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99.9% of people were not him. > law enforcement did not drive him to suicide People can keep repeating this, and it will still be false. LEO and Prosecutor ac

by _jal 6y ago

99.9% of people were not him. > law enforcement did not drive him to suicide People can keep repeating this, and it will still be false. LEO and Prosecutor action was the proximate cause of his actions. You can make moral arguments that, say, the prosecutor was Just Doing His Job, and I may even agree with you. But you and everyone else are simply wrong about cause and effect, and attempting to blur that tells me more about your priors and biases than anything about the situation.

xadhominemx 6y ago
Aaron’s story is good example of why blaming the suicide of someone with severe depression on whatever proximate cause triggered the act is the wrong way to understand why someone takes their own life. Many suicides are prompted by trivial or very temporary situations that are not at fault.
- vlovich123 6y ago
  That presumed that the whole trial wasn’t the cause of the mental issues. I’m sure that facing an immoral DOJ out for blood caused him a lot of stress and depression (or triggered any latent issues).
  - FDSGSG 6y ago
    It's rather well documented that Aaron had been thinking about suicide long before getting mixed up with the DOJ http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/341150 http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/341150
    - WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
      It's not clear how that addresses DoJ's highly unethical choice to stack 52 years of federal prison time.
    - vlovich123 6y ago
      Did you actually read that link? He wrote the alleged “suicide note” in a moment where he was suffering from extreme physical pain as that was his way of expressing it to give himself some mental release. On top of all of that he was dealing with getting fired which itself can be a mindfuck. To me the proximate cause 100% was the legal case against him - it inflamed any underlying issues and they just kept pressing. I could be wrong of course but I don’t think anyone will ever truly know what was happening in his head.
      - FDSGSG 6y ago
        I did read that link. People without mental issues don't tend to post suicide notes, regardless of whatever physical pain or employment issues they might be facing. It's fairly clear that Swartz had a history of suicidal ideation, this wasn't of the DoJs making no matter how unfairly they may have treated him. >To me the proximate cause 100% was the legal case against him - it inflamed any underlying issues and they just kept pressing. I could be wrong of course but I don’t think anyone will ever truly know what was happening in his head. Obviously the cause was his preexisting mental issues, a healthy individual would not kill themselves in his situation.
        WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
        You're arguing that DoJ didn't create the opportunity for Aaron to kill himself, they merely seized upon it and got an even stronger outcome than they were hoping for.
        vlovich123 6y ago
        Suicidal ideation is regular & there's a very clear step jump function in how its treated by psychotherapists vs a genuine intent to commit suicide. Until you make concrete plans to harm yourself or others, ideation is just that. Most people keep it private but I don't believe there's any literature that indicates that voicing that ideation publicly somehow makes you more likely to actually enact it.
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
  > Many suicides are prompted by trivial or very temporary situations that are not at fault. I am part of a support group that is dominated by people who've attempted suicide. The words trivial and temporary don't describe any part of their journey. What is common, is how these people were harmed by the self-interested and misguided actions of others.
kortilla 6y ago
If you go down the path of blaming external factors for suicides it’s going to get messy pretty fast. How many suicides were because of Eminem songs? How many suicides were because of the lack of suicide nets on the Golden Gate Bridge? How many suicides are because of a break up? Whose fault was Epstein’s suicide? Robin William’s? R. Budd Dwyer?
- _jal 6y ago
  I'll just quote myself, > attempting to blur that tells me more about your priors and biases than anything about the situation And right on cue, here comes someone who would rather talk about Eminem and Epstein to blur the situation than talk about the actual situation.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    Attempting to deflect tells me you know that blaming others for suicides is a dangerous and dumb path to go down.
- Shared404 6y ago
  > Whose fault was Epstein’s suicide? You all know what I'm going to say here. As for the rest, it's a fine line. There are obviously individual variances in how much it would take to push someone over the edge, I can certainly see how nine felonies would be enough in the case of Aaron's example.
manfredo 6y ago
A substantial number of people commit suicide following loss of one's job. Would you feel it's fair to say that their bosses drove them to suicide? I'd say no. Most of such cases, like Swartz, had existing mental conditions that are primarily responsible for their decision to commit suicide. Loss of a job may have been the event that ultimately prompted the act, but the driving factors were mental conditions. Saying that these people were driven to suicide conflates these cases with like this where someone is actively driving someone else to suicide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Conrad_Roy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Conrad_Roy
- _jal 6y ago
  People are obsessed with blame. Get over it. This isn't about blame or guilt. It is about cause and effect. I think it is "fair" to describe action B as following from action A, when there is good reason to consider them related. If you revise your observations of reality based on what you fear might happen later, you're not observing reality.

by _jal 6y ago

xadhominemx 6y ago

Aaron’s story is good example of why blaming the suicide of someone with severe depression on whatever proximate cause triggered the act is the wrong way to understand why someone takes their own life. Many suicides are prompted by trivial or very temporary situations that are not at fault.

vlovich123 6y ago
That presumed that the whole trial wasn’t the cause of the mental issues. I’m sure that facing an immoral DOJ out for blood caused him a lot of stress and depression (or triggered any latent issues).
- FDSGSG 6y ago
  It's rather well documented that Aaron had been thinking about suicide long before getting mixed up with the DOJ http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/341150 http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/341150
  - WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
    It's not clear how that addresses DoJ's highly unethical choice to stack 52 years of federal prison time.
  - vlovich123 6y ago
    Did you actually read that link? He wrote the alleged “suicide note” in a moment where he was suffering from extreme physical pain as that was his way of expressing it to give himself some mental release. On top of all of that he was dealing with getting fired which itself can be a mindfuck. To me the proximate cause 100% was the legal case against him - it inflamed any underlying issues and they just kept pressing. I could be wrong of course but I don’t think anyone will ever truly know what was happening in his head.
    - FDSGSG 6y ago
      I did read that link. People without mental issues don't tend to post suicide notes, regardless of whatever physical pain or employment issues they might be facing. It's fairly clear that Swartz had a history of suicidal ideation, this wasn't of the DoJs making no matter how unfairly they may have treated him. >To me the proximate cause 100% was the legal case against him - it inflamed any underlying issues and they just kept pressing. I could be wrong of course but I don’t think anyone will ever truly know what was happening in his head. Obviously the cause was his preexisting mental issues, a healthy individual would not kill themselves in his situation.
      - WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
        You're arguing that DoJ didn't create the opportunity for Aaron to kill himself, they merely seized upon it and got an even stronger outcome than they were hoping for.
      - vlovich123 6y ago
        Suicidal ideation is regular & there's a very clear step jump function in how its treated by psychotherapists vs a genuine intent to commit suicide. Until you make concrete plans to harm yourself or others, ideation is just that. Most people keep it private but I don't believe there's any literature that indicates that voicing that ideation publicly somehow makes you more likely to actually enact it.
WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
> Many suicides are prompted by trivial or very temporary situations that are not at fault. I am part of a support group that is dominated by people who've attempted suicide. The words trivial and temporary don't describe any part of their journey. What is common, is how these people were harmed by the self-interested and misguided actions of others.

kortilla 6y ago

If you go down the path of blaming external factors for suicides it’s going to get messy pretty fast. How many suicides were because of Eminem songs? How many suicides were because of the lack of suicide nets on the Golden Gate Bridge? How many suicides are because of a break up? Whose fault was Epstein’s suicide? Robin William’s? R. Budd Dwyer?

_jal 6y ago
I'll just quote myself, > attempting to blur that tells me more about your priors and biases than anything about the situation And right on cue, here comes someone who would rather talk about Eminem and Epstein to blur the situation than talk about the actual situation.
- kortilla 6y ago
  Attempting to deflect tells me you know that blaming others for suicides is a dangerous and dumb path to go down.
Shared404 6y ago
> Whose fault was Epstein’s suicide? You all know what I'm going to say here. As for the rest, it's a fine line. There are obviously individual variances in how much it would take to push someone over the edge, I can certainly see how nine felonies would be enough in the case of Aaron's example.

manfredo 6y ago

A substantial number of people commit suicide following loss of one's job. Would you feel it's fair to say that their bosses drove them to suicide? I'd say no. Most of such cases, like Swartz, had existing mental conditions that are primarily responsible for their decision to commit suicide. Loss of a job may have been the event that ultimately prompted the act, but the driving factors were mental conditions. Saying that these people were driven to suicide conflates these cases with like this where someone is actively driving someone else to suicide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Conrad_Roy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Conrad_Roy

_jal 6y ago
People are obsessed with blame. Get over it. This isn't about blame or guilt. It is about cause and effect. I think it is "fair" to describe action B as following from action A, when there is good reason to consider them related. If you revise your observations of reality based on what you fear might happen later, you're not observing reality.