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.