
Princeton Grad Student And 'Brilliant' Programmer, Dies In Apparent Suicide  - covertparadox
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/07/bill-zeller-dead-princeto_n_805689.html
======
maxklein
I've been pushing this idea: "A half-way house for suicidal people" Basically,
if you're intending to commit suicide, you simply register for the project,
and you get an all-expenses paid trip to Iraq, Afghanistan or Congo or some
other really dangerous place. Spend two to three months helping people out,
then feel free to commit suicide after that.

No counseling, no attempt to talk you out of it, just a chance to be somewhere
that will put you within a new world.

~~~
lookACamel
Nice idea but don't you think others would abuse the system?

~~~
Detrus
Yea this is basically the system suicide bombers are in. Only there, the point
is to make the suicide useful for political goals, here it is to make
miserable life useful for said goals.

------
lkrubner
The opening of the note is my favorite part:

"I have the urge to declare my sanity and justify my actions, but I assume
I'll never be able to convince anyone that this was the right decision. Maybe
it's true that anyone who does this is insane by definition, but I can at
least explain my reasoning."

It occurs to me that suicide was widely accepted in many cultures, for a long
time, certainly in pre-Christian Europe. Roman generals might kill themselves
after their forces were routed, if they feared being captured. Japanese
samurai might kill themselves after defeat, even if they evaded capture.
Christianity brought in a belief that most of the time suicide was wrong, but
many Christian writers allowed for some exceptions. In his book "The Education
of a Christian Woman", published in 1547, Juan Luis Vives praises the mass
suicide of women in a Greek city whose walls were about to fall to seige. He
argued that it was better that they die with their honor intact.
[http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=sy...](http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=synopsis&bookkey=3627078)

I say all this to suggest, the current trend in psychology, which views all
suicide as irrational, is perhaps somewhat misguided. There are surely times
when a person is in so much pain that, barring any hope of ending that pain,
suicide becomes a rational option. We have, in recent years, begun to accept
this line of reasoning as it applies to end-stage cancer patients, and others
facing terminal diseases, but if you allow that this reasoning is valid
anywhere, then you have to allow that it is valid everywhere that certain
conditions are met, in particular, a great deal of pain, and no hope for
ending that pain.

------
noonespecial
Very sad indeed. It might just be semantic, but it seems that this person died
from wounds inflicted during childhood, it just took a while for him to
succumb.

------
rianjs
Just FYI, here's another HN thread:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2074109>

~~~
dhimes
Be sure to mind BigZaphod's comment in that thread about the suicide note.

~~~
DanielRibeiro
It seems this wish is being fullfilled:

Tumblr: <http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/suicide?before=1294400750>

Scribd: <http://www.scribd.com/doc/46479466/Bill-Zeller-Suicide-Note>

Also, his twitter account is alive (his last tweet is from last year):
<http://twitter.com/billzeller>

~~~
meric
His friend asked for help on HN and posted the suicide note, but later deleted
it. <http://documents.from.bz/note.txt>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2059862>

------
DLWormwood
While I never suffered the molestation, I can still relate to this guy. I also
came from a fundementalist background that I’m only now coping with in middle
age thanks to health consuling, a support group, and a family who have
likewise forsaken those closeminded ways in favor of a more loving, “truer”
version of the faith.

------
nopassrecover
It's quite incredible that the Huffington Post posted the entire suicide note,
particularly without a warning before it.

In any case, I'm disturbed and outraged by the religious comments (ranging
from wishing him well in the next phase of his life to saying how much God
loves everyone even despite this to how he should forgive himself for the
suicide). I thought respect was fundamental to religion.

~~~
cookiecaper
I don't really get what you find disrespectful. Religious people generally
believe that death is just a transition into a different plane. Why shouldn't
a religious person be able to represent this in a comment?

For the record, I read the note, and there's nothing in it that would make it
inappropriate to leave a comment like "hope he is happy now" or whatever. Even
if he asked people not to say this about his death, which he didn't do, or
even remotely hint at, they still would. It's just the common way of
addressing death. Most people are religious.

~~~
Confusion
The problem here is that these things are not disrespectful for individual
Christians to say, but they are inappropriate for Christians 'as a group' to
say. The group should stfu and take a long hard look at their shortcomings as
a group. You don't get to address this guys death in your religious way, if
you don't address the religious ways that caused his death. If there is anyone
in the position to get fundamentalist Christians to change their ways, it's
the moderate Christians. But I don't hear them speak out against, _on
religious grounds_ , against the extreme, religiously inspired, stuff that
gets shouted around by national celebrities that get to keep televising that
propaganda for decades. Instead, everyone expects the atheists to carry the
burden of moderating the extremists, who are naturally much less eficient at
that. To add insult to injury, in the public debate moderate Christians
continuously choose the side of the fundamentalists when push comes to shove.
I continuously moderate the quacks in my scientific family; you moderate
yours, damnit.

~~~
tptacek
Guilt by association is also handy when you don't want people to build
mosques.

~~~
Confusion
A fallacy that could not be used if Muslims openly and harshly criticised
their fundamentalist brothers, instead of remaining silent and ocasionally
nodding in agreement when others are described as unworthy, because that
feeling is most fundamental and hardest to overcome. The core of what binds
people together is the united enemy and appeals to hating the enemy are easy.
At least they have the excuse that most of them are usually being repressed,
by the government or the direct social community, and don't dare voice their
opinion.

Moderate American Christians, on the other hand, could easily wipe out the
ridiculous overpresence of fundamentalist Christians on national television.
This is assuming the majority actually consists of moderate Christians. If
that assumption is false, then the feelings of nopassrecover are justified by
appeal to the probability that the commenters are actually the type of people
that are guilty of this mans death.

~~~
tptacek
Thanks for making my point for me. Yep. That's one thing that could make
things better for American Muslims. If they'd just change their behavior, just
a little bit.

~~~
Confusion
American Muslims are a minority, who can hardly be expected to change the
public perception of 'Islam', which depends on what millions of foreign
Muslims say or do. Those foreign Muslims have a hard time being moderate and
because of that my appeal to Christians does not equally apply to them. The
American Christian majority has both power and freedom of speech. They're just
not using it efficiently to shut down the blowhards that keep hijacking
'Christianity'.

I admit it's a fine line between what I'm trying to argue and the 'guilt by
association' fallacy, but the difference is the answer to the question: how
responsible is a powerful majority subgroup for taking action against the
minority leading the group, when the majority subgroup is suffering from that
leadership, because members of the majority subgroup are being held
accountable for opinions and decisions of the leadership that they don't even
agree with? Humans use fallacious reasoning and pointing that out doesn't
change a thing about that. Taking away the origin of the fallacy does change a
thing _and_ makes the world a bit better. I'm not committting the fallacy in
my argument: I'm just pointing out that others will commit the fallacy, which
is an unchangeable fact of human nature the majority subgroup should better
acknowledge.

~~~
tptacek
Guilt by association is guilt by association however you choose to wield it.
Have the last word, if you'd like.

------
jhamburger
I don't fault him for what he did and I'm sure his state of mind wasn't
anything most of us could relate to- but the one thing I feel like he could
have done before this was to open up to _someone_ about what happened to him.
Maybe it wouldn't have changed anything but maybe it would have been the first
step to dealing with this a different way. I understand why people commit
suicide, but at least try _everything_ first.

------
rudyadler
Bill's family & friends have set up a page on 1000Memories to share memories
of his life.

<http://1000Memories.com/BillZeller>

If you knew Bill, please join his page.

------
DrStalker
Is there any doubt it was suicide, or is the word "apparent" in the article
heading unnecessary?

~~~
Timothee
It might be for some legal reasons until there is an official statement on the
matter. In a similar way that journalists always have to say "allegedly" when
talking a case that hasn't been closed. (IANAL obviously, neither a
journalist)

------
angrycoder
Terrible loss.

Based on his note, he is a compelling writer. If it were not published
posthumously, it could have done a lot of good for himself and for others. It
probably would not have received the same amount of attention though.

------
nhangen
I wonder why he didn't name the person? I don't know why, but it bothers
me...almost as if he never found the strength to confront it, and he died
never being able to do so.

I feel bad for the guy. I'm certainly not one of those self-righteous "suicide
is selfish" types, but it does bother me that the victims always seem to lose
in these cases. Such a loss.

------
scotty79
If something bad happens to you that you can't forget or forgive go to chats
and tell your story to anonymous people over and over as many times as
necessary until you get eventually bored with it. It may take a year or more.

You will be then less likely to tell it to yourself again in your head.

------
ssiddharth
Why the quotes around the word brilliant in the title? Am I missing something?

~~~
mbrubeck
Because it's quoting a comment from Anil Dash. (More of the comment is quoted
in the body of the article.)

~~~
sophacles
That may be true, however there is still quite a disconnect between the
intended "quoting" and resulting 'scare quote' issue. Basically, without
knowing the quote, it adds a pile of sarcasm to the title roughly equivalent
to:

so-called smart guy kills himself

It's just sad.

~~~
sayrer
wow, I couldn't believe it either. A scare quote headline with a full suicide
note republished. I did notice no one at the Huffington Post would attach
their name to this trash.

~~~
chc
If you look at about half the comments in this subthread (including the
grandparent of yours), you would see that these are not scare quotes — they're
the normal kind of quotes, which indicate a quotation.

------
srram
Never knew him. But reading the letter made me bawl like a baby. And I don't
remember the last time I shed a tear

My intensely normal upbringing means I can't ever hope to comprehend what he
must have gone through

RIP

------
ladon86
You know, me and my friends were talking just the other day about how massive
myTunes was in college, pretty much everyone was using it. What a sad loss of
a fantastic talent.

------
sn
He discusses counseling but not medication. If the latter was never tried, I
find this even more sad.

Talking about suicide is a taboo subject. And doctors and others in caretaker
positions are legally required to alert the authorities if they suspect
someone may harm themselves. If it is discussed, there is a reasonable chance
the person discussing it will be sent to a mental institution, the experience
of which may be less appealing than suicide.

I wonder what would happen if physical suicide could be replaced with social
suicide, administered by something analogous to the witness protection
program.

------
privacyguru
This is a tough one to swallow. I never knew Bill personally but it did hit
home as shared some common connections. Sucks. Sucks that its too late to help
him. I won't comment on what I think should be done to that person but they
deserve the worst and then some.

Someone posted a great quote in the comments on the story on Gizmodo: "Be
kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

RIP Bill Zeller.

------
kilian
It always makes me feel sad how goddamn _unfair_ life is to some.

------
eapen
For some reason, I kept picturing Dexter (particularly S5) when reading this.
I wish he used his intellect to somehow get back at all those other f-ing
child molesters.

------
blahedo
Eternal rest grant him.

~~~
pjscott
Why do solemn events Yoda Speak more acceptable make?

(Offtopic, I know, but doesn't this strike you as weird?)

~~~
blahedo
It's not out of the blue; it's a very, very, very old formula in the Catholic
liturgy (funeral and requiem Masses and vigils), translated from the Latin
"requiem aeternam dona eis". The usual response is "And perpetual light shine
upon him" ("et lux perpetua luceat eis").

It seemed appropriate.

------
eurohacker
one must probably understand while reading this that the mental abuse was in
his life constant,

tried to get rid of it, go to school etc. , but had to communicate with his
family and probably that nullified his self-help totally every time.

Its probably something like working like mad on some programming project for a
year and then someone hacks your system and deletes everything... after that
one year to restore the system and then someone again comes and deletes it
..one more year to restore , and back to zero again

------
kwoks
You don't solve a problem by running away from it. This guy would have been
very useful. He just needed counselling, attention and love to overcome the
'darkness and his ghosts'. But I don't think he was smart. He might have been
clever in class and books but smart and brilliant people don't take their own
lives. Brilliant is misused here. Anyway R.I.P.

~~~
MikeCapone
> He might have been clever in class and books but smart and brilliant people
> don't take their own lives.

Honestly: How do you know? Should I invoke Alan Turing or look up suicides on
Wikipedia?

I think we, who are not going through these kind of things, tend to
underestimate just how damaged people can be. I'm not saying he made the right
choice, but I'm definitely saying that it's not as clear cut as you imply.

~~~
pjscott
Maybe he's defining "smart and brilliant" in such a way that his statement is
tautologically true? It's obviously pretty silly otherwise. Of course, such a
definition is also silly, since it has such a large mismatch with the
conventional definitions of those terms.

