It's hard to question your own identity. If this article had described a social media addiction, a gaming addiction, or any kind of digital addiction that did not involve the word "hacking", I think we would be a lot less ambivalent and much more certain about the roads not taken.

Compare the discussions on the first two topics…

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1634536577&dateRange=custom&...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1634536625&dateRange=custom&...

… to the topics on "hacking addiction" or "hackers addiction" or "hackers addict":

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1634536625&dateRange=custom&...

As it turns out, only one article on HN is about hacking addiction and its description predicts the behavior of the young man described in the article: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Sv8IHkBtBEXjSW7WktEY...

The claims of the ex-hacker corresponds well with this article too: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37752800

I would be equally skeptical of any claim about gaming or social media addiction that proposed a course of action that we'd have no way of knowing worked.

Yeah, it's hard to know anything that contradicts your identity, which Paul Graham (the founder of HN) alluded to in his piece:

http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html

When people call us out on it, our first instinct is denial, to profess ignorance of outcomes and to assert our largely imaginary objectivity and skepticism.

Do you know what would have saved this kid? If not, you're as skeptical as I am.