
Death of a Dystopian - noshbrinken
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/10/death-of-a-dystopian
======
cyberpunk
This was a good read and quite heavy. I'm not sure what the takeaway is
though.

What can we learn from such a tragedy that might help others? A trend in such
stories seems to be a period of increasing isolation from everyone but in many
cases none of the cut out people do anything about it. I find it hard to
understand how the family of the wife can just accept losing contact like
that, but I've not been in this situation so what do I know?

Either way, grim stuff. At least the deaths were quick and they didn't seem to
really suffer that much.

~~~
throaway23
Pointless stories that supposedly "educate and inform" the public, about
something way above their pay grade seem to be the norm these days.

As a manager most of my time these days seems to get spent in reminding people
they don't have to come up with constructive narratives for every complex
problem the internet or life dumps on them.

If you are really interested in an issue put in the work. Find an expert. If
the experts don't have great answers and you are still interested put in the
work. This discipline seems to have evaporated these days.

Every one is programmed for instant gratification that comes from just
reacting and being satisfied with the like button counter of the reaction.

Hard problems are hard. Its okay to say you have no idea how to solve it. But
don't use it as an excuse to not get an expert involved.

~~~
cyberpunk
I'm not really sure where to start here.

Why does any story need to have an agenda? I didn't get one from this, and I
would be hard pressed to find an agenda from most of the fiction I read
either.

This is the story of a whole family's life and how they died. You think it's
pointless to read or publish it? Why?

'Pay grade' statements weaken your statements fatally so we'll ignore them.

I'm not looking for gratification or some shortcut to a solution for a problem
I'm not trying to solve but I can't understand what you're trying to say
here..

Are you saying I'm wrong for thinking about what to learn from this terrible
tale? Should the only people commenting on things outside their field only be
allowed if they're willing to have a field of independent experts backing them
up? Eh?

~~~
throaway23
Yes because times have changed. People spend more time reacting to things they
can't solve than on developing the discipline it takes to address them. Social
media and news media are totally architected to encourage this kind of
thinking and behaviour. And its costing us big.

Most people in the world aren't well prepped to deal with this overloading of
complexity. Its like constantly bombarding a bunch of second graders with
tenth grade problems. There are huge consequences to that playing out right
now in society.

This concept that people with access to info will develop healthy ways to
parse the info by themselves is total BS. Its like saying access to a library
is a kid needs to get educated. If that were true why do we need teachers and
schools.

With speed and scale of info delivery comes a responsibility unlike ever
before to think about the unintended consequences. Its just not happening.
People are falling over themselves reporting complex things whose solutions
they barely understand.

~~~
CalRobert
If you're going to lecture from on high and pass judgment on the poor plebs
who can barely understand complex ideas, _please_ learn that "its" is
possessive. You want "it's".

I may be accused of pedantry but you committed this error repeatedly. It
grates.

------
jorblumesea
I feel the saddest part was the response of others to his death. Instead of
understanding the root causes or trying to help others in his situation people
turn to more conspiracies and finger pointing. "The government was behind
this. CIA assassination" etc. It completely dehumanizes the issue of mental
illness and distracts from the real issues at hand.

------
aorth
The trailer for his movie Gray State (beware: graphic violence, flashes) is
here: [https://youtu.be/Gy7FVXERKFE](https://youtu.be/Gy7FVXERKFE)

