See, if McAfee says the right things, I think he'd end up doing well - as well as a fringe/joke candidate could do. He's pro-gun and quite anti-government. If Trump can do it, why not McAfee?
And the scrolling seems off or hijacked in some way, on the "How to Vote" page, it's the digital equivalent of having your breaks cut.
The Trump phenomenon is built on three decades of national, tabloid level fame. His name and image recognition is the primary reason he's out in front of the other mostly bland or non-recognizable candidates (not to mention the obvious anti-establishment thing going on that has been much discussed).
McAfee can't do what Trump is doing, because he's not actually famous on any meaningful scale. Relatively few Americans know who he is or would recognize him. They also would be unlikely to automatically associate the name with the anti-virus product, "McAfee" means nothing to most of the population. Practically anyone in the US born between 1940 and 2000 knows who Donald Trump is.
Even though I know who he is, at a very basic level, McAfee is the annoying anti-virus I can't disable at work, and the only time I have to deal with it, is when my computer is grinding to halt.
Yeah, he sold the company a long time ago and doesn't like where it's headed/doesn't want to be associated with it. Then again, Intel is renaming it to Intel Security; I guess because they don't want to be associated with him either.
I think the most the average American knows about him is that he was fleeing the country because he was being investigated for murder and that he was behaving strangely. I am not sure that the majority of people would look into it any further.
>> His name and image recognition is the primary reason he's out in front of the other mostly bland or non-recognizable candidates.
Perhaps initially, but its not true now.
The reason Trump is killing it in the poles is that he can't be bought, and he doesn't pull punches and he speaks his mind. Something people who are fed up with the political correctness have been starving for. He's also resonating because he's talking about doing things voters want to hear - securing the border, getting tough with China, creating jobs, and taking out ISIS.
I think the public is breaking down into 3 groups.
1. The people who like what the Democrats under Obama have been doing. They are likely to support Clinton or Sanders at this point... or Biden or Gore or Kerry, etc. should one of them get drafted. They won't be interest in Trump, who is attacking their guy.
2. The people who consider themselves Democrat but aren't crazy about what the party has been doing the last 6 years.
3. The people who definitely don't like what the Democrats are doing and are voting Republican to try to change things. Actual conservatives are completely disillusioned with the GOP and people who see them as a way to check the Democrats are also being very let down. But, when you only have two evils, you have to figure out which is the lesser.
4. Establishment Republicans who like the status quo.
Group 4 consists of people in office and U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other interests who are milking the system, but can be discounted in terms of actual votes (but not in terms of their very powerful influence). They are backing Jeb Bush and definitely don't like Trump.
Group 1 also won't be interested in Trump.
Group 2 may be attracted by Trump.
Group 3 will probably be attracted by Trump, and like him (like me) even if they (also like me) don't think he'd actually be a good President. Trump, despite his flaws, is a much better cheerleader for the GOP than almost anyone inside the GOP.
Group 2 and 3 are most of the country. If you don't, there is no good alternative because the Republicans have pretty much pre-emptively surrendered on everything and it's clear the party honchos like the establishment guy (Bush).
So who can you look to? Trump plays the media like a fiddle, and he's naturally attracting most of the attention, but Carson, another non-politician is #2 in the polls. Fiorina is rising quickly as well.
AFAIK he was never really under suspicion. But being possibly paranoid he thought he was, and he didn't trust Belize justice system (and is possibly right about that).
An actual quote reported by an actual journalist who was actually there at the time and actually heard from the lips of "Marco Vidal, the head of Belize’s Gang Suppression Unit": McAfee is a “prime suspect” in Faull’s death.
> Raphael Martinez of Belize's Ministry of National Security said no charges had been filed in the case and Mr McAfee was simply "a person of interest".
> "It's too early in the investigation," he told the Associated Press. "To say he is a suspect would be a bold statement."
And in 2015 "not a person of interest anymore".
If they had anything tangible, why wasn't he charged?
He says the government was harassing him for bribes, shot his favorite dog, and burned his house down. Since he's already out of the country and out of their hair, they might not want to drag all that back up.
It was hinted in an interview that it was his girlfriend rather than him (the same one who tried to shoot McAfee in the head). I cannot remember where I found the interview, it was somewhere on YouTube. Does anyone have a link to that?
A journalist who was uncomfortably close to McAfee around the time it happened wrote this article which is clearly intended to leave the girlfriend as the most likely suspect (and McAfee or one of his other associates as the second most likely).
http://www.wired.com/2012/12/ff-john-mcafees-last-stand/
TLDR version: mentally unstable teenage girlfriend described as repeatedly wanting people killed (including - according to both parties - shooting at McAfee at one stage) and explicit statements that she would kill people if they killed her dog or if asked to by McAfee. Neighbour who had complained about McAfee's dogs killed the day after the dogs are reportedly poisoned.
Reading the descriptions of some of McAfee's other activities, the only real surprise in the whole tale that it took Belize security forces so long to go after him.
I'll vote for McAfee if he promises to make her our First Lady. I'm tired of First Ladies who are genteel and urbane and just want to get along. It's time for a First Lady who will take charge and kick ass!
I'm a big fan of his Slashdot AMA, which he mostly spends informing you about the best ways to bribe policemen and smuggle drugs while you're in Central America.
Maybe he was genuinely fed up with the MacAfee antivirus, people associating him with it, so he made the video so Intel would not want to share the name of their product with him.
That's a pretty smart move. Sex, drug, weapons... A bunch of things a respectable company wouldn't want to be associated to.
I don't know what problem people have with him... Imagine he was serious about the campaign...
>He is a murderer
Well that is still not proven and the government of Belize is not exactly the most trustworthy entity about this, so in no way is it this clear. Even if it was true, let's face it - after their presidency, every former president is a murderer.
>He is a lunatic and insane
And Hillary Clinton is not?
>He is paranoid
Well at least he's more paranoid about the STATE than about the CITIZENS so that would sway things around a bit.
However, I'd love to hear his stance on abortion, gay marriage, etc. I presume he'd be quite liberal, again, a point for him.
...should I feel guilty for fantasizing an apocalyptic WW3 scenario with the USA lead by MacAfee and Russia led by Putin? the world would turn to ashes, but boy it would be fun to watch :)
Yeah I'm 99% sure that's a green screen video special effect. The origination of the backdrop I don't know but I can assure he was not in that room when the video was recorded.
Still, I would probably vote for anyone who isn't a warmonger (tragically, doesn't seem like either major party will nominate someone who fits this criterion)
I could get behind McAfee. I think I agree with him on his views on privacy and surveillance at least. I just need to know more about where he stands on foreign policy, taxation, and a few other things.
But I still think he'd have been better off pursuing the nomination of an established (albeit "3rd party") party than starting a new party from scratch this late in the game. That is, unless his ideology truly is completely different from that of any existing party.
The funny thing is that whomever becomes head of state, most of the system and it's influential players stay the same. Basically, the way I see it nothing changes, just a different face on the news.
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[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 116 ms ] threadAnd the scrolling seems off or hijacked in some way, on the "How to Vote" page, it's the digital equivalent of having your breaks cut.
McAfee can't do what Trump is doing, because he's not actually famous on any meaningful scale. Relatively few Americans know who he is or would recognize him. They also would be unlikely to automatically associate the name with the anti-virus product, "McAfee" means nothing to most of the population. Practically anyone in the US born between 1940 and 2000 knows who Donald Trump is.
Not the best name association.
I think the most the average American knows about him is that he was fleeing the country because he was being investigated for murder and that he was behaving strangely. I am not sure that the majority of people would look into it any further.
Perhaps initially, but its not true now.
The reason Trump is killing it in the poles is that he can't be bought, and he doesn't pull punches and he speaks his mind. Something people who are fed up with the political correctness have been starving for. He's also resonating because he's talking about doing things voters want to hear - securing the border, getting tough with China, creating jobs, and taking out ISIS.
1. The people who like what the Democrats under Obama have been doing. They are likely to support Clinton or Sanders at this point... or Biden or Gore or Kerry, etc. should one of them get drafted. They won't be interest in Trump, who is attacking their guy.
2. The people who consider themselves Democrat but aren't crazy about what the party has been doing the last 6 years.
3. The people who definitely don't like what the Democrats are doing and are voting Republican to try to change things. Actual conservatives are completely disillusioned with the GOP and people who see them as a way to check the Democrats are also being very let down. But, when you only have two evils, you have to figure out which is the lesser.
4. Establishment Republicans who like the status quo.
Group 4 consists of people in office and U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other interests who are milking the system, but can be discounted in terms of actual votes (but not in terms of their very powerful influence). They are backing Jeb Bush and definitely don't like Trump.
Group 1 also won't be interested in Trump.
Group 2 may be attracted by Trump.
Group 3 will probably be attracted by Trump, and like him (like me) even if they (also like me) don't think he'd actually be a good President. Trump, despite his flaws, is a much better cheerleader for the GOP than almost anyone inside the GOP.
Group 2 and 3 are most of the country. If you don't, there is no good alternative because the Republicans have pretty much pre-emptively surrendered on everything and it's clear the party honchos like the establishment guy (Bush).
So who can you look to? Trump plays the media like a fiddle, and he's naturally attracting most of the attention, but Carson, another non-politician is #2 in the polls. Fiorina is rising quickly as well.
No one likes the GOP right now.
Correction - nobody likes the current two party system.
It is the ultimate conspicuous consumption item.
And there are various citations of unnamed Belize officials, stating that he's no longer even a person of interest in that case.
http://www.wired.com/2012/11/threatlevel_1112_mcafee/
> Raphael Martinez of Belize's Ministry of National Security said no charges had been filed in the case and Mr McAfee was simply "a person of interest".
> "It's too early in the investigation," he told the Associated Press. "To say he is a suspect would be a bold statement."
And in 2015 "not a person of interest anymore".
If they had anything tangible, why wasn't he charged?
TLDR version: mentally unstable teenage girlfriend described as repeatedly wanting people killed (including - according to both parties - shooting at McAfee at one stage) and explicit statements that she would kill people if they killed her dog or if asked to by McAfee. Neighbour who had complained about McAfee's dogs killed the day after the dogs are reportedly poisoned.
Looks even more unlikely to be coincidence when McAfee later independently asserts that actually he did believe the neighbour had poisoned his dogs shortly before being murdered https://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/3hr9f0/i_am_john_mc...
Reading the descriptions of some of McAfee's other activities, the only real surprise in the whole tale that it took Belize security forces so long to go after him.
[NSFW, Rated "R"] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpRvaQsGIY8
Edit: To clarify, the Uses This interview was done while he was being threatened in Belize. That's why it's all paranoid.
http://interviews.slashdot.org/story/14/04/06/2344201/interv...
> I would never run for office, neither would I want to be in office, of any kind. I would rather drive a nail through my foot.
That's a pretty smart move. Sex, drug, weapons... A bunch of things a respectable company wouldn't want to be associated to.
>He is a murderer
Well that is still not proven and the government of Belize is not exactly the most trustworthy entity about this, so in no way is it this clear. Even if it was true, let's face it - after their presidency, every former president is a murderer.
>He is a lunatic and insane
And Hillary Clinton is not?
>He is paranoid
Well at least he's more paranoid about the STATE than about the CITIZENS so that would sway things around a bit.
However, I'd love to hear his stance on abortion, gay marriage, etc. I presume he'd be quite liberal, again, a point for him.
But yeah, sadly, he doesn't even stand a chance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=246&v=sMz6GV3b1ys
Still, I would probably vote for anyone who isn't a warmonger (tragically, doesn't seem like either major party will nominate someone who fits this criterion)
But I still think he'd have been better off pursuing the nomination of an established (albeit "3rd party") party than starting a new party from scratch this late in the game. That is, unless his ideology truly is completely different from that of any existing party.
While I think that Stephen Colbert could make a fine president, John McAfee; while playing a similar game, could not.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10189288
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10190859