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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

#91

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

xadhominemx wrote: post #42
_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…

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.

> Many suicides are prompted by trivial or very temporary situations that are not at fault.

I am part of a support group that is dominated by people who've attempted suicide.

The words trivial and temporary don't describe any part of their journey.

What is common, is how these people were harmed by the self-interested and misguided actions of others.

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

#92

Post by [deleted] »

maccard wrote: post #25
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.

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. Swa…

[deleted]

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

#93

Post by breck »

Snippets of one of my conversations with aaronsw way back when talking about the reason I wanted to help with Open Library:

    me: If it wasn't for my free city library growing up I would have 
        never gotten where I am today.
    aaronsw: Precisely. I got into it for the same reason you did.
He was a genuinely good truth seeker. I wish I had been smarter and better able to help him more when he needed it. Please support people like him and Alexandra Elbakyan and others who are persecuted for doing the right thing for the right reasons.

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

#94

Post by pdevr »

btown wrote: post #50
cbozeman wrote: post #10

Although 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…

From the second link:

PG's opinion: "Aaron's not wrong to call himself one of the founders. The company behind Reddit was a merger of two startups, one that made Reddit and one that made Infogami, and in that situation the founders of both startups are considered founders of the combined company."

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

#95

Post by Jimmc414 »

newscracker wrote: post #9

Such a colossal loss! If you haven't watched it, I'd recommend watching "The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz" . [1] It's a bit difficult to watch it more than once or twice. It'll leave you sad and angry. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet%27s_Own_Boy

>> It'll leave you sad and angry

Indeed.

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

#96

Post by Nextgrid »

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 forced into a case where his options are 1) take the deal, waive your right to a trial and serve a certain sentence, or 2) exercise your right to a trial and in revenge get a much heavier sentence (some people here mention a max of 30 years - even rapists and murderers can get less than that) since the commonplace nature of plea deals over time devalues the "true" sentences as written in the law because nobody serves them.

Frankly I don't think this situation delivers justice to neither the victim nor the defendant. If we assume the defendant is guilty, why should he be allowed to get off with a sentence that's 29 years lower than what it should be? If we assume that the defendant is not guilty, is it fair to force him to pick between a fair trial and potential 30 years of prison or 6 months without trial, given that even someone that's not guilty would most likely take the deal and this perverts the course of justice by essentially jailing people based on mere allegations without a trial?

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

#97

Post by conception »

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…

This can only be true if Republican efforts at voter suppression continue to be successful while also states don’t choose to forgo the electoral college. Republicans only win because of a tremendously successful campaign to not let people vote. They are very much a minority party by any measure except outsized influence.

They have fewer voters.

Fewer people identify with them.

Fewer people support their policies.

If Democrats can continue to get voters out, like in GA, they will lose seats.

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

#98

Post by Jtsummers »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #82
Jtsummers wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> maybe they should have been aware of his illness and appropriately (ie Justly) addressed the situation rather than making an example of him. While I don't think Aaron Swartz should've been prosecuted (or at least not charged with everything they did), this statement in general is not the job of the prosecutors. If it were, then many charges would have to be dropped/reduced in the case of people with mental illness…

your aside about "defense proper" is kind of the point, but extended to another branch of the justice system (ie policing) . I think we've seen a similar sentiment in 2020 over how many people are unhappy about how the police are going about their jobs.

That aside, in particular, was meant in the sense of: The mental illness can be seen as causal or mitigating. Like, a person suffering from a schizophrenic break could reasonably use that as a defense (not to avoid all treatment/punishment, but as a mitigating factor or to have the consequences moved from prison time to a medical facility) for a crime committed during that break (a sincere belief that they're in danger or that someone was the devil leading them to commit an assault or worse). Depression could similarly be used in a defense like that as depression (in severe cases) can similarly cause breaks with reality or reduced capacity for self-control.

But having severe depression or being schizophrenic, on its own, is not a good justification for changing/reducing charges and consequences (sadly, consequences in the US are punishments as there's little focus on rehabilitation). If anything, it could reasonably affect the sentencing to account for the riskier consequences of placing a person with that mental condition into a medium or high security prison or general population, but not the selection of charges by the prosecutor.

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

#99

Post by Reedx »

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…

If a sitting President can be deplatformed from the Internet, then wouldn't a Presidential Candidate be? Would said candidate be able to run a successful campaign without it?

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

#100

Post by rozab »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #17

From personal experience, Prozac can act as a suicide deterrent given the right conditions. It’s not true for everyone, and perhaps not even for most people, but there is so much stigma against it. Please, if you’re feeling anything along those lines, at least try some antidepressants. What have you got to lose? You have your whole life to gain. I miss Aaron. I ended up using some code by him a couple months ago, whi…

Placebo controlled trials show that Prozac increases suicidal thoughts.

https://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.i65

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3353604/

https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/Antidepres...

Eli Lilly notoriously buried the evidence of this from their own trials.

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