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Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago
21–30 of 201 posts
Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aaron already suffered from severe mental illness - law enforcement did not drive him to suicide. Prosecutors offered him a plea deal if he took a six month sentence in a low security facility, which he turned down before killing himself. 99.9% of people his age would not end up dead by their own hands in that situation.
What evidence is there the plea deal was offered? Sounds like PR by the state.
You don’t have to ask me, the information can be found on google within seconds.
Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago
#23Miss that guy a lot. When I was first starting out, I made a point to go and read his Raw Nerve series and it had a massive impact on my life: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/rawnerve.
One of those rare, brilliant lights in the world who left way, way, way too soon.
Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago
#24Driving someone to suicide because they acted against entrenched copyright interests was one of the most DoJ moments ever.
Aaron already suffered from severe mental illness - law enforcement did not drive him to suicide. Prosecutors offered him a plea deal if he took a six month sentence in a low security facility, which he turned down before killing himself. 99.9% of people his age would not end up dead by their own hands in that situation.
I actually feel some sympathy for both positions here.
On the one hand, it's such a "no brainer" to take such a light sentence for what is legally such a "serious crime".
On the other hand, though, it feels ridiculous that Aaron would have been put in jail at all for what he did. I think it's fair to say he wasn't in a good place, but it's maybe a little tone deaf to say the grief of the trial and prosecution had no role in his suicide.
Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago
#25Driving someone to suicide because they acted against entrenched copyright interests was one of the most DoJ moments ever.
Aaron already suffered from severe mental illness - law enforcement did not drive him to suicide. Prosecutors offered him a plea deal if he took a six month sentence in a low security facility, which he turned down before killing himself. 99.9% of people his age would not end up dead by their own hands in that situation.
From wikipedia:
> On September 12, 2012, federal prosecutors filed a superseding indictment adding nine more felony counts, which increased Swartz's maximum criminal exposure to 50 years of imprisonment and $1 million in fines. During plea negotiations with Swartz's attorneys, the prosecutors offered to recommend a sentence of six months in a low-security prison, if Swartz would plead guilty to 13 federal crimes. Swartz and his lead attorney rejected that deal, opting instead for a trial in which prosecutors would have been forced to justify their pursuit of Swartz
Let's be clear, this isn't "here's a slap on the wrist and we'll let it slide", this is "we're throwing the book at you on trumped up charges", and require him to plead guilty to 9 felonies to avoid a potential 50 year sentence.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#United_States_v._...
Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago
#26More than 10 years ago, I've asked Aaron about the best way to tell him "thanks for your job". He said what he has a big wishlist on Amazon, so I've chosen a couple of books and bought them to him. Since then, once a year I have an event in my calendar: "check out what's new on Aaron's wishlist".
Don't know why I decide to write it today but this is a link for this wishlist, just for inspiration. I think it will help you to understand more about Aaron and his personality
Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hence I reflect on this as murder by the state. It happened before (like Gary Webb), and sadly I'm afraid it will happen again. They (govt) seems more interested in big corp's needs than people's needs. This democracy-thing is a big lie, a facade. RIP Aaron.
He was offered a 6 month sentence in a low security prison. He could have served that sentence before the trial was even set to begin and resumed his life as programmer and activist. He was not murdered, he suffered from severe mentally illness.
Well, if they knew so much else about him, maybe they should have been aware of his illness and appropriately (ie Justly) addressed the situation rather than making an example of him.
Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago
#28Driving someone to suicide because they acted against entrenched copyright interests was one of the most DoJ moments ever.
Aaron already suffered from severe mental illness - law enforcement did not drive him to suicide. Prosecutors offered him a plea deal if he took a six month sentence in a low security facility, which he turned down before killing himself. 99.9% of people his age would not end up dead by their own hands in that situation.
99.9% of people were not him.
> law enforcement did not drive him to suicide
People can keep repeating this, and it will still be false. LEO and Prosecutor action was the proximate cause of his actions.
You can make moral arguments that, say, the prosecutor was Just Doing His Job, and I may even agree with you. But you and everyone else are simply wrong about cause and effect, and attempting to blur that tells me more about your priors and biases than anything about the situation.
Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago
#29The Internet Own Boy on Peertube :
https://sepiasearch.org/search?search=the%20internet%20own%2...
Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago
#30Had never seen that quote from TBL. It's nice, but it falls real flat coming from the man that used his fame to push for DRM in browsers.