Just read the talk. I didn't realise it was given at the college I studied in. Sad to hear the news. Only today morning my daughter was saying how depressing classes are at school because every subject they study talks about how humans might become extinct. We can sometimes get too focused on problems and such times all that we need is a person to just say "It is not too bad. There are good things happening as well". Perhaps a lot of suicides are down to this missing person in our lives. We are all more connected thanks to the Internet, and also increasingly isolated.
Aaron Swartz commits suicide
101–110 of 583 posts
Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can we not know who exactly (their faces/names etc.) were the people working in the "US Attorney Office" bent to indict him? It's easy for people to term it was not JSTOR, it was the Attorney Office but ultimately these things happen only because people forget how to treat other people properly.
Knowing the reddit community, do you really think that is a good idea?
Knowing the faces and names deciding to spend our tax money on trying to shove in jail for decades someone who downloaded scientific papers, should be in the interest of every citizen, shouldn't it?
Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide
#103For some reason this is a shock to me. It shouldn't be, I didn't know the guy. But I was just playing with web.py framework. It is so strange, I thought just today, I wonder if Aaron would accept a pull request, I could see a few things to improve. Looking back at his activity on github he was pulling in commits less than a week ago: https://github.com/aaronsw?tab=activity I don't know details about the "JSTOR" case…
Web.py is actually a fantastic library. There still is Anand maintaining web.py I guess.
RIP I guess.
Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide
#104Here's the JSTOR Statement related to the downloading incident: http://about.jstor.org/news/jstor-statement-misuse-incident-... What Happened Last fall and winter, JSTOR experienced a significant misuse of our database. A substantial portion of our publisher partners’ content was downloaded in an unauthorized fashion using the network at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of our participating institutions…
Can we not know who exactly (their faces/names etc.) were the people working in the "US Attorney Office" bent to indict him? It's easy for people to term it was not JSTOR, it was the Attorney Office but ultimately these things happen only because people forget how to treat other people properly.
This question seems to imply that his death is the DOJ's fault, which I find preposterous.
Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nobody sane would kill himself - it's against the nature of all beings. Besides it's the easy way out.
Yeah because it's saner to spend 35 years in a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
If you break a law you have to pay for this.
Don't you have lawyers there to protect the innocent?
Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide
#106Aaron was one of the genuinely good guys. May he rest in peace.
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Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can we not know who exactly (their faces/names etc.) were the people working in the "US Attorney Office" bent to indict him? It's easy for people to term it was not JSTOR, it was the Attorney Office but ultimately these things happen only because people forget how to treat other people properly.
Knowing the reddit community, do you really think that is a good idea?
"Knowing the reddit community"
Could you elaborate on that?
Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide
#108Apparently the little bitch cut his own wrists lol.
Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide
#109Shocking and saddening. I've been working with Python lately and feel a particular loss because of web.py and all the other good work he did. My prayers go out to his family. I wonder why some people here are assuming this tragedy is because of the JSTOR incident. It seems to me that everyone should just meditate on what's been lost, and defer judgement about why he would do this until there is evidence.
> I wonder why some people here are assuming this tragedy is because of the JSTOR incident. It seems to me that everyone should just meditate on what's been lost, and defer judgement about why he would do this until there is evidence. Thank you so much. It's awful to see people in here blaming the trial when suicide is much more complex than a single incident pushing someone to the edge like that.
See charonn0's comment below (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5047044).
"This sort of stress tends to eat away at your insides. You can't make long-term plans of any kind; meet a nice person at the bar and you're reminded that you can't start anything serious since you might be going away for a long time. A thousand tiny reminders every day that you are already a prisoner and will be for an indefinite period while the lawyers are lawyering. All the defendant has is time to think about is what prison would be like, how the course of their life is not in their hands. It is a feeling of abject powerlessness."
Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide
#110I've thought of suicide. Not "seriously," but it's crossed my mind. Sometimes life just seems so hard.
My reaction to this is that he was a brilliant guy, and it was such a waste. Such a pointless waste.
It makes the idea of giving up myself seem so wrong.
Rest in Peace Aaron. I'm sorry it had to end this way.