5 ms·

Why are you assuming he did it because of his legal problems?

by cremnob 14y ago

lopatin 14y ago
Because he was a brilliant and loved computer programmer who was facing 35 years in prison. Can you imagine the US Attorneys office treating you in the same manner they treat rapists because you wrote a downloader script? I'd say it's a very reasonable assumption. RIP Aaron
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- krzyk 14y ago
  Nobody sane would kill himself - it's against the nature of all beings. Besides it's the easy way out.
  - sks 14y ago
    Someone who could have contributed very positively to the society just killed himself. We can't reverse that, the best we can do now is to learn from this incidence and try to minimize it in the future. Explaining it away in the name of insanity will not help.
  - lopatin 14y ago
    What's your fucking point?
    - krzyk 14y ago
      You pull the trigger and all your problems disappear, just like that. But what about your family, friends? They are devastated for the rest of their lives.
      - lopatin 14y ago
        Devastation was already running rampant in this situation.
      - jxi 14y ago
        As a stranger who's never known Aaron and who's only just read about what he's done in this world, I can say I'm somewhat devastated as well. You're blaming Aaron for taking the supposedly cowardly approach and hurting his friends and family in the process, but what about the people who put him in this position? Are they beyond reproach? What about the people who affected those people? Clearly something fucked up along the way because I don't think Aaron deserved to be in a position where he had to do this because he downloaded bytes from a website.
      - tjoff 14y ago
        I've always found that position extremely selfish. If it wasn't for families and friends being devastated killing yourself would probably not seem like a big deal to many. The fact that it affects the ones you love so much is the very reason for why many that contemplates suicide goes through unimaginable suffering just to save it from others - it is a huge sacrifice, one that a typical person would never, ever, in their entire life even come close to experiencing. And if it just doesn't work out people have the stomach to call it selfish. Someone described the process in which a depressed person takes his/her life with a person standing in the window of a burning building choosing between burning to death and jumping to death. It can basically be the very same thing. And to a certain degree, jumping just makes your problems disappear - just like that. But saying that the person jumping is selfish because he/she didn't contemplate the consequences? Do you honestly believe that killing yourself is something that people take lightly? That it didn't occur to them that they would be missed? Think. That point of view makes me sick and expressing it makes you extremely selfish in my eyes.
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
  - ucee054 14y ago
    Yeah because it's saner to spend 35 years in a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
    - krzyk 14y ago
      If you break a law you have to pay for this. Don't you have lawyers there to protect the innocent?
      - Udo 14y ago
        Holy crap, stop being such an asshole. On the off chance you're "just playing the devil's advocate": it's time to quit, now. You can't possibly believe that Aaron deserved in any way what was coming to him. It also stretches the imagination that you actually think lawyers are in any way protecting the innocent. Your opinion on depression is likewise both immature and disgusting in its callousness. You should really be challenged for these beliefs if they are indeed your own.
      - sks 14y ago
        As a society we do agree to follow the law and punish those who break them. But remember that the law of the land is not some God given set of laws. Several people broke segregation laws during the civil rights movement and in my view they should not have paid up (I think you may also agree with this). Turing paid up because he broke the law but now I guess there is almost unanimous consent that him paying up was not the right outcome. So paying up for breaking the law is not as black and white as it sometimes seems. Lets reserve our judgements for some time. Edit : Also as Udo points out lets stop this line of argument for a bit. Some members of the community either knew Aaron or were affected by his work, lets not subject them to this argument right now.
      - rdl 14y ago
        Even if you're innocent, and even if you ultimately win, a federal prosecution can utterly wreck your life. I don't think anyone disputes that Aaron was probably not in the best of mental health to be facing this kind of thing in the first place, but even for a paragon of stability, a multi-year witchhunt and prosecution by the feds will push you to the limit. I know of a few people who have been in the eye AUSA doom (and some ongoing, like Harborside Health Center), and especially for an individual defendant vs. a group, it's very hard.
  - petercooper 14y ago
    Even if you're right, there are many things that can turn the sanest of people "insane" (or at least depressed). See post traumatic stress disorder or postpartum depression for starters. I imagine if I were suddenly facing a potential 35 years in prison, I'd be at a pretty high risk of becoming depressed.
- throwit1979 14y ago
  Can you imagine the US Attorneys office treating you in the same manner they treat rapists because you wrote a downloader script? Minor nitpick: The "justice" system treats rapists far better. Typical sentencing for rapists is 112 months, of which the typical rapist will serve half, from a system( rape is usually a state-level crime )with conviction rates hovering around 65%. Aaron was facing 3-4 times that, in a system( the federal courts )with a conviction rate over 90%.
charonn0 14y ago
A Federal charge is a terrible thing, even before the gavel falls. You'll note that he was indicted in June 2011, more than a year and a half ago. Throughout this time he must have been under tremendous stress: not knowing whether he'd be spending the next few decades behind bars, and not even knowing when he would find this information out. Months drag on into years and nothing seems to get any better. Your life is on hold until someone else decides what your life will be looking like. This sort of stress tends to eat away at your insides. You can't make long-term plans of any kind; meet a nice person at the bar and you're reminded that you can't start anything serious since you might be going away for a long time. A thousand tiny reminders every day that you are already a prisoner and will be for an indefinite period while the lawyers are lawyering. All the defendant has is time to think about what prison would be like, how the course of their life is not in their hands. It is a feeling of abject powerlessness. It's not unfathomable that a person in this situation might look at suicide as the only way to regain control of their life, even if it means ending it prematurely. Suicide for a defendant can, therefore, seem almost enticing. A siren who sings of a quick and easy escape from seemingly insurmountable troubles. I do not know why he did it, but I have been where he might have gone to in his mind. It is a dark place, and much evil can be wrought there.

Why are you assuming he did it because of his legal problems?

by cremnob 14y ago

Why are you assuming he did it because of his legal problems?

Because he was a brilliant and loved computer programmer who was facing 35 years in prison. Can you imagine the US Attorneys office treating you in the same manner they treat rapists because you wrote a downloader script? I'd say it's a very reasonable assumption. RIP Aaron

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
krzyk 14y ago
Nobody sane would kill himself - it's against the nature of all beings. Besides it's the easy way out.
- sks 14y ago
  Someone who could have contributed very positively to the society just killed himself. We can't reverse that, the best we can do now is to learn from this incidence and try to minimize it in the future. Explaining it away in the name of insanity will not help.
- lopatin 14y ago
  What's your fucking point?
  - krzyk 14y ago
    You pull the trigger and all your problems disappear, just like that. But what about your family, friends? They are devastated for the rest of their lives.
    - lopatin 14y ago
      Devastation was already running rampant in this situation.
    - jxi 14y ago
      As a stranger who's never known Aaron and who's only just read about what he's done in this world, I can say I'm somewhat devastated as well. You're blaming Aaron for taking the supposedly cowardly approach and hurting his friends and family in the process, but what about the people who put him in this position? Are they beyond reproach? What about the people who affected those people? Clearly something fucked up along the way because I don't think Aaron deserved to be in a position where he had to do this because he downloaded bytes from a website.
    - tjoff 14y ago
      I've always found that position extremely selfish. If it wasn't for families and friends being devastated killing yourself would probably not seem like a big deal to many. The fact that it affects the ones you love so much is the very reason for why many that contemplates suicide goes through unimaginable suffering just to save it from others - it is a huge sacrifice, one that a typical person would never, ever, in their entire life even come close to experiencing. And if it just doesn't work out people have the stomach to call it selfish. Someone described the process in which a depressed person takes his/her life with a person standing in the window of a burning building choosing between burning to death and jumping to death. It can basically be the very same thing. And to a certain degree, jumping just makes your problems disappear - just like that. But saying that the person jumping is selfish because he/she didn't contemplate the consequences? Do you honestly believe that killing yourself is something that people take lightly? That it didn't occur to them that they would be missed? Think. That point of view makes me sick and expressing it makes you extremely selfish in my eyes.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
- ucee054 14y ago
  Yeah because it's saner to spend 35 years in a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
  - krzyk 14y ago
    If you break a law you have to pay for this. Don't you have lawyers there to protect the innocent?
    - Udo 14y ago
      Holy crap, stop being such an asshole. On the off chance you're "just playing the devil's advocate": it's time to quit, now. You can't possibly believe that Aaron deserved in any way what was coming to him. It also stretches the imagination that you actually think lawyers are in any way protecting the innocent. Your opinion on depression is likewise both immature and disgusting in its callousness. You should really be challenged for these beliefs if they are indeed your own.
    - sks 14y ago
      As a society we do agree to follow the law and punish those who break them. But remember that the law of the land is not some God given set of laws. Several people broke segregation laws during the civil rights movement and in my view they should not have paid up (I think you may also agree with this). Turing paid up because he broke the law but now I guess there is almost unanimous consent that him paying up was not the right outcome. So paying up for breaking the law is not as black and white as it sometimes seems. Lets reserve our judgements for some time. Edit : Also as Udo points out lets stop this line of argument for a bit. Some members of the community either knew Aaron or were affected by his work, lets not subject them to this argument right now.
    - rdl 14y ago
      Even if you're innocent, and even if you ultimately win, a federal prosecution can utterly wreck your life. I don't think anyone disputes that Aaron was probably not in the best of mental health to be facing this kind of thing in the first place, but even for a paragon of stability, a multi-year witchhunt and prosecution by the feds will push you to the limit. I know of a few people who have been in the eye AUSA doom (and some ongoing, like Harborside Health Center), and especially for an individual defendant vs. a group, it's very hard.
- petercooper 14y ago
  Even if you're right, there are many things that can turn the sanest of people "insane" (or at least depressed). See post traumatic stress disorder or postpartum depression for starters. I imagine if I were suddenly facing a potential 35 years in prison, I'd be at a pretty high risk of becoming depressed.
throwit1979 14y ago
Can you imagine the US Attorneys office treating you in the same manner they treat rapists because you wrote a downloader script? Minor nitpick: The "justice" system treats rapists far better. Typical sentencing for rapists is 112 months, of which the typical rapist will serve half, from a system( rape is usually a state-level crime )with conviction rates hovering around 65%. Aaron was facing 3-4 times that, in a system( the federal courts )with a conviction rate over 90%.

charonn0 14y ago

A Federal charge is a terrible thing, even before the gavel falls. You'll note that he was indicted in June 2011, more than a year and a half ago. Throughout this time he must have been under tremendous stress: not knowing whether he'd be spending the next few decades behind bars, and not even knowing when he would find this information out. Months drag on into years and nothing seems to get any better. Your life is on hold until someone else decides what your life will be looking like. This sort of stress tends to eat away at your insides. You can't make long-term plans of any kind; meet a nice person at the bar and you're reminded that you can't start anything serious since you might be going away for a long time. A thousand tiny reminders every day that you are already a prisoner and will be for an indefinite period while the lawyers are lawyering. All the defendant has is time to think about what prison would be like, how the course of their life is not in their hands. It is a feeling of abject powerlessness. It's not unfathomable that a person in this situation might look at suicide as the only way to regain control of their life, even if it means ending it prematurely. Suicide for a defendant can, therefore, seem almost enticing. A siren who sings of a quick and easy escape from seemingly insurmountable troubles. I do not know why he did it, but I have been where he might have gone to in his mind. It is a dark place, and much evil can be wrought there.