Depression, like every other disease on the planet, is not something you "man up" through. It's a disease that happens to manifest itself in the same places that personality does. To a casual, uninformed observer, depression is a choice of behavior.

It isn't. You don't get depression from weakness in the same way that you don't get cancer from weakness.

Depression also kills more people per year than cancer does.

Cancer about 20,000 -- depression about 30,000.

(Highly relevant lecture by a very brilliant neuroscientist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOAgplgTxfc)

--

That said, Ed Weissman made an inappropriate comment. Every single person here, including me, has made inappropriate comments in the past.

Let's not start the pitchforks and torches just yet, guys.

He who is without sin, and all that.

And this is exactly why this article from TC needs to be banned from HN. The article suggests Aaron asked for help because he was depressed. This is simply NOT true. First, it was submitted by sethbannon[1] and second, nowhere on the website do I see anything directly from Aaron asking for help[2]. The fund is overseen by Bettina Neuefeind and funds go directly to pay legal costs.

I need to leave HN soon if this is the type of shit that continues to get over 400 points and sticks on the top of the frontpage for hours.

blhack - I'm not blaming you for any of this, hopefully your not taking this as an attack against your specific comment.

Context is everything.

[1]- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529484

[2]- https://free.aaronsw.com/

Could you detail which part of it was inappropriate and why you feel that's the case? (Serious question is it all - or on a point or two?)

"Aaron should man up, take responsibility for his actions, and pay his own bills."

This sounds a lot like "screw you, what you did is wrong, and you should quit whining about it."

"man up" clearly implies that Ed Weissman feels that going up against the massive US justice system to allow people without university affiliation or piles of cash to read publicly funded scientific research is an immature act.

As someone who has been blocked in the past from doing research because of lack of funds to pay the journals, this attitude disgusts me.

EDIT: Let me be absolutely clear that I am not implying that Ed had any blame in what happened or anything ridiculous like that. What I find objectionable in his commentary is his cavalier attitude towards the heavyhanded prosecution of those trying to make publicly funded research publicly available. This suggests a very elitist attitude towards the distribution of valuable public research.

The problem is what has come to light since that post was made, it has come to light that Aaron was not being held accountable for his "actions", he was being used. He was being made into an example, he was being turned into a tool to help peoples careers. This is what is important and why we should have supported him.

At the time nobody knew what he was facing, we know now and I'm sure if everyone here could go back they would support him more. Go back to the thread, forget everything you know about the case and situation and read the link (the appeal page on Aaron's website) and then the comments in the thread and form an opinion. It won't match what you're saying here because what you're thinking about now (and holding edw519 to) was not known at the time.

That is what is wrong with saying, "just accept the consequences", when you have no damn idea what the consequences are.

If the people reading the story at the time were expected to act on the situation by donating, why is it wrong for them to act in the form of a comment? How can it be fair to say people should have donated based on their understanding of the situation but not be able to comment on the situation?

Every single person in that comment thread is just as guilty of wrong doing if edw519 is guilty of any, because they all formed an opinion around something they knew very little of. It just so happens that the opinion edw519 expressed is unfortunately one that is at odds with the reality of the situation.

That said, surely you can acknowledge that there's a difference between donating and posting a comment?

The point is every single person that acted on that post was doing it under exactly the same idea, "I have read about this situation and based on what I have read I believe x to be (true / false) and therefore I (support / don't support) Aaron" so when someone said "I believe that Aaron does not deserve to be bearing the burden here, I am donating $10 to his fund" they were making exactly the same assumptions as edw519 made when he said "I believe that Aaron is responsible for this situation and therefore should be responsible for the consequences".

The only difference is edw519 is on the wrong side of the outcome. Those that donated didn't know that Aaron was in some serious shit way beyond what anyone imagined, just like edw519 didn't know that Aaron was in some serious shit way beyond what he imagined.

If everyone took the line you're talking about, "I don't know the full story (because nobody ever can) so I'm not going to pass any judgement" Aaron would not have been the recipient of any donations, because Aaron could have been more in the wrong than edw519 thought! Maybe the prosecution had evidence that showed Aaron intended to rip people off, or commit a terrible crime? I don't want to be behind supporting that! I had better just ignore everything.

sigh. I never said that. I have no idea how you got from "comment publicly" to "pass judgement".

    That is what is wrong with saying, "just accept the consequences", 
    when you have no damn idea what the consequences are.

Yes, exactly, with the caveat that I'm absolutely not putting Ed "at fault" for anything here -- I'm talking about comments like that one, in general.

Everybody judges things, we on HN perhaps most of all. That's fine, it's part of our nature. However, we really need to think it over before we declare our judgement in a comment on a public forum, especially when it's likely that we aren't fully aware of the situation we're judging.

> If that's the case then my comment will not have been particularly relevant, sorry about that.

Hey man, no worries. Glad we got it sorted.

Because this is unprecedented. People are still shocked at the excessive nature of the charges. No one expected it. To expect everything to be so severe would be paranoia.

In retrospect, I wish I'd made it, and I also wish I'd said "even though I consider Aaron in the wrong, I'm still donating $5 so he knows that other people know he's alive, and I encourage those who are on his side to donate as well." Lots of donations, even if small in amount, would have at least helped him not feel alone. Depression sucks.

See the PACER incident for how that can play out when it works. And I guess the JSTOR one for when it doesn't.

Guys, aaronsw was wicked smart, he was undoubtedly at least vaguely aware of there being a Federal law covering "computer crime". It's far easier to believe that he felt he was doing the right thing despite the law than to believe he was completely unaware.

Let's just imagine -- completely hypothetically, of course -- that I recently wrote a crawler specifically designed to rescue client websites from a terrible DIY website service (which might or might not be Jimdo). Let's imagine it was tuned to load Jimdo-related assets (or the assets of a similar service), fix broken code, etc.; I'm pretty sure this would have been against Jimdo's rules (or the rules of a related service, if I had done such a thing, which, surely, I did not), but let's say I did it anyway because I think it's reprehensible that they don't provide a way for their customers to export their websites.

It's possible that I could have found myself on the pointy end of an expensive lawsuit over something like this. It's possible that I would have broken some laws that I am unaware of, had I done that -- and, had I done that, it would only weaken my case further to claim foreknowledge of the laws being broken. It's likely that there are laws which could be loosely enough interpreted to make me guilty of some form of "hacking". (And it would be most certainly utterly stupid to even consider leaving a comment like this under my regular username -- if, of course, I had done such a thing. Fortunately, as HN occasionally reminds me, I'm not competent enough to have done something like this.)

But there's no way I'd ever say that I did something "wrong", and there's no way I would have asked for Jimdo's permission to do something like that. I simply knew what the rules were, and I believed it was the rules, not I, that were wrong.

Laws and rules are written by humans. Sometimes other humans don't agree with the rules as they are currently and try to make the world a better place. Sometimes they succeed. Sometimes they fail.

Everyone has to accept the consequences. Reality doesn't allow you not to. There's no way to 'log out' of the real world; the most you can do is kill yourself, and then your suicide becomes the consequence.

Whenever someone says "accept the consequences" they mean "accept the consequences in silence", as opposed to accepting them under vocal protest and attempting to challenge them. When the consequences are unjust, accepting them in silence is acquiescing to the injustice, which only serves to perpetuate it.

Merely accepting the consequences is inevitable; accepting the consequences in silence is a choice, and it is not always the best choice.

And now we see the consequences of our society's sexism.

Nobody tells women to "man up".

Fuck sexism though.

Well, the difference between "woman up" and "man up" is that, for men, showing emotion is a sign of weakness, so "man up" means "don't show emotion". That's a very dangerous thing to tell people who have serious emotional problems.

I think there is a strong taboo against men appearing out of control of themselves or their situation. But that's not really gendered: when women appear out of control, we label them "crazy bitches".

Exactly. This applied to Aaron asking for help he badly needed for his legal fund. This did not apply to Larry or Cory. They may have been sad or angry, but they were not personally scared, threatened, unable to fund their own legal defenses, etc., so they did not violate the taboo. Their posts were more along the lines of a father mourning a lost son. Emotion is expected there.

Which is why berating someone with gendered terms is pretty futile, it encourages people to clam up and compartmentalize unhealthily.

And this is why I hate the term "patriarchy" in this context: It implies men always get the best of it, there are no downsides for males, and therefore we should be dismissive of male problems.

I know this isn't what academic feminists think. It is, however, what a disturbing number of people who call themselves feminists out in the real world apparently believe.

Feminism benefits men as well. Patriarchy DOES exist to the detriment to men, your anger is misapplied.

It depends on how it's applied, doesn't it?

> Patriarchy DOES exist to the detriment to men

Thank you for restating my point.

> your anger is misapplied.

How? I don't understand how my anger is misapplied here.

Destroying systems of entrenched privilege may not be viewed as beneficial by all men that cling to these systems, no. But equality does provide for a healthier system, if one appreciates women healthy in mind and body.

Harping on straw "Feminists" won't improve our situation.

As I stated, it does by lessening strict gender roles.

But that's also true of looking at gender equality from the male perspective, yet whenever someone attempts that the old MRA strawman stereotypes get thrown around.

Generally, it's because MRAs tend to find gains for women zero-sum. There are issues with regards to divorce, child support, and custody that can be discussed, but all these can be addressed as a feminist and do not require "masculinism" as some sort of a counter. There is a difference between discussion of gender and the movement's adherents.

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/br...

I'm not lying and your need to claim I am damages your case.

An example from Reddit, which is very much the non-academic Real World I've been talking about:

ImaLamer:

> As someone who was raped by a woman, while drinking, something you've put full responsibility on her for in other comments, you quickly dismissed my feelings and the impact this has in my life. It was not statistically significant for you to care. So much so you took it as an opportunity to further bash men as a class.

Saganomics:

> Well ladies and gentleman, that's what Men's Rights thinks. There you have it.

http://www.reddit.com/r/sex/comments/168bwu/you_guys_may_hav...

The claim of ImaLamer's post being edited afterwords is difficult to take seriously: Edited posts are marked with an asterisk, which is not present on ImaLamer's post. Also, Saganomics' post happened long after the very brief window when you can edit without an asterisk appearing.

Seeing as they did not state what you claim that they did, you still lack for example.

The stereotypical MRA does.

> There are issues with regards to divorce, child support, and custody that can be discussed, but all these can be addressed as a feminist and do not require "masculinism" as some sort of a counter.

Your experience might be different than mine. In my experience, any mention of the idea that men can be raped by women, for example, gets shouted down by 'feminists' (you can take that label as you will) as 'hijacking' the 'real' discussion, which is solely about men raping women. Men being raped by men is, at best, a side-show to that discussion. Women being raped by women is similarly absent as a topic.

Mentioning they exist is not the same as harping on them.

And this points out an asymmetry: Whenever a man focuses on the male perspective of gender equality, people drag out the 'MRA' stereotype. While the stereotypical MRA exists, that stereotype is no more relevant to the issue than the stereotypical straw feminist is relevant to the female perspective of gender equality. Yet, online, in the real world outside of the academy, that MRA stereotype is in constant use.

> Destroying systems of entrenched privilege may not be viewed as beneficial by all men that cling to these systems

And this is an example. It states that gender equality from the female perspective is automatically equivalent to "Destroying systems of entrenched privilege", which is a courtesy not given to the male perspective on the same concepts.

This asymmetry is divisive and serves to perpetuate the pointless hatred that keeps equality from being realized.

Maybe you missed my general sentiment: Fuck sexism though. I think you and I are talking at cross purposes.

Does he bear responsibility for what happened to Aaron? No, but it is also not hard to see how the top ranked comment from a respected member didn't carry some weight in how people perceived Aaron and his situation.

The big take away here is that words matter and maybe if you don't have all 'the facts available' you can give someone the benefit of of the doubt. Or the next time you feel like making a 'meh' post, just say nothing at all.

Aaron knew what he was doing. There are many charities more deserving than his legal defense fund -- that isn't changed just because he was apparently mentally ill enough to take his own life.

There should be a high burden you have to overcome to successfully find crowd-funding for anything including a legal defense.

...and at the time, I said the same thing I am saying now: Aaron Swartz was doing the right thing and should be praised for being brave enough to try to use access to a university to make human knowledge available to others. When universities are in the business of punishing people who spread knowledge, there is a serious problem with society, and Aaron knew that -- and unlike most people, he went out and tried to do something about it.

I was angry when the prosecutor tacked the extra charges on. I am just as angry today.

There's a world of difference between choosing not to help someone or some cause when they need it - a choice we all make, passively or actively, all the time - and mocking them and encouraging others not to help. That's just kicking a guy when he's down. That's the part some of us find really objectionable.

Which causes deserve funding is a matter of personal choice.

This is ridiculous hindsight bias, people have been charged with far more than Aaron and didn't kill themselves. Aaron had been depressed for a long time leading up to all of this, yet everyone seems to argue that the prosecution is what did it and he would have been completely fine otherwise.

They have nothing to base that off of, but that's still the case that is frequently made here.

Hindsight bias, not really either, a plain old fact. Some people are more resistant than others, but at some point anyone will snap (for the toughest it may require severe sleep deprivation and torture, but most people have a much lower threshold).

I didn't know Aaron Swartz, and I am thus not familiar with the details of his alleged depressive past.

There are usually a lot of factors that bring people to kill themselves. Assuming he was indeed depressed, the intensity of the symptoms get modulated by external influences. The absolute weight of the charges is also completely meaningless. They were intentionally unfair, and the meaning of a given sentence varies from people to people.

Blaming depression for his suicide on depression alone simply shows you don't know what you're talking about (FWIW I hold a MD).

I know you can't prove the threshold thing, short of trying to break each and every person on earth. That being said, there are various ways to weaken people (including, for the die hards, prolonged isolation, sleep and sensory deprivation, manipulation, mental and physical torture, destroying their social status, friendships and families... I never practiced this, BTW), and I believe that you can drive anyone to suicide using them.

For example, put someone in a situation where he has the choice between killing himself or killing someone he loves. 5 seconds to decide, after which, if he didn't act, the other person is killed.

This is becoming really gloomy. I balk out.

Edit, actually the bargain I set up above is not a good example of what I meant exactly, but a good example of the level of cruelty you can use.

Edit2: I didn't downvote you, BTW (AFAIK, you can't downvote the answers to your comments).

Dressing up speculation doesn't change what it is.

> but that doesn't make you correct.

My aim was not to be 100% correct about Arron, but rather to on average be more correct with similar cases.

The fact that you're experiencing or you've experienced depression in the past doesn't mean you're inherently broken.

As for suicide, most people have an acute and a chronic stress threshold that can lead to a so-called "major depression" episode.

Perhaps, but many, many people have been in situations such as Aaron's and not killed themself, so it's warranted to at least ponder if there was something else going on than a mean prosecutor. And here we don't have to wonder, it's been reported already that there was a lot of depression involved.

I've written on my blog about my own encounters with him; but the biggest thing that stands out was his naivete, his childlike perspective.

It's telling so many eulogies of him describe him as a boy.

IMO, it was his innocent perspective, combined with what he thought was the clear and obvious path, that drove him to do what he did, not understanding the consequences.

Ed made a comment that was pretty harsh, although true given the information available at the time, and is now being singled out by Techcrunch and the rest of the HN community. Of course, in fine HN tradition everybody is now jumping on Ed in exactly the same way that he jumped on Aaron at the time.

I keep remembering Tim Bray's adage that "A change in perspective is worth 40 IQ points." The average HN user has 40 IQ points more now than Ed when he wrote that comment - I don't think they have more than 40 over the current Ed.

Also note that tptacek seems to have been driven away too - hopefully not permanently.

We are here to learn, right?

“Four things come back not: the spoken word; the sped arrow; time past; the neglected opportunity.”

- Umar ibn al-Khattab, Caliph (AD 592-644)

Couldn't have said it better.

Whether you think he deserves a measure of blame or not depends on whether you think his original remark was just or not. Evidently some could not tell ahead of time that the remarks were unjust, and evidently, this sort of person makes up the majority on HN, and it is just this sort who is making excuses for the original remark. They refuse to look in the mirror.

Did Ed know Aaron and tell him this publicly?

Or are you simply saying the act of making the original post on HN amounts to taking away moral support and consequently Ed bears some responsibility?

If so (and please correct me if that's not what you are saying) then I don't agree with that. What you are implying is that people can't speak their mind in a public forum about how they feel about something. (That has already happened with this issue as I've gotten some bullying behavior by someone simply because I questioned something because everyone is so worked up over this.). Or, perhaps people who are thought leaders (and/or top commenters on, say HN) need to be especially careful of what they say. Specifically what their opinion is which others are free to use their mind and agree or disagree with.

The argument that he could have had the foresight to not do what he did is a separate matter.

I think I understand but to be clear you are saying that because he is a top commenter, and can change the opinions of others, on HN he needs to be especially careful and restrict what he says?

(For the record I don't have a problem with what he wrote as I read it.)

So, so true. I mean, it's not like people could have simply, y'know, avoided speculating publicly on another person's case when they didn't have all the facts.

No, don't go trying to direct the flames back at TechCrunch. Ed is consistently one of the nicest damn people on HN, and it's a bit of a shame that he ended up being the example that they pointed to. But, let's not pretend that HN isn't full of people that will wring an ocean out of their hands one day when it's popular and then go right back to slinging insults at each-other the next.

If this article results in a little bit of navel gazing for a few people here, great. I doubt that it will, though.

The hypocrisy of the TC article is disgusting. They're recklessly throwing stones at people who may be in delicate positions themselves.

As far as I can tell the TC article was designed to elicit an emotional reaction without any consideration given to human cost.

TC needs to do the naval gazing here.

As soon as I saw it was written by Arrington, I hit the back button. That tells me all I need to know. He's an attention whore.

I don't know much about Ed, only met him briefly once, but that said, most people here (myself included) have gone out of their way to voice their support for him as a member here and regret that it was his comment that got hilighted on TC.

I don't know how else TC could have pointed out this aspect of the HN community without picking on someone; in a way, it might be best that they picked on one of the most well-liked contributors here.

This in fact happens on HN from my observation frequently.

It goes like this.

Someone says something and if people don't agree they downvote and sometimes say something nasty in return.

Someone write a "Please Help" plea on HN and all the sudden everybody is nice and considerate and rolls out the red carpet (at least time times this happens that the plea gets voted up).

People of course don't know if the person they are being nasty to is suffering from depression, having a bad day, just got fired etc. Unless of course they specifically announce that fact in the "Subject" of what they write (or in a blog post etc.)

No need to ask why that happens (why people are nice when someone lays on their belly asking for help) because it's obvious. The question is why are people so quick to be a "dick" if someone doesn't reveal any weakness.

Ed just has the bad luck to be the most widely upvoted person saying what a sizable majority of the readers here were thinking: "who gives a shit, man up"

Hacker culture has this incredibly harmful idea of perfect self-reliance, that makes it really hard for people to come out and ask for help. Genius ninja hacker wizards aren't supposed to cry. Brilliant wunderkind business masters aren't supposed to fail. People who are surprised that he killed himself so suddenly should remember that this wasn't sudden at all; he asked for help, and he was treated with derision and suspicion and more or less told to go fuck himself. And this is a relatively well-known and respected dude. Imagine how the average nerd/loner feels, seeing that example. "They wouldn't stand up for Aaron Swartz, why would they give a shit about me?" And the answer, every time, is "they wouldn't".

We should be better people, all of us, and this would be a really good time to start.

Aaron asked for our help and yet it’s difficult to find a single compassionate voice in that whole thread. Both Ed and yourself eloquently shut down anybody arguing on his behalf.

  “There is virtually no chance Swartz is going to spend time in prison.”

I think it’s definitely worth all of us thinking about how we could have responded differently. There’s no use in us defending our actions.

Did any of us drop him a tweet or email just to ask him how he was doing, or whether he was scared?

I am ashamed.

I hope that in the future I will be able to recognise when another human being needs my help, that I will not be swayed by popular voices, and that I will show honest care.

Agree with you.

If you look at Aaron's activity on HN[1], you will see that there is none from around 144 days i.e. 15 days before from after the help submission[2] was discussed. If you see earlier activity, he had been posting things with a gap of 10-20 days. So it can't be ruled out, that perhaps he felt let down by the community. Sad.

  [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=aaronsw
  [2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529484

One reason I don't enjoy HN as much as I did several years ago is that the default behavior seems to be to attack civil libertarians, free software enthusiasts, file sharers, builders who place idealism over profit... basically everyone but the sellers.

Don't get me wrong, I see value in business. But choking all of the less buttoned-down, more rebellious voices is a pretty sure path towards killing the creative spirits that made a lot of today's profits possible. Every time I see a front page full of self-promotional blog posts, people pushing their info products or yet more tips on how to optimize the value one extracts rather than creates or worse yet, comments defending the TSA, MPAA etc... it makes me miss the Reddit of old.

EDIT: This was a response to tptacek's (now deleted) comment which scolded the article.

I've definitely seen a lot of this behavior on HN, but I think it used to be a lot worse than it is now.

HN used to be mostly made up of startup founders and others very close to the startup scene, who are typically strong believers in capitalism, with an instinct to sympathize with business owners and valorize profit making.

As HN has grown, lots of others unrelated to the startup scene (even unrelated to technology) have joined. As a result, the views getting expressed on here have become a lot more varied. There's actually quite a nice balance now, with representatives of all those you mention: civil libertarians, free software enthusiasts, file sharers, and builders who place idealism over profit.

Look at threads about RMS, or even the thread linked to here, where Mr Swartz was attacked.. plenty of people come to their defense and express their idealism. Your own post is an example of this.

Of course, the startup-loving, pro-capitalist types still tend to dominate here, but not nearly to the extent they used to.

Don't get me started on smug narcissistic assholes who engage in self love at every opportunity and make every issue on here about themselves and their self promotion. Some individuals on this board sicken me (just look at this thread), it's a living proof that people will be people and that just because you're a young entrepreneurial hipster who likes to think of himself as a hacker doesn't make you better than other people... more likely than not, it makes you an arrogant dipshit.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529706 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529716 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529781 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529799 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529809 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529855 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529883 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529965

In the abstract he had very valid points, but in the context of that specific thread I think he did a pretty effective job at convincing people that

* Aaron did something wrong * JSTOR backing out doesn't really mean anything * the prosecution is justified in trying to make an example of him * Aaron probably won't serve serious time, this is just a scare tactic

* Aaron did something wrong * JSTOR backing out doesn't really mean anything * the prosecution is justified in trying to make an example of him * Aaron probably won't serve serious time, this is just a scare tactic :/quote:

All but one of those are correct though. Why is this a bad thing? Even the one that isn't (point 3) is close to an accurate recital of one of the goals of the U.S. justice system (to deter crime by making the perceived risk of conviction unacceptably high).

Wrong - morally not, legally maybe. JSTOR backing out - MIT didn't back out. An example is justified - absolutely not, given that the act is not morally wrong. Aaron won't serve serious time - well, we're seeing the time he's serving now. He's lost his life and he isn't the first under these circumstances.

Likewise the state prosecutes in some situations even if the "victim" doesn't want to press charges, as the responsibility of the state extends far beyond just the party that was allegedly wronged.

I've mentioned it elsewhere but it's well enough to reiterate: Even know we know that there was a plea offer actually on the table for a 6-8 month prison sentence, even with the failure of the legal fund drive for Aaron. That is not "serious time", is well in line with first-time offenders where the offender doesn't cause major damage, etc. Aaron didn't want to accept the offer because he would still be a "Felon", but that was his choice to make.

And also, as I've mentioned elsewhere, many, many people have faced Federal charges and not killed themselves. It was only 50 years ago that poor sharecroppers were having fire hoses turned on them, flaming crosses, and being strung up and killed for simply trying to be judged on their actions.

So I would like to think we can maintain perspective on what types of government abuse might reasonably lead to someone taking their own life, and then look at what was going on here, and honestly compare.

“The thing that galls me is that I told Heymann the kid was a suicide risk,” Good told me. “His reaction was a standard reaction in that office, not unique to Steve. He said, ‘Fine, we’ll lock him up.’ I’m not saying they made Aaron kill himself. Aaron might have done this anyway. I’m saying they were aware of the risk, and they were heedless.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/01/15/humanity-deficit...

Heymann's actions were unpalatable, but it's based on its own merits (using high-pressure tactics more appropriate for drug lords), not because someone else claimed he might later kill himself. Either way, Good was Swartz's own attorney, not a psychiatrist.

What I find much more concerning is that plea deal involving no jail time had been reached, and fell apart because of MIT. a) Why was MIT concerned that he serve time behind bars, and b) Why did the prosecution care that much what MIT thinks?

If you don't think Heymann sees this as a win then you're beyond naive.

Can we please just let the family grieve?

We are the family.

We are the people who called him Paris Hilton and told him to man up. We are the people who consistently criticized him just because he was well known. We told him to shut up about ethics and get back to coding. We told him he wasn't any good at coding, either. We didn't treat him as badly as we could have, as we've treated some other people, but I think trying to recast ourselves as "family" is incredibly disrespectful of his actual family who lost their child.

The hypocrisy on this topic has been truly something to behold. So many people calling for prosecutors to explain themselves, but whenever a question is asked of a local, it is "time to grieve, not ask questions."

HN needs to "man up" and accept that the majority of the attitudes in the original post are exactly why things ended the way they did. People bitching about the styling of payment buttons? Telling someone to "man up" or exclaiming (with plenty of IANAL disclaimers) that no one would get jail time for something like this is typical for your average HN discussion thread. This thread (and the subject of this thread) is exactly what I've come to expect from HN - a bunch of (mostly) know-it-all hyper-competitive hyper-critical 20-something assholes trying to backstab or one-up each other to the top.

And Ed, "Not here, and not now" is such a cop-out I'm not even sure how to react to it. Own your shit.

Edit: Said differently, with friends (or family) like these, who needs enemies.

What exactly do you mean by this?

Does your sympathy towards aaronsw merit that you throw empathy out the window? No. Do you actually understand the complex set of events that occurred and how these events relate to one another and the rest of the world? No. Surely, a solution to prevent such a terrible scenario from re-occuring is far removed from personal attacks:

  - if you don't like how district attorney works - get moving on changing the law
  - don't think prosecutor did their job?  point out their job description vs their actions to the proper authority
  - don't like how MIT managed case?  reach out to the MIT beaurocracy and work with them to improve their process
  - don't like edw519 *most upvoted* post on the Sept article?  suggest policy changes that could prevent such a comment from appearing on HN
  - etc

He, much like my self, probably assumed that someone with millions of dollars could fund the litigation of a federal case, however, the nature of these prosecutions tend to freeze assets, alienate friends and business partners who could help fund a defense and generally make it impossible for justice to be done. I would have been wrong about this too.

We all get stuff wrong from time to time, and to be honest, I'm not sure where the line should be drawn. However, I firmly believe edw519's comments come from a place of experience, love, and support even if it might not be what we always want to hear.

My hope is that my comments when based in love and charity would not be subject to similar comments that edw519's comments have been. It's okay to disagree and edw519 might even disagree in someways with what he wrote.

Let's just eliminate the ability to vote on comments. Seems reasonable. Or pg could shut down the site. Then Ed couldn't make the comment in the first place, right?

Maybe Ed still thinks he was right and he feels compelled to backpedal because in hindsight his comments seem insensitive.

Or maybe your 99%+ statistic is wrong and wisdom of the crowds isn't all it's cracked up to be. If anything, the juxtaposition between this thread and the original thread shows the hypocrisy endemic to crowd driven discussion.

In my studies of nonviolent resistance, this was the core message: People act on what they feel is the right thing to do at the time. If the world deems that wrong, that's a different discussion, and a learning experience for both the world and the actor.

In order to make progress, you must empathize with that person, communicate with them on their terms, and open a discussion on both of your beliefs without judgement.

+1 jonmc12 for your point of view.

You can also "man up" and admit you might have been wrong to characterize a hacker, however successful, asking for financial help in the face of a very serious legal battle as "seriously wrong". No shame in that. Or, alternatively, you can "man up" and own your original opinion.

The "core facts", about whether or not it would be "seriously wrong" for Swarz to ask the community for financial assistance, would be knowledge of Swarz's financials. Was edw519 privy to this information? Probably not.

I think edw519 is a common example of a celebrity case who feels obliged to condescend his important opinion on any mildly prominent case, in a know-it-all, bold manner. And there's no lack of readily available supporters willing to nod and upvote their idol.

I have respect for his technical background, but with fame comes a greater responsibility, which not many carry out well.

It's a tragic story and I'm sure there is much to learn but let the family grieve rather than make click bait and throw people to the wolves ( ironically what this article is commenting on)

Aaron did not receive enough help on his defense bills. This likely part of the reason he is now dead, but only part of it.

Given this how should actions change, if at all? If you think the world would be better if people that held similar opinions to you ed's were slightly different, how should they be different and what argument would have moved you in that direction earlier?

If his opinions have changed then he is free to express that. People say and do things relying on the information they have at that time. I didn't write anything because it was just a gut thought, which is why I didn't donate.

I'm sure that if Aaron had told his side of the story then it would have hurt him in court, but it may have garnered him public interest and funds.

For his immense abilities, Aaron made a lot of enemies due to his confrontational behaviour. This seems to be getting glossed over at the moment and having a close network of people may have been able to save him.

<Aaron did not receive enough help on his defense bills. This likely part of the reason he is now dead, but only part of it.

Definitely part of the reason, but he also had massive depression issues and talked and wrote about suicide long before.

<Given this how should actions change, if at all? If you think the world would be better if people that held similar opinions to you ed's were slightly different, how should they be different and what argument would have moved you in that direction earlier?

I had an opinion but didn't take action because it was negative and of no use. I had no idea about him other than he was a Reddit co-founder that I hadn't heard of before, that he made a bit of money, that he had broken the law and that someone was asking for money for his defense.

I don't think the world is a better place for having held those views, it is what it is.

I would say what would have changed my mind was either Aaron or his friends arguing his case in public. All the people he worked with are now vocal about how great he is, but where were they back then?

For one example: Reddit could have created a funding drive but didn't as far as I can tell. Do I blame them? No.

At the end of the day it is really sad. Nothing will change that.

Witch hunts only create a quick fix to our need to rationalise our anger and pain. Ed wrote a criticism that could equally have been written by Aaron, I'm sure the regret he feels now is far worse than anything you can say.

> Witch hunts only create a quick fix to our need to rationalise our anger and pain.

They are, at least sometimes, more then just that though. They can arise out of desire to make the world different so the same problem does not happen again, or to change community standards, and/or ones own judgment heuristics. Ultimately ineffective and undesired nonetheless. It is hard to come up with solutions that have a quick enough feedback to satisfy short attention spams as much as a which hunt will unfortunately.

Its hard because it is very difficult for our brains to realise the concept that Reddit was profitable but no-where near as profitable as companies that we've never heard about.

I am more taken aback by the overall tone implying that Aaron had some golden-ticket-chance-of-a-lifetime...In hindsight, I don't think anyone would have wanted to shoulder his burdens. I don't think anyone would still say he had a golden ticket.

Probably the greatest lesson in empathy I learned is, "Breaking a child's lego ship causes the same pain as sinking an adults real ship." Your actions and words leave an impression on others. That is a responsibility we too often neglect.

Happiness and meaning can only come form within by definition. Looking at others, judging others, being jealous of others are all ways to deflect our own true feelings. what a shame because feeling our own pain is the only way to truly feel anothers.

Look at all the great people who lived on this Earth, Like Aaron Swartz, the selfless ones who put everyone ahead of them, and examine their lives and you will see DEEP DEEP PAIN. It is a difficult reality to accept, but to truly put others ahead of yourself as Aaron did, you must know what it feels like to be persecuted.

If there is one lesson to take out of this story it is to learn to look within yourself and find happiness and recognize that you have it pretty great, in fact you have it perfect. Perfect for you. Don't be so quick to be jealous of others, Dont be so quick to wonder why they get away with everything or why their life is so much better than yours.

Look Within, and Truly Become Happy With Your Lot.

Yet Another Way Patriarchy Hurts Men(tm)

I think it only becomes reasonable after you present a well thought though argument for why the world is better off when Aaron pays for his own bills vs volunteers helping him with is bills. Until that it is just a statement and opinion.

Maybe we were swayed by the comments, maybe not. Call ourselves hackers, get influenced by some prick who sounds like an uppity high school headmaster. Think we're principled, refuse to take a stand for what's right.

At the very least, we can learn. To take a stand in what we believe in. Without getting swayed by the fakers.

Uh? It's right here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529484

Someone was asking for help and mr. edw519, just spit in his face with such absurd comments.

Lets take a step back. Would you spit in the face of someone asking for help. What type of patronizing comments did edw519 make?

He still hasn't said sorry and that tells me all I need to know about him and his ego.

Shame on the members that supported edw519

Not everyone is going to agree with your civil disobedience actions, or you asking for help with the consequences. That doesn't make them bad people, or wrong people, for saying they don't like your approach, think you should accept consequences, or whatever else. For example, MLK didn't hate the clergymen that disagreed with his direct action approach. He essentially told them to man up, join the movement, and accept the consequences of sitting in jail sometimes as a result. Not that edw519 is quite as eloquent, but none of edw519's comments are patronizing, they were his description of the situation as he saw it, and the outcome he thought should occur.

Characterizing this as "spitting in the face of someone asking for help" is pure hyperbole.

If everyone agreed on a course of action and outcome, you wouldn't actually need a movement. That a person died tragicallly does not mean that everyone who did not see eye to eye with that person is an egotistical patronizing dickhead who spit in their face because they did not want to help the movement. It just means they did not see eye to eye.

Acting as if it is more than that is, as others have said, a circular witchhunt. Sometimes tragic events are just that: Tragic events.

The whole "news" story is ridiculous. One can be sad and feel it a tragedy that a young man committed suicide, even if you disagree with the approach that person took.

Lastly, I'll point out that if edw519 were to meet an untimely demise, your post is exactly of the same tone and impression as his.

It's so unapologetically hypocritical. We don't need to pretend like every tragedy affects us so deeply.

You are assuming that edw519 does not find Cory's eulogy to bring understanding to sad and confused people.

You also claim it doesn't affect him deeply. Maybe it does because he felt he was so hard on him?

In essence, I guess I justify this change by saying I believe his post when he said he feels it will "bring understanding to sad and confused people."

Again, it's perfectly reasonable to dislike or villify someone, but be sad or confused at their passing, and find comfort in a eulogy.

Let me risk a few pitchforks and say I used to villify former senator Ted Stevens. He was an unapologetic pork barrel politician. When he died suddenly in a plane crash, that does not mean I was happy for his death, and I was definitely sad and felt bad for his loved ones. I was not at home screaming "wooh, that arrogant fucker's dead!" while dancing around the room. Had his eulogy been posted here and I noticed, I would have hoped it would bring understanding and comfort to those who loved him.

Does this make me a hypocrite? No, because it's not a pretense. I was in fact, genuinely sad. Personally, I don't think that makes me anything more than "not a sociopath".

It could be i'm just different than a lot of folks, of course. As a lawyer, it's basically beaten into our heads to be dispassionate and objective when evaluating people, emotions, and events.

Otherwise I have no idea how you would make this jump in your mind.

'Let's take a step back.'

Techcrunch publish an article singling out a single negative post (among many more) on HN from 120 days ago, and suddenly the pitchfork brigade are screaming for an apology within the hour. No need to worry about the bullying prosecutor any more officer, we've found the man!

Because clearly none of these people have ever said anything rash on the internet. What sanctimonious rubbish.

Looking at the post, it would seem that edw's opinion was the most popular in the hivemind (judging by the upvotes on his comment), so it's fair to single out that post which summarized the thoughts of the many people upvoting.

Unless people just arbitrarily upvoted him, which would have other ramifications ...

Either way, stop it.

2. He sold a book of things that people found insightful. So what? I have a collection of Robert Fulghum's short works, what's the difference really?

3. You're being an asshole right now.

4. The people calling for Ed to publicly apologize are misguided, at best. The only reason that they are even aware of that comment is because it ended up on TechCrunch, and how many of those people are, themselves, guilty of the accusations that they would levy against another respected member here? Once again, the only productive thing that could come from all of this colossal stupidity would be for HN to collectively reconsider its tone and personality.

5. Part of the etiquette here is that if you are going to accuse someone of wrongdoing, you bloody well ought to at least put your name behind it. Whether you agree with that or not, those are the rules here. Using anonymous accounts to spew hatred towards other people is cowardly, at best.

6. My reply to fermule had nothing to do with his internet points, and everything to do with the fact that his comments are so stupid, so inciteful, that either they are the work of a troll or of a member that should know better, or someone from somewhere else on the internet that doesn't know better. What I find most abhorrent about HN at this moment is that fermule's comments currently have a net positive score, despite being almost perfectly identical to the kind of garbage that you'd expect to find on Reddit.

You're going to have to do a bit better than that if we're going to have a discussion...

We're a community where people come for insight and honest evaluations. However, those things do not have to be rude or dismissive, and we should all try to raise the tone of the conversation - especially when making uncomfortable statements.

Someone offers a thoughtful and considered opinion, and that's "cyberbullying"? Disagreeing with an opinion you hold, no matter how intelligently and reasonably, is "cyberbullying"?

Your post could have just stopped at "shut the fuck up". Because that's the essential gist of everything that followed.

>Aaron should man up, take responsibility for his actions, and pay his own bills.

This comes across as edw519 saying "Aaron should" do what I think is right. Edw519 may have a deep and well reasons argument for why society would be better if it followed his opinion in the comment, but that argument is not in that comment. It would have be more valuable comment in my opinion if had included such a argument

Stating your opinion with out giving a well reasoned argument is by no means cyberbullying, but they do share some signals and indicators.

Edit: ameliorated ending

edit: Thank you for editing your comment. :-)

Also, fuck you.>>

I resent the last two words but it couldn't have been anything else or anything better.

Yes, you cognoscenti, you know everything and you are talking about everything. It's not just that people bashed him when he was down; they are doing the same thing they do good on HN - comment on anything, disagree with everything and then stick around to prove why you were right and that you were right even though what you said was bs and full of crap.

Who knows, Aaron might have read such comments and that could have added to his hopelessness, or maybe he didn't. No, of course not such a commenter was guilty of aiding his suicide(neither legally or just generally), but then again just look at you.

I mean, really? I come across such commenters with five figure karmas on HN. They sometimes put across a counter-argument because that is technically correct and hence disregard what was said originally and on other occasions they put it because they are practically correct and disregard other's statement anyway. It's always that "oh, I am one notch up now". And yes, everybody loves them - they are the pillars of truth on HN. They never own up to what they did or say, they just go on around arguing and arguing and arguing. They take care of their own and jump in when one of their elk needs some assistance. Very few ever dares(or maybe bothers) to cross them. They are simply correct by definition and design. The elders, maybe. What would I know, I am not one of them. But that's just fine, isn't it?

Agreed (with tptacek's deleted comment that people should lay off Weissman). Imagine if we all entered discussions assuming the other party was in an extremely fragile state. No skepticism, speculation, conjecture, kid gloves, boring.

Anyone who's cultivated an online persona has dealt with a variety of debating opponents. I can't imagine Aaron would have been moved either way because one HN commentator questioned the rightness of his fundraising effort. The pitchforking of Weissman by anyone angered by the prosecutorial pitchforking of Swartz is rather absurd.

However what I found more interesting in that thread [0] was additional examples of tptacek's strident establishment stance and how it really irks some HN commentators.

I'd already gathered from his vocal opposition to Wikileaks, and lukewarm opposition to SOPA et al that he's not a CCC-type hacker (a more generous characterization would be that he refuses to drink hacker kool-aid). I think part of that irked me in an irrational way, because really, if you're running a security consultancy in the US then adopting any philosophical position similar to Swartz or Assange would be a complete commercial non-starter.[1]

Perhaps some here expect that any notable hackers should all be Swartzs', sharing a similar social and political outlook, which is a little unrealistic to say the least.

[0] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529484

[1] I'm also not implying you hold contrary public and private positions. Your advocacy of a more government / corporate friendly position goes well beyond devil's advocacy.

Yeah, I don't think his default pro-establishment slant is any sort of strategic business move. One would think that if he held different views privately he would just abstain from talking about those potentially politically troubling topics.

For better or worse, I think he says what he thinks, and means it. I am inclined to file that under "positive attributes".

(I am one of those "really irked" HN commentators.)

This public singling out of one of us for ad impressions should be taken personally by every commenter here. I know it's the 3072nd time someone has said this, but techcrunch.com should just really be added to the spam blacklist.

Unfortunately, flagging kills any ongoing discussion. Someone with the ability should just take it upon themselves to edit the url of this topic to be self-referential or point to the old topic.

Oh god I don't know what's real anymore. Help, I'm trapped in a sarcasm factory.

Is there a Chrome extension to (1) disallow me from going to their website and (2) remove their links from visibility on HN?

I've already created a mental ban on their website (because I think it's utter filth), but now I think I need to take a step further.

EDIT - Just realized the article was written by Arrington. Go figure.

But Ed and others around here do need to take responsibilty for the comments they write - they heavily influence the nature and tone of the discussions around this precious corner of the Internet and Ed was misguided to post in such black and white terms. It would be nice to hear Ed say that he called it wrongly.

(I'm not sure how well known the obstacles Aaron faced were besides this article, this just recently made the front page after his death)

Would reading this piece back then (or before Aaron's HN post) been enough to change people's mind? Honest question. Looking at the donation site that Aaron put together, I don't blame anyone for not immediately taking his side. He may have been intimately aware of what was going on in his case, but his defense fund site was too dependent on people automatically siding with him for who he is*.

edit: by this, I mean that some more narrative of what was going on would've been really helpful for the call-to-action

I, for one, do not know what responsibility Ed bears, moral or otherwise. That's for Ed to determine. I do however find it harder and harder to respect people that when someone desperate asks for help, they get up on their high horse and emit absolute statements of the sort "you need to", "man up" and the like. Depression is a sickness and that by definition means you are not functioning normally. I am sure that Aaron would have "manned up" if he had the necessary mental strength.

I also don't have much respect for people that call their fellows, "clowns". So there. Wise up.

He at least had the decency to delete his posts in the thread.

via http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

That is exactly why judgement should have been deferred. In the face of uncertainty, given the situation, withholding comment or querying neutrally would have been optimal. That is clear with foresight, not just obvious from hindsight. I did not see that thread the first time but it is the tone and not the words that would be so damaging.

Man up. Very likely he had already internalized the blame for his current state. Such statements would be seen only as confirmations of his weakness and foolishness. Criticisms would be isolating and over-weighted . For someone so prodigious it would have been especially difficult.

The risk from destabilizing a person genuinely going through very difficult external and or internal moments, even if they proportion fewer, far outcosts the risk of building a careless individual's misplaced ego by giving them attention in the form of neutral to supportive questions. Yes it will take a bit more effort to not follow all "I made a mistake" with "man up and learn from it" but I think we would all be better from it. Especially those at the extreme end where manning up requires prefixing with super.

I dare say I envy those whose paths through life is such that a phrase like that enters an initial treatment of someone facing any adversity. That they have never sensed helplessness so vast, it opens a vortex to the place of lost souls, washing away the vivid colors the manned-up paint with while slowly dimming any ability to answer the on appearance hopeless question of What now? Nothing of course.. ?

There was no suicide note. There was no reason given. The closest thing we have is a suggestion from his family, which caused everyone to instantly jump on one of three different bandwagons getting as many people fired and as many laws changed as possible. We have no idea of gauging whether or not that suggestion is correct, so we all read in to things we THINK suggest the reasons for his suicide.

It's ridiculous how so many people here are claiming "You shouldn't comment unless you know about the situation" when knowing absolutely dick-all about the situation right now.

No we do not, but everyone still needs to decided if and how they will act differently going forward with this new data point regardless of what we do not know.

Jumping to conclusions is bad not changing at all is also bad.

Thanks, but no thanks.

If edw had a crystal ball, would he have posted something different? Maybe.

Does that make his opinion wrong, or to blame? Nope.