Tell HN: Aaron Swartz died today, 8 years ago • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by symlinkk » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 6:30 PM UTC

Dumblydorr wrote: post #63

cbozeman wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'm bullish on Democrats due to demographic shifts, but they'll need to gain more senators from rural states if they want to pass major legislation. GOP has to somehow consolidate Trumpists with Never Trumpers, may be tricky to do. How will independents respond to GOP after Trump is finished? Will they forgive and forget? So, in my view, both parties need to adapt or they will not achieve that much. Imagine if Dems h…

Which demographic shifts specifically?

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

#112

Post by neilv » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 6:31 PM UTC

at_a_remove wrote: post #53

I was thinking about this the other day. MIT is dead to me. Carmen Ortiz and Stephen Heymann should be ashamed for the rest of their lives.

MIT is a big and complicated place, and you'd be throwing out some good, including people who are probably closer to Swartz in sentiment than our average dotcommer.

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

#113

Post by trhway » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 6:32 PM UTC

today people celebrate Aaron, at least when it comes to lip service. Back then though that "holier than thou" comment was at the top of HN response to Aaron asking for help

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529609

The HN as well as wider community's change toward Aaron was noted by others as well: https://techcrunch.com/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-asking-for-he...

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

#114

Post by manfredo » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 6:34 PM UTC

_jal wrote: post #28

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.

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…

A substantial number of people commit suicide following loss of one's job. Would you feel it's fair to say that their bosses drove them to suicide?

I'd say no. Most of such cases, like Swartz, had existing mental conditions that are primarily responsible for their decision to commit suicide. Loss of a job may have been the event that ultimately prompted the act, but the driving factors were mental conditions. Saying that these people were driven to suicide conflates these cases with like this where someone is actively driving someone else to suicide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Conrad_Roy

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

#115

Post by khazhoux » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 6:34 PM UTC

iKevinShah wrote: post #46

Indeed 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. 1: https://www.redditinc.com/#section-4

At some risk of stepping into a controversy I have nothing to do with... Aaron was not an original co-founder, and when his company merged into Reddit (with a "co-founder" title as per agreement) every indication is that that arrangement didn't work out for anyone. So I don't blame Reddit for not including Aaron in the company history, as it wasn't his idea, he didn't start it nor grow it, and his presence apparently never "clicked" with the others.

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

#116

Post by at_a_remove » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 6:35 PM UTC

neilv wrote: post #112

at_a_remove wrote: post #53

I was thinking about this the other day. MIT is dead to me. Carmen Ortiz and Stephen Heymann should be ashamed for the rest of their lives.

MIT is a big and complicated place, and you'd be throwing out some good, including people who are probably closer to Swartz in sentiment than our average dotcommer.

That sounds nice and all, but they have yet to issue a real mea culpa, although I think there was a "mistakes were made" noise later on. At some point, organizations have to accept accountability if they also want praise for their accomplishments. One without the other is a recipe for disaster.

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

#117

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 6:35 PM UTC

conception wrote: post #97

cbozeman wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

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

#118

Post by sillysaurusx » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 6:36 PM UTC

rozab wrote: post #100

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.

Interesting. I wasn’t aware of this. Perhaps I got lucky, but the effect was immediate and life changing. I’ve never quite experienced anything like it, so I try to at least mention it.

Not really sure how to proceed knowing it can make the situation worse for some people though. Perhaps I’ll cite your comment in the future; thanks.

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

#119

Post by nojokes1 » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 6:37 PM UTC

Another (absolutely horrible) reminder that mental health is complex and almost invisible, "justice" seems to mean "money to lobby" more and more, and that the parasitical industry of academic publishing aims to gatekeep knowledge (that we paid for!) from those who are unable/unwilling to pay them again.

So read, learn, do, and don't forget the failings of the mental health system, justice system, and academic publishing industry.

And as a final question: How can we do better in each of these areas? What can be made to help out?

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

#120

Post by shrimp_emoji » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 6:38 PM UTC

Dumblydorr wrote: post #63

cbozeman wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'm bullish on Democrats due to demographic shifts, but they'll need to gain more senators from rural states if they want to pass major legislation. GOP has to somehow consolidate Trumpists with Never Trumpers, may be tricky to do. How will independents respond to GOP after Trump is finished? Will they forgive and forget? So, in my view, both parties need to adapt or they will not achieve that much. Imagine if Dems h…

Or remove the electoral college (which is an anti-democratic contrivance originally meant to cajole then-slave states into remaining in the Union[0]) and make voting mandatory to completely nuke the GOP's strategy of voter disempowerment (which is their best hope as demographic shifts increasingly favor the Democrats).

0: https://time.com/4558510/electoral-college-history-slavery/