Although the guy lives arguably outside the fringe of society, I cannot question his commitment to his project.
We tend to celebrate the successes like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerburg and then quietly go back to our daily lives, and compromise our creativity for family, wealth accumulation and professional advancement. The opinionated amongst us will debate which of their favorite value is the "right way," (If LoseTheOs got the help and settled down with his family, a partner or friends; If LoseTheOs found a job at Red Hat and channeled his energy towards Linux Kernel development...).
But choices and our commitment to these choices are what defines us. TempleOS in this regard, seems more like a work of art in the medium of code. Of course, the merit of that art is up to the beholder (and tbh, I don't think I'd have appreciated Van Gogh a priori.) "The difference between genius and insanity is measured only by success," but is the guy who doesn't succeed by conventional sense but finds his own meaning and keeps going, insane?
I wonder if he would get this much positive attention if he wasn't a Christian extremist. Would the article have conveniently left out his racism if he was, say, a militant antisemite instead of being focused on black people as he is? Would people admire his worship of a random number generator if he used it to spit out slogans of a religious text that isn't as revered as the Bible?
While his schizophrenia probably comes with very bad episodes, there is absolutely nothing that can be found in his own words allowing for the conclusion that this view is just a tourette-like symptom. On the contrary. His violence-laden hate speech is one of the constant factors defining him. Contrary to what has been suggested here he doesn't use slurs randomly and generically, either. There's a story behind his views that is just as coherent as the cute "god's own programmer" schtick.
Where his illness clearly manifests is the interpretation of random events all having a specific meaning. The radio talking to him, all the events in his life being just so that an invisible power is communicating with him, all the way down to literally a random number generator whose nature he cannot grasp. That's schizophrenia. If there was an adequate cure or means of suppressing it, this world view would completely go away.
It's more complicated to separate the man from the illness when it comes to pretty much anything else. At the very least I would be extremely hesitant to call him, as people do in this thread, an "inspiration". I'm not even sure it's safe to be in the same room with him.
Closing with a quote straight from his most recent account:
"I spend my days clubbing retard-n$ggers. CLUB! CLUB!
DIE N$GGER! CLUB! RETARD! N$GGER! DIE!! CLUB! N$GGER!*"
HN's majority opinion of this guy makes me more uncomfortable than his comments by themselves. I don't get how we can label this guy as being "high functioning" and at the same time sweep 99% of everything he ever says under the rug. It's either or.
He's 'high functioning' in the sense that he can produce elaborate computer software that runs fast, in other words he has impressive engineering skills. Socially he's pretty incapable. I think his offensive racist, homophobic and other offensive remarks are part and parcel of his condition because I've spent quite a lot of time reading his rants, and disagree with your claim that his use of slurs is not random and generic. It's not uncommon for him to claim that 'bill gAtes is an atheist nigger' and talk about hod God likes 'African musical rhythms and does not like white people so much' on the same day.
Yes, he does seem to use the epithet 'nigger' more than all other epithets combined, which is understandably alienating for many people. But I don't think this is ideologically rooted because it is so randomly and inconsistently applied in his writing (where it makes up a small fraction of the overall output, rather than the 99% you suggest).
Being an atheist, his output of random passages from the Bible is neither admirable nor otherwise to me - it's just statistically the most likely religious text for an American with a religious fixation to be fixated on. I've met mentally ill Asian Buddhists whose cognitive patterns are quite similar to Terry's even though the cultural referents are completely different. Extreme religiosity is very strongly correlated with some kinds of mental illness and I don't find it strange that Terry is fixated on Old Testament Bible stories where God puts in a lot of personal appearances. I could just as easily imagine him being obsessed with the Koran or some other religious text that's ubiquitous in some other part of the world.
I can't agree that he's an extremist - his (inoffensive)
'Guidelines for talking to God' [1]are pretty bland and heretodox as he eschews questions of salvation, morality etc., in favor of keeping God company (which makes sense since God is apparently a fixture in Terry's life). According to Terry, God dislikes classical music, Shakespeare, French people, and Terry's drumming while exhibiting an inordinate fondness for elephants, bears, and 1960s pop singers. You could work these elements into some sort of coherent ideological position just as you could characterize his relentless automated Biblical quotation as Christian extremism, but I don't think either position makes sense.
What's remarkable about him is not the endless stream of nonsense, much of which is offensive when it's even coherent; it's the fact that he manages to construct working things as part of his intellectual pursuits and carry on some kind of social life despite his mental circumstances.
I consider myself a man of principle. However, there comes a point where principle is just another form of prejudice. There is little to disagree with what you're saying, but life is a lot more devious than you're making it out to be.
Having treated thousands of individuals with schizophrenia, bipolar and other similar severe, chronic disorders I found the article to be fascinating. It succeeded in portraying the "mindset" of the creator of the OS and giving a glimpse into his experience. It made me believe Mr. Davis really did share his deep convictions just as he described.
I've always thought having a mental disorder did not mean a person did not also have talents, just like the rest of us. "I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid" is a phrase I heard many patients say. And of course they were right.
In reading the comments posted here, one thing may have been missed. The TempleOS for all its eccentricity is also very beautiful and in its own way remarkable coherent. Mr. Davis demonstrates talent not only as a programmer, but also as an artist, points that should not be overlooked.
Ultimately, the OS is a freely-given contribution to our world and adds to the important body of work created by people with psychiatric disorders. I think it should be appreciated in that context.
> TempleOS for all its eccentricity is also very beautiful and in its own way remarkable coherent
As a visual designer myself, his highly-symbolic visual language demonstrates what I understand as a telltale lack of nuance common to those suffering from certain mental illnesses, but the impressive part to me is that he really maximizes it. He seems to have access to an amount of "flow" that many people would kill to harness for their own purposes (of course without its drawbacks in this case). I was wondering if this may indicate that he is receiving a level of care that is fitting for his current needs.
I would love to see many other concepts expressed and illustrated with his current visual vocabulary, but I guess limiting it to Israelite Vision is part of the tradeoff.
I find this guy's moments of clarity amazing. I'm not very familiar with mental illnesses in any form, but it surprises me how clearly he understands how the rest of the world views him. It makes me think about what the world might be like if we reverse the situation, and the article were about the only man who can't hear the voice of God.
> I'm not very familiar with mental illnesses [...]
:)
Schizophrenics are frequently lucid. Well, a modified sort of lucid... It's as if they are rational folks for whom first principles or axioms have been shaken up, and indeed are malleable all the time.
It doesn't sound like Terry would ever think that his dinner plate would sprout legs and walk across the table. But as he stated in the article, he has thought that some dinners were poisoned.
See, the first one can't happen. The second one could technically happen. Schizophrenics aren't stupid, you know? :) But, their plausibility metrics are broken.
Regarding the plausibility of a dinner plate walking across a table: Well, it could happen if the plate is some Transformers(R) style robot, or something. It could be, if those exist, right? When a schizophrenic tells you something is true but you think it is implausible, remember: it's not implausible to them, because they are rational folks employing a different set of base assumptions than you. Walking plates are normal in a world that has Transformers(R).
Why would a rational person believe in fictional toy robots? Or even that someone wants to poison them? ...Well, once you believe in God, or time travel, or aliens, or that the universe is a simulation, or any number of "crazy ideas"... once you actually believe one crazy idea, it's all down hill from there.
But, it is generally an otherwise sane individual that is running down that hill...
Terry specifically mentioned a feeling or belief that God picks random numbers or events as a way to communicate with folks. "I can sit down with my parents and praise God and open the Bible randomly," he says, "and it will talk." All of those sorts of beliefs are rooted in some form of the following base principle: "The world is fundamentally not what the common man thinks it is." Once you think that some entity which has the power to alter individual atoms or the results of a coin toss (God, aliens, whatever) exists, then the belief that they would use that power to communicate is just a small logical step away.
[EDIT: Indeed, I just found this quote from him: God controls ALL the random numbers in yer life [...]. Every [...] random number from when you awake to sleep [...] So in his world, if you run over a nail in your car and get a flat... Well, you did something to deserve it!]
NOTE: Apparently some schizophrenic folks experience vivid, realistic open-eyed hallucinations sometimes (at the peak of a manic episode) or all the time. I don't have much experience with that. Sometimes those events coincide with seizures and events in which awareness and consciousness is lowered. I am guessing that my "these are rational folks" argument does not apply at those times (or to some people any the time).
I've stumbled upon Terry's work a long time ago...and suffice to say he's been a major inspiration. It's a shame the majority of netizens (Yes, HN and Reddit included) can't look beyond his eccentricity and mental health issues (then again, it takes some digging and google-fu to find out the full story / context behind the man...his posts don't exactly come with a disclaimer).
Going down the rabbit hole of Googling, Redditing, finding out more about him and his story ("a one-man novel, modern x64 almost-but-not-quite-entirely-unlike-retro OS?" type of thing is catnip to my synapses), I've also come to understand a friend's schizophrenic relative a bit better. I've read accounts of schizophrenia and art intersecting, but did not understand what it is, what it's like, *, until I witnessed schizophrenia intersecting with IT, at which point the gates of empathy, admiration and fascination were flung wide open.
His username on HN is / has been some variation on "TempleOS", "LoseThos", "SparrowOS", "TempleOSv2", etc. AFAIK all hellbanned due to un-PC comments posted in his, for lack of better phrasing, "Moments of Un-Clarity".
The irony (perhaps using the wrong word) of being hellbanned when the story of of your life's work..your magnum opus (especially in this case, an objective article that places it in context and with some background) is featured on HN's front page, makes me sad.
While regrettable, his hellban is entirely necessary. Almost every comment he makes refers to "f------- n------" (censorship mine). To quote one from his page of most recent comments: "I spend my days clubbing r----d-n------. CLUB! CLUB! DIE N-----! CLUB! R----D! N------! DIE!! CLUB! N-----!"
Yes, there was a guy named TempleOS here on HN, his comments are frequently down-voted, maybe he is even hell-banned. He had some weird views and his comments were a bit off-topic.
I really like the "modern, souped-up, multi-tasking,
cross between DOS and a Commodore 64" vision for TempleOS. The OS also has some innovative design choices like using the C compiler as the shell and compiling most programs on the fly. It reminds me of Lisp Machines in a way. A different vision of what computing could be like if closed-source binary-distributed software didn't exist.
I wish the source code (http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Accts/TS/Wb2/LineRep.html) were easier to read though. It's very dense with a lot of abbreviated variable names and no comments. It's the main reason why I haven't installed TempleOS yet, because of course I'd want to hack on it, and the code seems tough to learn.
To anyone brandishing the word 'racist' here, can you point us to any instance where what Terry wrote was not merely a rambling screed with the n-word in it, but actually racist thought. Because to me, those are different things - the former likely an excusable symptom, and the latter, y'know, actual racism.
Maybe you think it's the same. Maybe you're enforcing your zero-tolerance policy. If so, we disagree. To me it looks like a huge assumption, possibly more offensive than Terry's rants.
To call not being accepting of any incarnation of racial violence "zero-tolerance" has a really unfortunate air of dismissal to it. I, for one, am not a middle school hall monitor. There are things that a (relatively) advanced, civil society like ours should not accept. Just because you say something and may or may not mean what someone else meant does not remove the broader social context. The word is racist because of the social context and when you use it you evoke that context whether you understand it, agree with it, or not.
Edit: to be clear, my point is that evoking such an idea or meaning is violent towards others and an individual doesn't get to decide that this isn't the case. Believing you can is a hallmark of privilege.
Reading this, I'm reminded of Kary Mullis, inventor of PCR (polymerase chain reaction). PCR is widely considered to be the most important discovery of modern biology, ushering a new era of scientific research after he invented it in the 1980s. He won a nobel prize for it.
Kary was a bit off though (in this case due to intense drug usage, I think). Afterwards, he went on to deny that HIV is the cause of AIDS, tried to discredit global warming, and began believing in astrology and magic.
In the end, its possible that a little bit of insanity is a good thing; that it can help someone make a profound discovery that no one else could see. Too much is obviously detrimental, however.
Not exactly drug induced or a mental Illness but Ronald Fisher, arguably the father of modern statistics, went to great lengths to prove cancer caused smoking due to his personal convictions[1].
Throughout the span of modern history, we've had gifted creators whose talent is at a minimum intertwined if not completely predicated on their mental illness. Whether it was Van Gogh or Kurt Kobain, we've seen it consistently.
Terry is potentially one of the first if not the only creators of this type using a completely digital medium.
I really liked the article. It was very respectful towards Terry and shown a deeper understanding of his life and issues he faced. It was explaining, not judging. I now have a much more complete picture of the man I know only from shadowbanned comments here on HN.
I'm a huge fan of Terry's work, because he works hard, has a clear vision for what he wants to do, and makes it happen. That's more than can be said of many self-professed hackers who never see a project to completion or are motivated solely by peer recognition.
You may disagree with the logical coherency of his goals - I for one think the "temple for God" thing is pure kookery - but he is a master craftsman, and in this context it's all that really matters. There are people who devote their entire lives to pointless things. There are people who work on supposedly pointless things, which later turn out to not be so pointless. There are people who are supposedly working on world-changing things, which really are completely pointless. In the end, you can't predict the future. Just do honest work that you feel is worthwhile, and see what happens.
(if you want to play the hypothetical game, who's to say that Terry Davis won't develop some extremely efficient low level algorithms/techniques never done before that will dramatically impact computing?)
Every time his story comes up, there are people who respond with answers along the lines of "what can we do for him? can we find him assisted employment? can we raise money for him?" etc. While these comments are surely well intentioned, they end up being mostly condescending and out of place, as if talking about a completely helpless being. But Terry strikes me as anything but helpless - based on the various interviews he's given and comments he's posted, he seems to be quite content with his situation, and that "assisted employment" is the last thing he'd want or need. If anything, this is just a further argument for reforms like basic income and better treatment of mental conditions (e.g. with better early detection).
There are also always comments expressing surprise at how one can suffer from such a mental condition and yet do complex intellectual work like low level programming. These questions are based on the premise that schizophrenia (or a similar condition) impacts your brain in such a way that would make logical reasoning impossible. But that's not how it operates - logical reasoning is largely unaffected. Like `daveloyall says in another comment in this thread [0], what's affected are a few key "first principles". For instance, if you're persuaded that you're being constantly tracked by the CIA, removing all your clothes or dismantling your car to make sure you aren't bugged are very logical, reasonable things to do. The problem is that when you're operating under premises that are shared with no one else, the resulting dissonance makes integration with the rest of society problematic. But with this in mind, it's easy to see why one could be schizophrenic and yet still be able to program or do math or weave baskets, especially if the skills were mastered before the condition developed.
Terry is a maker of miniatures [1], and I'm happy we have such people walking among us.
Every time his story comes up, there are people who respond with answers along the lines of "what can we do for him? can we find him assisted employment? can we raise money for him?" etc. While these comments are surely well intentioned, they end up being mostly condescending and out of place, as if talking about a completely helpless being.
He is openly racist. He can't find a job on his own, unless it's among other extreme racists. I'm extrapolating based on his online behavior. If his real-life behavior is completely different, then that's one thing, but that seems unlikely. And his online behavior is so racist that there's just no chance of him fitting into any average social situation.
His racism probably isn't his fault. It's probably a factor of his condition. But isn't that the definition of "needs help"? So shouldn't we try to ask whether he wants our help, and if so, find an open-minded employer who might listen to the situation and be willing to give Terry a shot?
As you say. I think that in a sense, though, your opening is the most telling:
> Terry ... works hard, has a clear vision for what he wants to do, and makes it happen.
Mania is a double-edged sword. To not let anything stop you from your goals is to be unable to doubt that your goals, or the assumptions upon which they are based, are crazy. (This is an odd thing to ponder upon, as an entrepreneur.)
There's a rising cultural understanding of what it's like to live with depression—to doubt everything, especially yourself. There's very little cultural understanding of mania, mainly because it's a much more "obvious" problem that quickly marginalizes the people affected, rather than leaving them exposed to society.
As the commenter I believe you are quoting, I think you are reading a little too much into what I said. Nobody implied helplessness as a being, or that Terry should be compelled to enter gainful employment. I think it would be insane not to say that extremely high barriers to entry for someone with perceived mental health issues exist at almost any company. By "assisted employment" I mean having an employer who will try to understand his situation throughout hiring and ongoing employment. If there is some other implication to that phrase, I wasn't aware of it.
I've read pretty much every interview, story, and page regarding TempleOS and Terry's work and haven't seen anything
reinforcing the rigid belief you are espousing that Terry has no interest in working. It could be true, or not - but we have no idea of staring into another human being's brain and finding out without asking them. If there's some kind of statement he's made either way, then I think we should defer to it.
> I for one think the "temple for God" thing is pure kookery - but [...] There are people who work on supposedly pointless things, which later turn out to not be so pointless.
And in fact a lot of the foundational work in science and math was done by people looking for god who discovered world altering ideas along the way. It's doubtful if there would even be a computers/Internet for us to read this without their work.
The phrase that always comes to mind when speaking of disability, and creativity in the midst of mental illness, is "better to be hated than pitied."
There is something being said with TempleOS. We don't necessarily know what it is, because the premises employed are, as parent says, so divergent from society. If all we can get out of it is some mocking laughter and some anger and frustration with the author, so be it - that's far better than to dismiss the work and then push the agenda of "help this poor hopeless person live _normally_." He should be helped where it's reasonable to do so, of course, but that is primarily a problem to be dealt with by immediate friends, family, and institutions, not a bunch of strangers poking in at random.
"based on the various interviews he's given and comments he's posted, he seems to be quite content with his situation"
I too would be content with getting free money extracted from the labor of others into my bank account every month, after qualifying by acting as a spy in a series of chase scenes in a CIA thriller. Sounds like the movie had a happy ending.
I wonder if there is something the programming community could do to help him. I'm not sure what this could entail, but I'd hope there are people who would be willing to talk with him about his interests or attempt to set up some kind of assisted employment situation - he is by all accounts a very talented engineer.
One of the wonderful things about Western society is that it's got enough social welfare structures to allow someone like Terry to exist, is wealthy enough to allow them to thrive, should they want to, and enough individualism to where he's not constantly being beaten over the head with other people's demands for him to change to fit their idea of what a person should be.
As someone who has at times relied on this social largesse, I can say that attempts to do more wouldn't really have the desired effect. His is a wholly self-directed life, attempts to 'help' would take the self-directed quality out of his life that is being selected for. If you're worried for his well-being, I can say from experience that a person's subconscious mind is a lot more capable than we give it credit for.
If Terry wants to work, he will find work. His subconscious mind will proclaim through God that he is to glorify Him through this new avenue, which just so happens to be in a company in return for a salary. If he wants to do something else, he will do that something else.
He doesn't need us, and that's the real beauty of it.
Why are you under the impression that he is in need of help? It seems to me that he has no problem finding outlets to talk about his interests, and that he doesn't seem to desire assisted employment.
What fascinates me about Terry is that his schizophrenia doesn't somehow prevent his ability to make something as complex as an entire operating system.
Maybe this suggests that while schizophrenics look discordant to the rest of us, there's an internal consistency that very much makes sense.
Ticketmaster in Phoenix, AZ - early times - here's a little anecdote about the bizarre culture I saw there circa 1989-90. I applied there, having an EE degree already and I was called in for an interview. The initial interview consisted of what was more or less a battery of IQ tests. There must've been 30 of us initially. Soon only a couple of us were left after everybody else was dismissed. Apparently having passed this somewhat offensive process, they took more of my time and scheduled me for a second interview another day. I don't recall any names or faces, but there they offered me a job and mentioned some "genius" guy I'd be mentored by. Before I had the honor of meeting this guy we started talking money. The "pay?" $8/hour... Even 25 years ago that was less than half what a freshly graduated engineer could easily get anywhere else in a corporate job. That alone was enough for me to politely decline the offer, but the management attitude and culture was also repulsive. I wouldn't be surprised if they were exploiting this guy at the time and he may very well have been their "genius."
In the early to mid-90s I saw a lot of strange systems building exercises. Large companies building their own email systems from scratch. Creating their own custom Windows widgets. Building their own databases from scratch.
At the time IT was more of a white-glove environment. When the only people handling it were the tools makers themselves, a lot would get done by a couple smart people in some nook or cranny of the organization.
Of course this didn't last, as state of the art enterprise software eventually over-ran them, and the experts wound up joining software firms.
i have had a number of experiences very similar to what terry went through. connecting computing to religion, seeing 'larger patterns' that weren't there, believing in conspiracies directed at me... it was rough.
i was lucky enough to have a few people really step up and support me when i was at the edge. it's weird reading this and feeling like i know exactly what he means when he says this stuff that sounds crazy.
here's a description of one experience i had in april 2011, a day before joining uber:
i made it out of all that, though. thanks almost entirely to daily love and support from my now wife. if you have friends in a position like this - you CAN help them, it's just a crazy amount of work.
Didn't read the comments at reddit yet, but I wanted to say that a friend of mine, also in IT, had a similar experience where he started to see conspiracies everywhere, and "religion thoughts" kicked in for him as well.
After some time on cure this regressed and he now even jokes about that period.
He got to work again and has a completely normal life, but in a way I can still feel something changed inside of him...
It'd be nice if I could talk about this more with you. I will surely read your comments.
I really enjoyed this window into the life of "LoseThos".
I am glad that he seems to be both relatively safe and happy.
I think in the long run the value his life's work will be comparable or greater than the worth of most of his peers.
I'm genuinely interested. He's made a network-less OS with a fixed, low-resolution display, that is of seriously limited utility in the modern world and (AFAICT) doesn't advance the state of the art, all as an act of worship.
I remember the somethingawful.com thread where someone tried to install his operating system. It got real crazy real fast.
There was a HN thread here discussing it, and the top comments were people rightfully suggesting the guy needs serious mental help, not derision. The suggestion he had schizophrenia was thrown around a lot.
"Now you're supposed to do an offering before you talk to God. [...] just get conversation, maybe being witty and charming - or praise - like 'praise god for sandcastles and snowmen and bubbles and popcorn'...hum, I'm gonna praise him for something new, which is isotopes! Like you have Carbon-14 and stuff like that. I think that's pretty cool. Didn't have to be that way, maybe...Ok here we go!"
[+] [-] noname123|11 years ago|reply
We tend to celebrate the successes like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerburg and then quietly go back to our daily lives, and compromise our creativity for family, wealth accumulation and professional advancement. The opinionated amongst us will debate which of their favorite value is the "right way," (If LoseTheOs got the help and settled down with his family, a partner or friends; If LoseTheOs found a job at Red Hat and channeled his energy towards Linux Kernel development...).
But choices and our commitment to these choices are what defines us. TempleOS in this regard, seems more like a work of art in the medium of code. Of course, the merit of that art is up to the beholder (and tbh, I don't think I'd have appreciated Van Gogh a priori.) "The difference between genius and insanity is measured only by success," but is the guy who doesn't succeed by conventional sense but finds his own meaning and keeps going, insane?
[+] [-] fuligo|11 years ago|reply
While his schizophrenia probably comes with very bad episodes, there is absolutely nothing that can be found in his own words allowing for the conclusion that this view is just a tourette-like symptom. On the contrary. His violence-laden hate speech is one of the constant factors defining him. Contrary to what has been suggested here he doesn't use slurs randomly and generically, either. There's a story behind his views that is just as coherent as the cute "god's own programmer" schtick.
Where his illness clearly manifests is the interpretation of random events all having a specific meaning. The radio talking to him, all the events in his life being just so that an invisible power is communicating with him, all the way down to literally a random number generator whose nature he cannot grasp. That's schizophrenia. If there was an adequate cure or means of suppressing it, this world view would completely go away.
It's more complicated to separate the man from the illness when it comes to pretty much anything else. At the very least I would be extremely hesitant to call him, as people do in this thread, an "inspiration". I'm not even sure it's safe to be in the same room with him.
Closing with a quote straight from his most recent account:
HN's majority opinion of this guy makes me more uncomfortable than his comments by themselves. I don't get how we can label this guy as being "high functioning" and at the same time sweep 99% of everything he ever says under the rug. It's either or.[+] [-] anigbrowl|11 years ago|reply
Yes, he does seem to use the epithet 'nigger' more than all other epithets combined, which is understandably alienating for many people. But I don't think this is ideologically rooted because it is so randomly and inconsistently applied in his writing (where it makes up a small fraction of the overall output, rather than the 99% you suggest).
Being an atheist, his output of random passages from the Bible is neither admirable nor otherwise to me - it's just statistically the most likely religious text for an American with a religious fixation to be fixated on. I've met mentally ill Asian Buddhists whose cognitive patterns are quite similar to Terry's even though the cultural referents are completely different. Extreme religiosity is very strongly correlated with some kinds of mental illness and I don't find it strange that Terry is fixated on Old Testament Bible stories where God puts in a lot of personal appearances. I could just as easily imagine him being obsessed with the Koran or some other religious text that's ubiquitous in some other part of the world.
I can't agree that he's an extremist - his (inoffensive) 'Guidelines for talking to God' [1]are pretty bland and heretodox as he eschews questions of salvation, morality etc., in favor of keeping God company (which makes sense since God is apparently a fixture in Terry's life). According to Terry, God dislikes classical music, Shakespeare, French people, and Terry's drumming while exhibiting an inordinate fondness for elephants, bears, and 1960s pop singers. You could work these elements into some sort of coherent ideological position just as you could characterize his relentless automated Biblical quotation as Christian extremism, but I don't think either position makes sense.
What's remarkable about him is not the endless stream of nonsense, much of which is offensive when it's even coherent; it's the fact that he manages to construct working things as part of his intellectual pursuits and carry on some kind of social life despite his mental circumstances.
1. http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Adam/God/HSNotes.html#l1
[+] [-] bricestacey|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jpgvm|11 years ago|reply
This is ofcourse subjective. I choose to believe that he is both a good person and someone who says bad things.
I however, place more value one what people do rather than what they say.
[+] [-] jrapdx3|11 years ago|reply
I've always thought having a mental disorder did not mean a person did not also have talents, just like the rest of us. "I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid" is a phrase I heard many patients say. And of course they were right.
In reading the comments posted here, one thing may have been missed. The TempleOS for all its eccentricity is also very beautiful and in its own way remarkable coherent. Mr. Davis demonstrates talent not only as a programmer, but also as an artist, points that should not be overlooked.
Ultimately, the OS is a freely-given contribution to our world and adds to the important body of work created by people with psychiatric disorders. I think it should be appreciated in that context.
[+] [-] themodelplumber|11 years ago|reply
> TempleOS for all its eccentricity is also very beautiful and in its own way remarkable coherent
As a visual designer myself, his highly-symbolic visual language demonstrates what I understand as a telltale lack of nuance common to those suffering from certain mental illnesses, but the impressive part to me is that he really maximizes it. He seems to have access to an amount of "flow" that many people would kill to harness for their own purposes (of course without its drawbacks in this case). I was wondering if this may indicate that he is receiving a level of care that is fitting for his current needs.
I would love to see many other concepts expressed and illustrated with his current visual vocabulary, but I guess limiting it to Israelite Vision is part of the tradeoff.
[+] [-] dunstad|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daveloyall|11 years ago|reply
Oh, that's because:
> I'm not very familiar with mental illnesses [...]
:)
Schizophrenics are frequently lucid. Well, a modified sort of lucid... It's as if they are rational folks for whom first principles or axioms have been shaken up, and indeed are malleable all the time.
It doesn't sound like Terry would ever think that his dinner plate would sprout legs and walk across the table. But as he stated in the article, he has thought that some dinners were poisoned.
See, the first one can't happen. The second one could technically happen. Schizophrenics aren't stupid, you know? :) But, their plausibility metrics are broken.
Regarding the plausibility of a dinner plate walking across a table: Well, it could happen if the plate is some Transformers(R) style robot, or something. It could be, if those exist, right? When a schizophrenic tells you something is true but you think it is implausible, remember: it's not implausible to them, because they are rational folks employing a different set of base assumptions than you. Walking plates are normal in a world that has Transformers(R).
Why would a rational person believe in fictional toy robots? Or even that someone wants to poison them? ...Well, once you believe in God, or time travel, or aliens, or that the universe is a simulation, or any number of "crazy ideas"... once you actually believe one crazy idea, it's all down hill from there.
But, it is generally an otherwise sane individual that is running down that hill...
Terry specifically mentioned a feeling or belief that God picks random numbers or events as a way to communicate with folks. "I can sit down with my parents and praise God and open the Bible randomly," he says, "and it will talk." All of those sorts of beliefs are rooted in some form of the following base principle: "The world is fundamentally not what the common man thinks it is." Once you think that some entity which has the power to alter individual atoms or the results of a coin toss (God, aliens, whatever) exists, then the belief that they would use that power to communicate is just a small logical step away.
[EDIT: Indeed, I just found this quote from him: God controls ALL the random numbers in yer life [...]. Every [...] random number from when you awake to sleep [...] So in his world, if you run over a nail in your car and get a flat... Well, you did something to deserve it!]
NOTE: Apparently some schizophrenic folks experience vivid, realistic open-eyed hallucinations sometimes (at the peak of a manic episode) or all the time. I don't have much experience with that. Sometimes those events coincide with seizures and events in which awareness and consciousness is lowered. I am guessing that my "these are rational folks" argument does not apply at those times (or to some people any the time).
[+] [-] wyager|11 years ago|reply
You may find this very interesting. I know I did. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology)
[+] [-] _exec|11 years ago|reply
Going down the rabbit hole of Googling, Redditing, finding out more about him and his story ("a one-man novel, modern x64 almost-but-not-quite-entirely-unlike-retro OS?" type of thing is catnip to my synapses), I've also come to understand a friend's schizophrenic relative a bit better. I've read accounts of schizophrenia and art intersecting, but did not understand what it is, what it's like, *, until I witnessed schizophrenia intersecting with IT, at which point the gates of empathy, admiration and fascination were flung wide open.
[/r/programming's 637 comments thread from 2010] http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/e5d8e/demo_vide...
[another /r/programming thread] http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/lhefd/losethos_...
His username on HN is / has been some variation on "TempleOS", "LoseThos", "SparrowOS", "TempleOSv2", etc. AFAIK all hellbanned due to un-PC comments posted in his, for lack of better phrasing, "Moments of Un-Clarity".
The irony (perhaps using the wrong word) of being hellbanned when the story of of your life's work..your magnum opus (especially in this case, an objective article that places it in context and with some background) is featured on HN's front page, makes me sad.
I consider his work to be a prime example of ["Outsider Art"] {http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsider_art} in our field.
I wish to collaborate with him one day.
Edit: Formatting, more caffeine.
[+] [-] alexbecker|11 years ago|reply
That's not really something we can have on HN.
(edit: right, asterisks are formatting here)
[+] [-] nyolfen|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] frik|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blt|11 years ago|reply
I wish the source code (http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Accts/TS/Wb2/LineRep.html) were easier to read though. It's very dense with a lot of abbreviated variable names and no comments. It's the main reason why I haven't installed TempleOS yet, because of course I'd want to hack on it, and the code seems tough to learn.
[+] [-] andywood|11 years ago|reply
Maybe you think it's the same. Maybe you're enforcing your zero-tolerance policy. If so, we disagree. To me it looks like a huge assumption, possibly more offensive than Terry's rants.
[+] [-] kristofferR|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ixtli|11 years ago|reply
Edit: to be clear, my point is that evoking such an idea or meaning is violent towards others and an individual doesn't get to decide that this isn't the case. Believing you can is a hallmark of privilege.
[+] [-] seccess|11 years ago|reply
Kary was a bit off though (in this case due to intense drug usage, I think). Afterwards, he went on to deny that HIV is the cause of AIDS, tried to discredit global warming, and began believing in astrology and magic.
In the end, its possible that a little bit of insanity is a good thing; that it can help someone make a profound discovery that no one else could see. Too much is obviously detrimental, however.
[+] [-] Ollinson|11 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.epidemiology.ch/history/PDF%20bg/Stolley%20PD%201...
Even when you're talking about geniuses it's important to separate the wheat from the chaff.
[+] [-] mblevin|11 years ago|reply
Terry is potentially one of the first if not the only creators of this type using a completely digital medium.
TempleOS is essentially a 10-year art project.
[+] [-] TeMPOraL|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GuiA|11 years ago|reply
You may disagree with the logical coherency of his goals - I for one think the "temple for God" thing is pure kookery - but he is a master craftsman, and in this context it's all that really matters. There are people who devote their entire lives to pointless things. There are people who work on supposedly pointless things, which later turn out to not be so pointless. There are people who are supposedly working on world-changing things, which really are completely pointless. In the end, you can't predict the future. Just do honest work that you feel is worthwhile, and see what happens.
(if you want to play the hypothetical game, who's to say that Terry Davis won't develop some extremely efficient low level algorithms/techniques never done before that will dramatically impact computing?)
Every time his story comes up, there are people who respond with answers along the lines of "what can we do for him? can we find him assisted employment? can we raise money for him?" etc. While these comments are surely well intentioned, they end up being mostly condescending and out of place, as if talking about a completely helpless being. But Terry strikes me as anything but helpless - based on the various interviews he's given and comments he's posted, he seems to be quite content with his situation, and that "assisted employment" is the last thing he'd want or need. If anything, this is just a further argument for reforms like basic income and better treatment of mental conditions (e.g. with better early detection).
There are also always comments expressing surprise at how one can suffer from such a mental condition and yet do complex intellectual work like low level programming. These questions are based on the premise that schizophrenia (or a similar condition) impacts your brain in such a way that would make logical reasoning impossible. But that's not how it operates - logical reasoning is largely unaffected. Like `daveloyall says in another comment in this thread [0], what's affected are a few key "first principles". For instance, if you're persuaded that you're being constantly tracked by the CIA, removing all your clothes or dismantling your car to make sure you aren't bugged are very logical, reasonable things to do. The problem is that when you're operating under premises that are shared with no one else, the resulting dissonance makes integration with the rest of society problematic. But with this in mind, it's easy to see why one could be schizophrenic and yet still be able to program or do math or weave baskets, especially if the skills were mastered before the condition developed.
Terry is a maker of miniatures [1], and I'm happy we have such people walking among us.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8658958
[1]: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/04/10/in-the-reign-of...
[+] [-] sillysaurus3|11 years ago|reply
He is openly racist. He can't find a job on his own, unless it's among other extreme racists. I'm extrapolating based on his online behavior. If his real-life behavior is completely different, then that's one thing, but that seems unlikely. And his online behavior is so racist that there's just no chance of him fitting into any average social situation.
His racism probably isn't his fault. It's probably a factor of his condition. But isn't that the definition of "needs help"? So shouldn't we try to ask whether he wants our help, and if so, find an open-minded employer who might listen to the situation and be willing to give Terry a shot?
[+] [-] derefr|11 years ago|reply
> Terry ... works hard, has a clear vision for what he wants to do, and makes it happen.
Mania is a double-edged sword. To not let anything stop you from your goals is to be unable to doubt that your goals, or the assumptions upon which they are based, are crazy. (This is an odd thing to ponder upon, as an entrepreneur.)
There's a rising cultural understanding of what it's like to live with depression—to doubt everything, especially yourself. There's very little cultural understanding of mania, mainly because it's a much more "obvious" problem that quickly marginalizes the people affected, rather than leaving them exposed to society.
[+] [-] yzzxy|11 years ago|reply
I've read pretty much every interview, story, and page regarding TempleOS and Terry's work and haven't seen anything reinforcing the rigid belief you are espousing that Terry has no interest in working. It could be true, or not - but we have no idea of staring into another human being's brain and finding out without asking them. If there's some kind of statement he's made either way, then I think we should defer to it.
[+] [-] Alex3917|11 years ago|reply
And in fact a lot of the foundational work in science and math was done by people looking for god who discovered world altering ideas along the way. It's doubtful if there would even be a computers/Internet for us to read this without their work.
[+] [-] chipsy|11 years ago|reply
There is something being said with TempleOS. We don't necessarily know what it is, because the premises employed are, as parent says, so divergent from society. If all we can get out of it is some mocking laughter and some anger and frustration with the author, so be it - that's far better than to dismiss the work and then push the agenda of "help this poor hopeless person live _normally_." He should be helped where it's reasonable to do so, of course, but that is primarily a problem to be dealt with by immediate friends, family, and institutions, not a bunch of strangers poking in at random.
[+] [-] hosh|11 years ago|reply
For a different cultural view of schizophrenia, here's an article written by a Western-educated medicine man of the Dagara tradition:
http://earthweareone.com/what-a-shaman-sees-in-a-mental-hosp...
[+] [-] justanotheracc|11 years ago|reply
I too would be content with getting free money extracted from the labor of others into my bank account every month, after qualifying by acting as a spy in a series of chase scenes in a CIA thriller. Sounds like the movie had a happy ending.
[+] [-] yzzxy|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vinceguidry|11 years ago|reply
As someone who has at times relied on this social largesse, I can say that attempts to do more wouldn't really have the desired effect. His is a wholly self-directed life, attempts to 'help' would take the self-directed quality out of his life that is being selected for. If you're worried for his well-being, I can say from experience that a person's subconscious mind is a lot more capable than we give it credit for.
If Terry wants to work, he will find work. His subconscious mind will proclaim through God that he is to glorify Him through this new avenue, which just so happens to be in a company in return for a salary. If he wants to do something else, he will do that something else.
He doesn't need us, and that's the real beauty of it.
[+] [-] anigbrowl|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GuiA|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m0th87|11 years ago|reply
Maybe this suggests that while schizophrenics look discordant to the rest of us, there's an internal consistency that very much makes sense.
[+] [-] Gracana|11 years ago|reply
Ticketmaster, huh! Does anyone know anything about what they were working on?
[+] [-] OldSchool|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mathattack|11 years ago|reply
At the time IT was more of a white-glove environment. When the only people handling it were the tools makers themselves, a lot would get done by a couple smart people in some nook or cranny of the organization.
Of course this didn't last, as state of the art enterprise software eventually over-ran them, and the experts wound up joining software firms.
[+] [-] TTPrograms|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jpgvm|11 years ago|reply
The poor man probably doesn't even realise he is offending peoples fragile sensibilities.
I think people need to cut him some slack when it comes to language. They are just words, there is no intent.
[+] [-] DanBC|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MarkPNeyer|11 years ago|reply
i was lucky enough to have a few people really step up and support me when i was at the edge. it's weird reading this and feeling like i know exactly what he means when he says this stuff that sounds crazy.
here's a description of one experience i had in april 2011, a day before joining uber:
http://www.reddit.com/r/BipolarReddit/comments/l7nij/interes...
this is something i submitted later to hn, while cto of a gaming company:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3877483
i made it out of all that, though. thanks almost entirely to daily love and support from my now wife. if you have friends in a position like this - you CAN help them, it's just a crazy amount of work.
[+] [-] MrBra|11 years ago|reply
He got to work again and has a completely normal life, but in a way I can still feel something changed inside of him...
It'd be nice if I could talk about this more with you. I will surely read your comments.
[+] [-] kaffeemitsahne|11 years ago|reply
I had delusions of reference once, it's such a strange feeling. Not necessarily scary.
[+] [-] zafka|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Nursie|11 years ago|reply
I'm genuinely interested. He's made a network-less OS with a fixed, low-resolution display, that is of seriously limited utility in the modern world and (AFAICT) doesn't advance the state of the art, all as an act of worship.
It's a curiosity, but of value? Not so much.
[+] [-] Torn|11 years ago|reply
There was a HN thread here discussing it, and the top comments were people rightfully suggesting the guy needs serious mental help, not derision. The suggestion he had schizophrenia was thrown around a lot.
Following the rabbit hole from 2012, it seems he was banned from SA, and shadowbanned here on HN, but are visible if you turn on 'showdead' in your profile options: http://www.metafilter.com/119424/An-Operating-System-for-Son...
[+] [-] euphemize|11 years ago|reply
"Now you're supposed to do an offering before you talk to God. [...] just get conversation, maybe being witty and charming - or praise - like 'praise god for sandcastles and snowmen and bubbles and popcorn'...hum, I'm gonna praise him for something new, which is isotopes! Like you have Carbon-14 and stuff like that. I think that's pretty cool. Didn't have to be that way, maybe...Ok here we go!"
Fascinating.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzhRYGm_b9A