You're right; his lazy, incurious dismissal of the news article didn't make Aaron kill himself. EVERYONE's lazy, incurious dismissal of the news article and the

You're right; his lazy, incurious dismissal of the news article didn't make Aaron kill himself. EVERYONE's lazy, incurious dismissal of the news article and the surrounding circumstances (Myself included; I am ashamed that when I read that article my {unposted} response was "not my problem, good luck dude"), taken in aggregate, made him kill himself. 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.