Aaron Swartz, courtesy of ragesoss.
The geek community lost an important young member this weekend when Aaron Swartz took his own life on Friday, January 11.
Aaron founded Demand Progress, was instrumental in the creation of Reddit, and when he was only 14 years old, co-authored the RSS 1.0 standard. However, despite his enormous talent and passionate pursuit of freedom, depression did not spare Aaron Swartz. He was just 26.
Life is filled with so many incredible moments, but for many the pain of living outweighs all of the beauty. In fact, according to the World Health Organization, over 350 million people around the globe suffer from depression. Depression does not discriminate on the basis of age, intellect, or socio-economic status. Effective treatment is often available, and yet for some the darkness closes in too quickly.
For this reason, we are making a $1,000 donation to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. AFSP is the leading national non-profit exclusively dedicated to understanding and preventing suicide through research, education, and advocacy.
Our thoughts go out to Aaron's family, friends, and all those touched by Aaron's work--which, given the scope of his work, means we're basically talking about the entire Internet.
And we encourage everyone to show kindness to those who are in need.
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