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Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago

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Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago

#251

Post by lhnz »

[deleted] wrote: post #104

[deleted]

This isn’t Ed’s fault, nor is it yours. But TechCrunch is completely right to call us all out.

Aaron asked for our help and yet it’s difficult to find a single compassionate voice in that whole thread. Both Ed and yourself eloquently shut down anybody arguing on his behalf.

  “There is virtually no chance Swartz is going to spend time in prison.”
That was you in the thread by the way. You also devolved the conversation into an argument involving Nazis at one point.

I think it’s definitely worth all of us thinking about how we could have responded differently. There’s no use in us defending our actions.

Did any of us drop him a tweet or email just to ask him how he was doing, or whether he was scared?

I am ashamed.

I hope that in the future I will be able to recognise when another human being needs my help, that I will not be swayed by popular voices, and that I will show honest care.

Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago

#252

Post by temiri »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #233
martinoma wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not affiliated with TC. Admittedly, I did decide to submit quickly so that I (might) reap the upvotes--HN has been transfixed by Aaron Swartz, and reasonably so, and I thought that people might like a reminder of how the community reacted a few months ago.

I wonder if it might not be better to not award karma for submissions which are upvoted. It's possible/probable that most stories of value would get submitted anyway, and it would discourage the mad rush to submit.

Well, does karma have any value?

Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago

#253

Post by pygy_ »

encoderer wrote: post #195
angrycoder wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An honest appraisal? That is one way of looking at it. Another way is he threw out a giant derogatory 'Meh' to someone asking for help. Does he bear responsibility for what happened to Aaron? No, but it is also not hard to see how the top ranked comment from a respected member didn't carry some weight in how people perceived Aaron and his situation. The big take away here is that words matter and maybe if you don't h…

I up-voted his original comment I would do so again. Aaron knew what he was doing. There are many charities more deserving than his legal defense fund -- that isn't changed just because he was apparently mentally ill enough to take his own life. There should be a high burden you have to overcome to successfully find crowd-funding for anything including a legal defense.

Push anyone far enough and they'll take their own life. The threshold varies from one person to the next, but blaming his suicide on mental illness is IMO disingenuous.

Which causes deserve funding is a matter of personal choice.

Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago

#254

Post by gnosis »

xiaoma wrote: post #188
[deleted] wrote: post #104

[deleted]

I don't think the writer was blaming edw519, you or any of the other commenters on that thread. The writer was basically pointing out that the community as a whole was pretty dismissive and even a bit dickish. And that's a true assessment. One reason I don't enjoy HN as much as I did several years ago is that the default behavior seems to be to attack civil libertarians, free software enthusiasts, file sharers, build…

"One reason I don't enjoy HN as much as I did several years ago is that the default behavior seems to be to attack civil libertarians, free software enthusiasts, file sharers, builders who place idealism over profit... basically everyone but the sellers."

I've definitely seen a lot of this behavior on HN, but I think it used to be a lot worse than it is now.

HN used to be mostly made up of startup founders and others very close to the startup scene, who are typically strong believers in capitalism, with an instinct to sympathize with business owners and valorize profit making.

As HN has grown, lots of others unrelated to the startup scene (even unrelated to technology) have joined. As a result, the views getting expressed on here have become a lot more varied. There's actually quite a nice balance now, with representatives of all those you mention: civil libertarians, free software enthusiasts, file sharers, and builders who place idealism over profit.

Look at threads about RMS, or even the thread linked to here, where Mr Swartz was attacked.. plenty of people come to their defense and express their idealism. Your own post is an example of this.

Of course, the startup-loving, pro-capitalist types still tend to dominate here, but not nearly to the extent they used to.

Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago

#255

Post by dyno12345 »

derleth wrote: post #220
Mz wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a woman. I go around telling women to "woman up". I try to do so in an empowering way and not be an asshole. Fuck sexism though.

> I am a woman. I go around telling women to "woman up". Well, the difference between "woman up" and "man up" is that, for men, showing emotion is a sign of weakness, so "man up" means "don't show emotion". That's a very dangerous thing to tell people who have serious emotional problems.

I don't think it's showing emotion, I think that it's that we expect men to be self-reliant and should not need or want help from others. Men are responsible for their own outcomes. Women aren't seen as any worse for wanting help, and it's acceptable to attribute their outcomes as caused by their relationships or social environment.

Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago

#256

Post by graue »

nostrademons wrote: post #237
derleth wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am a woman. I go around telling women to "woman up". Well, the difference between "woman up" and "man up" is that, for men, showing emotion is a sign of weakness, so "man up" means "don't show emotion". That's a very dangerous thing to tell people who have serious emotional problems.

It's not, though. There's a perception that showing emotion is a sign of weakness for men. However, think about how you actually react to men who show emotion. How did you react to Lessig's or Doctorow's posts about Aaron, with all their emotion? Did you think them less of a man for it? I think there is a strong taboo against men appearing out of control of themselves or their situation. But that's not really gendere…

> there is a strong taboo against men appearing out of control of themselves

Exactly. This applied to Aaron asking for help he badly needed for his legal fund. This did not apply to Larry or Cory. They may have been sad or angry, but they were not personally scared, threatened, unable to fund their own legal defenses, etc., so they did not violate the taboo. Their posts were more along the lines of a father mourning a lost son. Emotion is expected there.

Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago

#257

Post by kamakazizuru »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #111
tptacek wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think it was easy for Ed to post what he did about Aaron's legal troubles, you don't understand the sentiment on HN at all. He posted that comment because that's what he believed at the time.

The ironic thing here is people making judgments about edw on the basis of very thin information.

heh - ironic is people asking others not to judge edw based on thin information - when that's precisely what HE himself did.

Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago

#259

Post by jacquesm »

graue wrote: post #206
jacquesm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read through that thread for about an hour before seeing this here and I agree with your assessment, another one that I've read was this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4528083

That discussion seems much more favorable to Aaron. The top comment's supportive, and even his detractors, like 'bstar77, are measured in their criticism: > I sincerely hope that he gets the punishment he deserves which should be a firm slap on the wrist. I'm uncomfortable with the idea of him getting any jail time I'm starting to suspect that HN discussions have a pretty strong snowball effect where it begins to see…

> I'm starting to suspect that HN discussions have a pretty strong snowball effect where it begins to seem like everyone agrees with the early comments near the top.

There are several 'patterns' that have emerged over the years, the snowball is definitely one of them, especially if one of the first commenters is one with name recognition on HN

> This also reaffirms my principle of siding with individual humans (Aaron) over institutions (JSTOR, MIT, DOJ).

I've tried to make that point elsewhere but unsuccessfully.

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