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this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2026
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TechTakes
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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.
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Damn, I didn't expect to run into something that would cause me to reflect so heavily on my own personal journey. I'm someone who has long struggled with suicidal ideation, and there have been points in the past where I set my own death date at a point in the future; Most notably, when I was a severely depressed teenager in an emotionally unsafe household, I told myself that I would allow myself to die at age 20, if nothing had improved by the time I was 20 — and fuck anyone who would begrudge me that.
Ironically, planning my suicide saved my life, because it gave me something concrete to work towards, a future respite to latch onto during my most challenging days. The screenshot you shared made me realise that this was sort of a sollipsistic millenarianism, giving me a sense of structure and direction in a world where I'd have otherwise been too overwhelmed to do anything.
I'm doing much better now than I was then, quite a few years on from that deadline I set for myself. However, I still sometimes have those low points where planning to die feels more accessible than planning a tolerable life. I think it'd be useful to thoroughly reflect on this tendency through the lens of millenarianism.
This is all to say thanks, I guess? For introducing me to a new concept that will be useful in this way
I'm no longer suicidal, but the knowledge that some day I'm going to die and be free of all this misery is pretty much the only thing that keeps me going. been true my whole life. i can understand millenarianism being motivated by that, or seeing that as a form of millenarianism.
but i don't think roon understands the sort of motivation we're talking about at all. to him millenarianism is a principle for motivating individuals to reorder society or themselves. that's quite a different thing than the preserving and protective mechanism you're talking about