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Ed Weissman should "man up"... and apologize.
Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago
141–150 of 530 posts
Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago
#142[deleted]
Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would also add "lighten up" and "stop taking things so seriously" to the list of hugely degrading phrases.
It is often difficult to discern between those that will bring excessive drama to any situation and those that are in serious peril.
Not terribly long ago I had someone on hn tell me to "lighten up". Up until that point, I appreciated his sincere effort at respectful two way communication. At that moment, I decided he was being a dick and not worth talking to further.
I don't see where it matters if you can tell if someone will bring drama or not. It is pretty disrespectful to assume that someone making strong/emotional statements is merely a drama queen. They usually have their reasons for feeling strongly.
Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago
#144On the one hand, it is probably unlikely that HN could have done much to prevent Aaron's death. He was facing a terrible situation, one that he could not bear to face, and I doubt anyone here could have substantially changed his situation.
On the other, I can think of few things worse than facing a terrible situation, and feeling like you're doing so completely alone. The amount of speculation and analysis of Aaron's case here on HN was absurd (at one point prompting my only comments on the matter, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4544693), and yet for all that analysis and speculation, there were ever so few comments that came out fully in Aaron's support.
Then he takes his own life, and suddenly it's torches-and-pitchforks for the prosecuting team, it's "why didn't he ask for help", it's "this was unjust", it's "this was unfair", it's "why didn't he have more support". I felt saddened by the news, but I also felt a rising amount of bile for the HN community, and I'm glad that nikcub and Arrington have shone a light on this.
Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago
#145[deleted]
119 days ago would have been Sspt. 17, several days before this Sept. 20 Ars Technica piece: "Feds go overboard in prosecuting information activist"
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/feds-go-overboard...
(I'm not sure how well known the obstacles Aaron faced were besides this article, this just recently made the front page after his death)
Would reading this piece back then (or before Aaron's HN post) been enough to change people's mind? Honest question. Looking at the donation site that Aaron put together, I don't blame anyone for not immediately taking his side. He may have been intimately aware of what was going on in his case, but his defense fund site was too dependent on people automatically siding with him for who he is*.
edit: by this, I mean that some more narrative of what was going on would've been really helpful for the call-to-action
Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago
#146[deleted]
He certainly seemed to support the outrageous, overreaching prosecution that Aaron was facing. "Aaron should man up, take responsibility for his actions, and pay his own bills." This sounds a lot like "screw you, what you did is wrong, and you should quit whining about it." "man up" clearly implies that Ed Weissman feels that going up against the massive US justice system to allow people without university affiliatio…
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Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure why: edw519 could easily and reasonably think that what Aaron did was wrong while being very sad that he committed suicide.
A more cynical observation is that users with high "karma" point totals earn this by parroting the majority opinion or otherwise treating comment threads as a game.
It's not the comment that makes the votes, it's the voters. I tend to view high "karma" comments as resonating with the geist. If they're pandering to the crowd, they're just giving the crowd what they want to hear. So, sure we can scapegoat the panderers, but the fingers should possibly point elsewhere.
Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago
#148[deleted]
Are you referring to moral responsibility or legal responsibility? Let's make the distinction. And how do _you_ know who bears and doesn't bear _absolutely_ no responsibility?
I, for one, do not know what responsibility Ed bears, moral or otherwise. That's for Ed to determine. I do however find it harder and harder to respect people that when someone desperate asks for help, they get up on their high horse and emit absolute statements of the sort "you need to", "man up" and the like. Depression is a sickness and that by definition means you are not functioning normally. I am sure that Aaron would have "manned up" if he had the necessary mental strength.
I also don't have much respect for people that call their fellows, "clowns". So there. Wise up.
Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago
#149Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago
#150[deleted]
119 days ago would have been Sspt. 17, several days before this Sept. 20 Ars Technica piece: "Feds go overboard in prosecuting information activist" http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/feds-go-overboard... (I'm not sure how well known the obstacles Aaron faced were besides this article, this just recently made the front page after his death) Would reading this piece back then (or before Aaron's HN post) been e…
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