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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

#491

Post by drivebyacct2 »

roguecoder wrote: post #432
davemel37 wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am surprised people have taken issue with the words man up. It's only connotation was that Aaron should pay for his own defense, a reasonable statement. I am more taken aback by the overall tone implying that Aaron had some golden-ticket-chance-of-a-lifetime...In hindsight, I don't think anyone would have wanted to shoulder his burdens. I don't think anyone would still say he had a golden ticket. Probably the great…

It's connotation was that Aaron was acting like a woman. The intended message was that he should shoulder sole responsibility for the costs, unlike (apparently) a woman. A) that's sexist and B) counter-productive. Collaboration and mutual support gets us further than we can get on our own: demonizing those traits as "feminine" just leads to lonely alienation. Yet Another Way Patriarchy Hurts Men(tm)

This is strange, but there's no private message functionality here and I wanted to say I really appreciate your considered comments in this thread.

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

#492

Post by drivebyacct2 »

grandalf wrote: post #110

This is TechCrunch playing the role of Jerry Springer. In spite of the way many interest groups are trying to make Aaron's suicide into a symbol, the fact is that suicide is simply a symptom of mental illness, and nothing else . Unless we have reason to believe otherwise, most of us assume that those whose actions/views we discuss on HN are of normal (average) mental health. So while Aaron's death is jarring, it's th…

>This is TechCrunch playing the role of Jerry Springer.

And who are the screaming people making asses of themselves on the show?

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

#493

Post by MartinCron »

chernevik wrote: post #338
jacquesm wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The disconnect here is a simple one: how big a peril Aaron was in was not communicated clearly or effectively on the page asking for help. Apparently this was because of some legal constraints. I think that's what threw a lot of people on the wrong track entirely. Had they been in the possession of the full set of facts I'm pretty sure they would have reacted differently. See the page for yourself: https://free.aaron…

I'm sorry but which "careless and unfounded words" are you specifically referring to? Set among these events, and with a great many people assigning responsibility all over the place, this kind of thing strikes me as nothing like responsible or precise. It was a fundraising post for legal defense. Not a plea of mental health distress. People expressed negative opinions of the request, some in light of the presumed fi…

"Man up" is pretty much always careless and unfounded. Not to mention sexist and insulting.

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

#494

Post by derleth »

illuminate wrote: post #485
illuminate wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But that's also true of looking at gender equality from the male perspective, yet whenever someone attempts that the old MRA strawman stereotypes get thrown around." Generally, it's because MRAs tend to find gains for women zero-sum. There are issues with regards to divorce, child support, and custody that can be discussed, but all these can be addressed as a feminist and do not require "masculinism" as some sort of…

"In my experience, any mention of the idea that men can be raped by women, for example, gets shouted down by 'feminists'" Like I said, there's no need to craft Straw Feminists from whole cloth. Make your points without these fabrications.

> Like I said, there's no need to craft Straw Feminists from whole cloth. Make your points without these fabrications.

I'm not lying and your need to claim I am damages your case.

An example from Reddit, which is very much the non-academic Real World I've been talking about:

ImaLamer:

> As someone who was raped by a woman, while drinking, something you've put full responsibility on her for in other comments, you quickly dismissed my feelings and the impact this has in my life. It was not statistically significant for you to care. So much so you took it as an opportunity to further bash men as a class.

Saganomics:

> Well ladies and gentleman, that's what Men's Rights thinks. There you have it.

http://www.reddit.com/r/sex/comments/168bwu/you_guys_may_hav...

The claim of ImaLamer's post being edited afterwords is difficult to take seriously: Edited posts are marked with an asterisk, which is not present on ImaLamer's post. Also, Saganomics' post happened long after the very brief window when you can edit without an asterisk appearing.

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

#495

Post by MartinCron »

rayiner wrote: post #197
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…

This is raging hindsight bias all over the place. "Next time you feel like making a 'meh' post, just say nothing at all?" Please.

"Next time you think about saying 'man up', just don't" might be a good lesson to learn from this.

We are here to learn, right?

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

#496

Post by mcantelon »

niggler wrote: post #431
mcantelon wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Can we please just let the family grieve? You can also "man up" and admit you might have been wrong to characterize a hacker, however successful, asking for financial help in the face of a very serious legal battle as "seriously wrong". No shame in that. Or, alternatively, you can "man up" and own your original opinion.

This is HN. I don't think edw519 or any of the critics back then would change their mind as a result of the suicide, not because they don't care but because reacting to the suicide would be an emotional reaction and the critics made their opinions based on an unchanged set of facts. It's clear even back then that the core facts were known.

>It's clear even back then that the core facts were known.

The "core facts", about whether or not it would be "seriously wrong" for Swarz to ask the community for financial assistance, would be knowledge of Swarz's financials. Was edw519 privy to this information? Probably not.

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

#497

Post by regularfry »

fermule wrote: post #366
edw519 wrote: post #260

Earlier 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.

How about saying your sorry. Someone was asking for help and mr. edw519, just spit in his face with such absurd comments. Lets take a step back. Would you spit in the face of someone asking for help. What type of patronizing comments did edw519 make? He still hasn't said sorry and that tells me all I need to know about him and his ego. Shame on the members that supported edw519

If edw519 owes an apology to anyone, that person is dead.

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

#498

Post by edanm »

A few months ago, edw519 made a comment that many here feel was inappropriate given that we now know more facts, and given that Aaron committed suicide. So the lesson people take away is: "Be careful about what you say to people, even on HN: your words may have a real effect, and being dismissive or mean to people may just haunt you later".

This is a good lesson, in general. But what I love is the irony - the way people are sending out this message is by being dismissive and mean to edw519! If (God forbid) something ever happened to edw519, and someone in 4 months posted this thread, the same people condemning edw519 will b IN EXACTLY THE SAME SHOES as they think he is now. How are the people posting so blind to this?

Note: edw519 is a great person and member of this community. Despite the lesson that I believe can be learned from this post, I absolutely DO NOT think he did anything wrong, and thinking otherwise is clearly because things look different in hindsight, especially given more information. Seriously edw519 - consider this another person who is sure you did absolutely nothing wrong.

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

#499

Post by regularfry »

blhack wrote: post #164
[deleted] wrote: post #104

[deleted]

I've been incredibly vocal about my stance on depression here on HN in the past, specifically that saying things like "man up" is absurd. Depression, like every other disease on the planet, is not something you "man up" through. It's a disease that happens to manifest itself in the same places that personality does. To a casual, uninformed observer, depression is a choice of behavior. It isn't. You don't get depressi…

The "man up" in the original comment wasn't said in reference to depression.

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

#500

Post by mercurial »

nextstep wrote: post #489
InclinedPlane wrote: post #480

I'm not sure why I'm commenting here, I expect it'll just be shouting into the void given the nature of this thread. However, there are some things that rub me the wrong way about all this, so maybe I'll try to make a few points. One thing that's been bugging me is how, to be blunt, intellectually lazy so many people seem to have been about this whole thing, especially the case against Aaron. Everyone is looking for…

Exactly. In a few sentences, edw519 took apart Aaron's whole life and claimed to know enough to write off his plea for help. I think a good first step would be for Ed to apologize and stop trying to defend his rude comment from 4 months ago.

Oh, please. What is this, a witch hunt? Or maybe some good old-fashioned lynching? Hang the prosecutor on one tree, and Ed in the other tree? Or maybe we should rename HN 4chan, because the general maturity level does not seem very different. How many of those valiant defenders of Aaron put a dime in his defense fund?

Clearly, plenty of people agreed with Ed at the time, enough that it was the highest-rating comment. Similarly, plenty of people (at least in the US) agree with tough-on-crime policies. Singling out people, name-and-shame, etc is something only relevant in so far that the actions of an individual deviate, in a bad way, from community norms. This is not the case here.

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