Ted was a very intelligent math professor whiz.

He thought that machines and industrial society was becoming a negative for humanity.

Was he right? How many threads on HN have we been having about highly increasing depression, anxiety, hopelessness, deaths of despair, falling fertility, now possible mass unemployment, and real existential threats from AGI?

If he was right and didn't do what he did, would anyone be reading and digesting those facts and considering stopping the madness? Trolley problem.