Zed's material on Buddhism was a response to John Resig's "Eulogy to _why" in-which he excuses _why's behavior with an analogy to a Buddhist tradition.
I know, but he pins it on _why and uses it as an excuse to call him a filthy, awful Nihilist.
I agreed with Resig's eulogy, actually: It seems like _why would view his role in those terms. So what happens is, all of us see only _why disappearing and taking everything with him. In that context, he's being a nihilist. But from _why's perspective, he changed the community he was in for the better, and has chosen to go on. So he has left things behind - the salvaged programs, the Guide - and has himself moved on to something. We don't know what that something is. It's nihilist if you assume that his point was to disappear and destroy, but if he's moving on by using the things he's learned as _why, then it's a transformation and a celebration in just the way Resig described.
This is why Zed describes _why as a good person currently being a dick. He is explicitly very supportive of the notion of destroying parts of your life that are causing you suffering, but what he is calling out is the unnecessary harm he has caused to others, and Resig's mischaracterization of it.
Resig is well-meaning, but he's abusing the analogy by relating _why's work to a sand mandala. A sand mandala is not just symbolic--it's ceremonial, it's expected, and nobody gets hurt when it's destroyed. _why's disappearance was not ceremonial, was not expected, and did hurt people. It reflects the notion of impermanence, but that that is neither the totality of Buddhism nor an idea exclusive to Buddhism. Absent the notion of karma (or some other check), impermanence implies Nihilism, and it's a gross distortion of Buddhism to suggest that any suffering you cause for others in the name of impermanence is ok as long as you grow individually.
Zed is doing what so many are unwilling to, which is to point out that even though we all love _why and can all agree that he had the right to do what was good for him, it's still a dick move to hurt people in the process, and he could have handled it better. _why could have accomplished the same thing without hurting anybody. That might have rightly been called a Buddhist act, and fit for praise. But what is actually happening is that people forgive _why for the trouble that his exit has caused because they like him.
Rush to judgement? Yes, I'm unwilling to do that, especially publicly and without any reasonable justification for my own self-involvement with the issue.
Where is the "rush to judgement"? Zed's post is mostly in response to Resig's "eulogy", which itself assumes that _why pulled his stuff deliberately. He's only agreeing with that premise (with praise) and disagreeing with the all-positive conclusion wrought from that premise. Again: the only unconfirmed assumption here is one that most people including the author being responded to have made.
Also, we're talking about something Zed posted to his own personal blog. Is Zed not allowed to post what he thinks to his own personal blog? What "reasonable justification" is required to publish your own opinion on the internet?
