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A comment on Leave no trace: how a teenage hacker lost himself online. Parent comment

Re:Leave no trace: how a teenage hacker lost himself online by hitekker on Monday October 18, 2021 @01:54AM (#28902646)
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

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Leave no trace: how a teenage hacker lost himself online by whatshisface on Monday October 18, 2021 @10:19AM (#28905663)
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.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Leave no trace: how a teenage hacker lost himself online by hitekker on Monday October 18, 2021 @10:27AM (#28905744)
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.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Leave no trace: how a teenage hacker lost himself online by whatshisface on Monday October 18, 2021 @10:30AM (#28905772)
Do you know what would have saved this kid? If not, you're as skeptical as I am.
[ Parent | on HN ]