No one says Ed bears responsibility for Aarons death - that's just you skewing the context completely. The point is he gave a biased/uneducated judgement - that was strongly worded on the verge of being hurtful - on a very public forum. This got voted to the top position. He bears responsibility for dealing an unnecessary blow to someone who was already sick (it wasnt a secret that he was depressed - just read his blog posts!). The fact that he suddenly expresses so much regret for his death is more a show of herd mentality ("oh - everyone else on HN is mourning his death so let me jump onto that bandwagon"). If you're response to this is going to be - "well you've not been around long enough to know that ed's a really nice guy" - the fact is - that doesnt matter - no one is saying ed is an evil person. All that's being discussed here is this particular issue. I'm not judging Ed. The larger take away is simply this - It's really easy for us - to sit in front of our laptops and post comments based on limited knowledge - without even making the slightest effort to dig deeper - based on our whims - most of the time - no one cares - but particularly when directed to people - these things can have a much more significant impact.
