To say that this is insulting is an enormous understatement. Clearly Jeff Atwood thinks that he is imparting some kind of wisdom here- that activists who work for their ideals and devote their lives to them should not give up. I doubt Aaron had thought of that. I'm sure that the person who spent his whole life working to make information better and more widely available probably thought "Well, there's not much worth fighting for here, better give up." Atwood says Fuck off. Shut the fuck up Jeff Atwood. Only a fucking child would think that these were equivalent. I am infuriated. Ragequitting is something people do because they're frustrated at a stupid game. Suicide is something people do because they have no choices, no hope, and the walls are closing in on them. To say that one is equal to the other is just to piss on the memory of a great man. There is a message here that Atwood should be picking up on, that everyone should be picking up on, and it is this: if you get in the way of the patent holders, the US Government will end your life, either with their legal system or with your own hand. This is something that has cost lives before Aaron by making people's lives hell, and it is something which is and will continue to happen. Aaron was not an idiot.
Aaron had been dealing with depression for a long time.
Aaron understood the charges being brought against him, and their implications. As far as I know, Atwood doesn't have depression and openly admits that he's been in one trial and it was nowhere near the severity of Aaron's. And he's already thinking about suicide. But he has the gall to say, "This better person, who I strive to be like, should have tried harder. That was the problem here." That's the most disrespectful shit I've ever heard.I can't even imagine having the full resources of the US Government brought to bear against me, with extreme prejudice, for a year or more.
But he doesn't act like it. He acts like having that pressure on you would be the same as any other pressure. Would be the same as people hating on your site, or "quitting the internet."
I had pretty much the same reaction. He doesn't know (or certainly didn't meaningfully speak to) how possible clinical depression as an illness could have been a factor. Also, as you pointed out, he rhetorically built up the unfathomable enormity of the forces against Aaron, then essentially summarily dismissed them (without even really defining them) by calling Aaron a cop-out and saying he should have lived up to a higher ideal because he chose the 'life of an activist.' Sorry Jeff, that you had to settle for the hero you were given rather than the one that would have gone the extra mile for ya. Don't make 'em like they used to, right?