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Comment by abalashov | Hacker News Reader

I suppose many would consider this both indecorous and perverse, but I really am curious about the cause of death in cases such as these. It is usually omitted in cases of suicide or some particularly nuanced, possibly embarrassing disease.

I don't care about specifics, I am just disturbed when all reports tiptoe around the cause of death as if it just "spontaneously" happened to a man who was merely 64.

It sounds from some of his recent public writings like he may have been struggling with a terminal disease, but not being an associate of his, I have no way of knowing that.

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People die at all ages and for all kinds of reasons. If your curiosity is morbid, you can probably hunt around for it. If you have respect for others privacy, you'll accept the information given.

Obituaries should celebrate a life, not explain a death.

It is not unhealthy or insensitive (which is what "morbid" means) to know cause of death.

Knowing cause of death has value for public discussion about policy, health, and medicine. Even if it's something like suicide or AIDS, we'll know that we should be paying more attention to preventing those.

IMDB and Wikipedia always list cause of death when it's known. Are they morbid too?

The obituary writer is free to write it any way he wants, but you seem to be arguing that it's wrong to include the cause of death. The reason we're reading this particular obituary at all is because we want to know more about the person. How is a list of surviving relatives, his home town, or age any more relevant or important to mention than cause of death?

The cause of death is important to know in the aggregate: 1 person died last year in the United States from alien laser beams.

In the specific, it's morbid, yes.

Obituaries should celebrate a life, not explain a death.

I agree, but I don't think mentioning or making an allusion to a cause of death and then going on to talk about the person's life for 98% of the text really undermines that mission.

I suppose that decision is up to the obituary writer.

I fully agree with you. I too can not do with partial information, especially in such matters - when the news is disturbing like death.

Particularly, if its a case of a young person dying, not knowing the reason can haunt you for some time. And few times, I have felt the shock has diminished a bit, once you know the cause of death.

But that said, if the family and friends conceal something because the deceased person wanted to, then that's also perfectly understandable.

In some cases it can be hard to tell. When one friend of mine died, it was months before we were able to conclude for certain that it wasn't a suicide.

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