This is a pretty intelligent bunch so I hope there is rationale in discussing it honestly, but do you really think so? What had Aaron done lately?
I only raise the question because you say the opposite, and in such situations the absolutely worst thing the community can do is canonize someone, exaggerating their accomplishments and raising their words above actual merit (the front-page is full of his old entries now. Why?)
I suspect that Aaron's curse -- the thing that made a very privileged Western existence "too painful" as others have said -- is that he peaked so early. He did the right things at the right times with the right people, and while he was clearly a very bright individual, I think that ended up becoming baggage that dragged him down, every future effort unlikely to ever shine as bright.
Yes, I think he probably didn't go that much in the past few months, relative to the previous decade.
Which would be profoundly depressing. If you were already somewhat unstable, it could lead to a bad outcome.
It's probably more rare that someone at the top of his game kills himself suddenly and for no particular reason. I imagine if you talked to Steve Jobs between Apple and NeXT, he was probably a bit down compared to before or after. The thing is, it seems likely someone like Aaron who spent a decade doing interesting and awesome stuff would be likely to do more stuff like that in the future, particularly after a federal case was resolved, or he either got help with depression or figured out how to deal with it (early 20s is statistically the worst time; even with no other treatment, as lot of people are better off later in life).
So yes, I feel comfortable saying he was likely to have done a lot more awesome stuff over the rest of his life.
Well there's some nice 10 cent psychology, but I'd have to guess that the stress of dealing with government persecution for the last few years probably had a strong effect on his mental state. However, I sure as hell don't know that and you don't either. I see most of what you said as judgemental pop psych bullshit, but maybe I'm misinterpreting your intention so I don't want to turn this into a flame. It doesn't take a lifetime of anguish to commit suicide, you just need to back yourself into that mental corner where you become convinced your problems are overwhelming. I think you should be more compassionate.
How is my response in any way not compassionate? Is this the period where we all go under the cloud of delusion to show "compassion"? HN is FAR above that: this is not people.com.
> I suspect that Aaron's curse -- the thing that made a very privileged Western existence "too painful" as others have said -- is that he peaked so early. He did the right things at the right times with the right people, and while he was clearly a very bright individual, I think that ended up becoming baggage that dragged him down, every future effort unlikely to ever shine as bright.
Yes, that and the impending worry of a 30+year federal prison sentence for carrying out an ideal that most of us respect, even if we disagree on whether the execution was right.
Aaron intentionally did something that would draw him a lot of attention to him, and then fanned the fires again and again. It exactly loops back to what I said.
> Aaron intentionally did something that would draw him a lot of attention to him
When he was copying the JSTOR archive, he went through great trouble to conceal himself (not facing the camera, wearing a helmet, etc.) -- he was caught by the authorities for acting suspiciously. If he had not been caught, he more than likely would have released the archive anonymously.
This is going to be dead for the vast majority of HN, but if you ever wondered how HN tends to decline to a monotone, note that the above post got me, at a minimum, IP banned on HN.
I only raise the question because you say the opposite, and in such situations the absolutely worst thing the community can do is canonize someone, exaggerating their accomplishments and raising their words above actual merit (the front-page is full of his old entries now. Why?)
I suspect that Aaron's curse -- the thing that made a very privileged Western existence "too painful" as others have said -- is that he peaked so early. He did the right things at the right times with the right people, and while he was clearly a very bright individual, I think that ended up becoming baggage that dragged him down, every future effort unlikely to ever shine as bright.