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Agreed.
If edw had a crystal ball, would he have posted something different? Maybe.
Does that make his opinion wrong, or to blame? Nope.
Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago
271–280 of 530 posts
Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago
#272[deleted]
I may or may not have something to say about this, but not here, and not now. Can we please just let the family grieve? We are the family.
Dude, stop acting and shut the fuck up. What you said amounts to cyber bullying and it's idiots like you who are setting the spiteful tone in HN comments. So much hate. No matter what other comments here say, you are in a way responsible for his death.
Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago
#273[deleted]
No one says Ed bears responsibility for Aarons death - that's just you skewing the context completely. The point is he gave a biased/uneducated judgement - that was strongly worded on the verge of being hurtful - on a very public forum. This got voted to the top position. He bears responsibility for dealing an unnecessary blow to someone who was already sick (it wasnt a secret that he was depressed - just read his blog posts!). The fact that he suddenly expresses so much regret for his death is more a show of herd mentality ("oh - everyone else on HN is mourning his death so let me jump onto that bandwagon"). If you're response to this is going to be - "well you've not been around long enough to know that ed's a really nice guy" - the fact is - that doesnt matter - no one is saying ed is an evil person. All that's being discussed here is this particular issue. I'm not judging Ed. The larger take away is simply this - It's really easy for us - to sit in front of our laptops and post comments based on limited knowledge - without even making the slightest effort to dig deeper - based on our whims - most of the time - no one cares - but particularly when directed to people - these things can have a much more significant impact.
Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago
#274Earlier 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…
This is raging hindsight bias all over the place. "Next time you feel like making a 'meh' post, just say nothing at all?" Please.
"if you don't have all 'the facts available' you can give someone the benefit of of the doubt" is pretty solid advice though.
Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago
#275[deleted]
So Ed's comment was made despite him not being aware of the case's details. That didn't stop _you_ from going overboard on the thread in telling us what you think about how the JSTOR has been wronged did it?
Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're just as capable of hurting people. Maybe you just pushed someone over the edge by calling them scum. Tomorrow, will I get to call you names and talk about how your comment was excessively cruel and vitriolic? Do you know if the person you just blamed and insulted is stable and can handle it?
Your logic makes no sense. Geez, I didn't know I just as capable of hurting people. I learned some new on HN. Of course even the dumbest person in the world know this. What matters is that those comments were hurting someone who was only looking for help. There is a big difference between someone who responds to comments and someone who attacking someone's call for help. "Do you know if the person you just blamed and…
No. The difference between your comment and his is hindsight. Well, that and that his comment had some thought behind it. You are just as nasty with your commments and have absolutely no shame because you're anonymous.
Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago
#277The primary thing that stands out to me here, and what I believe is the main point of the TC post, is that edw and others clearly have very interesting 'before' and 'after' posts.
Before: "Aaron should man up, take responsibility for his actions, and pay his own bills."
Then: Aaron can't pay his bills, decides to take one form of responsibility and kills himself.
Now: "OH NO! Stunned & heartbroken." "Thank you, Cory. This wonderful post will bring understanding (and maybe even comfort) to many of us who are sad and confused today. It will also probably save some lives."
It's not that Ed is to blame for Aaron killing himself, it's that there's a marked change in sentiment and sympathy after his death.
Did it really have to take Aaron killing himself for us to change our sympathies towards him? It seems not many of us really cared that much until he hung himself - and now we can't stop talking about him.
So the point I'd like to make is there's something wrong with a world that only cares after you kill yourself. Maybe Aaron even made the right choice is this is really how it works. Otherwise he might have quietly lived out his 50 years in prison and died later and no one would have given a shit the entire time. At least now this is getting some attention.
Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
(1) hindsight is 20-20 (2) the facts as we know then today were not readily apparent back then (even to those that were actively seeking those facts) (3) Ed has a longstanding history of compassion and care (4) mistakes were made, but there is nobody to apologise to. Can we please stop the mobbing? Thanks.
I really respect Ed Weissman's contributions and knowledge, so this is not meant as any type of personal attack. But I was thinking back when I read this comment four months ago that it seemed unusually harsh for someone who was facing 35 years in prison for something that _might_ deserve a slap on the wrist. So it's not all hindsight. I was also surprised that it was the most-upvoted comment of the thread. And it al…
> So if anyone deserves criticism, it's the Hacker News community for not showing a more compassionate side.
This is a general problem, not just for HN. The internet in the aggregate suffers from excessive binary thinking.
Everything has to be black and white, without room for colour or even shades of gray. So discussions tend to create their middle ground not by proportional movements but by jerks to +100 and -100. The more polarized the subject the stronger these reactions will be. Anything involving politics, a brush with the law, religion and so on will create those responses with a high degree of predictability.
Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
I may or may not have something to say about this, but not here, and not now. Can we please just let the family grieve? We are the family.
Dude, stop acting and shut the fuck up. What you said amounts to cyber bullying and it's idiots like you who are setting the spiteful tone in HN comments. So much hate. No matter what other comments here say, you are in a way responsible for his death.
[deleted]
Re: Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
I may or may not have something to say about this, but not here, and not now. Can we please just let the family grieve? We are the family.
Dude, stop acting and shut the fuck up. What you said amounts to cyber bullying and it's idiots like you who are setting the spiteful tone in HN comments. So much hate. No matter what other comments here say, you are in a way responsible for his death.
Utter bollocks. His comments were robust, but one comment does not make cyber-bullying.
Is your comment cyber-bullying as well, by that standard?
//edit//ffs, I delete one dupe and the other gets flagged as dead.