91–100 of 170 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The recipient must have taken a personal risk in order to affect positive change for greater society. There are plenty of ways to disobey without breaking the law.
What exactly can people disobey that not the Law?
I just nominated Donald J Trump. He has disobeyed all political conventions in regard to his election campaign and especially in regard to his relationship with the media. In fact, many people believe he has disobeyed the supreme law of the United States: the Constitution with regards to the emoluments clause and not having a religious test with regards to his immigration ban executive order. He has taken personal ri…
As someone that actively engages in disobedience it is disheartening that they'd award $250k to a single winner instead of $50k to five, $10k to twenty-five, etc. So many people struggle to make a difference, no matter how small, and being honored for their efforts, when it's most likely that it rarely if ever happens in real life, would be inspiring to them to keep up what they're doing. For those interested in read…
We should still nominate still Aaron Swartz. ＊＊＊Aaron Swartz＊＊＊ Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves. The world's entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the sciences? Yo…
> Eligibility requirements for the $250,000 prize
> The recipient must be living.
So that rules out Aaron Swartz.
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Because everyone at MIT has authority to make press releases. Similar to how everyone in the US is allowed to use the Whitehouse press secretary to announce things.
> Because everyone at MIT has authority to make press releases. Well, if they don't, that's still a SINGLE organization to my eyes. Just because some people there might disagreed at the time, it doesn't absolve the organization.
>Aren't these the people that failed to defend Aaron Swartz?
So no, these aren't the same people. However, it is the same parent organization, but I don't think anyone is disputing that even though that's the strawman you are attacking.
It doesn't matter if Aaron Swartz is ineligible. We should still nominate him. We should nominate him so many times that granting the award to anyone else makes this award an obviously disingenuous publicity stunt.
A bit like if your friend comes to your house, you tell him, "don't smoke weed outside, the cops around here will arrest you," and your friend says "I support marijuana legalization, so I'll smoke wherever I want." Your friend smokes up on your front steps, you try to get him to stop (it's your house after all), and then the cops show up, rough you up a bit, and arrest him.
There are many more deserving than Aaron Swartz of this award, within and without the MIT community.
MIT was complicit in the prosecution of Aaron Swartz for seemingly qualifying activities.
When they involved the police, they had no idea who it was that was apparently attacking them. They just knew that an unknown party was causing serious disruptions, and was actively trying to evade their countermeasures, and had moved on to trespassing and equipment tampering.
It was only after Swartz was arrested that his identity became known.
Everything after that was in the hands of prosecutors. MIT did tell prosecutors that MIT did not advocate jail time for Swartz.
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That's just stupid. The award is clearly for people who are being disobedient for the benefit of society. Breaking rules for the sake of breaking rules is just anarchy or trolling. You're just inconveniencing people who set out to recognise real contributions to society. Unless there is an Aaron Schwartz foundation or something, nominate people who are still doing work.
This isn't about Aaron. It's about the next person who downloads too much free stuff doing it emboldened by the thought that MIT will have their back when the feds come knocking. If only because not doing so costs MIT 250 thousand dollars. That would be a much bigger contribution to society than any one person walking away with this award.
Aaron Swartz was not an MIT affiliate, alum, faculty, or student. MIT had no obligation to "have [his] back" for violating MIT network policy and federal law.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We should still nominate still Aaron Swartz. ＊＊＊Aaron Swartz＊＊＊ Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves. The world's entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the sciences? Yo…
From the post : > Eligibility requirements for the $250,000 prize > The recipient must be living. So that rules out Aaron Swartz.