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Comment by bethecloud | Hacker News Reader

From McAffee in 2019, "Getting subtle messages from U.S. officials saying, in effect: "We're coming for you McAfee! We're going to kill yourself". I got a tattoo today just in case. If I suicide myself, I didn't. I was whackd. Check my right arm. "

https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/120086428376625152...

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As cynical as it might seem, there is an alternative possibility: in spite of getting a tattoo saying he would not kill himself, and in spite of posting a tweet saying he would not kill himself, he went ahead and killed himself.

It is indeed an alternative possiblity, but the possiblity that he was murdered should not be discounted. Murdering those that challenge authority has been happening since the dawn of history and nothing has fundamentally changed. Well other than needing to make it look like a suicide since modern society likes to believe it's enlightened.

McAfee was an obviously unhinged lunatic peddling fringe nonsense. You can make an argument that cryptocurrency poses a threat to the state, but a 75 year old man who spends 16 hours a day rambling on twitter about fringe stuff does not. The available evidence points strongly to a deeply mentally ill guy facing life in prison and killing himself.

Unhinged folks can be murdered by state actors outside the law too...

This is one of those situations which may well just be impossible to unravel in a satisfactory way.

In fact, if you're clever and in intelligence, a good way to cover your tracks and generally be nefarious is to provide a reason for your desired outcome to happen. In other words, do what you can to encourage the unhinged tendencies of your target so that they might actually do it themselves or at least it will seem more plausible that they did.

As a thought experiment I have wondered before what I would do if I suspected the government might want to suicide me.

It's depressing to think that I'd have to have perfect mental health and the appearance of perfect mental health to arise suspicion otherwise my suicide would be written off. This is, of course, literally impossible.

Even assuming I did, almost anything bad that happened to me prior to the murder (losing a loved one, going to prison, being unable to go home, being arrested, stories of how you mistreated your cat) could be used to push for the idea of it being a suicide on mental health grounds. If Snowden were offed tomorrow, for example, there would be a veritable chorus of believed people declaring him mentally unwell whether or not there was any clinical evidence for it.

Any additional "craziness" from my past (& most people have some) adds fuel to the fire. Any evidence that you considered suicide in the past then you're practically a write off.

The fact that even foreshadowing it by saying "I would never commit suicide" would be used as evidence that I'm crazy (because "normal" people don't do that) is truly depressing. I thought this would work but it appears it's too easily dismissed as somethihg only a kook would do because Occam's razor.

Assuming the other evidence can be dealt with quietly (videotape, autopsy, etc), state sanctioned murder of dissidents and whistleblowers this way seems fairly easy. Moreover, if you're a whistleblower or dissident with real mental health issues or god forbid have attempted it before a staged suicide is a very logical way of dealing with you. The public is primed to write it off without a second thought.

Narratives are generated out of thin air. The person could have been perfect and they still could make them look like a suicidal lunatic. Any additional help from past circumstances is lubricant, but not necessary.

Well said. The guy litteraly got a TATTOO to make the point. He honestly didn't kill himself. Especially not without even tweeting one last time.

If he did, I'm sure his wife will know and will confirm this soon.

> Unhinged folks can be murdered by state actors outside the law too...

Yeah, but the thing is the state usually doesn't need to whack them.

Like here: Why would the US have had McAfee killed; what would be gained from it that couldn't just as well be gained from letting him rot in jail, be it in Spain or the US?

And please don't try the old "to silence him / suppress the Secret Truths he knew!". A) The null hypothesis is that there are no such "Secret Truths"; and B) if anything, this "suspicious" death lends more weight, not less, to his deluded ravings. (As witnessed by much of this comment thread.)

> but a 75 year old man who spends 16 hours a day rambling on twitter about fringe stuff does not

Are we still talking about McAfee here? I am coveted.

> You can make an argument that cryptocurrency poses a threat to the state, but a 75 year old man who spends 16 hours a day rambling on twitter about fringe stuff does not.

Unless they are, e.g., also head of state and government, but that’s not an issue with McAfee, though its not unheard of.

"obviously an unhinged lunatic". That's a very strong statement that doesn't add to the discussion other than to trigger fear of association among commenters here. Facts are always better than ad hominem.

I'm not sure ad hominem applies here. Based on the background facts from the article alone "unhinged lunatic" isn't an irrelevant insult on character which ignores the subject matter rather a relevant point of refutation that the guy was truly unhinged and that should legitimately play a strong role in considering his claims. Could you always add more background? Sure, but I think there is more than enough in the article to point to him being genuinely unhinged.

I read the same article as everyone else here and didn't see anything that qualified the label "unhinged lunatic". You should perhaps look up the meaning of ad hominem by the way - it absolutely applies.

> He also launched unsuccessful bids to become the Libertarian Party's candidate for the presidential elections in 2016 and 2020. In 2019 McAfee expressed his disdain for taxes, tweeting that he had not filed tax returns for eight years because "taxation is illegal." In the same year he was briefly detained in the Dominican Republic for allegedly bringing weapons into the country. McAfee never fitted into the mould of what a tech entrepreneur might look like. He was brash, reckless and never far away from the next scandal... McAfee was a visionary, but also hot headed. It was his temperament that got him into trouble throughout his life. In 2012 he was arrested in Guatemala, having been on the run in Belize where police were investigating the death of his neighbour... He will be remembered, rightly, as an important figure in the development of the technology scene of the 1980s and 1990s. But he will also be remembered as a deeply controversial figure, who at times seemed intent in taking a path in life that might lead to trouble.

Hinged people aren't remembered for running between countries with various felony charges across borders because they think taxes are illegal in their home country while simultaneously campaigning for office there. It's not even a matter of if you believe he did or didn't do all of these, that he seemed to constantly find himself in these situations around the world is telling.

> Ad hominem (Latin for 'to the person'), short for argumentum ad hominem, refers to several types of arguments, some but not all of which are fallacious. Typically this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself. This avoids genuine debate by creating a diversion to some irrelevant but often highly charged issue.

Seems to match the understanding I gave in my comment not anything new - "Based on the background facts from the article alone "unhinged lunatic" isn't an irrelevant insult on character which ignores the subject matter rather a relevant point of refutation that the guy was truly unhinged and that should legitimately play a strong role in considering his claims".

But since we're this far with it already might as well add some additional facts to get past why we shouldn't consider his claims at face value since we're both here:

- "McAfee wrote on Twitter that he predicted that the price of one bitcoin would jump to $500,000 within three years, and that "If not, I will eat my own dick on national television." In July 2019, he continued to defend a prediction of $1 million by the end of 2020. In January 2020, however, he stated on Twitter that his previous predictions were simply "A ruse to onboard new users", and that bitcoin had limited potential because it was "an ancient technology"." the guy constantly lied about things he peddled, or at the very least was an inconsistent storyteller.

- He wrote of himself in Belize "My fragile connection with the world of polite society has, without a doubt, been severed,” he wrote. “My attire would rank me among the worst-dressed Tijuana panhandlers. My hygiene is no better. Yesterday, for the first time, I urinated in public, in broad daylight."

- On 11 August 2020, McAfee fabricated a hoax that he was arrested in Norway during the COVID-19 pandemic, after refusing to replace a lace thong with a more effective face mask. McAfee later posted a picture of himself to Twitter with a bruised eye, claiming that it occurred during this arrest.[81] However, the photo of the alleged arrest shows an officer with the German word for "police" on their uniform, so it could not have been an arrest in Norway. The Augsburg Police later confirmed McAfee unsuccessfully attempted to enter Germany on that day, but was not arrested.

- He was known for consuming copious amounts of hard drugs and peddled bath salts for many years. Even a normally well held together person will be erratic, paranoid, and unreliable in that situation.

> It's not even a matter of if you believe he did or didn't do all of these, that he seemed to constantly find himself in these situations around the world is telling.

This makes the false assumption that the system is correct and railing against it is crazy.

> Seems to match the understanding I gave in my comment not anything new

This implies "unhinged" and "lunatic" are used in ways that describe specific and precise conditions rather than as insults, which is, frankly, horseshit.

As for the rest of your comments, they are unrelated, irrelevant, and don't characterize him in a way that is much different from the average American, even if true.

It should absolutely be discounted. There's literally no evidence suggesting he was murdered.

He was about to be extradited, the US Government was well on their way to making an example of him. There was no incentive to murder him.

I feel like, in the world of outlandish theories, faking his own death is far more likely than a gangland murder.

Also of note - suicide in the US is extremely difficult if you've been identified as someone with intention. You get checked on every 15 minutes, including at night (which can be a torture by itself)

Doesn't seem that uncommon:

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/02/13/jaildeaths/

I'm going to mention that this jail was not in the US. I'm not familiar with jail policies in Spain, and it might be easy.

As far as the US is concerned, you've quoted policy. I'm pretty sure that jails and prisons in the US are supposed to provide medical care, mental health care, food enough for decent health (without having maggots): There are plenty of examples of it not happening. "I didn't know they were suicidal" or "We've been short staffed, and I couldn't check on him" are easy excuses.

15 minute checks aside, I’m pretty sure every federal prison has enough amount of cameras to keep an eye out from the local central command station…especially in 2021. Still surprised there was no evidence of this sort for Jeffery Epstein.

"There's literally no evidence suggesting he was murdered."

I mean, he did get a tattoo saying if he was found dead while in custody he had been murdered. But do go on...

That’s not how evidence works, my friend.

You gonna back that statement up with some evidence? It's evidence, perhaps not evidence you like or would work well in a court of law, but it's a type of evidence regardless.

What's "evidence"; his tattoo? What is it evidence of?

AFAICS it's evidence either that he was trying to make himself seem a martyr, or that he was just generally unhinged. Both, of course, at the time he got it -- now, around the time of his death, it isn't evidence of anything at all; now it's just a bunch of fading old paint on his arm that has nothing to do with what is happening now.

But that's all it is "evidence" of. Claiming it's relevant in any way or "evidence" of anything else is like reading tealeaves, seeing deep significance in the colour of the getaway car at some bungled heist: "It was green, as in the Green Party the accused is a supporter of! So this was an act of poitically-motivated domestic terrorism! I rest my case!" -- "The defence?" -- "Your honour, my client bought that green 1992 Plymouth Omni at Honest Joe's Great Car Bargains six years ago. It was green at the time, had been ever since it was built, and my client assures me he bought it not because of the colour but because it was the cheapest car on the lot. And the reason he joined in on a plan to commit armed robbery was not political, but because he still drives that 1992 Plymouth Omni that was the cheapest car on the lot six years ago."

or he was mentally unstable and not being treated for that...

Make that "Murdering those that threaten authority".

I consider it an "alternative possiblity" that Epstein hung himself.

Sure. But how many people in high places -- billionaires and top politicians -- had hung out with McAfee, on his yacht possibly sticking their dicks where they shouldn't have stuck them?

Feels much, much more plausible that Epstein was silenced than that McAfee would have been. At least AFAICR I haven't seen any even remotely credible reason why anyone would have needed McAfee silenced.

There's a saying, you can't escape death and taxes.

You can escape taxes with death though

Not even then. I think they take back taxes out of your estate.

Not if your estate has more liabilities than assets!

An unstable personality that hates the US saying the US government would stage a suicide is much more likely to actually kill themselves than your regular run-of-the-mill evil billionaire with powerful enemies saying nothing about how they will die.

I don't think Mcafee really thought things through enough to come to this conclusion.

"I'd never kill myself" is exactly what a suicidal person _would_ say.. Great post.

They even had it tattoo'd on their arm in a cringey fashion to show how down-to-Earth and committed to this plane of existence they were.

That's like 300% sane!

It is also what folks with absolutely no intention of killing themselves would say. Sure, you could parse out situations where they might and you could probably make someone's life so unimaginably miserable that the would eventually turn to it, but these are fringes.

> As cynical as it might seem, there is an alternative possibility: in spite of getting a tattoo saying he would not kill himself, and in spite of posting a tweet saying he would not kill himself, he went ahead and killed himself

In fact, if you have people who will believe you (either becuase of who you are or who your target is), and a beef against someone, and see a confluence of circumstances likely to lead to a place where suicide is your only way out, why wouldn’t you set them up to take the blame if it got to that point (especially if you blamed them for the situation driving in that direction, so you might feel that it was a lie in only peripheral details, but not grand narrative.)

That would have been a very long con since he has been tweeting things like this since 2019.

Well, seeing as 2019 is when he fled the US to avoid prosecution for tax fraud, it's not like it took a lot of foresight to say "hrm, maybe the US government will catch me."

Still that’s quite petty motivation for such a long con.

“Such a long con” kind of assumes that McAfee thought if he got caught, it would take this long.

How is this a long con? It's two years. According to the indictments he was being extradited for, that's _not the longest con John McAfee has been involved in_.

> That would have been a very long con since he has been tweeting things like this since 2019.

He started doing that not long after (or maybe concurrently with) announcing he was on the run from the USG in relation to the specific charges that he was ordered to be extradited to immediately before actually committing suicide.

Which poses the question - if you're absolutely sure you're not going to kill yourself, how could you make sure that everybody knows it and believes it? Is there a way?

Put someone in a room and prevent them from sleeping for a few days and I'm pretty sure you could convince anyone to kill themselves. There's no absolute certainty that can ever be provided.

That's murder, not suicide. I think you made a point, but not the one you thought you made

yes true! but the point is also that the mind is malleable, there's no guarantee that anything I say today will be true tomorrow... there are endless circumstances

Reliable (and potentially even publicly accessible) surveillance. Just livestream every moment of your life and keep logs in multiple locations.

Well, unless you get taken to prison where you will be surveilled, but the surveillance will fail at exactly the moment you committed suicide, mysteriously, and all footage would disappear after a technician makes an innocent mistake while backing it up.

Right, so then obviously in that case there was foul play.

Is that what happened here or are people believing what they want to believe rather than striving to perceive a fact-based reality?

"So obviously in that case there was foul play."

Correct, and the events that user described is exactly what happened to Jeffery Epstein, and yet somehow we have no public information about who is responsible, and the official story is suicide.

I believe they are referencing to how Epstein died, which was ruled a "suicide"

> obviously in that case there was foul play.

But is it? What kind of foul play - is it prison management hiding the fact they had somebody kill himself on their watch (which is professional incompetence), or the other one?

The Epatein guards were going to talk and suddenly got a sweetheart deal that even avoided prison. There’s still evidence out there somewhere.

Ehhh, pretty sure he is referring to Epstein.

Or, non-conspiratorially, surveillance fails all the time, but no one cares or even knows if surveillance fails and there was no reason to go back through the footage.

Not an option though if you're jailed in Barcelona.

How does that work if you are in prison?

You can't. That's the job of the prison. This is why people get upset when there is a "CCTV malfunction" when high profile prisoners supposedly kill themselves.

I mean, I haven't done the analysis myself but "I'll tell this story so that if I take the cowardly way out my reputation will still be protected and the conspiracy theorists will keep my legend alive forever" has a > 0% chance of being the motivator here.

He could have killed himself anyway--- that is obvious, but his past statements still need to be taken seriously, and extra care and doubt need to be applied to the reported story.

> his past statements still need to be taken seriously, and extra care and doubt need to be applied to the reported story.

Why? The fact that he had a paranoid fantasy of being murdered by the US government doesn't make it so. I don't have to take extra care with the ramblings of conspiracy theorists with a long history of outright bullshit.

Why? Because the US government has a strong and long documented history of murdering dissidents, especially in south america. Side A is unhindged guy, Side B has a very long rap sheet for murder. McAfees relationship with the intelligence community should be further investigated by private parties, ignoring a rap sheet like that is just as fantastical as conspiracy.

BTW, I realized tone may have been lost...but that was supposed to be a 'McAfee' style rant

>his past statements still need to be taken seriously

Like the one where he promised to eat his own penis?

Do the past statements of a clearly unhinged individual need to be taken seriously?

Yes.

So every statement should always be taken seriously? Is there no minimum bar of credibility that should be met?

Credibility is not only about who says it, but at least a bit about what they say, right?

If McAfee said the moon is made of cheese, I’d call that less credible than McAfee saying he’s going to get suicided.

Right, it's about both. "The US government is gonna suicide me" is not a statement I would believe coming from the average person, and given McAfee's statements/claims/drug abuse/tax evasion/etc I would say he had less credibility than the average person.

Unless you are very sure that McAfee was "clearly unhinged individual", it is a strong statement and ad hominem. Doesn't help add to the discussion than mere gossip.

The man said he would eat his own dick on TV[1] if Bitcoin didn't hit $500k in 2020. There are credible reports he paid women to shit in his mouth from a hammock. There is his entire twitter feed. I am very sure McAfee was a "clearly unhinged individual", and if you're not I'd like to know what kind of evidence you need.

[1] http://dickening.com/

We don't have to go any further than the tweet that started this thread: McAfee claimed to be "getting subtle messages" from officials in the American government threatening to kill him.

He was a clearly unhinged individual.

Nice circular logic.

As they saying goes, they dig their own graves.

For some reason I couldn’t help but read this in the voice of the narrator from Arrested Development.

True but it is also possible that he was assisnated. People get assisnate all the time for political reasons.

The better questions are, did he deserve to be imprisoned and did he deserve to die?

> did he deserve to be imprisoned

I mean, that's kinda what happens when you don't pay your taxes and run from the government. He would've gotten a trial if he didn't commit suicide.

> did he deserve to die

No, I don't think anyone deserves to die. But, the most likely case here is he did kill himself, in which case, it's kinda on him.

> No, I don't think anyone deserves to die.

technically, everyone dies... the question should be, did he deserve to be killed, if he was (not saying he was) or did he deserve to think that was his only way out?

> or did he deserve to think that was his only way out?

Hm, "deserve to think"... We're all totally responsible for our own thoughts, aren't we? I mean, who else could be; how could anyone else be?[1]

If McAfee had addled his brain with drugs so as to suffer paranoid-delusional fantasies; or even without drugs, if he had pondered weird conspiracy theories to the extent that he self-induced a persecution complex... Who's to blame for that but he himself; how could one claim that he didn't "deserve" it?

___

[1 -- EDIT]: Besides "long-term brainwash" scenarios, that is. James Bond in a North Korean prison cell, a cowed and battered spouse / child(ren), members of an oppressive cult, shit like that. McAfee was none of those.

No, the best outcome would have been a trial with a fair outcome.

But he went down to South America, started making drugs, and got accused of rape and murder. The legal system should assume innocence before trial, though in my personal opinion he was an evil man.

You got the continent wrong.

I don't have much of an opinion about McAfee, but it bugs me a bit when people who know less than I do have stronger opinions.

> You got the continent wrong.

I'm not the person you replied to, but, do you mean they got the continent wrong because Belize is in Central America, and thus technically North America? Seems like an unnecessary nitpick.

If you thought he mistook Spain to be in South America, then, maybe the guidelines here would be of help. From my own experience, it is better to not assume people know less than you.

Then again, maybe you are referring to something else, in which case it would be nice to know what.

Belize isn't just "technically" North America, and misplacing it in South America is a not a minor nit. It shows a fundamental unfamiliarity with the subject. In my experience, norteamericanos that refer to everything south of the US border as "South America" tend to lump it into a mental box of stereotypes.

I've spent a fair bit of time in Central America, and the people I met there generally took great umbrage at being referred to as "South America".

I honestly fail to see what your point is, and as an argument, it does not impress me much. You went off your way to argue a minor inconsequential detail (yes, given what was discussed, it was inconsequential), and at the same time suggest they were less knowledgeable about the topic (which I might remind you, was not geographical terminology of land regions).

You'll do yourself a favor to not insult people over technical details. The arrogant attitude does not give a good impression. If you wanted to make it known you knew something they didn't, you could have achieved much more with "Belize and Central-America for that matter is considered to be part of North America, and very explicitly not part of South America". There was no need to make a point of someone knowing less, or disparaging their argument that had little to do with this.

In any case, do not mistake my interaction here as some sort of personal investment. I do not care much. Take the advice from a stranger as you will.

You missed the point. Parent has very strong opinions ("evil man"), yet makes statements that expose lack of familiarity with the subject. I'm calling it out.

My desire: People with strong opinions should temper them. Or at least temper them in public. That's all.

How exactly does what you pointed out -- "lack of familiarity with the subject" of geography -- constitute a "calling out" of their strong opinions on McAfee's character?

Total fucking non sequitur!

(Even trying it on paints you in an ever worse light. At least in my book, you'd have come out of this a lot better if you'd taken GP's advice and backed off gracefully one or two comments earlier.)

If your objection was to him having a too strong opinion, which would be more than welcome, you would be better served by making your argument relevant to that, and not geography trivia. It's a form of ad hominem, of which all forms are annoying.

What ecil did he do? Take drugs?

he was wanted for murder in Belize....

I know that. Did he do it, or did he just piss the wrong US "officias". Downvote all you want. This guy clearly did not kill himself

you know his life was basically over right? He was 75 years old . He was going to jail for at least 20 years.

That doesn't make him a murderer or suicidal.

bruh ... who wouldn't be a lil suicidal when they find out they are going to jail for the rest of their life.

But you just said he was 75 years old. That's not a lot of jail time.

Some guys are suicided, others simply decide to change their gender in jail. If you don't see how this works, then I have nothing more to say to you

> did he deserve to die?

Is there a coherent answer to this in the case of suicide?

I feel like we enter a liar's paradox since the entity who decides whether you deserve to die is yourself.

Aaron Swartz?

You are aware that he was wanted for murder in Belize?

But somewhat ironically that was not what he was imprisoned for.

For anyone wondering: "the Spanish High Court approved of his extradition to the US on tax evasion charges." [which is why he was imprisoned]

It worked for Al Capone.

Those really aren't good questions at all.

He was imprisoned awaiting extradition for tax evasion charges, so guilt wasn't really determined yet. He did flee the US to avoid these charges and has since racked up a considerable trail of charges from foreign governments.

We'll probably never see direct evidence of his death. But suicide is plausible, given his history, I'd certainly believe he'd contemplate suicide when faced with a life in prison.

Whether or not someone deserves to die doesn't seem like much of a question when the cause of death is intentionally self-inflicted.

I don't think anyone here is arguing he deserved to die, but he definitely wasn't innocent either.

Why is this downvoted? Was he actually convicted?

He was in jail pending extradition hearings. Extradition was approved today and he was soon to be relocated to the US to stand trial.

He said he'd eat his dick on live TV if Bitcoin didn't hit $500k by last year (https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/887012614131372032, https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/887039604846714881, https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/887024683379544065) so the track record on predictions... isn't great.

At least he doesn't have to fulfill that promise, albeit late.

Maybe he was joking?

I certainly see no reason to take what he says at face value, but this includes the "I've been suicided!" tweets.

I have found that "I'll never kill myself. There's always something to live for" is something that is very easy for people who are safe and happy to say, and I pray that these people will always be safe and comfortable enough to not change their mind on this for their own sakes.

When you're sitting in a tiny concrete box and looking at the very distinct possibility of spending the rest of your life in such a box, either metaphorically or, in McAfee's case, literally, the thought process is quite different. Yes, McAfee has had run-ins with the law before, but maybe he figured he wasn't going to get out of this situation so easily, and he didn't have that many more good years left in front of him, concrete box or no.

Thus, I'm willing to accept this as a suicide unless and until compelling evidence otherwise surfaces.

> I have found that "I'll never kill myself. There's always something to live for" is something that is very easy for people who are safe and happy to say, and I pray that these people will always be safe and comfortable enough to not change their mind on this for their own sakes.

Maybe it helps to remember having said it oneself? I mean, if you are so badly off that you contemplate suicide, then everyone else saying "there's always something to live for" may be easier to write off; like, "what do they know of my life?". But if you've used to say so yourself, then sure, you may now think "so obviously I was wrong then"... But still, you're you, so you do know a thing or three about your life, so you may perhaps still hang back and consider "but wait, maybe I'm wrong now, and not back then?".

Maybe. At least feels like it should have a better chance than other saying it. So, hey, let's all remember to repeat this to ourselves now and then, mmkay?

add to that: going through drug withdrawal while trapped in said box

There was a ruling today approving his extradition to the US. US officials were about to get him and he was facing extremely serious charges. That's a really important bit of context to keep in mind before jumping to ideas that some shadowy "they" had him killed.

The timing does make me suspicious. I'm generally willing to believe he was "suicided" by some shadowy conspiracy. But if that's what happened, why would they do it on the day his extradition was approved?

If our secret ninja assassins wanted to take him out because he Knew Too Much or whatever, they could do that any old time. Why do it on the day his extradition was approved instead of some random day 6 months ago or something.

On the other hand, it seems much more reasonable that a man whose extradition to the US to face Federal Criminal charges was just approved might suddenly decide to kill himself rather than deal with that.

Unless of course the Secret Ninja Assassins knew that and decided to kill him today to make it look less suspicious. But then we're really getting into the weeds of conspiracy, where any crazy thing we could dream up might have happened.

If he got murdered the connection to the extradition hearing to me would be that people are afraid he will talk and they're less confident in their ability to get to him in a US prison than a Spanish one.

Or they could only get too him in a Spanish prison and they ran out of time.

Wouldn't be unusual for the US. Gitmo is specifically not on US soil to avoid dealing with US laws.

> Gitmo is specifically not on US soil to avoid dealing with US laws.

“Camp Delta at Gitmo is used...” is more accurate here than “Gitmo is specifically not on US soil...”; Johnson v. Eisentrager (1950) was not a motivating factor in securing the lease at Guatanamo Bay (in 1903) but was a factor in siting the temporary (Camp X-Ray) and later permanent (Camp Delta) detention facilities for War on Terror detainees there.

You literally answered it yourself: you find the suicide more believable today. If you find it more believable today, and their motivation is obscuring the murder, this is the perfect timing actually.

I have hard time believing this, either that he died or his motive. Tax evasion has one of the most lenient punishments of white collar crimes.

McAfee has shown time and again that he wasn't a reliable or rational person.

Paying taxes is even less painful and he didn’t do that.

He had enough charges lined up (up to 5 years for every count, IIRC) that he would likely be imprisoned for life. Goes without saying but he was also an incredibly paranoid person.

Yeah, but federal sentencing guidelines are complicated and it's very unlikely he'd serve anything like the possible maximum sentence. Trial probably would have dragged on for a few years and he'd eventually plead to something and serve a couple of years in a minimum security prison.

That said, he was 75, so I guess even a few years could potentially be a life sentence.

I doubt it. charges tend to run concurrently. If he cooperated and paid what he could, likely he would serve no time.

> He had enough charges lined up (up to 5 years for every count, IIRC) that he would likely be imprisoned for life

Usually, without aggravating circumstances, federal sentences would run concurrently, though thr multiplicity might push them up within the range permitted. So, lots of nonviolent up to 5 years per count crimes with no particular extreme factors likely adds up to...about 5 years.

Which at his age might still be a sizable fraction of his life, and he wouldn't be the first person to act based on an unrealistic estimate based on what is theoretically possible rather than likely.

He was 75.8 years old at the time of his death and the average life expectancy for a male in the United States is 76.3.

That's not really how that works. The life expectancy of an American male who already attained aged 75 is 11 more years.

Unless McAfee has dirt on you, and getting extradited to the US with serious crimes against him means a high likelihood of him turning state's witness.

He’s not exactly going to appear credible in court.

When I say dirt I don't mean hearsay. I mean physical evidence.

Though it is also highly notable that he publicly posted "I'm not going to kill myself, and if I do then I was probably assassinated" before his death.

And then he killed himself to set off moronic conspiracy theories as a final FU to the USA.

Which is more believable, that he was murdered, or that he killed himself to troll people?

Truly the latter. He was not a well-adjusted, grounded individual.

Also, what benefit is there to the US to kill him? They already won. Being able to kill people you have custody of is a weak message compared to "nowhere is safe from us".

They don't want him in the press talking about what exactly? He didn't exactly come across as a guy that would flee to central america to keep decades-long secrets.

They don't want him in the press talking. And it sends a message.

He was literally tweeting up until a few days ago. What makes you think he'd need the press to "unveil" anything "they" "don't want him talking about"?

No one was paying attention to his tweets. He'd get a lot of attention in an extradition.

The message was already sent: you can't flee from the IRS once you are a target. Showing you're not afraid to kill enemies isn't nearly as chilling.

Prisoners dont get to talk to press all that much. You are 100% of time under controll. And having him in prison for long sends even better message then maybe-murder-maybe-not.

What high-level conspiracies was he supposed to have been a party to, that he could have leaked?

He didn't kill himself to troll people, really.

He killed himself to damage the reputation of the US government.

He couldn't escape from imprisonment, and he couldn't do much to harm the government. But he could do this.

It was the most he could do, so (I think) it's what he did.

How would the reputation of the US government be affected? McAfee is not a popular international figure, and he's not a martyr for any kind of cause that people will rally around.

The reputation of the US government will not be affected. But I can imagine that in McAfee's confused mind, it would be.

Everyone here seems to have some inside track on McAffe's mental state. It's so ridiculous presumptuous, when we barely have an understanding of the mental state of those close to us.

So how do you know he wouldn't have killed himself...?

I'm not stating anything with certainty, but he said multiple times over the years that authorities were threatening him with exactly this, a staged suicide, to the point that he even got it tattooed on himself, because he knew the media would push a narrative claiming he was crazy and suicidal. People are going so far as to say that he killed himself to troll people. The lengths people will go to avoid facing the truth that their leaders are sociopathic gangsters is extreme.

Yeah, well... From where I sit it looks more like this: The lengths people will go to, to avoid facing the overwhelmingly probable truth that the old tax-evading murderers on the lam they still for some reason admire are sociopathic gangsters, is extreme.

Really, honestly, seriously. Have you even tried to consider it could be that way around? Occam's razor suggests -- no, it screams! -- that he killed himself:

* People get desperate and kill themselves in some situations. McAfee was in a typical such situation.

* Having killed himself -- or not, as some would have it -- at the moment McAfee is big news. People (such as yourself) are (literally) screeching bloody murder. If there is anything to find, investigative journalists now have lots of incentive to look for it. If he'd just been extradited, probably no one would have cared; there might have been a few short articles noting the fact, and that would be that. Wouldn't it be stupid, then, to kill him since that would only attract all this attention (that you and I are lavishing on it)? How plausible is it that any actor that has the resources to have someone "whacked" is that stupid?

* Lots of people (you possibly among them?) have suggested that he was killed because "they wanted him silenced". I have asked a few what, exactly he is supposed to have had on anyone that would warrant "silencing" him. So far nobody has had any suggestions. Do you?

So, yeah, it does indeed look like some are doing their best to avoid facing the truth: You all who see a conspiracy here.

Do you realize you are ditching a conspiracy with a conspiracy?

Which raises an interesting question: can a conspiracy consist of a single person? How about if that person speaks to himself?

More to your point -- replacing one weakly substantiated theory with another -- there are still degrees of plausibility among unsubstantiated theories.

That was 2 years ago though. A lot in a person's life can change in just 2 years.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27609346

He's also indicated much more recently that any "suicide" wouldn't be such.

The man has spent most of his life lying and cheating, why would anyone believe him when he says this?

That's also 9 months ago, "before his death" is a bit misleading.

and if he'd posted it yesterday, you'd be saying it's so soon that it's suspicious and he's obviously up to something.

what's the optimal cooldown to post affirmations of life so that you believe they're true?

I guess I discount the words of others pretty strongly, especially when it comes to conspiracy theories.

Instead of trying to look for evidence in someone's tweets, how about we look at the facts on the ground. Such as: was he on suicide watch? Is this jail reliable? Is there a history of conspiracy and/or corruption in this jailhouse?

Very strange that you are being down voted.

October, 2020

I am content in here. I have friends.

The food is good. All is well.

Know that if I hang myself, a la Epstein, it will be no fault of mine.

https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/131680121508322509...

April, 2021

https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/138634987054662041...

> I have been imprisoned in Catalonia nearly 7 months. I speak no Catalan and little Spanish so human contact is limited. There are no entertainments - no escape from loneliness, from emptiness, from myself.

> This has been the most trying period of my life.

Turns out prison sucks after a while.

As for the food, he changed his tune on that, too:

https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/139145553961222553...

> Most prison food in Spain is indistinguishable from rat shit in motor oil. The single exception is potato pie, which is only served on Saturdays.

> Unfortunately today is Sunday.

> Turns out prison sucks after a while.

Sounds like it sucks at the beginning, too.

Yeah, and also he was a pretty damn good troll. No doubt he had a backup plan, and this was probably it.

Why would anyone want him dead? I don't think anyone cared about him that much.

This. The guy was just some drug-addled tech industry has been that shilled crypto scams and dodged his taxes. I think all those bathsalts were making him paranoid.

If people had reason to kill him, it would likely be that he knew scandalous information. The public wouldn't really know that people cared about him or what that information was.

I have no idea if McAfee had such knowledge, but "I don't know any reason why someone would kill him" doesn't mean much.

What he knows is immaterial though.

Whatever McAfee would "reveal" would just be his word. Which isn't great. Unless he knows how to obtain evidence of things, what he "knows" is just rambling.

Movies have instilled in us this notion that simply knowing something is good enough. It's not. Let's pretend for a second that McAfee knew that certain public figures were, without a doubt, 100%, Satanic pedophile lizard people or whatever the flavor of the month panic is.

If his only proof of this is that he saw Person X devour a live baby while molesting children in the basement of a pizza parlor, it's kind of meaningless. It's not much better than just saying you know it because you believe it really strongly.

The information he would have to know would be specific to uncover something in a way that people could actually act on that information.

Otherwise, it's like what Bill Murray whispered in my ear after he painted my house last night, "No one will ever believe you".

It's not impossible that his word could provide evidence, he may know where (possibly metaphorical) bodies are buried.

> It's not impossible that his word could provide evidence, he may know where (possibly metaphorical) bodies are buried.

Yes, and even if not, testimony alone is evidence, even if it doesn't lead to other evidence.

It may or may not be evidence that a trier of fact views as credible or sufficient on its own to meet the applicable standard of proof, but it is evidence.

> he may know where (possibly metaphorical) bodies are buried.

Because founding and running an anti-virus company for a while gets you invited to all the big shots' murder rampages...?

Was he ever even a largish campaign contributor, or anything that might have got him hobnobbing with (people that later turned into) The Powers That Be? I've never heard anything such about him; have you?

I'll repeat myself by saying "I have no idea if McAfee had such knowledge." You just can't say he didn't have some knowledge because you are unaware of any important information or connections he had.

Hasn't "absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence" been debunked enough already?

Yes, I can. He was no Epstein; he didn't extortionably frolick around on his yacht with underage girls and politicians, billionaires, and celebrities of science, media, and entertainment. The only commonality McAfee's sad "frolicking" had with Epstein's was that it was on his yacht. But it was with his ex-hooker wife, crew and servants, and Idunno what more-or-less temporary "friends" and other hangers-around he may have picked up. Sure, some of the latter may have been second- or third-rate celebrities in their Latin American or Southern European home countries. Do you think that's the kind of people who have the clout to have someone "whacked" (or even the reputation to need "I snorted bathsalts with John McAfee on his yacht" suppressed)?

I mean, sure, I'm perfectly prepared to believe that he might have had some "whackable" knowledge, after all... As soon as anyone presents even a shred of evidence for that. But as far as we know, he didn't have any inside knowledge that needed to be "silenced". That's the null hypothesis; it's claims to the contrary that need evidence in their favour so as not to be dismissed out of hand.

His word alone? No. It would have to be words to the effect that it would tell people where to look for actual evidence.

Yes, that's why I specified he may "know where the bodies are buried."

In his last prison interview he said that all his money was gone, his friends had all abandoned him and yet he regretted nothing. Sure sounds like a last statement to me.

His body is probably not even cold yet and the conspiracy theories are piling up. On a Twitter thread, replies range from the usual RIPs to people claiming some dubious connection with Epstein, Clinton etc. Not claiming that you are, but I suspect many will use this as proof of something nefarious. Which it might be, but at least I feel that it is unlikely.

It feels like everything now starts with 'it's a conspiracy' for no reason and somehow everyone has to prove it isn't a conspiracy ... or it is assumed to be.

Once you believe nefarious actors are running things behind the scenes, it's pretty easy to apply that thinking to almost any scenario.

The trait that carried McAfee furthest was, in hindsight, his incredible talent as a hype man. He effectively created an image as a larger-than-life figure who those in power were afraid of and wished to stop.

I have no trouble believing that people wanted him dead in general. He was credibly accused of both murder and sexual assault[1]. I am sure he was annoying to many officials, but most of the reports of death threats around McAfee were those experienced by the people he disliked.

I think that the simplest and most straightforward explanation is that this tweet (and tattoo) were another promotional stunt for someone trying to get out of the charges against him. It would be another in a long line of claims McAfee made on various topics which had the effect of, however briefly, centering himself in the eye of the public. He wasn't adverse to extreme actions and I have no trouble believing that he would both get that tattoo and decide later to end his own life.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/12/12887124/john-mcafee-rape...

Tweet from last week:

"My friends evaporated through fear of association.

I have nothing.

Yet, I regret nothing."

Link to said tweet: https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/140517850671217459...

a great quote -- thanks for this

This. Gonna be grand when he faked his death and paid off a couple prison guards 10+ BTC to escape and shows up elsewhere in a year or two. One can hope, anyway. Plus, he had to get out of eating his own dick.

https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/131680121508322509...

I don’t think prisons in Spain work like that.

Why would one hope for him to escape justice?

Because it is cruel and unusual to punish someone for hyperbole, severing a mans penis and making them eat it is not justice.

I either responded to the wrong comment, or misinterpreted the one I replied to. I wrote that believing I was responding to a claim that it was a good thing that McAfee evaded arrest in Belize. He certainly shouldn't be made to eat his own genitalia, regardless of what he's done.

Why kill someone they were about to get legitimately?

Because whatever he says in a trial becomes public record and widely reported on.

Edward Snowden has published a book, appeared on every podcast and talked to every media outlet since the 2013 revelations. He's still alive (granted, in Russia, where he'll probably be stuck forever).

I seriously doubt a drugged-up 75yo who lived outside the US for much of the past 20 years somehow had a hotter scoop on the US government's doings.

Epstein has to be a suicide too then, because Snowden is still alive?

Lots of bigshots did shit they shouldn't have been doing on Epstein's yacht. Is there any credible report that any such figure did any such thing on McAfee's?

In the absence of evidence to the contrary, the theory most likely to be true remains the null hypothesis: He didn't have diddly-squat on anybody.

Did you ever get the impression from him that he was "holding back"?

To my knowledge he never posted something like "I really did kill that guy." He may have still had secrets even though his online life was so loud.

Perhaps, but I doubt those secrets were secrets that "they don't want you to hear". He's never been in a position to get any governmental secrets and, AFAIK, he's not really known to have connections with anyone really important in government (ala Epstein).

It also makes little sense that the US government would kill him before extradition and not after when they have a lot more control over narrative and investigations. Killing him on foreign soil makes everything needlessly harder for the US.

>He's never been in a position to get any governmental secrets and, AFAIK,

Part of his career was at Booz Allen Hamilton, though not for too long. Also he was in a position where corporate or personal secrets may have been accessible, which could also explain why an extradition would lead to action.

You're talking Snowden, right?

I think the GP you replied to meant McAfee. (Snowden was never supposed to have killed anyone, was he?)

No, McAfee worked at Booz Allen Hamilton in the 80's.

Aha... So Snowden only found the clues McAfee planted way back when; McAfee was actually the real whistle-blower all along!

...or not.

TIL; thanks.

I wasn't saying he was, just providing a possible response to the question in the comment I replied to.

It seems like HN is becoming more like Reddit and downvotes now indicate disagreement instead of being used to hide things that don't add to the discussion.

> Because whatever he says in a trial becomes public record and widely reported on.

I don't think John had any credibility left for that to happen. We will never be 100% sure but I lean %99.99 that he committed suicide. He was not the kind to spent time in jails. Boredom killed this man

Maybe I'm out of the loop, but who cares what he says? He is just a crazy person who dodged taxes.

He's also a liar and a con artist. And he's always been obsessed with being the object of others' obsessions. Like when he would claim to be the zenith of hacking targets, nevermind the fact that he'd been irrelevant for decades.

Unfortunately like Shkreli, Trump, etc., he has amassed an army of angry young extremely online men who hung on his every word, and will now descend on the comments section.

Extremely online men?

I think the HN community has little overlap with the #FreeMcAfee club.

I mean, they're posting in this thread right now. Maybe it's not a lot of them by percentage, but they're certainly vocal right now.

I guess it depends on how you define "little." You can peruse the comments here before they're flagged; it's a lot bigger overlap than any other community I'm in, including some of the worse ones like miniature wargaming or Emacs users.

A lot of down voting of perfectly reasonable comments in this thread...

That's perhaps because so many of them, are like virtually all of yours, persisting in pushing "he was killed by the government!" based, as far as I can tell, solely on him saying "I would never commit suicide so if it looks like I did, the government must have done it." Why are we all dismissing that, right? We're dismissing it because we're looking at McAfee's history. The man loved to make grand, conspiratorial statements with absolutely nothing to back them up. Take a walk through his Wikipedia page, and don't go "pfft, Wikipedia" -- I'm talking about the parts with extensive supporting links here. In a very real way, McAfee loved being a troll. No judgement on him (at least for that), but I honestly don't see how anyone can deny it was a huge facet of his later life.

I don't doubt that at the time he said he wouldn't commit suicide, he meant it, but based on other tweets quoted among these comments, he was very clearly in a state of depression brought on by his incarceration -- and, for god's sake, he'd spent most of the last decade as a fugitive. This is a man who went to extreme lengths to avoid being in prison. So when you keep asking, over and over, "What makes you think he would possibly commit suicide to avoid spending the rest of his life in prison," the answer is "literally everything the man had been doing before he was caught."

Or perhaps it's a bunch of people with preconceived notions and reactionary clicking like yourself. I challenge you to find a comment by myself that insists he was murdered. And the comment I was referring to that I said was reasonable was not pushing any particular narrative, but positing a reason why someone might want to murder him. That's not the same as saying he was murdered.

There is so much reactionary outrage online that people accuse you of supporting a belief for simply discussing it even if you didn't push it and haven't committed to it.

HN used to be somewhere where this didn't happen, seems like even HN has succumbed to the eternal september.

That might just be me, I seem to have attracted the ire of some people on HN recently.

He never made good on this promise:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7qawy/john-mcafee-no-longer...

Kind of undermines his credibility.

McAfee is an interesting person but I believe absolutely nothing that he says.

The more simple explanation would probably be "a person doing this doesn't have a firm grip on reality, and might be a suicide risk"

And in late 2020: "I am content in here. I have friends. The food is good. All is well. Know that if I hang myself, a la Epstein, it will be no fault of mine."

https://archive.ph/peexn

Anyone who believes that IRS or SEC sends a hitman to kill people because they evade taxes or run fraudulent crypto schemes, needs to examine their head.

McAfee was always paranoid. He was not a threat to the man. He also lied a lot and even admitted it many times.

Because twitter seems to be rate limiting access to this tweet ("Something went wrong, try reloading"), here is an archived version

https://web.archive.org/web/20201005231441/https://twitter.c...

What you have here is someone ruminating on and obsessing over themes of suicide. Sadly that’s exactly the kind of person who goes on to fall victim to that behaviour.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com