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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

Short version: alcohol.

Lincoln, Hitler, Cobain, Lennon. Short version: bullet.

In seems a person's whole life can be summed up by the one thing that killed them. I never really thought of it that way before. Interesting insight.

I'm so happy that none of us - not even you - are merely our 'cause of death'.

Hmm. I thought my condescension was over the top. Guess i was too subtle.

OMG. I'm an idiot. I'll just leave this here, lol

No, no worries. it happens to the best of us. I've been suckered in by a zillion trolls. Good on you for leaving the (edited) comment up.

A more poignant and better takeaway:

    "It tore him up inside when his father died. One
    time we went to his grave," Fischer says. "He'd always
    say that when his father was alive they'd go fishing
    and do man things."

I'd say that parent is more accurate and that is the sanitized version...

If you must, I think it is more about the underlying cause versus the immediate cause.

Of course you speculate whether he would have been an alcoholic if he hadn't had a lonely childhood and hadn't had someone so close to him that died.

There is no "underlying cause" that can definitely pointed to, that's just hubris. You can't know that if those things didn't happen he wouldn't have still become someone who would drink themselves to death, or that if something else happened, such as becoming devoutly religious, he might have been able to avoid it.

Of course one cannot be sure that it is the underlying cause.

That's what my second sentence alludes to.

I think that's a bit of an insensitive summary.

Seems to be what all commenters above are focusing on though.

(and thus completely miss the point)

I think it's a good summary nonetheless. Short, to the point, and may not have to read the article after it.

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