If you read news in technology circles, then you know that Aaron Swartz recently died as the result of suicide. An apparent child prodigy, Swartz was a big advocate of open source software and free information as a movement, and was active in establishing the specs and RFC's for various standards. Most recently, he was an outspoken critic of SOPA.
What he was best known for, unfortunately, was that the feds were prosecuting him for going to MIT and downloading a bunch of journal articles from JSTOR, a closed system licensed to universities and researchers, while connected to a closed network at the university. For one reason or another, the prosecutors were hell bent on making an example of him, charging him with felonies and forcing him to face potentially 35 years in jail and a million-dollar fine. Absurd doesn't even describe the insane charges.
In the days following his death, there was a fair amount of hero worship for Swartz. I have to admit that a great deal of it is justified, and we could certainly stand to have more people like him pushing for more information to be free. I'd much rather see people advocating that over the drive to arm everyone or regulate vaginas. It's hard for the optimist in me to believe that people would really embrace more information over pictures of cats and moronic captioned photos that compare Obama to Hitler, but I can't let go of that hope.
However, with some publications and opinion pieces, the story narrative starts to go to a place where it's suggested that it was the government that killed him. While the case against him was most certainly absurd, he decided to kill himself. Checking out doesn't make him a martyr or a bigger hero, it only makes him dead.
The discussion that I would rather see brought to the forefront is one about the reality of depression and other illnesses that can dramatically influence the choices an individual makes. I'm not talking about the winter blues bullshit that I complain about, but real, clinical depression, or other potentially lethal problems like anorexia. I think our culture sucks at talking about, recognizing it, and dealing with it.
Last year, a friend of mine took her own life. I'm not sure if there's anything anyone could have done about it. Years ago, another friend felt she was "fat" and died weighing less than 70 pounds. I'm not sure if anyone could have done anything about that either. It frustrates me to no end. As an average person who believes compassion is part of what makes our humanity, I refuse to believe that we can't do better with mental health issues. I also can't accept that checking out is ever the right thing.
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