This is sad and tragic but ultimately I don't think Mongo bares any responsibility here. If her partner left her while she was having a prolonged mental health crisis, would her partner be to blame for her suicide? I would argue: no.
I'm not American, and neither am I a lawyer, but the elephant in the room is that the workplace is responsible for health insurance, hence terminating her effectively removes her ability to get treatment, too.
Especially in this context, where she asked for at least a minor extension to finish her treatment.
I suspect the parents have a solid chance of winning this because the health insurance is linked, otherwise I'd completely agree with your opinion. An employer shouldn't be responsible for mothering their employees. It creates perverse incentives on both sides of the contract
Why shouldn't her medical providers be responsible for continuing critical health care regardless of payment? Why is it on the employer who is only tangentially related to this versus the people actually charging large sums of money for medically necessary treatment?
Also, the same health insurance can be continued after termination (with some external payment, of course) in addition to medicaid probably being available. None of that may be easy for someone with mental issues to navigate, but that is systematic.
As for the minor extension, is it clear how long she was on leave and what the conversation had been before the termination? The post said that they asked for small time extension, but did not give any indication as to what was happening before, neither length of time employed before taking the leave, what caused the leave, what was said in terms of a return, how long the absence was, etc. I feel like plugging in different answers for those questions would change how I feel about the culpability of the company in the current legal regime.
The usual answer is that there are other people who also need things and cannot pay, so then how should the provider pick between them fairly? (And likely some have a "free clinic", and as you mentioned there are options.)
Still almost all of the responsibility is on the patient, which is a terrible situation to be in for mental health patients. And even if the courts will find that the termination was wrongful it's unlikely that matters, because employers are not responsible for keeping employees alive and happy, they are responsible for making the usual safety precautions (see OSHA) and disability accommodations.
All the great perks of our cherished individualism suck when you have no one to enjoy them with.
At home, on my side projects it's made me 2x to 4x.
At work, also 2x to 4x.
The numbers would be even higher (4x to 8x) if I didn't spend half the time correcting slop and carefully steering the AI toward the desired solution when it gets sidetracked. But then again, I was also guilty of those things so maybe it's an even score?
Perhaps it's partly psychological in that using it forces me to think through the problems I'm trying to solve differently than before. Perhaps I'm just a mediocre dev and the AI is bringing me up to "slightly above average," but a win is a win and I'll take it.
No. The absence of evidence is not evidence of presence. There are solid scientific reasons to suspect we might be alone in our local volume of the universe. IMHO, these reasons now outweigh the arguments in favour of alien intelligence. The default scientific position is skepticism. It is an abundance of proof that is required to overcome it, not "belief." Belief in the absence of evidence is not a scientific position.
I do find it to be a curious coincidence that "belief" in aliens visiting earth shares so many characteristics with devout religious belief. Just replace OP's references to aliens with references to the deity of choice and you'll get the idea.
Wait until you find out that's it's not just AI, or even tech. Everywhere you look, you'll find groups, businesses and organizations being run mostly by people who are just winging it and one or two who actually know what they're doing. Ever seen a cashier struggle to calculate change, or had a doctor misdiagnose? Something something Pareto Principle.
Anecdotally: Many years ago, I spent several months in the hospital and trauma rehabilitation due to a spinal cord injury. Roughly half of the SCI patients were from water-related accidents (ie: diving into shallow water). The other half were from motorcycle accidents. And about 50% of the amputations were from motorcycle accidents (the other half from diabetes).
Granted, I only interacted with a small sample of patients during my stay - only a few dozen. But the staff certainly gave the impression this was business as usual for them. I had no idea until I was face to face with it. There really is no substitute for being protected by a metal shell and protective airbags.
I agree with you on the importance of privacy. But if people can't muster enough outrage to leave Gmail, FB, IG, etc., then I'm afraid the answer to your questions might be "yes."
Last time I checked, hacking was still a crime in most jurisdictions - even if the target is considered a geopolitical adversary. This sort of activity is also against the Proton ToS. Once KrCERT and Proton were alerted to this activity, they would have been legally obligated to act.
That's not to say I feel any sympathy to the target - who by all counts has done a fair bit of damage. But this sort of hacktivism / vigilantism simply isn't helpful. There's a high likelihood that one or more nation states / law enforcement agencies may have had active operations directed against this threat actor derailed by such activity.
tl;dr - If you're going to conduct such activities, practice proper OPSEC. And don't let your desire for attention / recognition take priority over staying on the right side of the law.
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