Hacker News Reader

Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

> It's a bad look, why would anyone want to deal with him after this stunt is beyond me.

The maintainer appears to be unwell:

https://abc7ny.com/suspicious-package-queens-astoria-fire/64...

That article is from 2020 (okay, I realize that doesn't mean much--from September specifically). It says he was charged with reckless endangerment at the time, but nothing shows for his name in the NY eCourt system now which seems to mean it was either resolved already (would seem to be quite fast, and indicate no further charges) or was dismissed. No record of him at the DOC either.

Lately he seems to have come to the belief that Aaron Swartz was intentionally targeted because he discovered evidence of child abuse at MIT, which is a pretty far fetched claim that seems to just be riding on the Epstein media attention.

The maintainer seems a few steps beyond unwell. Seems like he was planning a terrorist act of some sort. Even if one is mentally unwell, I would not first describe them that way should they choose to premeditate harm against others. If you're building bombs, you're almost certainly at that point. At the very least, the maintainer is unstable if not actively malicious and seeking to cause harm however he can.

Let's not start claiming people are planning terrorist acts without any proof. Those claims are extremely hard to get rid of, especially on the internet.

Here's the proof: https://abc7ny.com/suspicious-package-queens-astoria-fire/64...

Another article: https://www.njhomelandsecurity.gov/at-a-glance/9-21-20

All that proves is he’s got an interest in explosives. Believe it or not, explosives are a legitimate hobby for some folks.

Unless there is other evidence, you’re just blindly speculating as to his intent.

It's fine to speculate given a certain pattern of behavior

No, it is not. Our brains process speculation as facts.

This thread and press coverage is just reputation damage. Most newspaper articles are not even 90 % true, so rampant theories go floating until innocent some people are burned for life.

you do realize that by doing what he did he didn't just burn greedy F500 companies that didn't have ci/cd setup properly, but non-profits and other entities that are not really resourced to deal with type of stuff.

> I would not first describe them that way should they choose to premeditate harm against others.

That's why a judge often has to determine if the person is mentally ill or just a criminal.

There are plenty of situations where someone has hurt other people and they've been literally insane.

If your insanity causes you to believe that someone is doing horrible things like murdering children you might decide to do them harm, thinking you're the good guy.

In reality you have paranoid schizophrenia or a litany of other mental health issues.

It's not cut and dry :-/

I think it's very nearly a difference without meaning here. If you commit mass violence out of insanity, you're probably going to be in a mental hospital for the rest of your life. Functionally akin to a lifetime prison sentence in that in both cases the perpetrator is removed from society forever. It's not that I have no empathy for the mentally unwell, it's just that when your illness begins to cause actions that will harm the world around you, you're defined in terms of those acts as well as your illness. A mentally unwell person who kills someone is still a killer (I purposely stay away from murder as I do not know law or that murder can be applied to those who are not convicted for reasons of insanity).

is this actually the same guy or some other person named marak who happens to be a software dev? The article appears to be from september 2020

The article names Marak Squires, and the colors.js repo has 'Marak Squires' as the author.

The author's twitter also commented about loosing their possessions in a house fire in October 2020.

> Squires is a software developer and early Bitcoin investor

Or maybe his crypto bet went in a poor direction...?

IIUC he lost all of his Bitcoin (wallet seed) + precious metals in a fire or something, and was nearly homeless for a period of time.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com