MIT President on Aaron Swartz • Hacker News Board

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#11

Post by rdl » Sun, Jan 13, 2013, 9:40 PM UTC

rhizome wrote: post #8

"Whoopsy. Also: throwing Prof. Abelson under the bus."

No -- Abelson is an uninvolved, very respected professor. It's normal to appoint someone like that to run an investigation. There is every reason to suspect it will be comprehensive, fair, and public.

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#12

Post by jtchang » Sun, Jan 13, 2013, 9:40 PM UTC

Very well written. Reif understands that there is nothing to be gained by outright pointing fingers. He knows that MIT played some part and basically admits it. What he doesn't want to do is go into details until he readily understands what role MIT played.

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#13

Post by Illychnosis » Sun, Jan 13, 2013, 9:40 PM UTC

kristenlee wrote: post #7

Aaron Swartz was mentally ill and committed suicide as a direct result of his mental illness. He comtemplated suicide in 2007 long before any of this DOJ stuff happened. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dying Furthermore the "glorification" of his suicide is doing nothing more but encouraging other suicidal "hackers" to go over the edge so they have their "story" and inconsequential blog posts plastered all of Hacker Ne…

The focus is and should be on fanatical public employees that have an overinflated sense of their importance.

Aaron was worth 100 Federal prosecutors.

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#14

Post by rdl » Sun, Jan 13, 2013, 9:41 PM UTC

This goes way beyond what I expected MIT would do. I guess MIT is more responsive to public opinion than any prosecutor's office or politician.

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#15

Post by objclxt » Sun, Jan 13, 2013, 9:42 PM UTC

rhizome wrote: post #8

"Whoopsy. Also: throwing Prof. Abelson under the bus."

I don't see how. Hal Abelson is on the boards of Creative Commons and the Free Software Foundation (and as such is hardly a standard bearer for restrictive copyright), and he's being asked to independently review how MIT handled the entire series of events leading up to this. How is he being thrown under the bus?

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#16

Post by cma » Sun, Jan 13, 2013, 9:42 PM UTC

rhizome wrote: post #8

"Whoopsy. Also: throwing Prof. Abelson under the bus."

This is like saying Feynman got blamed for the Challenger disaster.

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#17

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jan 13, 2013, 9:44 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #2

I will not attempt to summarize here the complex events of the past two years. Now is a time for everyone involved to reflect on their actions, and that includes all of us at MIT. I have asked Professor Hal Abelson to lead a thorough analysis of MIT's involvement from the time that we first perceived unusual activity on our network in fall 2010 up to the present. I have asked that this analysis describe the options M…

[deleted]

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#18

Post by potatolicious » Sun, Jan 13, 2013, 9:45 PM UTC

kristenlee wrote: post #7

Aaron Swartz was mentally ill and committed suicide as a direct result of his mental illness. He comtemplated suicide in 2007 long before any of this DOJ stuff happened. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dying Furthermore the "glorification" of his suicide is doing nothing more but encouraging other suicidal "hackers" to go over the edge so they have their "story" and inconsequential blog posts plastered all of Hacker Ne…

The witch hunt angle has been bothering me a lot, and should be ample evidence that the people of Hacker News are no better than the reactionaries of Reddit or even 4chan. No sooner had the man's death hit the news that people started foaming at the mouth, writing long manifestos and diatribes, and calling for the head of everyone and anyone related to the prosecution.

We are better than this.

Actually, evidently, no we're not. We will take a single piece of news, and then fly off the handle, careening into supposition after rumor, and proceed to label people whose actions (or inactions) are far from certain, with the most heinous crimes our society knows - up to and including murder.

We will take the news of one man's death and twist that into character attacks against people and groups we don't know, and make blanket statements galore: whether it's about the staff of MIT, all lawyers, all prosecutors, all investigators, all Federal employees, etc, ad nauseum.

We will write posts filled with hyperbole after hyperbole, followed by insinuations, emotion-appealing analogies, and mindless rhetoric.

So no, we are evidently just as knee-jerky reactionary as every other stupid online community.

But we should be better than this.

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#19

Post by belorn » Sun, Jan 13, 2013, 9:45 PM UTC

The university does, what makes sense for a university to do. They do an analysis, and produce a report.

What I hope happens afterward is that MIT take in the report and create meaningful changes. This however is not in the nature of universities and is where the challenge will be if MIT want to learn from this tragedy.

Re: MIT President on Aaron Swartz

#20

Post by rdl » Sun, Jan 13, 2013, 9:45 PM UTC

kristenlee wrote: post #7

Aaron Swartz was mentally ill and committed suicide as a direct result of his mental illness. He comtemplated suicide in 2007 long before any of this DOJ stuff happened. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dying Furthermore the "glorification" of his suicide is doing nothing more but encouraging other suicidal "hackers" to go over the edge so they have their "story" and inconsequential blog posts plastered all of Hacker Ne…

I agree that Aaron was ultimately responsible for his own suicide. However, the overzealous overprosecution of either minor crimes or non-criminal civil violations wrecked his life. Doing that, even had he not killed himself, was more than bad enough.