Aaron Swartz commits suicide • Hacker News Board

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#521

Post by gnosis » Sat, Jan 12, 2013, 9:32 PM UTC

pretoriusB wrote: post #241

icelancer wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. The idea that all suicides can be prevented "if only he would have gotten help" is such a trite and simple answer to a complex question. Other comments like "What a waste" and "This didn't need to happen" are borderline insulting. Whether someone realizes it or not, those are incredibly disrespectful comments.

> I have no illusion that therapy is magically going to stop all suicides. I think the very existence of "professional therapy" is a factor in FAVOR of depression and suicide. It means that as a society we have compartmentalised social life, so that the help one previously expected from his family/friends (and ultimately: from the way he can structure his life) is now to be had from paid professionals (or tacky volun…

"as a society we have compartmentalised social life, so that the help one previously expected from his family/friends (and ultimately: from the way he can structure his life) is now to be had from paid professionals (or tacky volunteers)"

What if the depressed person is estranged from his family and friends? Or what if he has none? What if he feels he can't talk to either?

You overestimate the help that family and friends can give, even if a depressed person is willing and able to go to them for help. They rarely have the training or understanding of human psychology to do more than provide the equivalent of first-aid.

Expecting family or friends to help someone overcome severe depression is like expecting them to be able to successfully perform surgery. Sure, if they happen to have significant medical training, they might succeed. But in most cases such expectations are completely unrealistic.

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#522

Post by Svoboda » Sat, Jan 12, 2013, 9:38 PM UTC

beadmomsw wrote: post #252

Thank you all for your kind words and thoughts. Aaron has been depressed about his case/upcoming trial, but we had no idea what he was going through was this painful. Aaron was a terrific young man. He contributed a lot to the world in his short life and I regret the loss of all the things he had yet to accomplish. As you can imagine, we all miss him dearly. The grief is unfathomable. Aaron's mother

My deepest sympathies for your loss.Aaron was a beacon of light and love and we will never forget him and what he taught us about sharing.

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#523

Post by pretoriusB » Sat, Jan 12, 2013, 9:38 PM UTC

pfortuny wrote: post #442

pretoriusB wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh, no you do not understand at all. Depression cannot be dealt with just with an 'ordinary and structured life': it is an illness. It has existed always. While there are cases of physiological depression (an actual illness) in the staggering majority of cases it's not an illness but an easy cop-out to deny any major wrong with societal structure and the modern way of life. "The fact that there are specialists" jus…

Well, it depends on what you understand by the word. It is obvious that in most cases, when one says "I feel depressed", he is just saying "I feel low", like "I'd like the Earth to swallow me", nobody means "I'd like to die" literally. However, I just wanted to point out that there are REAL depressions, as you acknowledge (my fear was that you were not acknowledging even this). So I see we agree but I had my fears.

>I just wanted to point out that there are REAL depressions

Ah, sure, we agree, there are real depressions.

I just wanted to point out that the absurd numbers of depressions one heres (up to 20-30% of the population) are based non on clinical conditions but on a personal life and/or society out of balance, and are fixable by fixing those, instead of treating the person.

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#524

Post by visarga » Sat, Jan 12, 2013, 9:39 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #111

monsterix wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we not know who exactly (their faces/names etc.) were the people working in the "US Attorney Office" bent to indict him? It's easy for people to term it was not JSTOR, it was the Attorney Office but ultimately these things happen only because people forget how to treat other people properly.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. While I'll agree it was overzealous to make a federal case out of this, you can't blame federal prosecutors for doing their fucking jobs just because someone kills themselves. Many people have survived federal prosecution without dying or killing themselves. I'm shocked and horrified by this news too. It's awful that Aaron died. But it's foolish to blame anybody but him for h…

> you can't blame federal prosecutors for doing their fucking jobs

Many people who committed atrocities were just following orders or doing their job.

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#525

Post by philwelch » Sat, Jan 12, 2013, 9:41 PM UTC

jrogers65 wrote: post #303

philwelch wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an essential part of the rule of law that prosecutors prosecute the law as it is, not as they, or we, wish it should be. They aren't the ones to blame for this. To whatever extent they are, we all are.

True, anyone who pays taxes has a hand in this. The issue is that deciding not to pay your taxes means that the dogs are set on you. This is not a free society, unfortunately. Perhaps bitcoin will change all of this. I've been contemplating the idea of a shadow economy where people work remotely and anonymously, getting paid in an anonymous currency and completely circumventing the current economic and political syst…

It's not an issue of paying taxes. We have a responsibility and a duty to control our government and our political systems and to direct them to the ends of justice. Whether or not we pay our taxes, we still have this duty.

That's what makes this so tragic. Aaron Swartz was one of the few people willing to actually do this, even when it meant poking at a sleeping bear, one that, in the end, he couldn't face.

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#526

Post by philwelch » Sat, Jan 12, 2013, 9:43 PM UTC

visarga wrote: post #524

philwelch wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. While I'll agree it was overzealous to make a federal case out of this, you can't blame federal prosecutors for doing their fucking jobs just because someone kills themselves. Many people have survived federal prosecution without dying or killing themselves. I'm shocked and horrified by this news too. It's awful that Aaron died. But it's foolish to blame anybody but him for h…

> you can't blame federal prosecutors for doing their fucking jobs Many people who committed atrocities were just following orders or doing their job.

Prosecuting someone for breaking laws against breaking into computer networks and violating copyright isn't an atrocity.

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#527

Post by pekk » Sat, Jan 12, 2013, 9:45 PM UTC

rprasad wrote: post #481

betterunix wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone with access to a university network has access to those documents. I have access to JSTOR also. What moral issue can you possibly raise with someone using their access to download these documents? It's OK to download 10, but not 1000000? Do you have a moral issue with automated downloads -- and if so, how can you justify JSTOR itself? It is worth noting that JSTOR did not want to press charges in this case. Af…

It's not a matter of restricting access to public knowledge; it's a matter of Aaron draining the village pool. Information shares all of the downsides of the public commons: because it is freely available, no one wants to pay for the maintenance costs. JSTOR charges fees for access to cover the ongoing maintenance costs associated with storing access to thousands of journals and millions of articles published over se…

You can't have a tragedy of the commons when the commons belongs to one company. JSTOR isn't a village pool unless it's public, which it isn't.

JSTOR's charges aren't at all proportional to the hosting cost. If they were only charging for hosting then they should be happy if people share the data without using their servers, but they aren't, so it is manifest that they are charging for more than the hosting.

Indexing articles for browsing and search is not a real problem if the information is made public. If other people want to help JSTOR with this, they are not allowed to because JSTOR keeps all this publicly-funded information proprietary in perpetuity

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#528

Post by madaxe » Sat, Jan 12, 2013, 9:48 PM UTC

aquateen wrote: post #401

madaxe wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In which case the prosecution should have realised he was a suicide risk and acted appropriately. They seemingly did not.

How would prosecutors go about that? Going through all his blog posts to look for depression? And that would be standard procedure for everyone they prosecute?

Psychiatric assessment is a routine element of any criminal case. At any rate, it is in the UK.

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#529

Post by gdltec » Sat, Jan 12, 2013, 10:15 PM UTC

beadmomsw wrote: post #252

Thank you all for your kind words and thoughts. Aaron has been depressed about his case/upcoming trial, but we had no idea what he was going through was this painful. Aaron was a terrific young man. He contributed a lot to the world in his short life and I regret the loss of all the things he had yet to accomplish. As you can imagine, we all miss him dearly. The grief is unfathomable. Aaron's mother

Sorry for your loss.

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#530

Post by Zaknafein88 » Sat, Jan 12, 2013, 10:16 PM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #155

jspthrowaway2 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has a point, though. It's pretty conservative to say "get help" for every thought about suicide. I think there's a difference between thinking about doing it or, say, wondering what death is like or whether you'd have the stones to go through with it. Honestly, I wonder what death is like a lot. That being said , I tend to agree with you to be more conservative, but I've had similar thoughts as the guy you're repl…

I drive the conservative line because suicidal ideation is a symptom of depression and depression is a good predictor of suicide (and bloody unpleasant in itself). People in a normal mood just don't think about suicide. It's a reliable signal that something is wrong. And given how available help is, the smart thing to do is seek help.

I've engaged in suicidal ideation for many years. I'm not at risk of suicide, but if I thought that there was help available I would certainly seek it out.

My question is: what are the forms of help that are available? I know of A) therapy and B) medication.

I've spoken to 5 therapist for a couple sessions each, and my impression was that they are just normal people who you can talk to. They're not people who have answers, nor do they conduct their sessions with an overarching strategic plan. Rather, they're just people who you can talk to, and they will try their best to listen, even if they don't necessarily understand what you say. I know a lot of people benefit from this, but when I tried option A I didn't get anything out of it.

In my case, my mental suffering derives from loneliness. I follow John Cacioppo's work on the subject, and he claims that loneliness is a biological signal (just like hunger) that requires a response. I believe in his explanation, and so to me applying medication to ease loneliness would be similar to giving someone a pill to end their feeling of being hungry. To me that's not really a solution: in the case of hunger, food is the solution, and in the case of loneliness, connection is the solution.

Neither forms of help seem to me like they will help in my particular case. However when you say there's easy help available, you sound very confident. What am I missing?