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MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award

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Re: MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award

#131

Post by AnthonyMouse »

slg wrote: post #120

After reading the comments on this page, I am a little disheartened that apparently most people want to give what is basically a work grant to a dead guy. Regardless of what you think of someone like Aaron Swartz, there are plenty of people who are currently doing good work who could greatly benefit from something like this. Giving it to a dead person simply to make a political statement diminishes any impact this aw…

> Giving it to a dead person simply to make a political statement diminishes any impact this award could have.

Giving it to Aaron Swartz would provide both the title and the money to advance the cause of Aaron's Law or similar reform of the CFAA, enacting which would do more for socially positive disobedience than the equivalent amount of money.

Re: MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award

#132

Post by AnthonyMouse »

clintonb wrote: post #99
oopsietazer wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. 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.

> 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.

Having "no obligation" to do something is never an excuse for any behavior.

Re: MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award

#134

Post by AnthonyMouse »

kevinr wrote: post #122
nikcub wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is simply not what happen. He was never warned off MIT campus. The case was never one of trespassing with MIT - otherwise he'd have been slapped on the wrist with a local case. Rather he was arrested by a federal secret service agent for CFAA violations that were based on extremely tenuous arguments that at the least most legal commentators concede was an egregious case of over-prosecution. I'd love to hear your…

I'm not talking about violating trespass laws or any other legal principle---I'm talking about guestright. Aaron Swartz abused MIT's institutional journal subscriptions, which he had access to as a guest of the institution. He was warned to stop by MIT IS&T to an e-mail address he wasn't monitoring. When his IP was blocked, he got a new IP and kept downloading. He knew, or should have known, that his behavior was out…

Everybody makes mistakes. The failure in the Aaron Swartz case wasn't that he would be punished, it's that the punishment wasn't at all proportionate.

Lessig has been calling this fallacy "I'm right, therefore I'm right to nuke you."

Aaron Swartz was not a saint nor a demon. MIT failed to act after the prosecution had gone too far. They get as much blame for that as they deserve.

Re: MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award

#135

Post by zentropia »

ploggingdev wrote: post #93
allenleee wrote: post #88

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.

Give it to the founder of scihub

Re: MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award

#136

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

geofft wrote: post #35
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #28

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…

Sam Altman agrees: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/08/business/how-trump-became... > “Trump is the Silicon Valley candidate in every way except that the ideology is flipped,” said Sam Altman, a prominent technology leader, chief executive of Y Combinator and a major Hillary Clinton donor. “He’s an outsider. He took on a system he thought was broken and then disregarded the rules, he got to know his users well and tes…

> Sam Altman has also built a tool for holding Trump to his campaign promises.

More about this would be much appreciated. Is it general purpose (could it work on arbitrary politicians)?

Re: MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award

#137

Post by bambax »

sokoloff wrote: post #5
aristus wrote: post #2

Seems like a great way to catch a nasty case of conspiracy to commit a felony. The reason the Nobel committee can give an award to a political prisoner in another country is that they are in another country.

To take another comment, suppose the Media Lab awards Snowden the $250K. What possible conspiracy charge could the Media Lab (or the person(s) who nominated Snowden) catch?

Disobedience only means anything if it upsets somebody somewhere, preferably someone powerful.

So, if you decide to honor disobedient people, you accept it will carry some kind of consequence for yourself, or else you're full of it.

The MIT should definitely honor someone that the US government doesn't like, instead of, say, the Chinese government, as a matter of principle (and consistency).

Re: MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award

#138

Post by 50CNT »

SexyCyborg wrote: post #107
alexmlamb2 wrote: post #13

The winner is almost guaranteed to be a conformist, given that the organization selecting the winner is part of the dominant, mainstream power structure. So expect the winner to be, paradoxically, someone who is completely obedient.

Yup. I submitted my application based on the FashionTech wearable I designed, built and wore to protest the lack of inclusion of any local women at a Western tech event here in Shenzhen. http://i.imgur.com/2D8dESV.jpg I ended up stomping around a mainland Chinese tourist attraction half-naked in it, giving speeches to massive Chinese crowds about an inclusion issue. http://i.imgur.com/9Dz9M9N.jpg Anyone who knows any…

Off-topic, but since I started looking at some of your stuff, with the entire trans-humanism and cyborg thing, what implants do you have? I don't mean aesthetic body modification, but things with chips in them.

I'm also in China, a bit further up north, in 山寨版silicon valley, aka. Beijing, Haidian, but I'm really interested in what is going on in Shenzhen. Any chance we could chat?

Re: MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award

#139

Post by bambax »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #28

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…

> disobeyed all political conventions

One can't disobey "conventions". One disobey laws, and in particular, laws that are enforced, and the breaking of which carry real threats to their freedom.

Also, you can't be disobeying if you're the boss and decide who gets tried and who doesn't. So since DJT has been president he can't disobey no more.

Not sure if your comment was ironic; if yes, fine, if not, you're very wrong.

Re: MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award

#140

Post by lambdadmitry »

toastednz wrote: post #10

I've nominated Alexandra Elbakyan of sci-hub and encourage everyone else to do the same. I'd also be happy if Aaron Swartz won!

I've already wrote about that on HN, but I believe it's worth reiterating.

Alexandra Elbakyan is not an example of disobedience. In fact, she is very obedient to the rules of society she lives in (she is an avid Putin's supporter), it's just those rules are different from the West. Her risks over SciHub project is negligible while she lives in Russia, and given her views, I think it's unlikely she want to live somewhere else. In her early interviews/posts in Russian, she considers the project as a Russian crusade over the West of some sorts, so I don't believe this is in any way similar to the Aaron's case. Aaron was a political activist and a champion of human rights, and Alexandra is neither.

To be honest, the way in which Western media frame her baffles me: they used a common western narrative and slotted her into it instead of telling the true story.

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