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Aaron Swartz & A Culture of Denial: Depression & Suicide in Tech

psychcentral.com

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Re: Aaron Swartz & A Culture of Denial: Depression & Suicide in Tech

#41

Post by nsfmc »

BrokenPipe wrote: post #16
Deestan wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Aaron died because he decided suicide was the best course of action. People suffering from depression are not rational. I don't mean that "I can't make sense of this decision therefore they aren't rational", but people having recovered from depression consider their own thought processes from the depression to be flat out wrong .

In my view there is depression and depression. Some people have good reasons to be depressed and those can be very rational reasons.

Just to be clear, the article is addressing Clinical Depression not just "having the blues" or any other form of day to day depression which most people suffer.

If you want a good description of how Clinical Depression varies wildly from 'rational depression,' read the Andrew Solomon's book The Noonday Demon. It's well written and, at least for me, expanded my perspective of how little I understood of severe depression.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Noonday_Demon:_An_Atlas_of_...

Re: Aaron Swartz & A Culture of Denial: Depression & Suicide in Tech

#42

Post by gruseom »

bguthrie wrote: post #39

To be clear, Aaron didn't work in Silicon Valley, or at a startup. Aaron was running his own well-funded team in an office in New York City at a 20 year-old company with good healthcare run by adults. It was not a high-stress work environment; I know, because I spent time on that team. I assure you that none of us deny the seriousness of depression, least of all me. But Aaron was a very private person, and although h…

This comment is worth so much more than the article. Thank you.

Re: Aaron Swartz & A Culture of Denial: Depression & Suicide in Tech

#43

Post by BrokenPipe »

pdonis wrote: post #38
BrokenPipe wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said his depression was a consequence of the trial. What I did say is that is death is a consequence of the trial, i.e. without trial he would be alive (so far at least, but I don't think he was necessarily suicidal prior to the trial). What I did also say is that depression (when not an chemical imbalance problem at least) is a consequence of a series of events and therefore caused

when not an chemical imbalance problem at least This qualifier undermines your point, since there was certainly evidence (as I posted upthread) that he did have a medical problem.

Besides the fact that my point was generic to depression and not his type of depression let me clarify and say that I don't think he had 'chemical' depression.

If you check when he started having depression and what he was reading at the time and how this depression developed you see it has to do with the way the system works, which eventually killed him.

Re: Aaron Swartz & A Culture of Denial: Depression & Suicide in Tech

#44

Post by pdonis »

BrokenPipe wrote: post #43
pdonis wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when not an chemical imbalance problem at least This qualifier undermines your point, since there was certainly evidence (as I posted upthread) that he did have a medical problem.

Besides the fact that my point was generic to depression and not his type of depression let me clarify and say that I don't think he had 'chemical' depression. If you check when he started having depression and what he was reading at the time and how this depression developed you see it has to do with the way the system works, which eventually killed him.

If you check when he started having depression and what he was reading at the time

Are you referring specifically to the JSTOR/MIT case, or to something else further back? If it's the latter, can you give a reference?

If it's the former, you are aware, aren't you, that Swartz was on record years before the JSTOR/MIT case describing his depression?

http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/verysick

His description here sounds like the classic symptoms of chemical depression. Which is not to say, once again, that there weren't also other factors involved in the JSTOR/MIT case.

Re: Aaron Swartz & A Culture of Denial: Depression & Suicide in Tech

#45

Post by politician »

vickytnz wrote: post #32

I'm surprised that no one seems to have connected Swartz's death to that of Ilya Zhitomirskiy of Diaspora, and the discussions about depression and tech (admittedly startups) http://betabeat.com/2011/11/u-cant-haz-sadz-the-hushed-dange... . While Swartz's death obviously has the connection to the horrible MIT/JSTOR situation, both remind us that tech doesn't always take kindly to those that make a mistake or don't li…

Recent HN discussion on the parallels here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5051164 (admittedly, not a strong discussion)

Re: Aaron Swartz & A Culture of Denial: Depression & Suicide in Tech

#46

Post by cbs »

Buzaga wrote: post #33

I'm part of this culture then because I don't believe in mental illnesses as defined by psychiatrists. Bring papers, proof and Science and we talk. http://arachnoid.com/psychology/myth.html

Bring papers, proof and Science and we talk.

Why would anyone even take the time to bother? You've already decided that psychology isn't a sufficiently hard science.

Re: Aaron Swartz & A Culture of Denial: Depression & Suicide in Tech

#47

Post by wglb »

bguthrie wrote: post #39

To be clear, Aaron didn't work in Silicon Valley, or at a startup. Aaron was running his own well-funded team in an office in New York City at a 20 year-old company with good healthcare run by adults. It was not a high-stress work environment; I know, because I spent time on that team. I assure you that none of us deny the seriousness of depression, least of all me. But Aaron was a very private person, and although h…

Thanks so much for saying this.

Is there a way to contact you directly?

Re: Aaron Swartz & A Culture of Denial: Depression & Suicide in Tech

#48

Post by gus_massa »

BrokenPipe wrote: post #8
mtrimpe wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that it has been widely acknowledged that Aaron had problems irrespectively of the trial. The anger you see is about the trial having him pushed over the edge, which is almost certainly true if at least to a certain degree. We'll never know whether Aaron would've taken his life without the trial as well, but now we will never get to find out.

His dream was to improve and help this shitty world. Aaron had depression regardless of the trial, granted. I think it's quite natural to be depressed given the state of things. Suicide is another thing altogether, I'm depressed at times but I've never thought of suicide but as I said in other comments in the same situation I would probably be at risk. And rightly so. In jail I'm not going to help anybody and with my…

The problem is that a person can only die once. It's a big new. It appears in the main newspapers. Everyone comments about it. But in a few weeks it will be not a new new and it will be replaced by another new (a plane crash, a hurricane, a terrorist attack, or even something unimportant like a football match).

Another possible plan could have been: Go to trial and proclaim innocence. Get a guilty verdict and proclaim innocence. Go to the appeal court and proclaim innocence. Go to the supreme court a.p.i.. Start a hunger strike a.p.i.. Get a reduction of the sentence a.p.i.. Offer to create free software for charity institutions a.p.i.. Get the disallowed by the penitentiary system a.p.i.. Try to start a vocational school in jail to help rehabilitate the inmates a.p.i.. Also denied a.p.i.. Get out on parole a.p.i.. Give as many conferences about the case a.p.i..

In each of these steps there is a new to publish and get coverage in the media and explain that the laws were unjust. And each time explain his position about the restrictions of some information. It's like a PR campaign. Some messages only are understood after a lot of repetitions.

I understand that it's easier to say "just go to jail and start a pr campaign" that really doing it. It was a difficult situation and I don't want to judge him. But I don't think that suicide was obviously the best alternative.

And as I say in another comment: Some people did important things after incarceration or unjust persecution:

Nelson Mandela: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela

Galileo Galilei: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei

Re: Aaron Swartz & A Culture of Denial: Depression & Suicide in Tech

#49

Post by Buzaga »

cbs wrote: post #46
Buzaga wrote: post #33

I'm part of this culture then because I don't believe in mental illnesses as defined by psychiatrists. Bring papers, proof and Science and we talk. http://arachnoid.com/psychology/myth.html

Bring papers, proof and Science and we talk. Why would anyone even take the time to bother? You've already decided that psychology isn't a sufficiently hard science.

Because it isn't, science is a strict term... this is a challenge for psychology/psychiatry and neuroscience(best hopes) as whole and it's not one or two weirdo proposing it... it's being thrown in it's face and begged for even by the people ~there~ itself.

Of course there's good willing people there, but there's also the 'Big Pharma' issue, the 'lets put 4 year olds on drugs' issue, a past of it being used to reinforce biases(against homosexuals, for slavery, as argument to lock state-enemies in Russia, Nazi Germany).

Also, normally when it's scientifically proven isn't it like "done, next question" and then they actually answer the question? They didn't got there yet it seems. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment

Disclosure: Yes, I know there's situations so extreme need 'anything that helps', I've seen it in my family. With me, a bipolar 'diagnosis' and drug prescription got me 4 seizures that could have brought lasting damage, even as the dosage, the psychiatrist later confessed under my pressure, was already multiple times lower than what was considered the minimum, but he wouldn't admit having any responsibility for it, which led me to doing my own research and finding documented cases of seizures and even deaths as consequence. Anyway, gave the FU(metaphorically) to this, kept reading, making sure it was informed/not-in-denial, 3 years, not a problem, but I still have to hear about how I can't swim, box or "shouldn't even drive", this sort of stuff.

Re: Aaron Swartz & A Culture of Denial: Depression & Suicide in Tech

#50

Post by BrokenPipe »

pdonis wrote: post #44
BrokenPipe wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides the fact that my point was generic to depression and not his type of depression let me clarify and say that I don't think he had 'chemical' depression. If you check when he started having depression and what he was reading at the time and how this depression developed you see it has to do with the way the system works, which eventually killed him.

If you check when he started having depression and what he was reading at the time Are you referring specifically to the JSTOR/MIT case, or to something else further back? If it's the latter, can you give a reference? If it's the former, you are aware, aren't you, that Swartz was on record years before the JSTOR/MIT case describing his depression? http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/verysick His description here sounds lik…

Sorry I wasn't aware, I've read a quite a bit about Aaron but didn't come across this. I didn't imagine actual physical pains either. It must be terrible.
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