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Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago

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Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago

#71

Post by _lqaf »

kortilla wrote: post #64
_jal wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you go down the path of blaming external factors for suicides it’s going to get messy pretty fast. How many suicides were because of Eminem songs? How many suicides were because of the lack of suicide nets on the Golden Gate Bridge? How many suicides are because of a break up? Whose fault was Epstein’s suicide? Robin William’s? R. Budd Dwyer?

I'll just quote myself,

> attempting to blur that tells me more about your priors and biases than anything about the situation

And right on cue, here comes someone who would rather talk about Eminem and Epstein to blur the situation than talk about the actual situation.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago

#72

Post by FDSGSG »

Nextgrid wrote: post #55
xadhominemx wrote: post #12

Earlier 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.

The whole concept of plea deals is insane (but then again, so is the concept of "justice" in the US) and it's sad to see it being defended here. Sidestepping the issue of the severity of his crime, the concept of "plead guilty to X and waive your rights to a fair trial" or go to a trial which is made unfair by trumped up charges (thus increasing the corresponding sentence by orders of magnitude) almost as revenge for…

Nobody is defending plea deals here. Aaron was offered an excellent deal, regardless of how indefensible plea deals might be in general.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago

#73

Post by sudosysgen »

cbozeman wrote: post #58
webXL wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 outsi…

I've often spoken with my more left-leaning friends about the need to try and find middle ground with my more right-leaning friends, and quickly. Donald Trump was an incompetent, by almost any measure you want to use. However, he shifted the Overton Window dramatically. When the Republican version of Barack Obama bursts onto the scene - someone eloquent, competent, and thoroughly able to move effectively in the polit…

I agree. As someone pretty far on the left I was shook by the banning of Donald Trump, and this trend of censorship makes me really, really, really scared.

If you're anything but a very centrist Democrat, this should scare the crap out of you.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago

#75

Post by ryanlol »

jeltz wrote: post #70
FDSGSG wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually he was offered even less, 4 months. http://volokh.com/2013/01/16/the-criminal-charges-against-aa... >The alternative sentence to consider is what Swartz would have received if he had agreed to plead guilty. According to Swartz’s lawyers, the prosecutors in the case offered two different pleas. First, they would agree to a sentence of four months if Swartz agreed to plead guilty to the felonies. And second, t…

Which makes it even worse. A 4 month plea deal on a 50 year maximum sentence is clear evidence of that something is vet wrong. It either means the deal or the max sentence is wrong.

You’re not wrong, but “50 year maximum sentence” is off by at least an order of magnitude.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago

#76

Post by jeltz »

FDSGSG wrote: post #72
Nextgrid wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole concept of plea deals is insane (but then again, so is the concept of "justice" in the US) and it's sad to see it being defended here. Sidestepping the issue of the severity of his crime, the concept of "plead guilty to X and waive your rights to a fair trial" or go to a trial which is made unfair by trumped up charges (thus increasing the corresponding sentence by orders of magnitude) almost as revenge for…

Nobody is defending plea deals here. Aaron was offered an excellent deal, regardless of how indefensible plea deals might be in general.

No, he was offered a bad deal. Copyright violations very rarely result in prison for first time offenders. He also did a mild case of hacking which together might have resulted in a short sentence. But if he had gone to court I doubt he would have got more than 4-6 months, which is the same thing as the plea deal.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago

#77

Post by cies »

tylersmith wrote: post #43
cies wrote: post #11

Earlier 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.

> 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.

Enforcing it and bringing someone to suicide is miles apart.

But on topic: copyright that works for decades has been lobbied into existence, it's not something average people "want". So, no, I dont think most Americans want to pay for several decades of copyright enforcement. Same for software patents, or extended-length patents in general. Something like 10 years is more than enough "head start". Yay for a rich commons!!

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago

#78

Post by xadhominemx »

caminante wrote: post #60
xadhominemx wrote: post #12

Earlier 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.

I appreciate your perspective. This is a memorial thread with a bias to grieving and celebrating Aaron. By making your points, others appear to assume you're criticizing him for taking his life (which is not your intent or how I perceive your stance).

Many people use Aaron’s death as a political cudgel by essentially lying about the events leading to his suicide in order to paint him has a martyr who was murdered by cruel and vengeful prosecutors. He was in fact a severely mentally ill individual who’s death should be remembered as a tragedy resulting from severe depression, not politically motivated homicide.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago

#79

Post by ska »

FDSGSG wrote: post #72
Nextgrid wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole concept of plea deals is insane (but then again, so is the concept of "justice" in the US) and it's sad to see it being defended here. Sidestepping the issue of the severity of his crime, the concept of "plead guilty to X and waive your rights to a fair trial" or go to a trial which is made unfair by trumped up charges (thus increasing the corresponding sentence by orders of magnitude) almost as revenge for…

Nobody is defending plea deals here. Aaron was offered an excellent deal, regardless of how indefensible plea deals might be in general.

> Aaron was offered an excellent deal,

That's a pretty extraordinary claim, as he had competent legal counsel (I think?) and they rejected it.

Re: Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago

#80

Post by cies »

kortilla wrote: post #66
krspykrm wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The overwhelming majority don't have any epistemic basis for what they believe and are just saying what they think is socially-acceptable to say.

Sounds like democracy probably isn’t a good choice then.

Cannot have a solid democracy without heavily educating. It's has be said before, and I will say it again. Examples: Scandinavian countries, Germany.
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