• BlackDragon@slrpnk.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    19
    ·
    5 hours ago

    McAfee was a perfectly competent programmer in the 80s and 90s. I think by the time most people heard of him he had already fried the part of his brain responsible for programming with copious amounts of every drug.

    I’d still take him over Musk any day.

    • yermaw@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      5 hours ago

      Coming at it with next to no knowledge, but i was under the impression that McAfee was more of a self-parody. Like he was just fucking around but never actually had delusions of grandeur or anything.

      • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        31 minutes ago

        Behind the Bastards did a show on him. My memory is fuzzy on the specifics, and holy shit was it complicated trying to find out the information without listening to the episode(s) again, but no, he wasn’t just a silly self-parody and stepped over the line to be a piece of shit.

        Allegations against him:

        • Person of interest in the murder of his neighbour (that he was known to be hostile with) in Belize. He eventually fled the country when he became a person of interest.
        • Another time when his compound was raided on suspicion of manufacturing meth, he answered the door armed and naked (ok, that goes along with the parody bit) and authorities found a terrified 17-year-old in his bed.
        • This wasn’t a one off thing, based on what other visitors have said was going on when they were there.
        • Nanette Burnstein made a documentary about him. She was in contact with him and visited his compound at one point. When she told him she wanted to leave, he raped her before allowing her to go.

        So yeah, it wasn’t all just silly running for president while living on a boat he frequently searched for stowaway spies due to deep paranoia (combined with knowing that he’d done things to make it realistic that authorities might really be trying to get him) and making shirtless videos while heavily armed. But I did think the same as you before hearing that episode.