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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

#191

Post by john4532452 »

bobuk wrote: post #26

More than 10 years ago, I've asked Aaron about the best way to tell him "thanks for your job". He said what he has a big wishlist on Amazon, so I've chosen a couple of books and bought them to him. Since then, once a year I have an event in my calendar: "check out what's new on Aaron's wishlist". Don't know why I decide to write it today but this is a link for this wishlist, just for inspiration. I think it will help…

Thanks so much for posting this link. In the documentary "Internet's Own Boy" about Aaron( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M85UvH0TRPc ) some one made a insightful comment about Aaron. The insight is this, there are people who are highly technically capable and then there are people who live by high morals and sacrifice themselves for a political cause, but the intersection of the two in a same person is very very rare. And that very true. The only other person who fits in this category is probably Richard Stallman.

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

#193

Post by Jugurtha »

xadhominemx wrote: post #168
Jugurtha wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that the situation would put anyone's resilience to the test.

Millions of people in the US have served sentences of similar length or longer

Millions of people have cats.

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

#194

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

FDSGSG wrote: post #188
vlovich123 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you actually read that link? He wrote the alleged “suicide note” in a moment where he was suffering from extreme physical pain as that was his way of expressing it to give himself some mental release. On top of all of that he was dealing with getting fired which itself can be a mindfuck. To me the proximate cause 100% was the legal case against him - it inflamed any underlying issues and they just kept pressing.…

I did read that link. People without mental issues don't tend to post suicide notes, regardless of whatever physical pain or employment issues they might be facing. It's fairly clear that Swartz had a history of suicidal ideation, this wasn't of the DoJs making no matter how unfairly they may have treated him. >To me the proximate cause 100% was the legal case against him - it inflamed any underlying issues and they…

You're arguing that DoJ didn't create the opportunity for Aaron to kill himself, they merely seized upon it and got an even stronger outcome than they were hoping for.

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

#195

Post by unwantedchild »

john4532452 wrote: post #191
bobuk wrote: post #26

More than 10 years ago, I've asked Aaron about the best way to tell him "thanks for your job". He said what he has a big wishlist on Amazon, so I've chosen a couple of books and bought them to him. Since then, once a year I have an event in my calendar: "check out what's new on Aaron's wishlist". Don't know why I decide to write it today but this is a link for this wishlist, just for inspiration. I think it will help…

Thanks so much for posting this link. In the documentary "Internet's Own Boy" about Aaron( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M85UvH0TRPc ) some one made a insightful comment about Aaron. The insight is this, there are people who are highly technically capable and then there are people who live by high morals and sacrifice themselves for a political cause, but the intersection of the two in a same person is very very ra…

RMS does not do anything that interacts with politics and I don't think he's high morals, though I use Emacs.

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

#196

Post by vlovich123 »

FDSGSG wrote: post #188
vlovich123 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you actually read that link? He wrote the alleged “suicide note” in a moment where he was suffering from extreme physical pain as that was his way of expressing it to give himself some mental release. On top of all of that he was dealing with getting fired which itself can be a mindfuck. To me the proximate cause 100% was the legal case against him - it inflamed any underlying issues and they just kept pressing.…

I did read that link. People without mental issues don't tend to post suicide notes, regardless of whatever physical pain or employment issues they might be facing. It's fairly clear that Swartz had a history of suicidal ideation, this wasn't of the DoJs making no matter how unfairly they may have treated him. >To me the proximate cause 100% was the legal case against him - it inflamed any underlying issues and they…

Suicidal ideation is regular & there's a very clear step jump function in how its treated by psychotherapists vs a genuine intent to commit suicide. Until you make concrete plans to harm yourself or others, ideation is just that. Most people keep it private but I don't believe there's any literature that indicates that voicing that ideation publicly somehow makes you more likely to actually enact it.

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

#197

Post by btown »

joshuahaglund wrote: post #149
kypro wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Something that always seems to be accepted without question in these conversations is that censoring violent language will reduce violent behaviour. Are we sure this is the case? For example, if you…

It is not obvious that having someone publicly call for trial by combat at the capitol increases the probability of that happening, compared to no public proclamation? But what you're saying is that removing said content is going to somehow increase the violent behavior? By what means? Because you followed someone into to a cesspool? Then you were already drinking diluted pollution. People do not get banned simply fo…

> Maybe you should reconsider who you follow if the people you follow wallow in hate and bigotry? Why doesn't the party of individual responsibility doesn't seem to understand you can just stop following the hate? Seek out and follow reasonable voices.

There are a LOT of facets to an answer to that, but one that is entirely enabled by the technology industry is the concept of an algorithmic news feed promoting unsolicited content from not-yet-followed sources, especially when that algorithm is based on a function of "all of your activity over an extended period of time" and "the activity of people you interact with but whose views you never explicitly endorsed."

You cannot simply "just stop following the hate" when the hate is repeatedly shoved down your throat daily in conspicuous "join this group" ads in Facebook. And this is far, far more prominent than we had believed, per https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-platforms-must-pay-for-t... :

> Facebook’s own research revealed that 64 percent of the time a person joins an extremist Facebook Group, they do so because the platform recommended it. Facebook has also acknowledged that pages and groups associated with QAnon extremism had at least 3 million members, meaning Facebook helped radicalize 2 million people.

The frustrating thing about conversations about censorship on platforms is that you're not starting from a baseline of neutrality, because the algorithm itself is picking winners even if it wasn't coded that way. Any algorithm that takes engagement-after-clicking-a-promotion as an input will start to take advantage of people who are more susceptible to extremist content. Knowing what we know now, does the continued deployment of those algorithms constitute intentional corporate speech that emphasizes extremism? And in that case, would the removal or manual tuning of said corporate speech really be the censorship we're worried about?

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

#198

Post by joshuahaglund »

cbozeman wrote: post #187
joshuahaglund wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's exactly a call to violence, because that's all you left for the person you're censoring. As soon as you take the position that words can no longer be exchanged, the only other option you've left open is violence. This isn't - or at least shouldn't - be hard to understand.

The president was censored (for violating TOS) after he called for violence.

I experience linear time, how about you?

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

#199

Post by arnaldorobot »

john4532452 wrote: post #191
bobuk wrote: post #26

More than 10 years ago, I've asked Aaron about the best way to tell him "thanks for your job". He said what he has a big wishlist on Amazon, so I've chosen a couple of books and bought them to him. Since then, once a year I have an event in my calendar: "check out what's new on Aaron's wishlist". Don't know why I decide to write it today but this is a link for this wishlist, just for inspiration. I think it will help…

Thanks so much for posting this link. In the documentary "Internet's Own Boy" about Aaron( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M85UvH0TRPc ) some one made a insightful comment about Aaron. The insight is this, there are people who are highly technically capable and then there are people who live by high morals and sacrifice themselves for a political cause, but the intersection of the two in a same person is very very ra…

I find your comment very insightful, and quite moving. I had my own problems with mental health and one of the reasons is hopelessness; we lost ourselves — not just as individuals, but as species. Your mention about this particular characteristic of humans is very much aligned with our current understanding of neuroscience, namely, neurodiversity and the human super power called neuroplasticity, although, like western psychology, our neuroscience derives primarily of the current social norms — this explains the confusion that our psychology has about different ways of being, and levels of consciousness. Hence, scientists are categorizing contemplative, introspective and highly technical individuals as someone with disabilities (social disabilities). Which is ridiculous. These highly introspective individuals, if they were born in India and trained using buddhist meditation techniques (making use of neuroplasticity), they'd be called the next reincarnation of The Buda, by simply being very keen to see and understand reality using logical reasoning.

So, concluding my train of thought, this insight about the intersection of technical beings with highly political, motivated by high morals... it is, indeed, very rare and fascinating.

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

#200

Post by arnaldorobot »

ainiriand wrote: post #183
tehlike wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i would like to hear about that list. I have a one year old daughter, and i want her to know the good people.

Currently I have the ones that passed away during my adulthood that made a big impact in me: - Aaron Swartz - Carl Sagan - Stephen Hawking - Paul Allen

I was born in the same year that Carl Sagan died — in fact, just a few days earlier. Once a year people say "congratulations" to me without knowing that, precisely in that moment, inside, the thought coming to this mind in reaction of their comment is that I wish Carl Sagan were alive, and that I had died instead of him, or never have been born in the first place.
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