# Why should I feel sorry for Aaron Swartz? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 26, 2013, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-feel-sorry-for-aaron-swartz/648470 "2013-01-26T20:43:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-feel-sorry-for-aaron-swartz/648470/81 "2013-02-01T00:47:04Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > But single people can easily be corrupted. What do you do when Officer Bubba decides to stop enforcing certain laws to keep his buddies out of jail? The correct response is to force the law makers to change the laws, not let law officers decide what they don’t feel like enforcing. Large groups of people are easily corrupted as well. Officer Bubba letting his friends off the hook is wrong. Presumably, he will be found out and fired. If not, his entire organization should be fired. Anyway, I don’t see what letting your friends off the hook for breaking good laws has to do with taking a moral stand against bad laws that shouldn’t exist. Obviously, the latter is right, and the former is wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Razncain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9d8465/32.png) [@Razncain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Razncain)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-feel-sorry-for-aaron-swartz/648470/82 "2013-02-01T04:30:45Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Medication is not the only treatment for depression and while seem to be using a mention of depression as a knee jerk jump off to hijack about how ineffective medication alone is for mild depression (which has been the subject of many past threads here), you are going farther and claiming that therefore most depression is not treatable. I’ve never said that most depression wasn’t treatable, nor have I said medication is the only treatment for it. Nor am I continually amused of how you want to play moderator suggesting this seems to be a hijack by me concentrating on this aspect. I am questioning the number of being treated for it and the severity of their depression when the treatment for it is often administered in the form of a placebo called antidepressant medication. And although I’m skeptical of what kind of success rate there is for severe depression and its long-term results, I can’t say for sure if it has a high success rate or not. I actually wasn’t going to spend that much time on it. But you have continually insisted that depression is what killed him, have made it a main part of this thread from the get-go, and have reminded us of this I think in every post. So unless a moderator, administrator says I need to start a new thread or that I’m hijacking it, let’s STHU about the moderation of this thread. Or report my post to them off-thread if you think you got a case for it. The OP asked a question on how sorry we should feel for Aaron Swartz with quite a few weighing in, some blaming Aaron for his latest problems with the law and having been warned before; others may or may not acknowledge his offense as that serious, but others want to blame mostly the prosecution team to a strong or lesser degree. In various posts from the beginning you’ve said this: > [@](#): > > I still have a difficult time with the way in which his death is being blamed on his prosecution. He was killed by the disease depression. > > Again: Ms. Ortiz, the law, the courts … did not kill Mr. Swartz; depression did. > > But again as to Swartz’s death – blame depression. > > This thread is about Aaron Swartz’s death. He died of as a result of depression, not as a result of prosecutorial over reach. A few google searches show he mentions depression on occasion in his blog about it, and even if it did, others say that wasn’t what killed him, and that it was more the prosecution that hounded him to his death that did. Yet others disagree with that assessment. But I’ll set that aside, and may even concede the point that the prosecution isn’t to blame, because I do not know the extent of it. What I am questioning is how you can determine with great confidence that it was depression that killed him. You say he wrote about it in the past before, and fair enough, but two days prior to taking his own life, his lawyer told him the news saying he was going to have to serve some prison time, and that plea bargaining for no time failed. He could still take his chances with a trial, but that was only going to mean risking a much longer sentence. Secondly, after you continually go on about Swartz’s depression, you say “Depression is treatable the vast majority of the time.” This had me asking you what works for the vast majority of the time for truly clinically depressed people, which I gave Cecil’s column as a link to show that antidepressants as placebos are what are mostly being used to treat it. You responded to this by saying: “Different treatment approaches work for different people. For many it is a combination of psychotherapy and antidepressants and/or other medications.” You also mentioned exercise, and ECT. I probably would have been quite short with this aspect if you had commented on it the first time. But he and his family had money, and if his depression was severe, they could have had access to the best that treatment could offer, if it is treatable the vast majority of the time as you say. I admit I knew very little of this gifted young man when I first learned of his death, and still know little. I was deepened saddened as you and most others have also noted. You also may have put in a bit more time than I have into his depression, and I’ve googled that too, but for now can’t say that is what caused him to take his life. Nor would have any treatments for it made his legal problems go away. Many have depression, even severe forms of it and don’t generally choose to take their life primarily on that AFAIK. Others when faced with bad circumstances of which perhaps they feel is now out of their control can set things into play fairly quick, I would think, even for those not really experiencing any serious mental health issues before. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-feel-sorry-for-aaron-swartz/648470/83 "2013-02-01T16:27:29Z")
> [@razncain](#): > > … What I am questioning is how you can determine with great confidence that it was depression that killed him. … > > … he and his family had money, and if his depression was severe, they could have had access to the best that treatment could offer, if it is treatable the vast majority of the time as you say. … > > … Many have depression, even severe forms of it and don’t generally choose to take their life primarily on that AFAIK. Others when faced with bad circumstances of which perhaps they feel is now out of their control can set things into play fairly quick, I would think, even for those not really experiencing any serious mental health issues before. Source for the following figures [here](http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/suicide-in-the-us-statistics-and-prevention/index.shtml). Someone with a history of depression died by suicide. Yes there are scenarios of severe chronic illness in which suicide is not a result of mental illness, is arguably a rational decision (depending on your values). I’ll accept that suicide does not equal depression in all cases. Just in the vast majority of cases. 90% to put a number on it. In this case there was a stressor in his life. Rank ordering this stressor probably falls below many other ones that people deal with all the time. No, I do not think that anyone without a serious mental illness would kill themselves as a rational response to being told that (s)he could either accept a plea deal that would have resulted in six months in a low security prison or fight in court and risk losing big. > [@](#): > > suicide and suicidal behavior are not normal responses to stress; many people have these risk factors, but are not suicidal. Research also shows that the risk for suicide is associated with changes in brain chemicals called neurotransmitters, including serotonin. Decreased levels of serotonin have been found in people with depression, impulsive disorders, and a history of suicide attempts, and in the brains of suicide victims. Mr. Swartz was 26, so just outside of the young adult range of 20 to 24 in which suicide is the cause of over 12% of all deaths (another page on that site states over 14% in 2009) and kills six times as many males as females in that age group. Third largest cause of death 10 to 24. Having money does not assure adequate treatment. There are lots of barriers to getting adequate mental health care beyond having the money to afford to pay for it. Many are cultural and attitudinal. That’s why that quote I found on his blog made me so sad. This bit from that link is worth posting here: > [@](#): > > Q: What are signs to look for? > A: The following are some of the signs you might notice in yourself or a friend that may be reason for concern. > Talking about wanting to die or to kill oneself > Looking for a way to kill oneself, such as searching online or buying a gun > Talking about feeling hopeless or having no reason to live > Talking about feeling trapped or in unbearable pain > Talking about being a burden to others > Increasing the use of alcohol or drugs > Acting anxious or agitated; behaving recklessly > Sleeping too little or too much > Withdrawing or feeling isolated > Showing rage or talking about seeking revenge > Displaying extreme mood swings. > Seeking help is a sign of strength, if you are concerned, go with your instincts, get help! > > Q: What can I do for myself or someone else? > A: If you are concerned, immediate action is very important. Suicide can be prevented and most people who feel suicidal demonstrate warning signs. Recognizing some of these warning signs is the first step in helping yourself or someone you care about. > > \*\*If you are in crisis and need help: call this toll-free number, available 24 hours a day, every day 1-800-273-TALK (8255). You will reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, a service available to anyone. You may call for yourself or for someone you care about and all calls are confidential. You can also visit the Lifeline’s website at [http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org](http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org). ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-feel-sorry-for-aaron-swartz/648470/84 "2013-02-01T18:51:52Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > Officer Bubba letting his friends off the hook is wrong. Presumably, he will be found out and fired. If not, his entire organization should be fired. But then people will complain that the prosecutor who fired Bubba is a villain who is trying to make a scapegoat out of Bubba and it’s not right to fire people who were disobeying laws they think are wrong. If Bubba suffers from depression and kills himself he will engender all sorts of sympathy and make the prosecutor look like a monster. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-feel-sorry-for-aaron-swartz/648470/85 "2013-02-01T19:49:13Z")
**Dr. Cube** , Some laws are wrong. Some laws some people think are wrong and others think are right. I certainly have some sympathy for the argument that “just following orders” is an inadequate justification for an individual’s execution of a clearly immoral law, but at the same time a circumstance in which every police officer and prosecutor is supposed to decide for themselves which laws are “correct” and which ones “wrong” and ignore the laws they personally feel are not the correct ones is both untenable and fails to correct the problem that a “wrong” law is on the books. We need one set of rules for all members of society to live by. Laws capriciously applied based on who is enforcing the law that day is not a great basis for a fair society. Applying those issues to this case: obviously there are differences of opinion regarding what legal protections should be afforded to what sorts of intellectual property. As a society we need that one set of rules and that one set of rules is an evolving beast. For now the law is hazy with a wide latitude allowed in what punishment is sought and who is just let off. That wide latitude can result in people not being prosecuted at all (apparently the result in the PACER incident) or in severe punishment being sought (threatened in the JSTOR instance, if only as a big stick to scare Mr. Swartz into a plea bargain they felt was severe enough to serve as a future deterrent to others). The problem in this case is precisely the result of allowing for the individual discretion you are advocating for. The problem being that he ran into people who felt that the law is just and deserved an application allowed by the law severe enough to deter future offenses by others. Intellectual property laws should not be enforced capriciously based on the right/wrong beliefs of IP protection in the heds of whichever enforcer happens to involved that day. Letting one instance get off scott free only invites more offenses. Until someone gets the book thrown at them and is shocked that the law actually meant what it said after all. ---
**Author:** ![cckerberos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-feel-sorry-for-aaron-swartz/648470/86 "2013-02-01T20:05:34Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > There is no way to know whether or not a judge would have agreed with Ortiz or not when it came time for sentencing. This was a game still in progress, wasn’t it? The prosecution was going all out but the judge could have used discretion if such was appropriate, yes? I found the analysis [here](http://www.volokh.com/2013/01/16/the-criminal-charges-against-aaron-swartz-part-2-prosecutorial-discretion/) by a law professor to be a worthwhile read on this. Here’s his basic take on it: > [@](#): > > So, realistically, Swartz was facing anything from probation to a few years in jail if he went to trial — depending largely on how you value the loss he caused — and either a 4 months in jail or 0-6 months in jail if he pled guilty. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-feel-sorry-for-aaron-swartz/648470/87 "2013-02-01T20:07:47Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > But then people will complain that the prosecutor who fired Bubba is a villain who is trying to make a scapegoat out of Bubba and it’s not right to fire people who were disobeying laws they think are wrong. If Bubba suffers from depression and kills himself he will engender all sorts of sympathy and make the prosecutor look like a monster. You wanna know a REAL good way to not look like a monster? Don’t behave like one! Any reasonable human being could see the huge mismatch between what Swartz did and the level of punishment Ortiz wanted to mete out to him. Fuck her. She gets no slack from me. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2013, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-feel-sorry-for-aaron-swartz/648470/88 "2013-02-02T00:45:41Z")
> [@cckerberos](#): > > I found the analysis [here](http://www.volokh.com/2013/01/16/the-criminal-charges-against-aaron-swartz-part-2-prosecutorial-discretion/) by a law professor to be a worthwhile read on this. > > Here’s his basic take on it: That’s a real good read. Some other particularly cogent bits (note particularly how the behavior of the prosecutors threatening severe punishment that would never actually occur is the standard operating procedure): > [@](#): > > it seems like Aaron was committed to a long-term plan to continue to engage in such conduct, including through unlawful means. In his view, this was not a one-off, or an impulsive decision. Rather, he felt that there was a moral imperative to violate laws that he saw as unjust. And critically, he didn’t want to violate those laws in a symbolic way just to bring attention to laws he saw as unjust. Swartz was not acting in the grand tradition of civil disobedience in which one willingly draws punishment to bring attention to the unjustness of the law. In his own words, he didn’t want to “just send a strong message opposing the privatization of knowledge.” Rather, he wanted to change the facts on the ground to make his preferred world a fait accompli. That is, he wanted to make the laws unenforceable, winning the debate unilaterally outside of Congress. In his words, he wanted to act so that the democratically-enacted laws that allowed privatization of knowledge would become “a thing of the past.” > > Given that commitment, I think one appropriate benchmark for the proper punishment is based on what legal scholars call “special deterrence.” In plain English, the question is this: What is the minimum punishment that was needed to persuade Swartz not to do this sort of thing in the future? To my mind, the answer to that question provides a reasonable benchmark to determine the proper punishment. By all accounts, Swartz was a tremendously brilliant guy with an incredibly bright future. His death is a tremendous tragedy. But had he lived, we would all have been better off with a future in which Swartz directed his incredible talents to pursuing his ideas through lawful means rather than unlawful means. Many people — and many readers of this post in particular — share Swartz’s sense of good social policy. But we live in a democracy. We might not like all the rules in a democracy, but the way to change those rules is through democratic change. Swartz could have tried to be punished under the law to bring attention to the law in the hope of changing it through the democratic process. But instead he had something anti-democratic in mind. I think it’s pretty clear that in a democratic system, that kind of anti-democratic cause is something that we should disfavor. You can break the law to draw punishment, but the ultimate goal of traditional civil disobedience is achieving change through the legal means of democracy. Swartz had something else in mind, it seems; changing the law de facto by his unilateral action. Given the importance of the difference, a punishment that was the minimum sufficient to persuade Swartz to follow the law in the future seems appropriate. … > > … Why are you hearing that Swartz faced 35 or 50 years if it was not true? First, government press releases like to trumpet the maximum theoretical numbers. Authors of the press releases will just count up the crimes and the add up the theoretical maximum punishments while largely or completely ignoring the reality of the likely much lower sentence. The practice is generally justified by its possible general deterrent value: perhaps word of the high punishment faced in theory will get to others who might commit the crime and will scare them away. And unfortunately, uninformed reporters who are new to the crime beat sometimes pick up that number and report it as truth. A lot of people repeat it, as they figure it must be right if it was in the news. And some people who know better but want you to have a particular view of the case repeat it, too. But don’t be fooled. Actual sentences are usually way way off of the cumulative maximum punishments. … > > … if we think agressive prosecution tactics such as this are improper, we shouldn’t be focused just on the Aaron Swartz case. Rather, we should be shining a light on the federal criminal system in its entirety. These sorts of tactics have been going on for years, without many people paying attention. If we don’t want a world in which prosecutors have these powers, we shouldn’t just object when the defendant in the crosshairs is a genius who went to Stanford, hangs out with Larry Lessig, and is represented by the extremely expensive lawyers at Keker & Van Nest. We should object just as much — or even more — when the defendant is poor, unknown, and unconnected to the powerful. To do otherwise sends an extremely troubling message to prosecutors that they need to be extra sensitive when considering charges against defendants with connections. We have too much of a two-tiered justice system already, I think. So blame the system and aim to reform the system; don’t think that this was just two or three prosecutors that were doing something unusual. It wasn’t. > > Finally, I think the instinct to blame the prosecutors in this case should be checked because it is fueled in significant part by a human but improper motive: Making sense of Swartz’s suicide. When a young person commits suicide, there is a natural instinct to restore a sense of order to the world by finding someone to blame. We deal with the sense of shocking and unimaginable and senseless loss by pinning the blame on someone to create a tidy narrative of wrongful actor and wrongful act. … it’s about the human need to find someone to blame for a senseless and tragic suicide. As human as that instinct is to want to combine them, I think we need to separate out the suicide from our criticisms of the prosecutors’ behavior. … There are a heck of a lot of us who are not “reasonable human beings” I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Razncain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9d8465/32.png) [@Razncain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Razncain)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2013, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-feel-sorry-for-aaron-swartz/648470/89 "2013-02-02T03:42:47Z")
DSeid, I’m still looking at the figures, and thanks for link. Did you read this one from [Aaron’s blog](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/verysick)? It’s a short read, but this is one of the rare times I’ve seen him talk about being sick, claiming at the time he was suffering from four different illnesses with a depressed mood one of them. Helps support your contention of how serious his depression may have been. It was written in November of 2007. ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Norder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4af34b/32.png) [@Dan\_Norder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dan_Norder)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2013, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-feel-sorry-for-aaron-swartz/648470/90 "2013-02-02T05:58:30Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > That doesn’t mean the justice system wasn’t massively in the wrong here when they drove someone to suicide just for downloading some academic papers. People going about their day doing the job they were hired to do well within the norms of that job are not driving someone to suicide. If someone ended up killing themselves and the suicide note blamed the pain of the ignorance posted to this thread, would it be fair to say that the Straight Dope drove him to suicide? No. And it wasn’t just downloading academic papers, as already pointed out in this thread. Repeating the same catchphrases and making the same intellectually dishonest arguments over and over does not in any way advance your argument. ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Norder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4af34b/32.png) [@Dan\_Norder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dan_Norder)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2013, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-feel-sorry-for-aaron-swartz/648470/91 "2013-02-02T06:05:40Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > You wanna know a REAL good way to not look like a monster? Don’t behave like one! Any reasonable human being could see the huge mismatch between what Swartz did and the level of punishment Ortiz wanted to mete out to him. Fuck her. She gets no slack from me. Want to know a good way to look like a rational human being? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2013, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-feel-sorry-for-aaron-swartz/648470/92 "2013-02-02T13:20:09Z")
> [@razncain](#): > > DSeid, I’m still looking at the figures, and thanks for link. Did you read this one from [Aaron’s blog](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/verysick)? It’s a short read, but this is one of the rare times I’ve seen him talk about being sick, claiming at the time he was suffering from four different illnesses with a depressed mood one of them. Helps support your contention of how serious his depression may have been. It was written in November of 2007. No I had not seen it. Thank you for linking to it. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2013, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-feel-sorry-for-aaron-swartz/648470/93 "2013-02-02T14:25:11Z")
> [@Dan\_Norder](#): > > Want to know a good way to look like a rational human being? I think people who ignore the threat of a 30-year prison sentence (speculation about what it MIGHT have wound up being is pointless, as we all know, American justice ain’t just, especially when the government wants you in jail) are in no position to get smarmy on the topic of what constitutes “reasonable.” ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2013, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-feel-sorry-for-aaron-swartz/648470/94 "2013-02-04T03:12:55Z")
[Tom the Dancing Bug weighs in.](http://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug/) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-feel-sorry-for-aaron-swartz/648470.md?page=4)