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Re:Aaron Swartz saw suicide as SOLUTION not PROBLEM by notahacker on Sunday January 13, 2013 @02:56PM (#5051670)
Suicide, especially for a person who has experienced episodes of depression in the past, is usually not what one would consider a rational choice http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5048132
Re:Aaron Swartz saw suicide as SOLUTION not PROBLEM by ScottWhigham on Monday January 14, 2013 @09:03AM (#5054650)
I disagree. I think suicide is a very rational choice in many situations. In fact, there are too many situations where it is a rational choice to even come close to listing them all. A few off the top of my head would be:

1. If a person is dying of cancer with no known cure and medical costs are hurting the dying's family's future, that's a helluva rational choice in my opinion.

2. If a man is facing an imminent and lengthy jail sentence and is claustrophobic, suicide is perfectly rational.

If a man is in a situation where he foresees no way out for a lengthy period and chooses not to be in that situation, suicide is a perfectly rational choice.

Re:Aaron Swartz saw suicide as SOLUTION not PROBLEM by xenophanes on Sunday January 13, 2013 @03:16PM (#5051732)
If he made a bad choice, isn't that on him (and perhaps partly on his parents/educators for how they equipped him to deal with life), not on the Government?

If he made a bad, irrational choice in this matter, I see no particular reason to assume he wasn't doing an equally bad job with the rest of his life too. So I still don't see any reason to regard the suicide in particular as the tragedy. He didn't like his life, he took the "easy way out" which may well have been a selfish choice that sucked less for himself.

As to the link, if anti-suicide people want to be effective and moral they should A) be less sure they know what's best for someone else's complicated life B) never ever use force on people who ask for their help (this fear of violence is a big reason some people don't, e.g., call suicide helplines. note that perhaps this unsuitability of such lines arguably contributed to Aaron's death -- if the world was a better more helpful and nice place he might have gotten more help that he found helpful and preferred staying in it more)

Re:Aaron Swartz saw suicide as SOLUTION not PROBLEM by aforrester on Monday January 14, 2013 @02:33PM (#5056143)
It's more irrational for somebody who is consistently unhappy to commit suicide than for somebody who is consistently okay to commit suicide?