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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

#171

Post by SquareWheel »

I liked Swartz a lot. He was idealistic and brilliant. His death was as sad as it was unnecessary.

After his death though, I always found it inappropriate when obituaries and memorials called him a reddit cofounder. He joined reddit as part of a merger and didn't stay on long before being let go. The original founders didn't consider him a cofounder, and until his death did not have the nicest things to say about him.

Personally I think there's better things to remember him by than that rather negative chapter. He created a lot of good outside reddit. Personally I still use RSS to this day, and am occasionally reminded by that of his story.

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

#172

Post by maerF0x0 »

Jtsummers wrote: post #98
maerF0x0 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dang…

I think we're talking past eachother because it seems you're being descriptive of what is, and I'm being more prescriptive about what ought

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

#173

Post by cbozeman »

joshuahaglund wrote: post #159
Reedx wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check back when Bernie (or the next Bernie, if he doesn't run again) is deplatformed, and we'll see who was confused. Just remember back to how the media and establishment pulled together to stop Bernie during the primaries. Think this new tool won't be used the next time they're in danger of losing power to an outsider?

If "the next Bernie" promotes violence then he's not the next Bernie and I won't support him and I don't understand what's so hard to understand about that. Y'all think "it's both sides" but, in America, this call to violence (straight up armed insurrection) is unique in right wing politics. And if it showed up in the Left I wouldn't tolerate it. Show me someone on the right who was deplatformed who didn't preach hat…

I can show you people on the left who got deplatformed.

What's that feminist lady who literally got banned for saying, "Men are not women."? I forget her name. I'm waiting for Joanne Rowling to get deplatformed for having the audacity to think that there's a portion of transgender men who are using certain aspects of the left's current moral panicking to infiltrate women's spaces.

How dare she have an opinion that's critical of ... shuffles cards... whatever group we feel the need to swoop in and save to assuage our guilt for being the world's most successful society!

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

#174

Post by selfishgene »

This article on WBUR's website hits the nail on the head:

The crux of it is that MIT refused to disavow any kind of trespassing charge.

(https://www.wbur.org/news/2013/01/15/swartz-attorney-ortiz)

For his deliberate mishandling of the Aaron Swartz case, as well as his cover-up of ballistic missile defense research misconduct at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and his personally signed thank-you note to an alleged member of organized crime like Jeffrey Epstein which was intended as a form of reputation laundering in exchange for millions of dollars in gifts that MIT received from not just Epstein directly but also from several of his billionaire friends who allegedly owed him a "favor" (some of whom now also stand accused of abusing underage girls on properties which were allegedly outfitted with surveillance cameras for blackmail purposes), perhaps it's time to revisit once again the call for Rafael Reif's resignation from his position as president of MIT:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2020/01/12/after-epstei...

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

#175

Post by AntiImperialist »

cies wrote: post #11
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #7

Driving 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.

He was going against big people working together with the likes of Epstein and we are supposed to believe that it's suicide. Yeah, right. Just like Epstein, Swartz also committed suicide one day without a note or anything.

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

#177

Post by alienlid »

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25740259

https://twitter.com/hides_minimally/status/13487046708820377...

--

Aaron Swartz @aaronsw died by suicide eight years ago. He represents a kind of left-libertarian current that's lost among present technologists —our generation centers the debate on regulating the internet or, most radically, democratizing platforms.

After @aaronsw attempted to communize academic intellectual property, the state destroyed Aaron, while Bush administration officials, Wall Street, and British Petroleum executives walked with impunity.

And therefore, some have pointed out that, despite both MIT and JSTOR not wishing to press charges, the state slamming @aaronsw with 35 years in jail and $1M in fines was a prosecutorial overreach and a grotesque miscarriage of justice.

No,@aaronsw committed a transgression intolerable in capitalist society. The state brutalized him not on the basis of legal injustice but because what he did struck at the heart of our society and property relations. What he did was like the digital version of burning down Target

In a framework that is animated by capital, the state did the right thing: you can't just let people like @aaronsw vandalize and loot intellectual property. You have to go after him. If you don't, then there's nothing worth prosecuting.

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

#178

Post by fmoralesc »

thisrod wrote: post #167
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now I’m curious about who you follow that were banned from Twitter and YouTube. I don’t know if any research has been done on this, but it wouldn’t surprise me to find that a normalization effect happens so that more exposure to certain modes of discourse change how you think about them. Our minds are not under our conscious control, even if we would prefer that they are. I suspect that our president’s mode of discou…

> I suspect that our president’s mode of discourse has dramatically shifted what is seen as acceptable Why isn't that a rational response? Many of Trump's actions were wrong. However, he got away with them, and acceptable and normal are about what you can get away with, not what's right.

'normal' shifts with what people get away with, but 'acceptable' does not.

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

#179

Post by joshuahaglund »

cbozeman wrote: post #173
joshuahaglund wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If "the next Bernie" promotes violence then he's not the next Bernie and I won't support him and I don't understand what's so hard to understand about that. Y'all think "it's both sides" but, in America, this call to violence (straight up armed insurrection) is unique in right wing politics. And if it showed up in the Left I wouldn't tolerate it. Show me someone on the right who was deplatformed who didn't preach hat…

I can show you people on the left who got deplatformed. What's that feminist lady who literally got banned for saying, "Men are not women."? I forget her name. I'm waiting for Joanne Rowling to get deplatformed for having the audacity to think that there's a portion of transgender men who are using certain aspects of the left's current moral panicking to infiltrate women's spaces. How dare she have an opinion that's…

Deplatforming is when a company kicks someone off its service for violating TOS. Canceling is when a community who previously supported someone sees another side of them and changes its mind. I believe you're conflating the two. But neither is a call to violence. As others have said, stop the false equivalence.
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