The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker

The article talks about his ability to be friendly to strangers but abusive to his long term acquaintances. I have observed this pattern and curious if anyone knows what drives this?<p>My personal theory is that you have some sort of obligations to long term acquaintances but you owe nothing to strangers on the trail. It&#x27;s this feeling of obligation that leads you to resent people over time.

Whenever I read a biography about some person I admire, I always end up disliking that person. Failed relationships and abandoned responsibilities are exceedingly common (especially among artists and people who are highly driven to success). I think that most of us have some “unsettling” details in our past. People are imperfect.<p>The allegations of physical and mental abuse here are particularly bad, and I’m not trying to make any excuses for Rodriguez. But they aren’t exactly uncommon in this world, either.<p>The tone of this article feels a little too judgmental to me. Like Rodriguez somehow had an obligation to all the people who were interested in his story, and has let them down. But is it really surprising that someone who died in such unusual conditions, with no friends or family to report him as missing, would have had a rough past?<p>The author also says at one point “maybe that’s the prettiest bow you can put on the box that contains this strange story”. But why should we as interested observers feel the need or be entitled to “put a bow” on this other man’s life?

Somehow I read this and I&#x27;m not sure what the actual Unsettling Truth was, but it still was interesting, I learned a few new things, and I&#x27;ve been following this one pretty close.<p>The more I read about this the more I&#x27;m reminded of Chris McCandless.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Chris_McCandless" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Chris_McCandless</a>

<i>Maybe Rodriguez’s story is similar to Cody’s. He was alone in a vast, unfamiliar city. He’d destroyed his relationships. He left his apartment in anger. And then, as he traversed the mountains, walking through sugar maple and oak, hickory and poplar, stepping over roots and rocks, he tamed his demons too. The many people who met him didn’t sense the dark, brooding, sometimes dangerous person who left Brooklyn.</i><p>People who decide to commit suicide sometimes appear to others to be feeling a lot better in the time between the decision and the final act. It can look externally like an upswing, like they&#x27;ve gained a new perspective and things aren&#x27;t weighing on them as heavily. It sounds like he was conscious that his behavior was bad for other people, and he didn&#x27;t believe he could change. That&#x27;s a terrible position to be in: to feel you can&#x27;t fully function in the presence of others but to feel their absence keenly as well, to be incapable of being with others without hurting them, but also incapable of being alone. I can&#x27;t imagine how bad it would have to be to starve yourself to death, but I can&#x27;t help wondering if that&#x27;s what he did.

Okay, this quote stood out -- <i>“He was a crazy good coder. Except he would always code everything the hardest way possible, kind of like you hired Rembrandt to paint your bathroom. You know it is going to be lit, but over the top.”</i><p>A good read and a good reminder that people are always much more complex than we think. I wonder sometimes if by being exposed so often to fairly flat depictions of characters in movies and on TV if folks forget that. I know I do sometimes.

Sounds like he was HFA (High-Functioning Autistic), with some extra Trauma Sauce.<p>It can be quite difficult for folks like this <i>(Disclaimer: IR1)</i> to find happiness. Crowds, high-stimulus environments, external expectations can be quite chafing.<p>It can also be tempting to latch onto external things and people, to try to heal something that can&#x27;t really be healed; but only mitigated (long story, but I went through that kind of thing, myself). I can understand anger, when they don&#x27;t &quot;fix&quot; us.<p>I can also relate to the &quot;sleep it off&quot; thing. It would be sort of like Miranda, in <i>Serenity</i>.<p>It&#x27;s a really sad story. There are quite a few people like that.

I would like to mention that Mostly Harmless&#x27;s identity and history were first reported by Jason Nark of Adventure Journal way back in December (and discussed on HN <i>[0]</i> at that time). His piece <i>[1]</i> is now fully updated to include the original article as well as the updates.<p>Nark isn&#x27;t credited in this particular Wired article (although he was credited in Thomson&#x27;s first article for Wired <i>[2]</i>). This is the despite the fact that Nark, as far as I can tell, wrote the first mainstream article about Mostly Harmless and also was the first reporter to determine his identity.<p>I suppose Nicholas Thomson must have researched it independently for this new wired piece, explaining why it&#x27;s being released so much later and with no mention of the reporter who &quot;broke&quot; the story.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=25526104" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=25526104</a><p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.adventure-journal.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;12&#x2F;the-mystery-of-deceased-hiker-mostly-harmless-is-at-long-last-solved&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.adventure-journal.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;12&#x2F;the-mystery-of-dec...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wired.com&#x2F;story&#x2F;nameless-hiker-mostly-harmless-internet-mystery&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wired.com&#x2F;story&#x2F;nameless-hiker-mostly-harmless-i...</a>

&gt; <i>Nothing Else Matters” by Metallica on the piano. “I could be quiet around him,” she wrote, “and it never felt awkward.”</i><p>Listen to a piano cover while you read the story: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=DmL12NRE4hQ" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=DmL12NRE4hQ</a><p>And if you liked this story, you will probably also like &quot;The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans&quot; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.otherhand.org&#x2F;home-page&#x2F;search-and-rescue&#x2F;the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.otherhand.org&#x2F;home-page&#x2F;search-and-rescue&#x2F;the-hu...</a>

&gt; It reminded everyone that it is still possible to disappear.<p>It&#x27;s possible to disappear if nobody is looking for you and you have enough cash. Even the latter is somewhat optional, it just means you are much less comfortable.<p>Fundamentally in this world, many (most?) of us are redundant. A person missing here or there is only missed if their social web is wide enough.

Does anyone remember a Wired (?) story from the earliest days about a teenager who got mixed up in a geek subculture and disappeared into sewers under the city? A quick search on their site didn&#x27;t really yield what I think I remember.

I see this story as extremely positive. Technology can bring closure to unknown number of families. Many cold cases will be solved. This is just the start.<p>&gt;A genomics company, Othram, had taken his DNA and started to do cutting-edge genetic analysis to identify him. Collier County had sent them a bone fragment; they had extracted the hiker’s DNA and then begun searching for genetic similarities among people in a database called GEDmatch to build a tree of potential relatives. They learned that the hiker had Cajun roots; that his family had come from Assumption Parish, Louisiana; and that there were family members with the name Rodriguez. The founder of the company, David Mittelman, went on Facebook to talk about the case. I bought Facebook ads on my personal page to promote my story in the region of Louisiana where I thought his relatives likely lived.

The graphic designer in me wants to flog whoever is responsible for that graphic at the top. The drop shadows go 3 different directions and the one on the taped paper has way too much offset.

From the article<p>&gt; It reminded everyone that it is still possible to disappear.<p>Actually, it did the opposite<p>&gt; No, she said. “I don&#x27;t think I was committed to Vance as a human. I detached myself as a person to Vance, in that I didn&#x27;t want to get too attached to a dead stranger. But I was committed to solving the case with others because it would be a great way to prove that people can do great things together.”<p>This sums up what I thought about the whole thing. The unsettling truth is that a man went off grid and strangers, looking for nothing more than a selfish desire to know, put him right back on it.

Was he abused by his father or something? Sounds like it should be investigated further. People usually don&#x27;t just become like this without a good reason.

If I had to live in a NYC apartment with an ex-girlfriend, I&#x27;d probably respond by disappearing into the woods, living away from civilization too.

AIUI, being shot in the gut is a long (it can take hours) and incredibly agonizing way to die. It appears he was not merciful on any substantive relationships, including with himself.

&gt; The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker<p>This is the &quot;unsettling truth&quot;, the last paragraph, we all been so Twitter&#x27;ed everyone needs to look for more -<p>&gt; Yet it’s hard not to look at this story with anything but sadness. The boy who raised his hand to get help from a passing truck—and whose body still bore the scar of that Louisiana field—had grown into the man who didn’t seek help as he died in a Florida swamp. A man was able to disappear in no small part because no one was looking for him. A man was harmed and maybe harmful. And then he went into the woods and became Mostly Harmless.

Is there an official term for people that appear to be charming and outgoing to strangers, but often moody and&#x2F;or distant to people they know well?

The more unsettling truth is how the world became interested in someone like him even though he was mostly an asshole. This article says more about human nature and our tendencies to make unwarranted assumptions based off of superficial qualities then it does about him.<p>Would he garner the same amount of attention if he wasn&#x27;t white or good looking?

repost? <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=25756931" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=25756931</a>

It&#x27;s only unsettling if you don&#x27;t believe in redemption.

In this thread: It’s Friday. We do the usual and judge someone we know nothing about, whom we have never met, and begin by call them an asshole and a psychopath. This is the top story on Hacker News. Brought to you by Wired, Inc.

TL;DR: This is about a hiker who went by the name Mostly Harmless who was found dead in his tent. No one knows how he died. That&#x27;s it. But for the unusual name, it seems safe to say that this would not be on the front page of HN.

This stuff is disturbing. These articles read like hit pieces. The guy can&#x27;t even defend himself and you have all these wild claims from supposed ex-girlfriends. It&#x27;s just bizarre. Let the guy lie in peace.

How is it unsettling? Everything in that article is, average for Americans. People just applied romantic notions to something they didn&#x27;t know, in attempt to understand. It got popular, people joined in, and the mystery was the thrill, the chase.<p>I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s any different from when you ask a person to describe their pet, they describe themselves.<p>The fearful part is, how, everyone, decided that in good faith, they should work together, to unlock this past vs just leaving it to the government.<p>This is a case where it seemed he didn&#x27;t like his parents, and probably didn&#x27;t want&#x2F;care to let them know of his demise.<p>His romantic life, same, probably didn&#x27;t care to know either.<p>But, Mystery solved? We did it Reddit! &#x2F;s