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Aaron Swartz commits suicide

tech.mit.edu

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Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#321

Post by argumentum »

SquareWheel wrote: post #268
argumentum wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the place for this argument.

Do quit it with the high and mighty attitude. I've made it very clear I'm not attempting to slander anybody, just clearing up a misconception. When you allow misinformation it will spread, and that shouldn't be acceptable.

It's not so clear as you claim. It's disputed, and there are arguments both ways, as "reddit" was part of another company, "not a bug", which was the result of the merger w/infogami.

Nonetheless I did not mean to appear "high and mighty", but that there are other threads regarding the reddit situation.

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#322

Post by mailshanx »

beadmomsw wrote: post #252

Thank you all for your kind words and thoughts. Aaron has been depressed about his case/upcoming trial, but we had no idea what he was going through was this painful. Aaron was a terrific young man. He contributed a lot to the world in his short life and I regret the loss of all the things he had yet to accomplish. As you can imagine, we all miss him dearly. The grief is unfathomable. Aaron's mother

I am terribly sorry for your loss. Aaron was a huge inspiration for me too, just as he was for countless others. He has accomplished more in his short life than most can in much longer ones. My thoughts and prayers go out to you and your family.

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#324

Post by michaelochurch »

jacquesm wrote: post #159

Man this so sucks. If you hit someone with enough felony counts sooner or later something can snap. This in response to those that claim the DOJ didn't have anything to do with Aaron killing himself. For some people the mere fact of being suspected of a crime they didn't commit is enough to push them over the edge. When you're placed in a holding cell the police will remove your laces from your boots so you don't han…

If you hit someone with enough felony counts sooner or later something can snap.

There are the conditions for suicide, and then there's the impulse that drives it to happen. The first is visible and appears over a long period of time-- felony convictions, mental instability, or extreme career adversity-- but it never seems that things are that bad (especially because a lot of people refuse to admit that good things can happen to bad people). The second is fairly sudden and seems "random". This is why suicides are so unexpected. A person can seem to be "not that bad off" one day, and the next day, commit suicide.

The scary thing is that the first kind of conditions are being more common. We have:

* draconian sentences for minor crimes, including drug possession, white-hat hacking, and file sharing, * an increasing willingness of corporations to use extreme and illegal career adversity (e.g. blacklisting) against whistleblowers, * increasing difficulty for a person to "re-invent" him- or herself in the wake of a bad reputation.

Thirty years ago, if your life got fucked up, you could pull a Don Draper. You could pay people off to represent themselves as past employers and reconstruct your career under an alternate name, and move halfway across the country. (I don't consider this unethical in the context of radical reinvention, providing that you're not feigning competences you lack or defrauding people.) In 2013, that's becoming increasingly hard to do.

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#325

Post by Laurentvw »

I used to read his blog. Here's something I will always remember. When they sold Reddit to Conde Nast, back in 2007 or so, Aaron Swartz wrote something about it on his blog, saying how he felt about it and how he didn't have to worry about money anymore, etc. And then he decided to give away some money to startups in need. I replied to his blog post and he gave my old startup a $100 donation. It felt really generous. RIP Aaron.

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#327

Post by CodeMage »

zatara wrote: post #275
jacquesm wrote: post #159

Man this so sucks. If you hit someone with enough felony counts sooner or later something can snap. This in response to those that claim the DOJ didn't have anything to do with Aaron killing himself. For some people the mere fact of being suspected of a crime they didn't commit is enough to push them over the edge. When you're placed in a holding cell the police will remove your laces from your boots so you don't han…

If anyone is still in doubt about how the DOJ impacted Aaron's life, it may be interesting to have a look at his last published blog post ( http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/tdk , discussion on http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5047421 ). Aaron makes a parallel between the Batman movie and his own struggles, highlighting the corruption of the system and how the Joker was actually the only "sane" person in an insane wor…

The conclusion about the Joker reminded me of this: http://thisorth.at/24yt

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#328

Post by bguthrie »

wheels wrote: post #240
jacquesm wrote: post #159

Man this so sucks. If you hit someone with enough felony counts sooner or later something can snap. This in response to those that claim the DOJ didn't have anything to do with Aaron killing himself. For some people the mere fact of being suspected of a crime they didn't commit is enough to push them over the edge. When you're placed in a holding cell the police will remove your laces from your boots so you don't han…

It really rubs me the wrong way when something like this happens and folks jump to conclusions as you have here. You didn't know this person. For all we know he could have not given two shits about the whole legal process and this is linked to family or relationship problems or long term general depression.

I worked closely with Aaron over the last year, and knew him, though not as well as I would have liked. My belief is that the legal process weighed on him tremendously, though he didn't often show it.

I am very, very angry with our system right now.

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