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Missing Internet Pioneer Phil Agre found alive (NPR)
NPR reports
that Phil Agre has been located, or at least temporarily contacted.
"Well, apparently the search is over. The UCLA police department has updated their missing persons bulletin for Agre with the following news: "Philip Agre was located by LA County Sheriff's Department on January 16, 2010 and is in good health and is self sufficient."
This rather terse statement doesn't go into any further detail, so it doesn't shed any more light on what Agre has been doing in recent months, except confirming that Agre had indeed gone off the grid rather than being harmed."
(Thanks to Jay R. Ashworth).
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What about the freedom to change one's life ? Posted Feb 4, 2010 8:32 UTC (Thu) by Alterego (subscriber, #55989) [Link]
Well, he seems safe enought.
Why not just leave him in real life, you know this weird place where people talk and meet physically, don't say they know each other before a long time as passed ...
Missing Internet Pioneer Phil Agre found alive (NPR) Posted Feb 4, 2010 14:43 UTC (Thu) by Baylink (subscriber, #755) [Link]
NPR posted a folo:
UPDATE, 1/31, 6:55pm: I received an email from one of the people who has actively been involved in the search for Phil, and she isn't satisfied with the information released by the police. "For several reasons we cannot provide details, but what we can tell you is that the police did talk with Phil for a few minutes," she said. "Police standards for removing a missing persons notice is quite minimal. Those of us guiding the search for Phil have more detailed information about the interaction between the officer and Phil that is not being made public. The information we did receive gave us no evidence that he is actually "safe". Therefore we are continuing to search for him."
So... the situation may remain a bit more confused than initially seemed indicated.
And as for the "should we really be looking for him" issue, the American social contract tends to say, roughly, that if you're an active part of a community, and you drop off the face of the earth *with no notice*, people should worry, and look into it.
All that's necessary to tip the presumption in the other direction is "I'm going off the grid for a while; hope to be back." You're not required to say why or where, but if you don't say "that", then yes, people are going to worry and look into it... if you're lucky.
Missing Internet Pioneer Phil Agre found alive (NPR) Posted Feb 5, 2010 12:24 UTC (Fri) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]
Sometimes people decide to disappear. The Police (and indeed many Missing Persons charities) are content if they discover that they have left of their own volition, there's no reason to intervene. Often family and friends, and even mere acquaintances find this hard to understand, but it's really not their right to have another person account for such a decision let alone to argue with them about it.
I am reminded of this: (from Greg Egan's Diaspora)
"That was the price of autonomy: an inalienable right to madness and suffering, inseparable from the right to solitude and peace."
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