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Just in case it ever comes to this, if I die, it was NOT a suicide. RIP Aaron, I wish I knew you.

andreyf 9y ago
I don't consider Aaron's death a suicide, either. It was not exactly a Magnitsky-style beaten-in-prison death, but overly-zealous prosecutors trying to "make an example" of him had more to do with his death than mental illness. Note what happened, in that context, when someone who was not an American political activist did what criminal prosecutors were going after Aaron for: https://www.sciencealert.com/this-woman-has-illegally-uploaded-millions-of-journal-articles-in-an-attempt-to-open-up-science https://www.sciencealert.com/this-woman-has-illegally-upload...
- tzs 9y ago
  The scihub woman isn't doing any of the thing Swartz was being prosecuted for. All she's doing is copyright infringement.
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mentalhealth 9y ago
This is a reasonable statement to want to make, but (with a vanishingly small number of exceptions), suicide is not a choice. It's the result of depression combined with loss of inhibition (due to stress, chemical imbalance, or other factors). Your rational state of mind now has no bearing on whether you are capable of taking your own life under certain circumstances.
- 0xBA5ED 9y ago
  I'm sorry, but then nothing is a choice. This may technically be true, but it's no way to think.
  - nicklaf 9y ago
    If you guys are interested in going down that rabbit hole, I highly recommend Robert Sapolsky's Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. Although I confess I have only read the first chapter or so, the book sets out to convince its readers that many of the things that can go wrong in the human brain ought not to be thought of as bad choices so much as automobiles in need of a part replacement (this metaphor rings true today in the case of, say, depression, which can often be remedied with pharmaceuticals). This may sound rather weak (especially from the point of a prosecutor [1]), but when looking at the details, it starts to make sense in a lot of cases. For example: in the middle ages, what do you think people thought schizophrenia was? [1] http://www.radiolab.org/story/revising-fault-line/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/revising-fault-line/
    - 0xBA5ED 9y ago
      Now we’re completely off topic, but I want to reply to this :) I think of it like this. Perhaps every decision you make is /almost/ entirely determined by your current biological state and a long string of preconditions beyond your control. But… there is a sliver of freewill on top of this. And /with/ that sliver, you can choose to make incremental changes to your personal beliefs which molds your perception. By doing this, you essentially alter your biological state in a small way. This effect is cumulative, so you eventually start making different decisions than you would have, which changes your environment, and thus further changes the preconditions of your future. In this way, I believe freewill itself is cumulative. You are born with almost none, but you can develop it incrementally with effort.
      - nicklaf 9y ago
        Probably the most interesting answer I could have imagined to this, and from what I gather from Sapolsky's book that I've thus far read, pretty much in the opposite direction of his thesis in the book. But to my eyes just as convincing.
DaniFong 9y ago
this is mainly to prevent people from killing me and making my death look like a suicide...

I don't consider Aaron's death a suicide, either. It was not exactly a Magnitsky-style beaten-in-prison death, but overly-zealous prosecutors trying to "make an example" of him had more to do with his death than mental illness. Note what happened, in that context, when someone who was not an American political activist did what criminal prosecutors were going after Aaron for: https://www.sciencealert.com/this-woman-has-illegally-uploaded-millions-of-journal-articles-in-an-attempt-to-open-up-science https://www.sciencealert.com/this-woman-has-illegally-upload...

tzs 9y ago
The scihub woman isn't doing any of the thing Swartz was being prosecuted for. All she's doing is copyright infringement.
- deleted 9y ago
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mentalhealth 9y ago

This is a reasonable statement to want to make, but (with a vanishingly small number of exceptions), suicide is not a choice. It's the result of depression combined with loss of inhibition (due to stress, chemical imbalance, or other factors). Your rational state of mind now has no bearing on whether you are capable of taking your own life under certain circumstances.

0xBA5ED 9y ago
I'm sorry, but then nothing is a choice. This may technically be true, but it's no way to think.
- nicklaf 9y ago
  If you guys are interested in going down that rabbit hole, I highly recommend Robert Sapolsky's Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. Although I confess I have only read the first chapter or so, the book sets out to convince its readers that many of the things that can go wrong in the human brain ought not to be thought of as bad choices so much as automobiles in need of a part replacement (this metaphor rings true today in the case of, say, depression, which can often be remedied with pharmaceuticals). This may sound rather weak (especially from the point of a prosecutor [1]), but when looking at the details, it starts to make sense in a lot of cases. For example: in the middle ages, what do you think people thought schizophrenia was? [1] http://www.radiolab.org/story/revising-fault-line/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/revising-fault-line/
  - 0xBA5ED 9y ago
    Now we’re completely off topic, but I want to reply to this :) I think of it like this. Perhaps every decision you make is /almost/ entirely determined by your current biological state and a long string of preconditions beyond your control. But… there is a sliver of freewill on top of this. And /with/ that sliver, you can choose to make incremental changes to your personal beliefs which molds your perception. By doing this, you essentially alter your biological state in a small way. This effect is cumulative, so you eventually start making different decisions than you would have, which changes your environment, and thus further changes the preconditions of your future. In this way, I believe freewill itself is cumulative. You are born with almost none, but you can develop it incrementally with effort.
    - nicklaf 9y ago
      Probably the most interesting answer I could have imagined to this, and from what I gather from Sapolsky's book that I've thus far read, pretty much in the opposite direction of his thesis in the book. But to my eyes just as convincing.

DaniFong 9y ago

this is mainly to prevent people from killing me and making my death look like a suicide...