Please read if you have any information about Tony Morris

I don't know Tony personally, but I'm very familiar with his work. He's a brilliant programmer.

HN is the only reason I learned about Tony's suicidal message on IRC within an hour of it being sent. Hopefully someone who personally knows him seeing this will be able to help.

OK it seems it is related to a medical condition, Brad Clow from workingmouse has posted more on his blog: http://bradclow.blogspot.com/2009/03/tonys-letter-to-medical...

Latest post doesn't look good: http://www.nabble.com/Re%3A--scala--URGENT%3A-THEY-FOUND-HIM...

Sorry, I have no way to verify that post.

"Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain" makes sense to me. But the page fails, I think, to address the fact that external resources are needed for coping, period. And I don't just mean a listening ear, which can be hard enough to find, or a psychotherapist. No, sometimes you really do need people to do tangible things, like give you a car or force someone violent out of your life or treat your medical problem or take care of your baby--without sucking you into a nightmare of paperwork and barely functional social services.

Everyone, except perhaps Grizzly Adams, needs other people. Some days you need a new client for your Rails expertise. Some days you need a plumber. You need those guys who stock the grocery store in the middle of the night. And you need real life friends. Friends who don't sap your energy or tell you what to think. Friends who will scrounge up a car for you.

Edit addendum: Hillary used to say, "It takes a village to raise a child." Yeah, whatever. What I'm trying to say is, it takes a community for thriving and emotional health. And don't let Ayn Rand tell you otherwise. There's no shame in hitting a point where you can't "produce" and you need help from others. You're not self-made. No one is. And a person who needs help is not a loser. Or a "looter."

I looked at the page. Unfortunately, it would not have helped me during the brief time I felt suicidal. Knowledge of fundamental evolutionary facts changes one's perspective about things, such as the statement "some part of you still wants to live"--which then becomes not an argument, but an obvious, irrelevant fact.

As someone who spent a long time in that boat, $0.02:

Saying someone doesn't have a right to kill themselves implies that they should be forced to go through with whatever pain is so severe that they don't want to live. It's not fair. Forcing them to live through that is a terrible sentence.

Now, I'm all for getting people out of that situation, but you can't get out of there by force, you have to finish processing the origin/cause of the depression.

As for responding to a suicide message on IRC, it is a call for help. Their compensatory abilities to fight the depression have been exhausted, and they need external help. The proper thing to do is respond.

For programmers it can be pretty bad, especially in open source projects. Most of their daily lives are connected to very distant people with little emotional connection -- it's pretty draining if you don't have other parts of your life to counterbalance. It takes up time and energy that could be used for activities which provide better emotional support. The lack of basic emotional feedback for all the effort put in can really make things worse.

I don't know Tony at all, and in theory I do support a person's right to end their life if they wish. However, if I were in the channel at the time, I would do exactly what the channel participants did - immediately try to contact Tony, people close to him (or anyone that might know him), and the authorities.

Somehow there is a distinct difference between philosophising about the right to suicide, and a very real, specific case of a fellow human being in distress. I don't know why I feel this way, but I have a very deep feeling that this is the right thing to do.

People may have a right to kill themselves, but they don't have a right to kill themselves on a whim or without discussing it with their loved ones first.

My grandfather died from a terminal illness with unbearable pain. Had he decided to end his life rather than ride out his illness, I wouldn't have denied him that right. Maybe I would have tried to talk him out of it, but, witnessing how much he suffered, maybe I wouldn't have. I certainly wouldn't have prevented other family members from trying to talk him out of it.

I don't know whether Tony's wife and young children were aware of his intentions. If they weren't, surely they have a right to try to talk him out of it. In the absence of such information, launching a search party was the right thing to do.

It's kind of strange talking about the right to kill oneself. Of course, we mean that each of us is the master of our fate but it just sounds strange to read that someone has a right to kill oneself. If one didn't, what would happen if one ignored the fact that he doesn't have right to do it?

Anyway, I'd say it this way. I have never been there when I thought there's no other way out, maybe for a fraction of time but that may indicate I've never been in situations where people like Tony have been. So I can't really say with certainty how I'd behave in a situation like that but I can say this: The life isn't just a possession, it's, as far as we know, a remarkable gift and since nobody knows for sure what's beyond that, it's really tricky thinking whether it's better to--just not be any more. Are we sure we would be better off if we just weren't alive anymore? This brings in a lot more questions and answers depend solely upon what you believe. I believe I will always be better off by being rather than not being, until of course the time comes for that. A friend of mine, God I don't know how he's now, used to half joke saying he likes to feel pain every morning even though he could barely dress himself and function normally due to his illness, but feeling pain every morning meant that he is still alive.

But as someone already said here, what Tony did prior to disappearing was a clear call for help, even though maybe not so clear to himself. I'm hoping he finds the strength to fight indefinitely now that he can clearly see the support he has from his friends and community. I wish people close to him realize what he needs most right now is support and understanding for his condition, no matter what some people say. No one can tell for sure what he feels. A life is a serious matter, not to be taken lightly. Unfortunately, too many people find out about that too late.

Thank God, thanks Brad for letting us know.

Don't down vote him simply because you don't agree with him. Leave an intelligent and thoughtful reply instead.

Upvoted to balance it out.

"There's no evidence to believe "Dr Hibbert"'s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr_Hibbert) message is factual."

http://www.nabble.com/forum/ViewPost.jtp?post=22471998&f...