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Comment by ed25519FUUU | Hacker News Reader

When a prominent person in their 40s dies and there's no information released as to the cause of death, it's always a challenge not to make assumptions.

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Possibly a fire? Take it with a few grains of salt.

https://mobile.twitter.com/VitalVegas/status/133256096974723...

What would the assumption be? Honestly I have no idea what you’re implying.

I would guess suicide is what the poster is implying.

I did not find it hard to not make assumptions. Perhaps it's your approach to life that needs examining?

Okay - so is your implication that he is some kind of failure if he struggled with depression and committed suicide?

I've never understood or been able to relate to the seemingly common intense curiosity as to cause-of-death. Is it related to the desire to fit names we know into a narrative structure that lets us reason about them as entities? It seems like an irrelevant detail, to me personally.

The desire to know is usually in proportion to the unexpectedness. Perhaps its an evolutionary curiosity (Avoid how they died)?

I think it's likely just part of human nature. When something bad or tragic happens, we want to know what happened and why. It seems plausible that there's an evolutionary explanation for it, to do with learning how to avoid such happenings.

Human nature. If your child is late from a party, say, the mind wonders and eventually thinks the worst.

I think it’s human nature. I have it intensely and not sure why. Maybe a desire to make it make sense in your head somehow?

Why is it hard to understand?

Two days ago, a cousin (who I only barely know because we connected on facebook, genealogically) informed me that her father - my mother's brother - had passed. My mom's first question was "any particulars?" It's natural to want to know what happened, and it's not shameful to be curious.

Sometimes it's just fun to speculate.

For some, it comes from wanting to avoid death. The desire to add it to your database of how death happens in order to know your enemy. I'm not arguing this is following a scientific principle. This is more emotional.

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