classed as mentally ill is a personal thing. Lack of understanding is probably the biggest barrier - and well meaning sympathy isn't always going to have a positive effect on someone's well-being. It might actual just compound the problem.
I think there's an element of the freak-show here, because the guy who's the subject of the article is being used as 'exhibit a' in a discussion of what can manifest from mental illness. On the flip side - mental illness does seem to be an area of life that's rarely discussed openly.
Rather than stand by and look at the wreckage - it's probably more constructive to think about what can be done to help tackle mental health issues more generally. http://www.mind.org.uk/ is a UK-based charity who are doing good things in this area.
Agree about the public disclosure, but disagree that a mentally ill person can be expected to be responsible for their own wellbeing. It's logically impossible. And btw medication works quite well.
Mental health problems do make self-care a lot harder for some people. I agree that it's possible for many people with MH problems to seek appropriate care when they need it; or to have in place "rainy day action plans" to help other people spot times when help is needed.
But there are a few people who need help, but just don't think that they need help. It's judgemental and unhelpful to suggest that this small minority is somehow selfish or irresponsible for not seeking help.
Exactly. When talking about an ill person generally you just use the first name (more often not the real first name), and make sure it's not obvious who you are talking about.
I've read a fair share of psychiatric books and they all have this "rule".
The OP should at the very least edit out the name of the person and remove references to his work.
I'm glad someone has said this, I was looking at LoseThos's long, long list of dead posts on HN a few days ago, it is deeply tragic, a clearly talented guy that has lost his grip on reality. It would be interesting to hear from him the steps that led to his current situation. From some of his comments he seems like he is aware of his condition, yet his self awareness doesn't lead to self control, to me this is fascinating. Of course, if he replies to this his comment will be dead, so here's a question - are the HN mods right to silence an account from a clearly very talented technical guy because of his mental illness?
are the HN mods right to silence an account from a clearly very talented technical guy because of his mental illness?
I've also wondered about this. It's OK to use the silencing for real spammers, but for people that are considered annoying/offtopic for other reasons I think it's better to confront them directly. At least let them know that they were banned and why. It'd be the human thing to do.
He knows he's hellbanned. It's come up before, and several of us with showdead turned on have e-mailed him at various times. He still comes and writes those posts knowing 99% of the people here will never see them.
Can anyone tell me how being silenced and hence not having your posts appear works? Is it via karma that you can be completely silenced or does it have to be via a mod?
Davis relentless in his work, as you can see from his OS, but that also applies to his posting. He can easily drown a forum in a few hours by posting hundreds of messages, with most of his content being generated by his, very naive, random text generators.
But some of the time you are banned for the actual words in your post. This account was hell banned for a while because I used the name of a brand of shoes in a post (on an article about an IP suit around said shoes.) A simple anti-spam filter.
I also suspect this gentleman has been banned not for the lack of contribution - but for off topic screeds and offensive language.
Off-topic posts are noise that make it harder for people with limited time to participate in HN. It would be nice to make an exception for rare and tragic cases, especially one like this where the guy has made valuable contributions in the past, but if we created a mental health exemption, it would just become an achievement badge for trolls.
If you're interested, many mentally ill people are very eager to communicate, and I'm sure you can find them on the web.
I don't like the way LoseThos is being cut off from the community he seems to want to be apart of. He is mostly harmless. I'd say his operating system is a work of art. It is a unique and interesting exploration of computing coupled with almost raw chaos. I am inspired by it.
Occasionally, people fall apart. I don't think they should be ostracized when they need help and friends the most. We should be more tolerant of ideas and people you may not like but who are still deserving of respect and recognition.
It's less about "intolerance of ideas" and more about "intolerance of disruptive racism" (and that's setting aside the spam spewed all over the place by his random number generators).
Have any of you who are painting him as some rejected genius even read his comments? There is a reason he was hellbanned years ago. His OS is neat and all, but those types of comments shouldn't be accepted and it's the right thing for them to be automatically dead. He knows he's hellbanned and continues to post them.
> Sorry to threadjack but... how does it work? It seems that, for some reason, my account is blacklisted too. Who decides that? On the basis of what? I'm honestly perplexed...
one part of it is that no one can directly reply to your comments.
looking at your submissions, i suspect you were banned for posting links to your own blog?
there must be less obnoxious ways for moderators to discourage that.
> looking at your submissions, i suspect you were
> banned for posting links to your own blog?
No, that won't be it. People regularly submit links to their own blogs, and if it's not excessive, on-topic, well-reasoned, and generally valuable or "of deep interest" then there's no problem at all.
I suspect it's several of the comments made elsewhere that got down-voted into oblivion, and that triggered an automatic hellban.
> there must be less obnoxious ways for moderators
> to discourage that.
The voting already tries to guide behavior, but when that doesn't work, something else has to be done. In the case of genuine trolls, banning them and telling them so simply makes them create a new account and carry on. Silently banning them is a significantly more effective method of dealing with genuine trolls. The problem is that occasionally there is some collateral damage, with non-trolls getting caught by the mechanism.
Solve the problem of trolls, without getting any false positives, and you'll potentially have a market winner.
People post links to their blogs all the time, so I doubt it's that.
From looking at his history, it seems to be this post which caused the ban: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3555622 No idea why - it's inflammatory, but hardly worth a ban.
I saw this when it was originally posted and decided not to comment then, but seeing it gain some momentum, I'm ignoring my better judgement. For a long time I was ill. My family was horribly poor when I was growing up, so the only doctors I saw were in state run institutions. Paranoia meant I never shared the reality I experienced, instead I only shared enough to get a mild "well, he's a teenager". I barely held on to sanity for a good number of years, eventually ending up where other's lives depended on me, so I sought help. I went through all manner of diagnoses and medications. The common side effect was that of, well, making my brain slow. Things that used to be easy, weren't anymore. I eventually found a doctor who ran a wide battery of tests with the end result being, if I read on an institution, he could have used those tests to keep me there. The final diagnosis was schizotypal personality disorder. Along came a battery of more medication, worse with the new diagnosis.
These new medications did wonders, but in addition to being slow, I was a foreign person to myself. And I kinda didn't like some aspects of that guy. So, with the help of the doctor, I went off my medication and developed new coping techniques. It's been 8 years, I've had some bad days and some good, I've got some odd habits, but unless someone watches me for a period of time, they wouldn't even notice.
All this to say, mental illness is a real illness, it's almost always manageable, but without the cooperation of the ill, there is no fixing it. And at the same time, the well person may be completely foreign, making the experience even more traumatic. Someone in the thread asked if folks would hire someone who said they were ill in an interview, but were being treated. I see the question as would you hire someone with only one leg. If they can do the job and fit well with the team, of course I would.
I've been thinking about the trajectory of knowledge lately and I've noticed that some of the really great mathematics work (e.g. Grigori Perelman) seems to come from outsiders, those who reject the establishment on some level.
Given the incredible depth and breadth of David's work work, I'm starting to believe that we are more likely to find a true solution to P =? NP in the notebook of someone like this than in a scholarly journal. There are not many of us, even here on HN, that have the willpower to pull off something like LoseThos.
> I've noticed that some of the really great mathematics
> work (e.g. Grigori Perelman) seems to come from
> outsiders,
That impression may simply be bias at work. Put together and successful do not form an interesting narrative; mentally ill and successful definitely do. We have a tendency to ignore, or take for granted, outstanding accomplishments that fail to involve weirdness. Within the circus of intellectual greatness, normality isn't interesting.
In fact, I'd suggest the opposite of your proposal. Breakthroughs do require obsession, yes, and a certain awkwardness comes with the territory. True mental illness and grossly maladjusted behavior, however, generally stand in the way of attaining them (except, of course, for a handful and thus famous cases). Don't look further than Perelman's struggles.
>True mental illness and grossly maladjusted behavior, however, generally stand in the way of attaining them (except, of course, for a handful and thus famous cases). Don't look further than Perelman's struggles.
I dont think drawing a comparison between Perelman(the guy who proved poincare conjecture) and Terry Davis is fair.
Although Davis is clearly talented, Perelman is one of the best minds of the century.
Also as far as I understand there is some good reasoning behind Perelman's rejection of the establishment and in fact it might even be contributing to his ability to solve problems no one else seems to be capable of solving.
"I can't say I'm outraged. Other people do worse. Of course, there are many mathematicians who are more or less honest. But almost all of them are conformists. They are more or less honest, but they tolerate those who are not honest." - Pereleman refering to the efforts of Yau to downplay Perelman's role in the proof of Poincare Conjecture.
"It was completely irrelevant for me,” he said. “Everybody understood that if the proof is correct then no other recognition is needed." - Perelman when asked about his rejection of the Fields Medal.
A sobering and timely read for me also. Lately I have been considering the cross-section between social-acceptance and creative work: we applaud the work of anyone who pushes the boundaries of creativity and innovation, but only if they stay coherent. That's just not something you can promise yourself as you start off on a new tangent, there is a lot of failure involved and much of that failure is how you will be perceived. Looking into this operating system reminds me of looking into the slightly-less coherent mind of David Lynch or Lewis Carroll. Fascinating and frightening glimpses of brilliance.
Paranoia can be a major symptom of schizophrenia and many other mental illnesses .. and you guys are analysing this poor guy like some kind of lab rat .. how do you think this will affect him?
It's a very fine line between genius and insanity.
Some cross the line and come back, some cross to never return. I have a friend who has been busy now for 2 decades+ working on a CAD system in 68000 assembly, which he believes is the next big thing. He's bulding it on an ancient Atari ST.
The world has long moved on in just about every sense of the word and yet he's solidly stuck in a past that is no longer alive except to him. Everybody around him has had plenty of talks to explain what's going on and he steadfastly refuses any and all input on the subject.
The interesting part is that even though he's unemployed he is working on his passion every day for the largest part of the day, he's building something that is absolutely incredible and he's having tons of fun doing it.
Makes you wonder if he's all that crazy.
'Losethos' is doing something similar, he is building something for which there apparently is no need. But that may be just our perception. Maybe the creative act is his way of showing the world what he can do.
"Sibelius was originally developed by British twins Ben and Jonathan Finn for the Acorn Archimedes computer, under the name 'Sibelius 7'. Development (done on RISC OS entirely in assembly language) was started in 1986, just after the Finns left school, continuing while they were at university."
There was a window of time... but the Finn brothers re-wrote the code in C++ for Windows/MacOS, then sold(?) product to Avid.
This seems like a bad idea. There are (or at least used to be) a couple of rants about his doctors on his website, so it's clear he's getting treatment of some variety. There's also a reference to his parents, who presumably have been put through enough by his illness without a swarm of internet strangers calling them at home to gawk at their son like a sideshow freak.
But on the other hand this personal information was publicly published by the author - no one invaded his privacy to get this information - it's right on his website. (Not to mention whois which is archived by 3rd parties.)
I don't see what the big deal is. He's a completely endearing a lovable guy if a bit eccentric, just like all the best in our field. I loved listening to his demo video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAr-xYtBFbY), it had me smiling all the way through.
His joy of experience in knowledge and production and problem solving is what hooked me on computers in the first place.
If you think he's crazy, you should go see Stallman talk.
The idea that mental illness is nothing more than a label we give to those with a different perception of the world is extremely naive. I used to subscribe to it too until I saw what schizophrenia looks in real life. I don't think I've ever seen a human being more miserable than my friend who has it. The suffering is very real and severe.
There is a very fine line between eccentric and schizophrenic.
So the big deal here imo is that this man was able to do such an amazing work despite his condition.
I hope someone is taking care of him? Just wondering because many mental illnesses can be handled very well with proper medication and therapy. He is so talented he could do great things with the illness handled properly.
I think there is a lot of grey area here. Are 9/11 conspiracy theorists and Holocaust deniers mentally ill? I think many of them are, at least in some kind of mild form. Is the Time-Cube guy? Almost certainly. Are we allowed to make fun of them? I'm not sure anymore.
I can't find the site anymore, but I remember a similar case of a guy that has a website with a lot of material dedicated to some kind of LabVIEW-Style graphical programming that will revolutionize the software industry. The other half of his website are Bible prophecies.
Hi, I'm the actual author of the article (it was posted by someone else ... I'm flattered). Anyway, as an atheist its really hard for me sometimes.
There are certainly healthy, productive, happy members of society that have deep religious convictions. So be it.
But when people think they have an active full discourse with God and God is literally conversing with them and is furthermore telling them to do things that actually yield no results (Do X and Y will happen, and then Y never does), things get difficult.
Balancing the liberty of a person with what needs to be done to effectively empower them is a difficult task.
What exactly is it about losethos's cognitive patterns that you find "insane"? (honest question)
I have spent quite some time reading miscellaneous forum threads by him and have found nothing that shocks me as profoundly "mentally ill". Sure, the guy sees some strange patterns in the noise, but don't we all? Most of us just have enough sense not to share them publicly, or enough existential fear to censor our own thinking.
If we take the lack of cognitive self-censorhip to be a criterion for establishing "insanity", then are we not guilty of the same intellectual laziness we point out when we discuss "thinking inside box"?
That is, if someone professes to one "insane" (== not generally accepted as "true", to the point of ridicule) idea, does that invalidate the rest of ideas they originated? What about two? How many "insane" ideas must one express to have the rest of one's ideas invalidated? Or must the ideas be considered independently of the source?
If you don't find the slip-sliding from strangely-worded technical discussion into invocations of the Godhead as explanations for why he only runs at certain monitor resolutions as clear indications of delusion I think you may be trying too hard to be accepting. In doing so you're fooling yourself.
I resent the accusation. But I do venture south of the "sanity" meridian quite often, so perhaps I have lost perspective. Perhaps I should watch more television.
Do engage the substance of my inquiry, please. If it is "delusional" to invoke the Godhead as an explanation for running only certain monitor resolutions, is it not delusional to invoke same Godhead as an explanation for holding $moral_value or making $public_policy_decision?
Rhetorical, obviously. My point is - if no objective metric is invoked in determination of "insanity", does it not then become a "house rule" of sorts?
A reliable and objective metric for insanity is whether you believe not only that the supreme deity of the universe is telling you how to program, but also that passages in the Bible are coded references to the same written directly to you.
Question for the people looking to employ: If "Fred"[1] disclosed a history of a serious mental health problem at interview, and said that he was compliant with treatment which kept him symptom free (but with a few minor side-effects from medication) would you hire?
How would you feel if Fred disclosed after interview, at the point where you offer him the job?
How would you feel if Fred disclosed after he started the job?
[1] Fred is a totally hypothetical person with, for example, a diagnosis of schizophrenia.
Arguably the world's greatest single intellectual body of work, the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, was written by a guy locked up in his room alone.
If his work required significant ongoing interaction with the rest of the team though, I might be more hesitant to hire.
Newton had a close but small circle of people around him while writing the Principia. His odd behaviour earlier on may have been associated with mercury poisoning, see Westfall's biography. It is also worth mentioning that his religious beliefs would have got Newton into serious trouble, possibly prison, certainly loss of livelihood, if they had become known, so he had to be a bit careful.
I take your wider point. Newton would have seemed very odd by today's standards.
Sure. If you're worried about employee mental health problems, you want to screen out the (untreatable) psychopaths and people with borderline personality disorder. My understanding is that those two problems are vastly more of a business risk than, say, garden variety schizophrenia.
Can anyone suggest to me what to do if we think one of our good friends is displaying evidence of undiagnosed mental illness? (specifically schizophrenia)
They're self-medicating with marijuana and alcohol and displaying increasingly erratic behaviour. At the same time I know their potential for genius but see their potential hampered by their problems.
Our wider social network has noticed it and are electing me to talk with my friend but I really don't know what I can say that'll help VS push them away.
Be open and honest about what you are seeing. Ask what you can do to help. Don't label. If the conversation goes well and your friend opens up, be ready to help them find help. I would be careful of going in prepared with e.g. a psychiatrist's phone number, because you don't want to send signals, "hey, we think you are mentally ill".
If the conversation goes poorly, back off and try again later. While it is good to not have every person in your social group having this conversation, having more than one person have it is probably a good idea. You don't want the friend to get the feeling "everybody is against me" while at the same time, if it's just you, they can more easily ignore your input as "just you".
Finally, recognize that this might cost you a friend. But if you do care for that friend (which obviously you do), that is a risk worth taking for your friend's sake. Good luck.
Unfortunately, their lack of insight makes it very difficult for them to willingly get the help they need. Have you asked this person about the symptoms you are seeing? Does this person have any insight into these symptoms?
-----------------
You can download 2004
http://web.archive.org/web/20040606212724/http://www.simstructure.hare.com/OS.htm
Funding? No, helplessly watched my 5 year window go by from FBI prison.
I had 10,000 firm downloads in the last 3 years. I only got 15 emails over 5 years, all FBI.
That's okay -- it's in God's court.
-----------------
^This is so sad. I think I can sense what's he trying to tell. He's a genius; hope he will be fine.
...Interesting. I read a less sensitive article regarding LoseThos recently. The contrast between that author's point of view and this article's is jarring.
"I was a National Merit Scholar with a 1440 SAT at Arizona State University. I have a bachelor's in Computer System Engineering from ASU, basically, embedded systems, and a master's in Electrical Engineering from ASU, control systems. I worked as a software, hardware and mechanical engineer at Ticketmaster from 1990-1996. I designed a 3 axis stepper-motor-driven milling machine 1996-1997 with a CAD/CAM package for a company I started called Home Automation and Robotic Equipment. I worked for a company named Xytec Corp. 1997-1999. We made FPGA-based image processing equipment for currency inspection, and I installed passwords on the machine in the Bank of England. I wrote SimStructure from 2000-2001 for H.A.R.E. I worked as head software/electrical engineer for a company called Graphic Technologies, 2001-2002, making replacement chips for toner printer cartridges so they could be refilled."
I read this with mixed feelings. While it is good to raise awareness of issues of this sort, our first reflexes on how to relate to a person such as this are often quite naive. While there is a bit of poetry in his writings and likely speaking, the cure, if there really is one, is not poetic. I do wonder about the value of this writeup and its posting here.
You are likely to find that relating to someone with this condition will be frustrating beyond your own ability to make sense of it or to have a positive effect in any way, or to maintain prolonged caring contact.
I don't agree that we shouldn't be discussing people like this, but that your expectations of what the outcome might be are likely to be thwarted. For a harrowing study that the investigator later realized was unethical, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Christs_of_Ypsilanti.
I have direct personal experience with this, as I lost a brother to this condition.
"I was then greeted with the most horrifyingly ugly thing that I had yet seen - even worse than Linux. After closing the worthless "tip of the day" window, I was apparently sent to my home screen."
Is the OP suggesting this guy developed mental illness because others didn't appreciate his work?
I find it's very important to recognize what you're trying to achieve when you show your work to others. If you want honest feedback, be prepared for honesty. If you want to "show off" be prepared to be disappointed. Noone has any idea how hard you worked.. the exception would be others who have accomplished similar things to you have - which is why ASK HN posts are useful, people here for the most part appreciate what you've done, even if it's no use to them.
It can certainly hurt if you worked hard to make something and no one appreciates it (or worse, are actively hostile toward it). If it happens enough, I'm sure one can develop some kind of mental illness. Especially if he already had issues with self-esteem.
Btw, it is perfectly possible to be honest, without being cruel or a jerk.
i) Suggesting that someone might have a mental health problem is probably okay.
ii) Suggesting a specific mental health problem that a person may have, unless you're qualified, is probably not okay. (And if you are qualified there are ethical issues.)
iii) Mental health problems and mental illness are not "mental handicap". "Mental handicap" refers to learning disabilities. In the UK "Mental handicap" would be an odd phrasing.
Interesting questions: Should he have the choice to live with his illness? Or should he face coercion to have treatment? Does he have the choice, given that he may have an illness that affects choice?
(1) it was openly admitted by him (I've changed it)
(2) See 1.
(3) I removed the word "handicap" - it was done to contrast it with the physical world, but yes, the juxtaposition is effective without it.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3642570 is a relevant thread. It discusses "Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill". Once Feynman was diagnosed as mentally ill... Great care is needed before labeling people as "needing fixing.". It is probably not a good idea to make everybody act and behave like everybody else.
I think it's important not to conflate the more subjective regions of psychology with somebody who is erratic and clearly suffering/causing harm to themselves/others.
In fact this sort of relativism can be harmful I think as it can justify people who are mentally ill thinking that nothing needs to be fixed, yet carry on harming themselves/others.
You really do have to be extreeeemely careful about this sort of thing, and the Feynman case is hardly comparable, unless there were some nonsensical outbursts from him that I don't know about.
On that subject - just because Feynman didn't think psychology was a proper science (and essentially it isn't), doesn't mean it isn't an incredibly important hack. All the people who have suffered from mental illness and received effective treatment are a testament to that.
Anyone in Vegas who can get in touch with him in meat reality?
I e-mailed him. I'm interested in installing and playing with this thing. I have an Athlon x64 box that's currently experiencing crash-boom bios issues, but if I get it running I want to throw this on a drive and see what happens!
I e-mailed him months ago. The reply I got was a rapid chain of incoherent mails about conspiracies between government and his doctors and quotes from the bible. It's illness.
Sorry, but did he really quote from the new testament, or was it instead the ramblings of "God"? I have a special academic interest in schizophrenia; btw, Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind is a fantastic read.
I believe most of his "quotes" are markov chain output (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain) or somehow otherwise automatically generated. It seems he thinks randomness provides a communication channel, something like if he generates messages while incorporating randomness then god can influence the output and encode messages for him.
I am curious if there are other examples in history of people who appear or are technically competent but were (or probably were) suffering from a mental disease.
I know a few artists/painters who went insane (and few suicided), but in technical/science domain I don't think I know anyone such.
Many others. As a recent example, Len Sassaman. He suffered from clinical depression and eventually suicided. Mental illness in scientists/engineers gets way less exposure than with artists, which are more visible to the public.
People generally cannot be helped unless they want to be. Sharing his personal information in some misguided attempt to "help" is not likely to turn out well. And unfortunately, as a practical matter, no community should be expected to tolerate a stream of senseless diatribes just because of the person writing them.
To some extent, everyone is responsible for their own well-being. Very few people completely lack any self-awareness; if you know you have a health problem, whether mental or otherwise, it is your responsibility to seek help. It's a responsibility you owe yourself, your family and friends, and society.
Other than that, we shouldn't be discussing people like this.