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Comment by brenschluss | Hacker News Reader

"He killed himself, therefore he was responsible for his own death."

Would you say the same thing about a war veteran who has PTSD and commits suicide? Or a rape victim who commits suicide? Or a middle school kid who commits suicide after months of cyberbullying?

I doubt it.

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While I fall firmly in the 'words mean things' camp, I think it's important to note that this isn't an apples:apples comparison.

People undergo felony charges all the time without killing themselves.

A Federal charge sheet involving the possibility of a 'mere' 6-month sentence is not the equivalent of months of sustained cyberbullying.

To continue with your analogy somewhat, if a new sailor showed up to the boat and his divison said 'Hey look, it's the F.N.G.' on day 1, with no further hazing from there, and that new sailor hung himself, is his division to blame for 'cyberbullying'? Or is it appropriate to wonder whether the new sailor has something more going on inside that pre-dated his arrival?

> People undergo felony charges all the time without killing themselves.

Plenty of veterans don't kill themselves.

Yes, that's pretty much exactly my point.

If we considered it the other way (that allowing someone to join the military or any difficult job is tantamount to cyber bullying) then imagine all the blame you'd have to spread around should a recruit or veteran kill themselves.

Then think about the possibility that the suicide many have been for reasons no different than they would have encountered, even if they had never joined at all.

I think it is pretty clear that the military and the involved politicians have the blood of dead solders on their hands. Whether they eventually succumb to PTSD, or died after contact with dioxin contaminated agent orange doesn't make much difference to me. The existence of veterans who have not died does not somehow absolve those who share responsibility for the death of others. The possibility that some may have committed suicide anyway does not absolve them. There is a lot of blame to be spread around.

Well I'm glad we all agree that politicians shouldn't send people into unjust wars. I don't agree that it's on politicians for allowing people to join the military as long as they have foreknowledge of the risks to their health (both physical and mental) that are involved.

Otherwise we'd literally be in a nanny state, and where does that stop? Should we prevent people from joining the police? How about firefighting? How about firefighting for wildfires? Or roofing?

Either way you can blame people until you're blue in the face and it won't help the veterans. The action that would be of help is to treat those who are wounded, and to prevent the politicians' use of the military in unneeded/unjust conflicts in the future.

I wonder what the ratios are...

> Would you say the same thing about a war veteran who has PTSD and commits suicide?

This example is absolutely great.

Surely nobody would blame a conscripted Vietnam veteran for succumbing to illness caused by Agent Orange, but it seems many here would blame that same veteran for succumbing to mental illness induced by the same war.

Really makes you think how poorly we deal with mental illness as a society...

Aaron Swartz's situation was not like any of those things. His case was very similar to Bradley Manning's and Manning did not commit suicide. It's pretty clear from his blog and behavior that Aaron Swartz had untreated bipolar disorder which sadly has extremely high suicide rates.

i was under the impression that Bradley Manning is under constant supervision in a SHU or something such that it would be almost impossible for him to kill himself.

For a some period of time at the beginning, yes. I think it was 7 months or so that he spent in alternating variants of suicide watch or prevention of injury status.

But for most of his pre-trial confinement he has been kept in the general population, and hasn't killed himself. Even after he plead guilty to charges that would have guaranteed him a sentence far worse than what Swartz would have received (even if Swartz had gone for a trial), Manning didn't kill himself.

Schoolchildren are too young to be held truly responsible for any of their decisions, so in the last example I would hold the parents responsible. In the other cases--yes, it's certainly one's own decision and one's own responsibility to commit suicide.

You've established here that there exist reasons (i.e. immaturity, lack of empathy, or whatever you prefer to call it) for which we should absolve individuals of blame in situations resulting in suicide. The only way this doesn't directly contradict your grandparent comment is if you also feel mental illness (diagnosed or otherwise) is not in this set of reasons. I think this is the crux of what others have disagreed with; mental illnesses quite literally alter your brain's ability to function properly and reason through these choices. How is this impairment any different than the "impairment" of a child's lack of development?

EDIT: grammar

We only blame suicide on mental illness because suicide is itself considered a symptom of mental illness. It's a circular argument. Perhaps Aaron was a fundamentally irrational person who couldn't be held responsible for his own actions, but that doesn't pin the blame back on anyone else. Aaron's the only person who could possibly hold responsibility for his suicide.

Wait, I thought we blame the parents for the actions of their untrained children? And only children are indirectly villainous and subsequently their parents; never corporate or government institutions and their "upbringing."

Whatever drives our argument, I guess.

Your use of 'blame' vs. 'responsibility' is confounding here. It's possible you answered the question I posed at the end of my reply but if you did I'm not seeing an answer here. Please enlighten me if I've missed it.

In response to this, by your own logic you've claimed that either 1) Aaron holds sole responsibility for his actions or 2) We can't assign responsibility to anyone. I disagree with both these conclusions because I don't think responsibility must be fully distributed to a single party. In what world are our actions absolved of any connection to outside influences? If I'm unconscious, and a doctor tests my knee reflex with one of those little hammers, and my leg moves - who has agency in causing the leg to move? (I in no way mean to insinuate this is an apples:apples comparison, just trying to tease out the implications of your logic.)

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