

Why Aaron died - epaulson
http://tarensk.tumblr.com/post/42260548767/why-aaron-died

======
d0m
The last sentences makes me think:

    
    
      Ask yourself this: If on January 10, Steve Heymann and Carmen Ortiz at 
      the Massachusetts US Attorney’s office had called Aaron’s lawyer and said
      they’d realized their mistake and that they were dropping all charges — or
      even for that matter that they were ready to offer a reasonable plea deal
      that wouldn’t have marked Aaron as a felon for the rest of his life — would  
      Aaron have killed himself on January 11?
      
      The answer is unquestionably no.
    

Is it really, _unquestionably_ , no? If for two years he was enjoying life (As
the OP explained) and that he was actively working on a new project (Again as
the OP explained), I find it very odd that he committed suicide because of the
charges.

It has to have a straw that broke the camel's back. Oh well, I guess so. Or I
don't know. But I find it very sad.

~~~
Millennium
This would imply that the US Attorney's office made a mistake in charging him
for the crimes he committed. In reality, this would have been letting him off
the hook because ZOMGAARONSWARTZ.

Aaron died because he forgot that civil disobedience is not about sticking it
to The Man, but about getting into the sort of vulnerable position that makes
it possible to win people over with dialogue. It's about paying the price, not
doing the deed, and he wasn't prepared for that. This is not something he
should be martyred for.

~~~
jjjjjosh
"civil disobedience is not about sticking it to The Man, but about getting
into the sort of vulnerable position that makes it possible to win people over
with dialogue."

I find that really beautiful, thank you.

------
rayiner
Aaron died because he killed himself. He was the proximate cause of his own
death so to speak. Are there other factors without which he wouldn't have
killed himself? Indeed, there are an infinite number of them. An infinite
number of things could have happened to change the course of his life. Indeed,
ultimately you can trace the blame all the way back to his parents (depression
is quite heritable): <http://depressiongenetics.stanford.edu/mddandgenes.html>

~~~
thaumaturgy
I will muster every ounce of decorum I can manage in responding to some random
person's rebuttal to a post written by someone who _actually knew and lived
with Aaron_ (seriously, what are you thinking?!), and simply retort:

"That program crashed because it halted. It was the proximate cause of its own
crash so to speak. Are there other factors without which it wouldn't have
crashed? Indeed, there are an infinite number of them. An infinite number of
things could have happened to change the course of the program execution.
Indeed, ultimately you can trace the blame all the way back to the program's
previous versions (the bug is quite heritable)."

Your comment is not enlightening. It is not insightful. It falls flat on its
face if you bother to do even two minutes' Googling to find that while
somewhere between 1 in 10 and 1 in 20 Americans suffer from depression
(<http://www.cdc.gov/features/dsdepression/>), "only" 38,000 die of suicide
each year (<http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/suicide.htm>).

Saying, "that person committed suicide because they were depressed" is ... I
have no polite things to say about it. Saying that _to the loved one of
someone who just committed suicide_ is really, fucking, wrong. "Tracing the
blame back to his parents" -- i.e., _blaming_ his parents -- is simply,
horribly, awfully, inhumane.

If Taren is saying that she doesn't think Aaron would've committed suicide at
this time if it weren't for the way that the case was progressing, _we have no
damn business telling her otherwise_ , and your completely vacuous comment
_certainly_ shouldn't be at the top of the thread about it.

Is it possible maybe that your background as an attorney is coloring your
judgement of this case? That you find it uncomfortable that someone else in
the legal profession is being faulted for the way that they handled a case
that resulted in someone else's _completely preventable_ death?

~~~
ErrantX
Yes. But. (and this post doesn't intend to argue Aaron was depressed, just
thinks about the premise that he might have been)

As someone who suffers a lot with depression, it is quite possible to be
depressed _and for no one close to you to notice_. We can be damn good at
hiding it, especially with practice, especially with people we know well.

Some time ago I was living with my partner and she had no clue I had been
depressed for months. Then we went out with a couple we hadn't seen for a
little while, and afterwards the girl took my partner aside and asked if I was
OK.

Taren obviously knows him best, and I agree that if she says Aaron wouldn't
have committed suicide if it weren't for the case then clearly that is true.
However, I think she is dismissing the impact of depression, or at least
dismissing the possibility, to readily. You could turn around and suggest that
if he hadn't been in depression (if indeed he was) then the case may have not
driven him to suicide.

Depression is a horrible, and terrible thing. Those close to depressed
individuals certainly have a lot of insight, but it is still nearly impossible
to communicate what it is like even to them.

EDIT: I'm cautious to add this, because it is "one guy on the internet", but
reading Taren's post again some of the things she describes strike me as
telltale signs of secreted depression. Disappearing on a whim for a hike, for
example, is a favourite of mine.

EDIT2: It is also worth noting she describes one common set of symptoms of
depression (low activity, disinterest, etc.). However, I for one don't often
get them (for example) but I do become deeply involved in subjects for periods
of time before moving on. Similar to how she describes. This is a _very very_
common symptom of depression and if you see a friend become obsessed with a
string of new things take a second to think about how they might be.

~~~
xijuan
Do you know how psychiatrists or clinical psychologists diagnose depression?
Have you read the DSM? Do you know how they come up with the criteria for
psychiatric disorders in DSM? Do you know the controversies behind DSM? Do you
know few decades ago homosexuality was regarded as a mental disorder? Do you
know that there are researchers who want to introduce a new "psychiatric
disorder" (i.e., hypersexual disorder) in the next edition of DSM for people
who have sex more than 7 times a week ?

Here is the criteria for major depression: Diagnostic criteria:

Depressed mood and/or loss of interest or pleasure in life activities for at
least 2 weeks and at least five of the following symptoms that cause
clinically significant impairment in social, work, or other important areas of
functioning almost every day

1\. Depressed mood most of the day.

2\. Diminished interest or pleasure in all or most activities.

3\. Significant unintentional weight loss or gain.

4\. Insomnia or sleeping too much.

5\. Agitation or psychomotor retardation noticed by others.

6\. Fatigue or loss of energy.

7\. Feelings of worthlessness or excessive guilt.

8\. Diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness.

9\. Recurrent thoughts of death (APA, 2000, p. 356).

I am sure everyone has met some of its criteria at some point in their life.
Without a real diagnosis, you really can't say if the person has a major
depression. Even with a diagnosis, how do you know the doctor is making the
right diagnosis with SUCH VAGUE criteria?

Edit: I am very aware of what DanBC has pointed out about the other criteria:
i) at least 2 weeks ii) and at least five of the following symptoms iii)
clinically significant impairment in social, work, or other important areas of
functioning almost every day.

BUT THEN, the question becomes "Why 2 week?" "Why at least five of the
symptoms?" Who came up with the numbers? Let me tell you, the DSM committee
have a lot of disagreement about those. Those numbers are not some magic
numbers that once you pass that threshold, you suddenly become clinical
depressed.

~~~
lutusp
> Do you know how psychiatrists or clinical psychologists diagnose depression?

Yes, and do you know how much variability exists between practitioners?
Diagnosis is largely a matter of personal opinion, not science.

The reason for that, in turn, is because no on knows what causes depression --
it's not like a medical condition with an identified pathogen and clinically
validated treatment.

But the vague state of depression as an illness with an unknown cause doesn't
prevent psychiatry and clinical psychology from offering therapy and drugs of
dubious efficacy.

Antidepression drugs have been shown to be ineffective in most cases --

Link:
[http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fj...](http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.0050045)

Title: "Initial Severity and Antidepressant Benefits: A Meta-Analysis of Data
Submitted to the Food and Drug Administration"

Quote: "Meta-analyses of antidepressant medications have reported only modest
benefits over placebo treatment, _and when unpublished trial data are
included, the benefit falls below accepted criteria for clinical
significance._ "

The story is that drug companies publish only studies that support their
belief in their drugs' efficacy. But when completed but unpublished studies
are included, the evidence for the efficacy of antidepression drugs
evaporates.

The study's authors don't say the drug companies deliberately suppressed
negative findings -- they leave that conclusion to the reader.

~~~
darius42
I have many bad things to say about many antidepressant. E.g., they all have
very annoying side effects, at least for me, and some of the side-effects
(e.g., vivid dreams) require benzos to counter. And then benzo addiction is
really no fun at all.

Other side effects I experienced were clearly under-reported by the
pharmaceutical companies. E.g., negative sexual side effects for Prozac that
my doctor wouldn't even believe were real and not psychosomatic, until it
later turned out that 25%-50% of all patients suffered these side effects, and
the pharmaceutical company had neglected to inform anyone.

On other other hand, Remeron surely saved my life. I have _no doubt_ about
this. I had been in the most miserable state you could ever possibly imagine
and then some, and had been this way for months, and then within a day or two
of starting Remeron, I was utterly fine. (Though ironically, it may have been
another antidepressant that put me in this terrible state to begin with, as I
had to go off it cold turkey due to it causing a different dangerous side
effect.)

As for diagnosing depression, it may certainly be the case that many cases are
difficult to diagnose correctly. And there may be cases where there is no fact
of the matter as to whether the particular symptoms count as depression. On
the other hand, there are certainly cases where there is no question at all as
to whether it's depression. I have been there quite a few times, and it's been
as cut and dried as anything can be in this world.

~~~
lutusp
> On the other hand, there are certainly cases where there is no question at
> all as to whether it's depression.

Yes, absolutely, but saying "it was depression" is not the same as saying
"depression is a disease with a proximate cause that can be identified,
diagnosed and treated."

The present debate surrounding depression is global in scope. No one knows
whether depression is a disease in the way that a cold is a disease, or is an
extreme case of normal emotion, not amenable to any kind of diagnosis or
treatment.

None of this is meant to argue that depression isn't a disease in the way that
a cold is a disease -- only to say there's no reliable science behind the
claims.

But we do know this -- in controlled scientific studies, antidepression drugs
don't actually work for the majority of patients:

Link:
[http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fj...](http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.0050045)

Title: "Initial Severity and Antidepressant Benefits: A Meta-Analysis of Data
Submitted to the Food and Drug Administration"

Quote: "Meta-analyses of antidepressant medications have reported only modest
benefits over placebo treatment, and _when unpublished trial data are
included, the benefit falls below accepted criteria for clinical
significance._ " [Emphasis added]

Comment: Drug companies have been only publishing studies that supported their
drugs, and discarding those that didn't. This study compares the outcomes for
all the studies, published and unpublished, and the result is that
antidepression drugs do not work for the majority of patients.

~~~
darius42
_> the result is that antidepression drugs do not work for the majority of
patients._

I suspect that this is because most patients don't have the patience or
wherewithal to try enough different kinds, or a doctor who is willing to
combine them with benzos. The patient's patience is especially relevant since
when you are depressed, the last thing in the world that you need is to add
extra suffering from side-effects to your list of woes. Or at least that has
been my personal experience. After a few bad experiences, I was very reluctant
to try additional antidepressants, and after having become dependent on Ativan
once, I vowed to never allow that to happen again either.

Ultimately though, I tried just about every modern antidepressant before
finding one that worked, and I know people who had to go to tricyclics, which
has caused them to become fat, but happy. Each of the antidepressants I tried
affected me differently. But at this point, I am very relieved to know that if
I become depressed again, there is a drug that I know for sure works for me.
Knowing that is a _huge_ weight off of my shoulders. Though having to look
forward to weaning off of benzos again puts some of that weight back.

More recently I tried ketamine when I was worried that I was going to become
depressed due to an unfortunate life circumstance. I'm here to say that it
apparently worked as well as hyped since I never became at all depressed
during a situation that would typically have sent me into a downward spiral.
And with no ill side effects too boot. Too bad it's not legal....

Of course, trying many different antidepressants is not without its risks, as
I alluded to previously.

~~~
lutusp
> I suspect that this is because most patients don't have the patience or
> wherewithal to try enough different kinds, or a doctor who is willing to
> combine them with benzos.

No, no, we're talking about controlled studies overseen by scientists, not
psychologists or psychiatrists in ordinary clinical practice. Typically, such
a study has an experimental and control group. The experimental group gets the
drug under test and the control group gets a placebo. To minimize the
possibility of bias, during the study neither the experimenters nor the
subjects know which subjects are controls.

After the study, the histories of the subjects are compared, and the groups to
which they belong are finally revealed. Every precaution is taken to limit
bias and emotional attachments to any outcome.

As it turns out, when such studies are conducted and compared to other
similarly disciplined studies, _the efficacy of antidepressants evaporates_.
In plain English, they do not work.

That's the scientific finding. It's not an opinion, like much of psychology,
it is a scientific result.

> But at this point, I am very relieved to know that if I become depressed
> again, there is a drug that I know for sure works for me.

Yes -- and so does astrology, but only if you sincerely believe it does.

~~~
darius42
The fact that Remeron worked for me has absolutely nothing to do with belief
or placebo affect. In fact, I was _absolutely certain_ at the time that
Remeron would not work, due to my previous bad experiences with
antidepressants and my terribly negative state of mind. Also, there is
absolutely no scientific evidence that the placebo affect can have such a
drastic and lasting effect. I was not just a _little_ blue; I was out of my
mind @#%$ing batshit crazy. For months and months, and then a few days later,
completely cured. A cure that has lasted for years.

As to your claim that "they do not work", the scientific evidence that they
work may be questionable, but lack of scientific proof is not the same thing
as scientific disproof. You have no proof that they do not work for many
people, despite your claim, as the way the drugs are used in double-blind
studies do not perfectly mirror their use in the actual world. E.g.,
combination with other drugs, such a benzos, and/or other antidpressants, and
trials of a number of different drugs to find which one is best of that
particular person's brain chemistry.

Furthermore, one doesn't need scientific evidence to know certain things. I
don't need published double-blind scientific evidence to know that if I hit my
toe with a hammer that it will hurt. I don't need scientific evidence to know
that my wife loves me.

Another point of evidence: Paxil also cured my depression within a day or two,
on a different occasion, but it also had many other effects on me that were
highly undesirable. It removed all pleasurable sexual sensations. It made me
hypomanic and not care about how I treated other people. I felt as if everyone
else in the world was an asshole who didn't give a shit about me, and so I was
free not to give a shit about them. I felt absolutely no affinity any more for
the people that I loved. I only found them annoying. I.e., my normal
personality was turned completely upside down.

I don't need scientific evidence to know that this is how Paxil effected me,
any more than I need scientific evidence to tell me how alcohol or marijuana
make me feel. These are not subtle things, and the effect of Paxil on me, and
the affect of Remeron on me were anything but subtle. They were as
psychoactive as any substance can be.

Now since my evidence is not scientific, I am not stating that you should be
convinced. On the other hand, you have no grounds to assert that I was cured
by the placebo effect. You don't know me and you don't have access to the
personal experiential information I have. I, personally, have plenty of
information to make an accurate and rational conclusion here. And I have.

~~~
lutusp
> The fact that Remeron worked for me has absolutely nothing to do with belief
> or placebo affect.

With all respect, you cannot make this claim. The only way this claim could
become scientific would be with a double-blind scientific study. Such a study
would compare the drug with ... a placebo.

And, as I have pointed out, the studies that have been conducted do not
support the claim that antidepressants work for the majority of people --
indeed, studies demonstrate the opposite conclusion, that _they do not work_.

> On the other hand, you have no grounds to assert that I was cured by the
> placebo effect.

Yes, which means it's a good thing that I never said that anywhere. And why
would I? The claim makes no sense -- no one is ever "cured" by the placebo
effect.

> I don't need scientific evidence to know that this is how Paxil effected me
> ...

Wow. The drug companies must love clients like you.

> I, personally, have plenty of information to make an accurate and rational
> conclusion here.

You are ignoring the readily available scientific findings, so no, your
conclusion is neither accurate nor rational.

This is an excellent capsule summary of modern psychological research -- no
electron micrographs, no useful _in vitro_ results, no objective evidence. No
known causes for diagnosed conditions, and subjective diagnostic criteria.
Instead, a nearly complete reliance on the self-reporting of clients, who
insist that the drugs do or do not work, or the therapy works or doesn't work.

No matter how sincerely psychologists and psychiatrists want to help people,
this charade will continue until real science begins to be done, and for that,
we'll probably have to completely switch away from psychology to neuroscience.
As it happens, Thomas R. Insel, the sitting director of the NIMH, agrees with
this view:

Link: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=faulty-
circ...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=faulty-circuits)

Quote: "In most areas of medicine, doctors have historically tried to glean
something about the underlying cause of a patient's illness before figuring
out a treatment that addresses the source of the problem. When it came to
mental or behavioral disorders in the past, however, no physical cause was
detectable so the problem was long assumed by doctors to be solely "mental,"
and psychological therapies followed suit. Today scientific approaches based
on modern biology, _neuroscience and genomics are replacing nearly a century
of purely psychological theories_ , yielding new approaches to the treatment
of mental illnesses."

~~~
darius42
_> With all respect, you cannot make this claim._

With all respect, I most certainly can. I know myself well enough to know how
I respond to drugs. I'm sorry if that is not the case for you. I also know
that I don't suddenly pop from the depths of the worst despair imaginable to
being completely normal in a day or two on a hope and a dream. If that were
the case, many other things would have cured me. Such as the dozen or two
medications I tried before Remeron, for instance.

 _> The only way this claim could become scientific would be with a double-
blind scientific study. Such a study would compare the drug with ... a
placebo_

I specifically stated that my claim was not scientific. All knowledge does not
come via science. As I already mentioned, I cannot prove scientifically that
my wife loves me, and yet I know this to be true. You may have no good reason
to believe me about that, but that has no bearing on what I know to be true.

 _> Yes, which means it's a good thing that I never said that anywhere. And
why would I? The claim makes no sense -- no one is ever "cured" by the placebo
effect._

The placebo affect is real, so it can certainly act as a cure for minor
ailments of certain sorts. I have no desire to argue semantics with you. On
the other hand, it was Remeron that cured me, and I'm as sure of that as I am
that I am not conversing right now with an AI program, though I can't prove
that scientifically, either.

As I also mentioned, you do have not have any particularly good reason to
believe me, but for reasons I have stated, you also have no good reason not to
believe me. If you were not an ideologue, you would remain agnostic.

 _> Wow. The drug companies must love clients like you._

Your assertion is that a drug company would love me because I am willing to
testify to the fact that Paxil made me hypomanic and I would assert to anyone
that it is a dangerous drug and I would advise them to stay away from it if my
experience is at all representative? You have a strange notion of what drug
companies might love.

I've been told by doctors that I had a phobia of antidepressants because I was
so utterly resistant to trying anymore after my terrible experiences with
them. You sound like them: The hypomania was all in my head. The sexual
dysfunction from Prozac was all in my head! Welcome to the club of quack
shrinks!

 _> You are ignoring the readily available scientific findings, so no, your
conclusion is neither accurate nor rational._

I am ignoring nothing. If you actually read what I wrote, you would know that.

As to your claims that neuroscience research will likely be hugely beneficial
to our understanding. Well, of course. That verges on tautology.

~~~
lutusp
>> With all respect, you cannot make this claim.

> With all respect, I most certainly can.

I recommend a refresher course in science.

~~~
darius42
_> I recommend a refresher course in science._

I recommend that you learn to read. And how to not be a jerk.

------
vph
Call it depression or fragile mind or mental health. Whatever you call, it's
probably the main factor. Truth is he has a girl friend. He wasn't starving.
It wasn't clear if he would be found guilty. Even if he would be found guilty,
go to jail, he would still have a very good future (being who he is with all
of his connections and accomplishments).

Many folks are in much worse positions everyday and they don't kill
themselves.

He was probably a good honorable guy, but he made the mistake of killing
himself. There are horrible people that you have to deal with in life; there
are horrible situations that you might have to be in. You can't blame them for
killing yourself. If you take your own life, it is you first and foremost.

All of these soft talks trying to shift blame to these horrible lawyers are
dangerous. The truth is there are bright young folks who are probably have
similar mental health issues with Aaron. If the going gets tough, they might
think of killing themselves as well. The best message, and the right thing to
say is, if you kill yourself, it is your darn fault.

~~~
xijuan
I disagree with you. Everyone has moments of weaknesses. Everyone has the
potential to become depressed. Depression is caused by a combination of
situational and dispositional factors. Let me give you concrete examples.
There are people who are a bit prone to depression. These people would be more
likely to feel depressed when exposed to stressors which won't trigger major
depression in other people. However, when the stressor gets extremely severe,
it would trigger depression even in people who are not prone to depression. A
classical example of this is soldiers who suffer from PTSD after being in the
wars. Most of them would never have such problem if they have not gone to war
and have not been exposed to all these atrocities.

------
xijuan
I don't want to discuss about why Aaron died. But I can really feel the pain
of his girlfriend. I have also been currently struggling with nightmares. I
have never realized that dreams can have such an impact in my life. During the
day, I would be so busy and thus do not have time to think about the thing I
don't want to think about. But every morning before I wake up, I would dream
about "the thing".. I especially understand the part where she says that she
has to force herself to wake up from the nightmare... I have done that many
times as well. But after I wake up, I just have to face the reality ( in
Taren's words "the real-life nightmare" ).

------
dwj
Speaking as someone who has actually been suicidal, it does seem pretty clear
that he was depressed. From his blog posts it seems that he typically had a
lot of stress-related health symptoms over the years, including depression. It
seems that he simply tried to do too much, got burned out as a result, and
couldn't/wouldn't talk about it to anyone. Not all depression fits nicely into
the 'clinical depression' pigeonhole.

------
droope
I just want to say six words to people saying aaron commited suicide:

"Make it look like an accident."

I, for one, am deeply sad that he is gone, and wish he wasn't. Being
considerate to people who feel this way might pay off, stop being such
assholes.

~~~
teeja
According to the medical examiner, in 1991 journalist Danny Casolaro killed
himself too while investigating Inslaw. No one in his family believed it. So
when someone with no authority asserts "he killed himself", there's no call to
dignify such a foolish assertion with a response.

------
epo
Jeez, you people are scum! Stop with the karma whoring on this guy's death.

~~~
chollida1
Do some research into who the author is.

