I think most people who knew Aaron (even briefly, like me) sensed that he had some kind of emotional problem before any of this ever happened. I knew him in the Infogami days, pre-Reddit, and I ceased our friendship because of his negativity. He wasn't mean, but my main impression of him was "Smart… but negative." Cory Doctorow wrote about the harsh experience of Aaron's mentors, who were on the receiving end of his disappointment.
Yes, the whole prosecutorial situation was adverse. Yes, it was ridiculous. Yes, he could have accepted a 6 month plea bargain… he did things which are if not outright illegal, clearly were not really aboveboard, either.
Yes, I believe that a lot of what people call 'depression' has to do with circumstances[1] -- and you'd have to have been a lot closer to Aaron than me to know if there were circumstances making him miserable back then, or if it was an organic issue, or simply who he was, personality-wise.
Many people in worse situations don't kill themselves. Many people in lesser situations do.
None of that matters. The fact that Aaron took his own life is tragic. I was truly sorry to hear it, but… I wasn't very surprised.
It's simply a fact that things are more complex than they appear from the outside. People are more complex than they appear from the outside. And when you spend a lot of time with someone, sometimes you say "Oh, they're depressed," when really they have a lot of shitty people in their lives; and sometimes it's because they make choices that make their lives miserable; and sometimes it's because they have a real organic issue that has nothing to do with their daily lives or friends/family/job or personal choices.
You can't know, though, from the outside. Only they can know.
That's the fact of the matter.
None of this downplays the need for empathy. I think it increases it. But there's no point in saying "depression is chemical" or "depression is because of shitty circumstances" or "depression is a fault of choices." Unless it's you -- and probably even if it IS you -- you can't ever know which it is.
[1] NOT saying this is to do with Aaron, but just based on my experience of a lot of different people and reading a lot of research -- "circumstances" can include all the obvious external things we think of as circumstances, and also personal, inner circumstance, such as viewing one's self as someone who has to become a world savior or the next Bill Gates, presenting a false face to everyone (result? feeling completely isolated and unknown), the choice to embrace a victim mindset, self-pity, and sometimes "too high standards" which is masking a lack of empathy for fellow people as individuals.