[optimalsolver]

That they were harassing and manipulating a lone, unthanked maintainer who had already told them he was dealing with mental issues makes them evil, IMO.

The honorable thing for "Jia" to do after this epic failure is seppuku, or whatever his or her local equivalent is.

[cqqxo4zV46cp]

Nobody sees themselves as the bad guy, and that’s not the same as “some people are just fundamentally selfish”. There are definitely loads of people that’d feel like the end justifies the means. There are plenty of people for whom a workday involves doing far worse things for the world than cyberbullying one person, and will look you in the eye and justify it. Plenty of that stuff is socially acceptable in many many mainstream circles. “Being mean to a maintainer” is just one that this community is especially sensitive to, because it involves a highly personified victim that they can relate to.

[optimalsolver]

These maintainers add vast amounts of value to the modern world, though most of the people that benefit indirectly from their work can't really conceive of what it is they do.

People like "Jia" are pure parasites. It's one of the best cases of "why we can't have nice things" I've ever seen.

[qweqwe14]

Yeah, they add vast amounts of "value", including (accidentally) reinforcing the status-quo.

It would definitely be interesting to see what would happen if the attack wasn't noticed, but instead people focus their interest on attacking Jia Tan because "wow, that guy is one hell of an asshole, it sure is a great thing that he failed!".

Whether or not this attack was the rare one that failed out of many similar ones is largely irrelevant to people. Quick, discuss this one particular case where we noticed it, news flash and all.

> People like "Jia" are pure parasites

They are "parasites" because they don't do what they are "supposed to"? That's pretty crazy. I guess every person that's doing what matches their interests is somehow a bad person/parasite/etc. Or is that only if what they do is forbidden by some rule book? Do you see what I'm getting at here?

"pls sir dont create linux backdoar"

[optimalsolver]

>I guess every person that's doing what matches their interests is somehow a bad person/parasite/etc

If they inflict harm on their fellow humans in order to do so, then literally yes.

There's a reason why a society will collapse if you have too many of this type of person.

[qweqwe14]

HFT is also harmful, and so are the majority of startups that don't do anything actually useful and just take VC money. Those are just a few examples off the top of my head.

What I'm saying is that there are a lot more technically legal ways to profit that harm society, some of them more nefarious than what Jia Tan did.

Doing things that are bad for the society in a fucked up society seems justifiable. It doesn't necessarily make you a bad person.

People just have a more averse reaction to things that are obviously bad, even if in practice there are way worse things that initially seem innocuous and are actually legal to do. That's just the textbook example of hypocrisy.