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Debian Founder's 2015 Death Ruled A Suicide (theregister.co.uk)

gosand writes: According to a story on The Register, the death of Ian Murdock in late 2015 has been ruled a suicide. This news brings some closure to the sad ending of his life. An interesting note from the article that I never knew before: "he was the Ian in Debian; his girlfriend at the time, Debra Lynn, was the Deb." Debian has truly been a cornerstone in the Linux world, and the founder will be missed. The medical report was obtained on Wednesday by CNN journalists.

82 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. This is a great loss by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So sorry to learn of Ian's passing. I've been a big fan of Debian for at least a decade. Rest in Peace.

    1. Re: This is a great loss by davester666 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Clearly it should be renamed to 'Deb'

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    2. Re: This is a great loss by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You believe in an all powerful god (often described as all loving) where if:
      One of his creations finds existing in the rest of his creation so unbearable and takes his own life
      ...then...
      That god has set it up so that person will exist in the greatest possible agony without release for an unlimited amount of time. Eventually his one unfortunately Earthly lifetime will be dwarfed by a million non stop agonising lifetimes.

      So yes your opinion will be unpopular around here, because you pray to the greatest evil god I could even imagine.
      An alternative is that religious leaders didn't want people to commit suicide (can't blame them for that) and they made up a story to give people extra incentive not to.

    3. Re: This is a great loss by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      He's not resting in peace. We can be quite confident that he's currently burning in hell.

      My mother committed suicide because she was mentally ill and there was at the time no medical
      solution for her problems.

      If I knew who you were I'd kick your teeth in, motherfucker.

    4. Re: This is a great loss by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Such an asshole god is not worthy of worship.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    5. Re: This is a great loss by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You're not a believer, you're a very naughty boy.

    6. Re: This is a great loss by Tukz · · Score: 1

      You know there is a special place reserved for you in hell, right?

      Just saying, I'll most likely sit right next to you for laughing, but still.

      "Either everything is 'too soon' or nothing is"

      --
      - Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
    7. Re: This is a great loss by drumlight · · Score: 1

      Clearly it should be renamed to 'Deb'

      show some respect for his contribution .... Debdeadian

    8. Re: This is a great loss by Maritz · · Score: 1

      He's not resting in peace. We can be quite confident that he's currently burning in hell. The Bible clearly says that suicide is a serious sin and a person who dies in such a state of sin immediately goes to hell. There is no salvation or peace to be found, only eternal damnation. I know this won't be popular here, but it's God's word and it's the truth. As a believer, I have a duty to share God's truth with all of you, and that truth is that Ian Murdock is burning in hell for committing suicide.

      Obvious troll. Lots of biters I see.

      My magic book says you go to hell for not killing yourself. So you best get started there buddy.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    9. Re: This is a great loss by Maritz · · Score: 1

      If I knew who you were I'd kick your teeth in, motherfucker.

      1. "The Bible says x" = LOL.

      2. He is an obvious troll

      3. Get a mind ASAP.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    10. Re: This is a great loss by tomhath · · Score: 1

      That would seem like a reasonable complement

    11. Re: This is a great loss by mandark1967 · · Score: 1

      I've watched, "What Dreams May Come" so I know Robin Williams is on a rescue mission to save Ian, and they'll soon reside in a wonderland where all package dependencies auto-resolve themselves and SystemD really "is" the best solution.

      --
      Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
    12. Re: This is a great loss by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      An alternative is that religious leaders didn't want people to commit suicide (can't blame them for that)

      I can when they use and abuse the people, and make them feel bad about themselves by telling them lies. I very much can blame them for that. You can trace a lot of LGBTQ suicides back to religious lies... let alone LGBTQ murders.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    13. Re: This is a great loss by justthinkit · · Score: 2

      My father committed suicide because he had an inoperable brain tumor and there was at the time no medical
      solution for his problems.

      What he did made sense to me.

      So much for basing opinions on personal experience.

      --
      I come here for the love
    14. Re: This is a great loss by nitehawk214 · · Score: 1

      You've been Poe'd.

      --
      I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
    15. Re: This is a great loss by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 2

      the christian definition of god seems to self-contradict itself. many times.

      I assert its impossible to be 'loving' and at the same time submit one of your 'children' to infinite amount of time being tortured.

      the cogn. dissonance that christians who swallow this crap is unfathomable to me. they must not have ever really THOUGHT it thru.

      you spend a nearly zero amount of time on earth (compared to infinity) and you do something that a book says is wrong. you then get no real chance to fix it (views vary, though, on this) and you then spend infinite time in pain.

      yeah, that sure sounds like a loving caring JUST god to me (rolls eyes).

      how can the 'believers' really believe this? I know the answer: emotion. that is the ONLY answer. rationality is not the way to insert bullshit into the mind. emotion is.

      get the kids when they are too young to question; and if they do question, smack them or just make fun of them. they will stop questioning. also, associate 'happy shiny memories' with these so-called teachings and it will be nearly impossible to question them and separate them later when you are old enough to think rationally.

      how many young people are brainwashed into following a religion - vs how many older (teenage or older) people are, if both had no exposure to this beforehand? obviously its easier to 'get' the younger ones to follow your ideas than ones who have not had that happy fuzzy association burned into their brain. when given a religion's ideas at an older age, I suspect the numbers of believers are a tiny fraction of the ones at very young ages.

      its child abuse. but try to tell people that - and their happy fuzzies get in the way; even worse, they may be so offended they want to, now, KILL YOU.

      religion is more dangerous than nukes. and its the worst part of humanity. sad that only a few of us see that and, historically, we have been oppressed and denied the ability to confront the brainwashers for what they truly are.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    16. Re: This is a great loss by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      For a threat to be convincing, it needs two factors: First, the drawback for not bending to the threatening party and second, the threatening party's ability to go through with executing whatever they are threatening with.

      And no later than the latter the threat becomes meaningless. As any risk manager will tell you, the risk becomes zero when either the incidence rate is zero or the impact is zero.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    17. Re: This is a great loss by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Religion would actually satisfy the requirements for a clinical case of ICD-10 F22.0 (delusion), if it wasn't explicitly excluded so they don't lock up all the religious loonies.

      It's enough to have one half of the country in the prisons, can't have the other one in the loony bin.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    18. Re: This is a great loss by Raenex · · Score: 1

      Obvious troll. Lots of biters I see.

      You bit too. Calling him a troll doesn't change that.

    19. Re: This is a great loss by peawormsworth · · Score: 1

      He's not resting in peace. We can be quite confident that he's currently burning in hell. The Bible clearly says that suicide is a serious sin and a person who dies in such a state of sin immediately goes to hell. There is no salvation or peace to be found, only eternal damnation. I know this won't be popular here, but it's God's word and it's the truth. As a believer, I have a duty to share God's truth with all of you, and that truth is that Ian Murdock is burning in hell for committing suicide.

      You say this as if you don't have a choice as to what you believe.

      You might want to take responsibility for the things you feel instead of offloading them to a religion of your choosing.

  2. Is ruled a suicide now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    "Found Murdock naked and lifeless with electrical cord around his neck" is ruled a suicide now?

    1. Re:Is ruled a suicide now? by Narcocide · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Its pretty suspicious, though I believe the ruling of a suicide could be technically correct still if its true that the cops were harassing him or abusing him and managed to drive him to it because of his already agitated mental state. Without a good video of what really happened we're never going to actually know.

      My advice? Stay under the radar or you'll find out exactly what happened, but you probably won't live to tell us about it. People who spend "alone time" with the cops these days are starting to turn up dead too often.

    2. Re:Is ruled a suicide now? by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 3, Interesting

      A few people I've known have committed suicide, (one of which I was present for) and I can't say a single one of them ever made sense. In talking with other people at Survivors of Suicide, all of the people who go to those meetings basically say to not bother asking yourself why they did it, because you'll most likely never know why. Based on Ian Murdoch's other circumstances, I think it's safe to say that his life was in a somewhat shitty state at the time (see the four reasons I listed in my post above) which is probably why, more than anything else.

    3. Re:Is ruled a suicide now? by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      "Found Murdock naked and lifeless with electrical cord around his neck" is ruled a suicide now?

      Have you forgotten David Carradine and how he died?

      A police official said that Carradine was found naked, hanging by a rope in the room's closet.

      He died from auto-erotic asphyxiation.

      two of Carradine's former wives, Gail Jensen and Marina Anderson, stated publicly that his sexual interests included the practice of self-bondage. Anderson, who had plans to publish a tell-all book about her marriage to Carradine, said in an interview with Access Hollywood, "There was a dark side to David, there was a very intense side to David. People around him know that." Previously, in her divorce filing, she had claimed that "it was the continuation of abhorrent and deviant sexual behavior which was potentially deadly."

      At least he wasn't wearing a monkey mask at the time. That would have been weird.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    4. Re:Is ruled a suicide now? by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 1
    5. Re:Is ruled a suicide now? by St.Creed · · Score: 1

      Given the fact he announced he was going to suicide on twitter, it doesn't seem unreasonable. I don't think he streamed the suicide itself, but it wouldn't actually surprise me either.

      --
      Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
    6. Re:Is ruled a suicide now? by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      What's weird about ... I mean, yeah, that would have been weird.

      But, just asking for a friend, wearing a "Scream" mask, would that be weird, too?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    7. Re: Is ruled a suicide now? by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 1

      That has to be one of the most retarded things I've read on slashdot. You're a total moron if you think the reason somebody commits suicide determines why their friends/relatives attend survivors of suicide after they're dead.

    8. Re:Is ruled a suicide now? by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      I think I'm in love.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    9. Re: Is ruled a suicide now? by pr0fessor · · Score: 1

      It's hard to say everything i might say on this subject in just a few word and I don't want to write an entire article but I didn't see my best friend's suicide I showed up a minute later and had heard the gunshot.

      He wasn't the only person I've known that has committed suicide or tried. I never attended any of those meetings but if there is help to found it would be in people who can understand and have compassion and as for our mental health professionals that want to push drugs... Prozac will not bring back friends/family, make your spouse un-fuck your best friend, your boss be less a douche, pay you a decent wage, or your job any better it just doesn't work that way.

    10. Re:Is ruled a suicide now? by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Two-faced bastard! :-)

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  3. Re:And the soul vacated Debian moments later. by xvan · · Score: 1

    from the now-inevitable buyout by Microsoft

    Source? Not really a follower of Linux politics, but it's the first time I've heard about that.

  4. Re:And the soul vacated Debian moments later. by deek · · Score: 1

    Don't worry, just another systemd hater. People can be very passionate about their software.

  5. Re:And the soul vacated Debian moments later. by Curunir_wolf · · Score: 1
    --
    "Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
    --- Jerry Garcia
  6. Re:tired of being second by fredrated · · Score: 2

    I lived in darkest West Oakland for 8 years and didn't become a racist. People are the same.

  7. Re:tired of being second by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 2

    I didn't know ian. obviously you didn't either.

    but for FUCK'S SAKE, dude, what would you do if you were beaten by the cops. TWICE.

    you miss his point entirely. sucks to be your ignorant ass.

    very sorry for ian. I can only imagine the horror he felt when all he believed came crashing down.

    life is not a disney movie. stuff like this makes me think THIS life is hell; there's no more 'down' to go from here.

    --

    --
    "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
  8. Re:He was killed by the prison-police-industrial c by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think there was probably more to it than that:

    - His girlfriend recently broke up with him, which was after already having been divorced.
    - He was within days of being evicted for routine noise and other disturbances.
    - He was a very habitual drinker and often had side effects from alcohol withdrawal, had Asperger's, and known psychological problems for the past 20 years.
    - The neighbor said he apologized to them about the noise and other disturbances he has made in the past at about 3:30PM the night he committed suicide. The neighbor commented that they though this was really odd.

    This has all been corroborated by other witnesses and medical professionals.

    It seems as though he was already in a really bad position and probably decided to commit suicide earlier in the day. When somebody is in such a state, it's happened many times that they try to make somebody else feel at fault, or otherwise try to push blame on somebody else, which could be a motivation for police involvement (and subsequent blame.) I've witnessed this before myself.

    I'm of half of a mind to think that the police themselves had little to do with it, other than perhaps they were routinely called to his residence (probably for good reason, based on the neighbor's statements) which made him have a grudge against the police.

    I don't know him so this is mainly speculation, but when it comes to suicide you often never know why somebody actually wanted to kill themselves. Even when they leave some kind of note, there's often a misdirection of blame (which I guess his twitter feed was his suicide note. Notice the repeated use of the N word, among other things.)

  9. ++devuan.... however... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    The GPL'd open source community (Seperate from the BSD camp, which I feel has done a better job of this) really needs to be more vigilant with its community leadership choices. From debian, to mozilla (I know, never really part of the community, but that is an example of why community leadership is important.), to gcc (and assorts co-projects, like glibc), to llvm/clang/libc++, to musl (one of the few ATM success stories).

    There have been leadership both incompetent and intentionally malicious that have derailed, damaged, or otherwise impaired open source projects. One of the differences here is that open source doesn't have the cult-like mentality most corporations instill (my dad for instance still 20 years out from his tech job is rabid about his former company's products over competitors despite it not making sense anymore.) Similiar things happen with corporations vs open source. While there are plenty of corporate 'team players', one needs to watch for the endgame and keep them from corrupting and destroying from within for those Microsoft-like corporations that enjoy destroying 'competition' from within.

    1. Re:++devuan.... however... by Narcocide · · Score: 1

      I don't think you deserved to be modded down for this.

  10. Re:And the soul vacated Debian moments later. by xvan · · Score: 1

    Thought of that, but
    a) It is high time of real posix on windows
    b) Beside fixing bugs and pushing them upstream, is there any relation between Canonical and Debian?

  11. Re:tired of being second by zenlessyank · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I was raised in south east Alabama by a whole culture of racists who ensure racism lives. Unfortunately for them I discovered Black Sabbath. I hate racist Christian redneck fucks like there is no tomorrow. I haven't met 1 person yet who got to choose their skin color when they came out of the pussy hole. How in the fuck can something so miniscule matter so much?? I am embarrassed to be white. I feel ashamed.

  12. Re:And the soul vacated Debian moments later. by fisted · · Score: 1

    a) It is high time of real posix on windows

    Soon enough, it'll be "enhanced" POSIX.

  13. Re:tired of being second by zenlessyank · · Score: 1

    You are on to something. The very definition of HELL is 'being without God'. Not a bunch of bullshit a bunch of preachers spew in their houses of satan. Jesus was a carpenter and didn't build one church. St. John warned of the evil of the church..... As God has not been in here in a very long time, we have boiled in the HELL that is being stuck on this demon infested abomination of evil. Tea anyone?

  14. Re:tired of being second by aliquis · · Score: 1

    the man was a frothing-at-the-mouth, racist nutcase

    Who isn't anti-white SJW-nutcase?

  15. Re:tired of being second by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Sounds like you became a really tolerant, classy individual.

  16. Re:tired of being second by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wow, someone's invented the self-rating comment!

  17. Re:He was killed by the prison-police-industrial c by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Framed? You have got to be kidding.

    Reiser dodged a needle in the arm by showing the authorities where his wife's body was. Some years later, he admitted in open court to killing her.

  18. Re:tired of being second by mikesum32 · · Score: 2

    You missed his point. His point was that the police beat him up, and that people don't care most of the time because all they see is a black victim who must've done something to deserve it. This is dehumanization. Using the N-word shocks the apathetic and fencer-sitter in the face restoring humanity by generating anger and empathetic feelings.

  19. High Intelligence can be a curse as much as a gift by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    When you are smarter than even smart people, life can become a curse, it is absolutely draining and demoralising situation to be in every day. When every the very best around you say and do things that are clearly ill considered, aka stupid.

    When they say X is obvious, or X is the only solution and you clearly see unconsidered pitfalls and three superior alternatives.

  20. Re:tired of being second by St.Creed · · Score: 1

    I looked at the twitter stream. Maybe one single tweet that could be considered racist if you really worked at it, and didn't take it for an epithet used by someone about to commit suicide who may not have had them all together at the time. A lot of his older tweets seem those of someone who cared for the world, was engaged, didn't like racist policies, retweeted tweets about police violence and condemned it, etc.

    Your -1 is well-deserved.

    --
    Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
  21. Re:tired of being second by St.Creed · · Score: 1

    I didn't know ian. obviously you didn't either.

    but for FUCK'S SAKE, dude, what would you do if you were beaten by the cops. TWICE.

    you miss his point entirely. sucks to be your ignorant ass.

    very sorry for ian. I can only imagine the horror he felt when all he believed came crashing down.

    I've known long since that the police are not my friend, and I have been beaten up (once) by them. As an activist, it's part of the way things work and part of the things you want to change. But yeah, I've you've always been taught that the police are your friends and suddenly the gloves come off, it's a shock.

    Normally, people re-evaluate their position, think things through and start looking for explanations. They may radicalize and turn to people like Marx and Lenin who long ago explained why the police work the way they do, like Malcolm X. Or they may consider them "bad apples" and try to follow the judicial process, realizing slowly that that won't work, and then build a movement for change, like Martin Luther King. Or they may retreat into alternative policies and withdraw from society. Or they may shrug, say "yeah, life sucks sometimes" and go on with it - like most people.

    And then we have people, who appear to have lived a very sheltered life, that get so pissed off that someone dared to touch *them* (the rulers of the universe) that they suicide just to make a point. Well, point taken, but a) some of us were already aware of the fact that police violence is not limited to criminals and b) in todays news it's not going to make a lasting impression, given the fact someone just upped the ante by shooting more than 10 police officers. That's a suicide too, but with a bigger frontpage.

    --
    Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
  22. Re:tired of being second by Kjella · · Score: 1

    I haven't met 1 person yet who got to choose their skin color when they came out of the pussy hole. How in the fuck can something so miniscule matter so much??

    Then I'm sure your head would explode trying to understand caste systems, nobility or royalty. Why can't people say Earth is their birthplace and go live in the US, did you choose what country to come out of the pussy hole? Why shouldn't the inheritance tax be 100%, did you choose to be the child of a billionaire or a penniless vagrant? I think the gist of it was nicely summed up in "Selma", even though it's not MLKs actual speech since they're copyrighted:

    "Our society has distorted who we are, from slavery to the reconstruction, to the precipice at which we now stand. We have seen powerful white men rule the world while offering poor white men a vicious lie as placation" - The fictionalized Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 2014 Movie "Selma"

    "And when the poor white manâ(TM)s children wail with a hunger that cannot be satisfied, he feeds them that same vicious lie. A lie whispering to them that regardless of their lot in life, they can at least be triumphant in the knowledge that their whiteness makes them superior to blackness."

    People like to feel superior. Right color, right faith, right country, right socioeconomic standing, as long as you're on the upside of the scale it feels good. Who doesn't want to "rig the lottery" for their children? If the child of a lord is a lord your children's position is secured. It is the same in the modern world and the Ivy League, "good old boys" club and so on. The rich and powerful pat each other on the back and help each other to stay rich and powerful. There will be a few "rags to riches" stories but they're exceptions to the norm and you'll often see old money looking down on new money too.

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  23. Re:Antisocial aspergers alcy dies... weather follo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Jealous?

  24. Re: tired of being second by cyber-vandal · · Score: 1

    Why do you feel responsible for the behaviour of others?

  25. Re:tired of being second by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    Why are you embarrassed to be white? Did you choose to be? If so, I guess you have met the first person who chose his skin color by looking in the mirror.

    If not, then there's nothing to be embarrassed about. It's not like you had any say in it. Guilty by association only works if you chose to associate.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  26. Re:tired of being second by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    He said so. And since it doesn't really matter, I don't really care if he really is.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  27. Re:tired of being second by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    That's the definition of hell? Then I don't get why I should fear it. Personally, having my life dictated by the whims of someone else's imaginary friend sounds way worse.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  28. Re:tired of being second by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    Receptive reading isn't your strong suit, is it? You seem to be more like a very badly written chat bot, looking for trigger words and rolling down the stored procedure for that word.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  29. Re:tired of being second by houghi · · Score: 1

    Why do you feel ashamed (or proud)? Did YOU choose the skin color when you came out of the pussy hole?
    I have a skin color and I am neither ashamed or proud that I have a different skin color than the 5 people who sit around me and do the same job.

    If you think you should feel ashamed, that is the moment you acknowledge that you are different (for better or for worse) and that there is some merit in racism.

    For the same reason I do not feel ashamed or proud to have been born in a specific country. 'Born in', not 'having the nationality of' although for the majority of people that will be the same.
    I can be proud of achievements. If I did not change my nationality, I have not achieved anything, so there is nothing to be proud of. Just like I have not changed my color. (Well, I was red instead of white once. Nothing to be proud of.)

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  30. Re:And the soul vacated Debian moments later. by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

    from the now-inevitable buyout by Microsoft

    Source?

    His nether orifice.

    --
    When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  31. Re:Antisocial aspergers alcy dies... weather follo by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

    Oh, but wait! He started a Linux distro!

    Not just any distro, but Debian. So you're right, beatification is the way to go.

    --
    When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  32. Re:tired of being second by John+Allsup · · Score: 1

    Tribal caveman instincts. The basic psychological machinery which leads to 'us vs them' mentality between a group of people and those who are readily observed to be different is something that would have worked well in terms of survivability of groups of humans (tribes) in the many many millennia before civilisation. As such, the machinery has been bred in, and there is no effective means to breed it out, thus the need to teach each and every generation how to prevent these instincts from causing problems. Ironically I find the early scriptural writings of the major religions to be good stabs at doing this, but major religious traditions are often more interested in furthering themselves than actually understanding what their tradition was supposed to be, and vehemently oppose any attempts to persuade them to change (what is labelled 'religious conservatism' in polite circles, but which is basically refusing to turn the steering wheel when your car comes to a bend, declaring that it is divine will that you keep going in the same direction, and that if you hit the tree in front of you, it was foretold and inevitable, or similar). Our basic instincts will harness and co-opt all that they can to further themselves, and that is what they are effectively biologically programmed to do.

    --
    John_Chalisque
  33. Re:tired of being second by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

    Tried it, found the world was quite racist. Go to your white area, call in a burglar next door. Count the time to response. Try the same in the bad part of town.

    There are a millon other little things, each dismissed by the racists as "fair." But taken together create a huge barrier for the disadvantaged.

  34. Re:And the soul vacated Debian moments later. by Eunuchswear · · Score: 1

    There is no reason why hating a package in the linux ecosystem is bad.

    Yes there is. "Hating" a package is a sign of, at least, lack of perspective.

    --
    Watch this Heartland Institute video
  35. Re:tired of being second by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

    You shouldn't feel ashamed, you made yourself into a good person by the sounds of it. We are all born with nothing but the ability to choose what kind of person we are going to be, and those choices are the only thing you should ever feel ashamed of.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  36. Re:tired of being second by Maritz · · Score: 2

    You appear to think that race and culture are the same thing. That's pretty fucking stupid.

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  37. Re:tired of being second by Maritz · · Score: 1

    What?

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  38. Re:tired of being second by Maritz · · Score: 2

    I've read every post of his on that page and I don't see what is racist. He seemed angry because of police brutality. Usually the police only brutalize blacks, colored people or whatever the politically correct term today is. Now they brutalized him.

    Where are the racist parts?

    You're not supposed to actually read the posts. You're supposed to take the dickhead's word that he's racist. The link is just so you know he's telling the truth (long as you don't click it).

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  39. Re:tired of being second by Trogre · · Score: 1

    I am embarrassed to be white. I feel ashamed.

    Don't. That makes you as much of a racist as those you so despise.

    Racism is a plague infecting the Earth, and is itself not limited to any one skin colour nor religion.

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
  40. Re:Suicide is a Deadly Sin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Just what was so "unbearable" in this case, one wonders? Midlife crisis?

    systemd

  41. Re:tired of being second by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

    You're against racism...and you hate people based on race. Grandpa, it's time for your medication, then time for bed. You're confused, and you're shouting incoherently and bothering the nice people again.

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  42. Re:tired of being second by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    but for FUCK'S SAKE, dude, what would you do if you were beaten by the cops. TWICE.

    Something else. Been watching the news lately?

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  43. Re:tired of being second by zenlessyank · · Score: 1

    Redneck isn't a race. It is an abomination.

  44. Re:tired of being second by tgrigsby · · Score: 1

    That's lovely, but I'll save my outrage for the people stupid enough to follow someone else's rules simply because, if they don't, that person's imaginary sky ruler will beat them up.

    I think we're done here...

    --
    *** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
  45. People choose Hell by h4ck7h3p14n37 · · Score: 1

    I've heard a couple theories on hell and how one ends up there. Some people argue that everyone is offered redemption after death, but only those that reject God's forgiveness are sent to Hell, which isn't brimstone and fire, but simply a state of being eternally separated from God. Floating in the void perhaps.

    As far as Heaven, according to the New Testament, people don't go there immediately after death. Those who were saved go to Paradise and reside with Jesus while waiting for Armageddon to occur and then the Final Judgement. It's after this judgment that people are sent to Heaven, and even then there are different parts to Heaven. Those most faithful to God sit closer to him, while others are further away based on how they lived their lives.

    I must admit that I don't really understand why people act like they _know_ what happens after death and then tell others what's going to happen to them if they don't do X. The truth is that no one on this Earth knows; just because men wrote about it in the Bible doesn't make it true. You have faith that it's true, but you may be wrong.

    1. Re:People choose Hell by mi · · Score: 1

      go to Paradise [...] sent to Heaven

      I always thought, Heaven and Paradise are interchangeable synonyms. Indeed, the dictionary seems to concur...

      I must admit that I don't really understand why people act like they _know_ what happens after death

      Clearly, you aren't religious. If you were, you would've known too. Religion — pretty much by definition — is not Science. Dogma is taken on faith, not because a reproducible experiment confirms it.

      I suppose, the approach simplifies life greatly...

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  46. Re:tired of being second by glwtta · · Score: 1

    blacks, colored people or whatever the politically correct term today is

    It's none of those. Try again.

    --
    sic transit gloria mundi
  47. Re:He was killed by the prison-police-industrial c by Raenex · · Score: 1

    Reiser dodged a needle in the arm by showing the authorities where his wife's body was.

    He wasn't up for the death penalty.

  48. Re:And the soul vacated Debian moments later. by deek · · Score: 1

    Had a look at your example. It wasn't a particularly strong one. The guy was complaining about the network service failing. The reason was because he labelled his tethered phone interface as auto up. Not a good idea. Would have been better to label it as "allow-hotplug".

    Another solution would be to use the systemd networkd configuration. That would react to the plugged interface event, and then automatically configure it.

    So in this case, there was no fault with systemd. Seems like most complaints are because people don't understand systemd. Once you understand it, it's actually quite good to use.

  49. Re:And the soul vacated Debian moments later. by deek · · Score: 1

    It depends on the level of hate. If it's a mere dislike, then sure, go ahead, dislike it. I've got no problem with that.

    If it's a rabid hatred of the package, then reactions to it go far beyond rationality. Take, for example, your comparison of systemd to Islam. That shows you have little understanding of both systemd and Islam, and the fact you tried to compare them shows you're not thinking rationally on the subject.

    Unfortunately, most reactions to systemd seem to be of the rabid hatred type. Just like the parent post, which tried to claim that Debian is dead, was sold out to Red Hat, and a buyout from Microsoft is inevitable. This is just not rational. The author's level of hatred on the subject is excessive, and it's interfering with their critical thinking. When that happens, I'd generally label it as bad.

  50. Re:He was killed by the prison-police-industrial c by ebvwfbw · · Score: 1

    Give it up already. I knew him at the time. There is no doubt what he did and why.

  51. Re:And the soul vacated Debian moments later. by Eunuchswear · · Score: 1

    If you don't understand the difference between "dislike" and "hate"...

    Especially when, at least in Debian, you can just uninstall it.

    --
    Watch this Heartland Institute video