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Comment by throw0101a | Hacker News Reader

> If you have never heard of Bernstein, this may look like mad ramblings of a proto-Unabomber railing against THE MAN trying to oppress us.

> However, this man is one of the foremost cryptographers in the world […]

It's possible to be both (not saying Bernstein is).

Plenty of smart folks have 'jumped the shark' intellectually: Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, was very talented in mathematics before he went off the deep end.

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> Plenty of smart folks have 'jumped the shark' intellectually: Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, was very talented in mathematics before he went off the deep end.

Kaczynski dropped out of society to live in a cabin alone at 29. He delivered his first bomb at 35. I'm not sure this is a reasonable comparison to invoke in any way whatsoever.

When DJB starts posting about the downfall of modern society from his remote cabin in Montana, perhaps, but as far as I know he's still an active professor working from within the University system.

While kaczynski was clearly unhinged, and I frankly don’t see how sending mail bombs did anything helpful towards solving the problems he addressed (or that his proposed solution would necessarily be better than ‘the disease’), I dare anyone to read his manifesto and say he was wrong.

If DJB is unhinged but similarly insightful about a crypto algo, I think we’d all be better off. Assuming he lays off the mailbombs anyway.

There was a smart guy once who went crazy. We should assume smart people are crazy.

That's not the claim. The claim is "because we know smart people have gone crazy, we know being smart and being crazy are not mutually exclusive, so someone being smart isn't disqualified from also being crazy." Which seems obviously true.

And not useful

Due to likely CIA sponsored mental abuse (MKULTRA), absurdly.

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