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Aaron Swartz commits suicide

tech.mit.edu

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Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#551

Post by halfninety »

rprasad wrote: post #476
chimeracoder wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone on Reddit explained this better than I can, but JSTOR is basically a scam. It pockets the money that it receives and doesn't pay anything back to the authors. As an author, you yourself have to pay for access to your own work (or your university does, via a subscription). JSTOR has scholarly articles dating back centuries - when you consider that that information deserves to be free, and the societal cost of…

JSTOR is a non-profit created to store scholarly articles and maintain archives of scholarly work for future access. JSTOR is and was a driving force behind the digitalization of scholarly works and most academic journals. JSTOR's sole function is to maintain these archives, even if/when it is not commercially viable to do so. All of this costs money. Universities and companies pay for JSTOR so that it can keep doing…

Oh really? I thought universities and companies paid for JSTOR so that they could redistribute those academic works for profit. If not, why would they care if someone else gets access without paying? And if the universities and companies didn't care, why would JSTOR, a non-profit, care?

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#552

Post by halfninety »

betterunix wrote: post #364
tesmar2 wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is terrible news, but, not knowing much about the case, how was it morally right to download a bunch of pay-for documents?

Anyone with access to a university network has access to those documents. I have access to JSTOR also. What moral issue can you possibly raise with someone using their access to download these documents? It's OK to download 10, but not 1000000? Do you have a moral issue with automated downloads -- and if so, how can you justify JSTOR itself? It is worth noting that JSTOR did not want to press charges in this case. Af…

Indeed. Public money should pay for the function of entities like JSTOR.

The public already paid 99% of the money for public research, yet only 1% of them have access to the fruits because those who paid 1% (for maintaining an archive) want it this way.

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#553

Post by HeraScie »

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 absolutely W-E-E-P for the loss of such a genius with a beautiful and generous soul. We all owe him so much.

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#554

Post by jrogers65 »

rprasad wrote: post #485
jrogers65 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, anyone who pays taxes has a hand in this. The issue is that deciding not to pay your taxes means that the dogs are set on you. This is not a free society, unfortunately. Perhaps bitcoin will change all of this. I've been contemplating the idea of a shadow economy where people work remotely and anonymously, getting paid in an anonymous currency and completely circumventing the current economic and political syst…

The issue is that deciding not to pay your taxes means that the dogs are set on you. This is not a free society, unfortunately. Perhaps bitcoin will change all of this. I've been contemplating the idea of a shadow economy where people work remotely and anonymously, getting paid in an anonymous currency and completely circumventing the current economic and political systems. A fundamental misconception of Bitcoin is t…

Although bitcoin transactions are public, if you cannot correlate a hash to a human then they are essentially anonymous. The 'leaks' can only happen when exchanging bitcoin for traditional currency. Fortunately, there are ways to do this anonymously too. With some care, it is possible to stay hidden in the true sense, even though the currency is exchanging hands in public.

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#555

Post by jrogers65 »

philwelch wrote: post #525
jrogers65 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, anyone who pays taxes has a hand in this. The issue is that deciding not to pay your taxes means that the dogs are set on you. This is not a free society, unfortunately. Perhaps bitcoin will change all of this. I've been contemplating the idea of a shadow economy where people work remotely and anonymously, getting paid in an anonymous currency and completely circumventing the current economic and political syst…

It's not an issue of paying taxes. We have a responsibility and a duty to control our government and our political systems and to direct them to the ends of justice. Whether or not we pay our taxes, we still have this duty. That's what makes this so tragic. Aaron Swartz was one of the few people willing to actually do this, even when it meant poking at a sleeping bear, one that, in the end, he couldn't face.

I believe that there are at least three stances on this issue. One is, as you mentioned, involvement in the current system in a positive sense (steering in the right direction). Another is involvement in the system in a negative sense (destruction of it). The third is abandoning the system and using something else altogether.

The last option has the side effect of bleeding the existing one dry through inaction (within the boundary of the current system). It is similar to a software fork. We have seen many a project where the ones in charge have become rigid enough in their ways that, for all intents and purposes, the cost and probability of convincing them outweighs the cost of detaching from the infrastructure and moving in a new direction. For example, XFree86 and X.Org.

An issue that we face with activism is that the structure in place is supported by individuals with orders of magnitude more wealth and influence than what the activists have access to. This is evident in the case of Mr. Swartz where he was rapidly running out of money to fight his battle in court. We are at a disadvantaged position in that sense.

As such, every [insert your unit of currency] we pay in taxes go towards feeding the policies we so emphatically disagree with. With a nod to The Art Of War, a valid tactic in such a case is to starve your enemy and wage a war of attrition - in other words, reduce their material wealth while increasing our own. The end result is that nobody gets hurt yet they slowly lose their influence and the new guard have the opportunity and resources to build theirs.

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#557

Post by madaxe »

foldr wrote: post #538
madaxe wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Psychiatric assessment is a routine element of any criminal case. At any rate, it is in the UK.

So you're saying that in the UK they don't prosecute people who are depressed? As a Brit, that's news to me. Come on. This prosecution may be unjust for other reasons, but it's just daft to claim that they should not have prosecuted him because he was depressed.

Did I say at any point that depression should exempt someone from prosecution? No. I said their handling was inappropriate.

If someone is a suicide risk you watch them, and typically ensure they're not left alone.

Stick your straw man where the sun don't shine.

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#559

Post by jacquesm »

larrys wrote: post #457
jacquesm wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't. How do you know she isn't? Until I have evidence to the contrary I tend to believe what people say.

"How do you know she isn't?" I questioned what you said I didn't (when I asked you) state that the poster wasn't his mother. I don't know that she is or isn't. That said I will now say that I feel that it's highly unlikely that a mother who has lost her son to suicide is going to open up a HN account [1] and post something when a loss like this happens. Of course if a HN admin has access to IP addresses or where and…

I hope you can restrain yourself and that you won't be asking for their passports and birth certificates:

http://rememberaaronsw.tumblr.com/post/40372208044/official-...

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