Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I've thought of suicide. Not "seriously," but it's crossed my mind. If it happens again, get help. I'm quite serious.
It's not your job to give this sort of advice to people here. It's not some sort of mental disfigurement to think about these things you know. He and everyone else has the right to explore and experience unhappiness. And anyway, by fixating on a peripheral detail of his post you derail the conversation and force him into a rather supplicatory posture. Not cool.
Aaron Swartz commits suicide
231–240 of 583 posts
Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide
#232Man this so sucks. If you hit someone with enough felony counts sooner or later something can snap. This in response to those that claim the DOJ didn't have anything to do with Aaron killing himself. For some people the mere fact of being suspected of a crime they didn't commit is enough to push them over the edge. When you're placed in a holding cell the police will remove your laces from your boots so you don't han…
> If you hit someone with enough felony counts sooner or later something will snap. Can we stop the speculations until we actually know what happened? :-(
No, because:
1) we'll never know what "really happened" (even if he had left a note stating a reason one can never know if something not mentioned also weighted on him psychologically)
2) speculation is, counter to what some may think, productive. For example, it gets you questioning stuff like the legal system in the comment above.
Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide
#233Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
This would be a perfect opportunity for a White House pardon.
Those are only available to the guilty.
Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide
#235It's easy to deride suicide but fact of the matter is that it is the final but a very powerful option we have at our disposal. Instead of saying that a particular person should not have committed suicide, our hope should be that if a suicide happens, it is well thought through and is not done in haste. If a particular person decides that decades of painful life is much worse than simply ending the existence, who are…
All this as a long ways to get around to saying: I disagree with anything that may consider suicide appropriate in any situation as one persons personal decision and situation becomes an example or model that someone in a similar situation could look to. But, I also don't think anyone should say a particular person should not have committed suicide. Instead, what should be said is a particular person should not have felt the need to commit suicide.
Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide
#236Aaron suffered from a brain disorder. He had documented periods of extreme withdrawn depression and others of mild manic productivity. Because of that brain disorder, perhaps because it was not attacked with the requisite treatment, he is dead. If you or a loved one are ever feeling suicidal, depressed, or are acting abnormally erratic, contact an expert. It's nothing to be ashamed about. It's just a lottery of genet…
Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
Context certainly matters. Depressed people are not perfectly rational agents. By the time you are contemplating suicide, it's not even close. And depression is a factor in almost every suicide. Depression is insidious because it makes all the alternatives to suicide seem much more difficult than they actually are.
This is right. I'm shocked at the "suicide apologists" in this thread.
I am often accused in such discussions of being an offender against some wishy-washy personal development program ("just give depression a chance, what's the worst that could happen?").
Or of being a shill for some evil master-conspiracy to turn everyone into zombies.
Or ... well lots of things, really.
I honestly don't give a fuck.
The results are in:
Treatment. Saves. Lives.
One of these days, someone will read one of my endless simple, spammy messages about seeking help and it will make them less likely to die, because they will get help.
So you know what? I think I will keep going.
Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I've thought of suicide. Not "seriously," but it's crossed my mind. If it happens again, get help. I'm quite serious.
Some of the first sensible advice I've read in this thread. I'm slightly disgusted by the sheer quantity of comments on how suicide can be "right" and how he was "pushed into it". Suicide is never, never the answer, it can just seem like it sometimes when you are very, very low.
Basically depression so completely fucks with your head that it seems like the only option left.
Not: "this seems like a great idea".
But rather: "this is the only thing left to do".
And it's not true.
Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
I beg to differ from what you are saying. I do understand your point though, but let me give you another picture. And this I say from personal experience. People around the world go through tough times. For some the path is eased by good friends, family, "miracles", etc. For others the path becomes too difficult to tackle. In the end the person chooses not to fight any longer. As much as we should respect this decisi…
>Every person who has every felt disturbed and suicidal and did not take the step, probably feels good about not taking the step. This is the ultimate example of survivorship bias. Please don't use this line of "argument." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
In this case, lets consider all humans who ever considered suicide. Now, while it's true that we can only observe those who did not commit suicide, we do have a substantial amount of data on humans in general that we can work from. If this claim has you skeptical (ie "successful suicides are a separate reference class"), I will remind you we have data on suicidal people who were forcibly restrained, which you are encouraged to look up.
So now let's look at the core of brainless' argument: people change with time. If you look at happiness rates for quadriplegic patients (or any of the hedonic treadmill research), you'll see that your happiness levels aren't so impacted by life events. This effect is present in both the population of completed suicides, and aborted suicides, and is likely a lot of the causal force brainless is trying to reference.
Which is to say that it's highly likely that people who kill themselves counterfactually wish they didn't.
Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide
#240Man this so sucks. If you hit someone with enough felony counts sooner or later something can snap. This in response to those that claim the DOJ didn't have anything to do with Aaron killing himself. For some people the mere fact of being suspected of a crime they didn't commit is enough to push them over the edge. When you're placed in a holding cell the police will remove your laces from your boots so you don't han…