[jacquesm]

Hard to respond to this. Hard to believe it has already been five years.

Thank you for writing that, not a week goes by that I don't see your brothers hand in something I'm using or that I read about. The whole open access movement and what has been achieved in those five years would have made Aaron both very happy and would have probably had him bouncing off the walls because 'it goes so slow'.

Very few people appear to me to be all good but your brother was one of those. Cherish his memory and be proud, like any brother would be, and I'm pretty sure he'd be just as proud of you.

[sillysaurus3]

We should also celebrate people's flaws. There's no such thing as an entirely good person.

Aaron had mental issues. But those same issues were what gave him strength, because they were a part of him. If you took them away, Aaron wouldn't be Aaron.

If we celebrate people's flaws, maybe people won't feel like they're not allowed to have flaws. And maybe that might help people who feel like ending it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16089930

The response to that was overwhelmingly positive. Over 20 people reached out.

It feels time to help people who are concealing problems. The internet gives us recourse. I don't know Aaron's motivations toward the end, but it feels true that if he had just kept talking, things might have turned out differently.

[jacquesm]

Mental issues are flaws but they don't make a person bad in my book.

[sillysaurus3]

Mm, yes and no. It's one of those things where if you reveal you have them, you feel like less of a person. People look at you differently.

Be honest: If you were in a position of authority, would you place someone with known suicidal tendencies in a position of power? What if things went very badly? How about someone with outbursts of anger, or serious sleep issues that prevent them from showing up to work on time?

When people feel pressure to conceal their problems, the pressure builds.

Aaron had some political aspirations, and a felony conviction would've precluded him from running for certain offices. Maybe that, combined with his internal issues, may have made him feel like less of a person. I don't know. I just want people to feel okay with themselves, however they are.

Once people realize that it's genuinely ok to have issues, hopefully society will relax a bit.

Or maybe there is no solution, and people will eventually take their own lives for one reason or another. And that's ok too. We can remind them that it's not the only option, and give them some space to unwind.

That seems like the crux of it: People are so hung up on doing well or being a good person or accomplishing their careers, that their whole self-worth is tied up in it. When it goes badly, it's easy to take it out on yourself. But there's no reason to. The chips fall wherever they fall.

[jacquesm]

> Aaron had some political aspirations, and a felony conviction would've precluded him from running for certain offices. Maybe that, combined with his internal issues, may have made him feel like less of a person. I don't know.

If you don't know then don't speculate.

[chris_wot]

I agree.

[4everyesterday]

The potential consequence of being unfairly persecuted is that you can completely separate your perception of yourself and anyone else's.

The individuals that did this to Aaron are the ones suffering from a mental condition. The transitory struggles of life and emotions are universal and fundamental to living. Systems that embolden constructs like federal prosecutors are what is systemically flawed. Not the individual.

Carl Jung said something interesting about the importance of the ego:

"It was only after the illness that I understood how important it is to affirm one’s own destiny.

In this way we forge an ego that does not break down when incomprehensible things happen; an ego that endures, that endures the truth, and that is capable of coping with the world and with fate...

Nothing is disturbed – neither inwardly nor outwardly, for one’s own continuity has withstood the current of life and of time.”

[chris_wot]

As someone who has had suicidal tendencies in the past, and suffered as a direct result, yeah - I would give Aaron positions of power and responsibility.