

Aaron Swartz: Idealist, Innovator—And Now Victim - acav
http://www.thedailymuse.com/education/aaron-swartz-didnt-have-to-die/

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late2part
The title of this article is that he "didn't have to die." That is correct, he
didn't have to kill himself. Yes, he faced significant adversity, which he
brought upon himself. It's said that character is how you deal with adversity.
This person chose to end his own life instead of confront the challenge he
sought. No, the federal prosecutor was not in the right, but neither are they
in the wrong for the decision by Mr. Swartz to kill himself.

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scarmig
Oh, pish. We're more than happy to condemn young cyber-bullies who hound kids
to suicide without blaming the person committing suicide. If the act of making
someone's life unbearable is enough to blame bullies for a suicide, then
surely it's the same for the prosecutor.

Note that this doesn't rely on the victim's age: regardless of whether a 26
year old can be blamed more for suicide than a 16 year old, that doesn't
change the fact that we should give similar blame to the external factors in
both cases. Indeed: most tormentors of teens are themselves teens, so they, if
anything, deserve less blame than a sociopathic adult prosecutor hellbent on
career advancement, damn the consequences.

Also: the implicit attack on Aaron's character is uncalled for. You know
nothing at all about the quality of his character. You should keep in mind
that many of us here did know him. If you feel the need to engage in "man up"
rhetoric in some pointless display of how hard-nosed and pragmatic you are,
you should keep in mind it's a reflection more on you, not the person-object
you're leveraging to establish your own status.

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Volpe
While I agree with your sentiment.

I'd also say we are wrong to condemn young cyber-bullies. There are things in
life that create adversity, then there are ways of dealing with adversity. I
think conflating the two, makes it difficult to discuss.

That said, clearly the two are related, but it is correlative, not causative.

~~~
scarmig
I agree: plenty of people here have been bullied and came out relatively
unscathed. Often the bullying survived was worse than what drives others to
suicide. It's messy, because you can't tell in advance the likelihood of your
"being a dick" turning into "instigated a suicide," because something minor
for some people--nasty rumors on Facebook or a felony charge--might be life-
rending for others.

But just because something is uncertain doesn't mean you have to treat the
worst case as equivalent to the typical or median case. We treat drunk driving
much more leniently than vehicular manslaughter while drunk. That's the lens I
view the government's role through.

