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Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago
41–50 of 201 posts
Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago
#42Earlier 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.
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 mor…
Aaron’s story is good example of why blaming the suicide of someone with severe depression on whatever proximate cause triggered the act is the wrong way to understand why someone takes their own life. Many suicides are prompted by trivial or very temporary situations that are not at fault.
Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago
#43Driving someone to suicide because they acted against entrenched copyright interests was one of the most DoJ moments ever.
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.
> This democracy-thing is a big lie
Do you think a majority of the US opposes copyright and would not want the State to enforce it? I'm in that group, but it seems to me the overwhelming majority of people here support copyright laws and prosecutions.
Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
So your argument is that depressed people should be able to avoid trial altogether? He wasn’t even in custody when he took his own life.
Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago
#45Earlier 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.
> During plea talks held in the months before his death, federal prosecutors told Aaron Swartz and his attorney that the computer prodigy must spend six months behind bars and plead guilty to 13 federal crimes in order to resolve the criminal case short of a trial.
> Swartz’s lead defense attorney, Elliot Peters, said today that both he and Swartz rejected the plea deal offered by the office of US Attorney Carmen Ortiz, and instead were pushing for a trial where federal prosecutors would have been forced to publicly justify their pursuit of Swartz.
First result on Google.
Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago
#46Indeed lost a child.
The thing which shocked me equally was Reddit removing him from the official "about us"[1] as a co founder. As if he never existed in Reddit's history.
Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago
#47This hit me harder when it happened than now, but I was also in a weird relationship place back then, so some of those feelings got combined.
I didn't know it then, but didn't have as big of a role in founding reddit as people usually think, and his activism was so obviously illegal.
Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago
#48Although Aaron made enormous contributions to many different technologies, I often think of reddit when I think of Aaron. I often wonder how he would feel, not just about censorship there, but about the direction the entire Internet has taken in regards to censoring of content. I can't - and wouldn't - speak for him, but I would be supremely interested in his thoughts.
Aaron seemed very opposed to large corporations and their control of information. The increase of control seems to be timed and in favor with the incoming administration. Government using business to do its bidding is very troubling, and I'm sure Aaron would have been very concerned about that. Remember, this increase of power can be wielded by the next populist leader and there are plenty of dark possibilities outside of the current Overton Window.
Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago
#49Earlier 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.
>He was not murdered, he suffered from severe mentally illness.
Maybe having one of the most powerful governments use its might to crush someone and make an example does that to people?
Normal people are scared of a manager, a college professor, or making a presentation; imagine how they'd feel if the U.S Government was on their case specifically.
Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago
#50Although Aaron made enormous contributions to many different technologies, I often think of reddit when I think of Aaron. I often wonder how he would feel, not just about censorship there, but about the direction the entire Internet has taken in regards to censoring of content. I can't - and wouldn't - speak for him, but I would be supremely interested in his thoughts.
> censoring of content
The supreme irony of this is that Aaron's role as a co-founder has long been censored from Reddit's founders page [0], despite agreements to the contrary [1].
More generally, Aaron had strong views on censorship [2]:
> I think all censorship should be deplored. My position is that bits are not a bug – that we should create communications technologies that allow people to send whatever they like to each other. And when people put their thumbs on the scale and try to say what can and can’t be sent, we should fight back – both politically through protest and technologically through software like Tor...
> How is compromising [by a technology company on censorship] supposed to bring greater freedom in the long run? That’s like saying “I’m going to beat you up now so that you don’t have to be hit as much in the long run.” The right answer is to stop beating people up.
But I do think that physical violence resulting in part from the amplification of voices by algorithm would have been hard to foresee. I too would be curious if his thinking would have evolved. Sadly, we'll never know.
[0] https://reclaimthenet.org/aaron-swartz-reddit-founder/
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/1octb/reddit_co...