Tony has been found ok by the police

[mattmaroon]

Is it callous of me to not really care about these things? Thousands of people commit suicide each day. While I'm not indifferent to that, and hope that the individual cases (including this one) turn out for the best, every time one involves the internet it seems to end up here.

Why? How is it news, or even interesting to people who don't know this person? Because the guy is a programmer? Are we going to also bump up every amber alert where the parent is a programmer? If we extrapolate this far enough, it some point in the future, we'd probably never see anything else here.

I'm really hoping its just the newness of the internet being used as the sucidial's cry for help that makes this get front page here, because I think I prefer stories about erlang.

[icey]

I don't think not caring is really all that callous.

Spending three paragraphs complaining about it is probably a little misguided, however.

[petercooper]

I'm dead sorry, Matt, but the votes the responses to you have gotten, on the whole, demonstrate why this place has gone down the toilet (in terms of comments - the front page links are still pretty good!).

It seems that criticizing you and calling you names is worthy of karma and that a reasonably thought out point is not. I'd rethink about where you spend so much of your time in future - I certainly don't post as much as I used to. I tend to vote you up though, because even if I don't agree with you, you at least put your case properly, unlike some of the name calling, emotionally wrought folks on here lately.

[amichail]

The previous submission was not news for your entertainment. It could have helped find him or cause him to change his mind.

[bluefish]

I wouldn't call not caring callous, but certainly expecting the rest of the community that does care to not use a very public forum as a resource to ask for help could be considered callous.

[volida]

So, it's cool to read your thoughts about how services supported by ads are dead, but unnecessary to report about someone who was in need?

I prefer raising awareness of an important issue than reading your propaganda about web services. Yes, it was propaganda because you lacked data. Hard core data to support any of your suggestions.

[dschobel]

Like with the Hans Reiser story, it's just more interesting because it happened to someone in our clan.

Hell, we've already got TMZ for nerds in the form of ValleyWag so even our educated consort likes drama & gossip.

[DenisM]

Everybody has their own monkeysphere, and they naturally care about people within that sphere and don't care about people outside of it.

What also happens is that through the power of media some people end up in your monkey circle, while you are not in theirs. If you see something really graphic on the screen or read something that makes you empathize it becomes more likely to happen.

http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html

[andymoe]

I agree with Matt. I don't think this is the correct forum for this kind of thing and I don't think his contribution as a programmer or a human being for that matter makes this post any more appropriate. I'm glad he is OK, but this person does not deserve special treatment from this community. A suicide note on the JOS off topic forums a couple years back promoted a similar discussion and ended with Joel shutting down that board.

[edit for structure]

[DanielBMarkham]

Hi Matt.

Your comment makes you sound like an asshole. Sorry to have to put it that way, but there you go. I'm not saying you are an asshole -- heck, I don't even know you. But dang, that just doesn't sound right.

I understand your point, however. There are easily dozens if not hundreds of extreme distress situations that happen to programmers every day.

I think the proper thing is to wait until you see a pattern, then comment. And then only in measured language, for one day it may be you they are looking for. One instance does not a pattern make.

That's my opinion, fwiw. You don't have to care -- you just need to keep your piehole shut. A time for talking and a time for quiet, that kind of thing.

[kqr2]

Cynical quote from Joseph Stalin:

    A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.

[vinutheraj]

Maybe the news was posted here so that somebdy, who was not added on the scala mailing list could help find that guy. And a person's life is more important than following Hacker News etiquette any day ( according to me atleast ! )

[DenisM]

just flag it.

[andrewljohnson]

I'd go as far as to say that it's insensitive, lacking in tact, and that you should apologize. Is this really the right forum to discuss this? A thread about a guy's almost-death?

Talk about kicking someone while they are down.

[amichail]

What caused all of this:

http://bradclow.blogspot.com/2009/03/tonys-letter-to-medical...

[dreish]

As much as imaging has advanced over the last few decades, it still seems primitive and barbaric. How could they have missed a chunk of tissue the size of a finger?

If out of neglect, that would point to the need for an automated system that can analyze an MRI and make these kinds of diagnoses.

[pygy]

There doesn't seem possible to ceate new root comments anymore, so I post here instead.

With the post flagged, the title reads "Tony has been found ok by the police [dead]", which is highly misleading, especially since the link has been removed.

[Raphael]

And Tony is?

[trickjarrett]

He's a major contributor to the Scala project.

Here's a wikipedia entry about something he did called Reductio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio

[DomesticMouse]

I'm glad Tony has been found. His articles always make for interesting reading. His plight is of concern to me, even though I have not met him. I'm still hoping to get some time off at some point to get scala training from the WorkingMouse guys.