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Still More About The Death Of Aaron Swartz

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Re: Still More About The Death Of Aaron Swartz

#21

Post by mindcrime »

gizmo wrote: post #7
hullo wrote: post #2

I don't particularly think there's much to be gained by going against the hivemind on all of this, but I also don't "blame" the prosecutors for Aaron's death. Aaron killed himself. Suicide and depression are tricky things, and not one single person currently living knows what the full story is. If that's enough to get me labeled as "usually reasonable" as well, then so be it.

When you say things like "we don't know the full story" or "suicide is tricky", you aren't taking a reasonable middle-of-the-road position you're effectively endorsing the status quo. By refusing to pick a side when there is a disagreement or struggle between groups of unequal strength you still pick a side: you side with the stronger group. When people are bullied, be it in the schoolyard on by the government, the p…

By refusing to pick a side when there is a disagreement or struggle between groups of unequal strength you still pick a side: you side with the stronger group.

"Blame" is an interesting concept though. In almost any complicated scenario, there is plenty of "blame" to be spread around and you can reasonably argue that multiple different entities are to "blame" for $WHATEVER.

To use a somewhat tangential example... when Ron Paul talked a lot about "blowback" vis-a-vis US policy in the Middle East a few years ago, people said "Ron Paul is blaming America for 9/11". Well, yes... and no. What Ron was saying, in essence, is that there is culpability in multiple places, which is a more nuanced position than "America is good, terrorists are bad, Team America, Fuck Yeah!" OR "We were responsible for 9/11".

So with that in mind... I don't exactly "blame" the prosecutors for Aaron's suicide either. But that doesn't mean I don't think they hold some degree of responsibility, and it doesn't mean I support the status quo, or that I don't want changes made in the law, the sentencing guidelines and the behaviour of prosecutors.

IOW, it's not necessarily the case that either "side" bears 100% of the responsibility for what happened.

Re: Still More About The Death Of Aaron Swartz

#22

Post by rhizome »

eli wrote: post #4
hudibras wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually agree with you, but this is exactly the opposite of what the author is saying. Charles Pierce (a long-time Boston politics reporter, not a "tech guy") isn't blaming Ortiz for killing Swartz, he's blaming her and her husband for being disingenuous in their public statements about the prosecution and for the casual way they mention a six-month Federal sentence as if it's nothing. He also attacks the obviousl…

I'm not sure I buy that. Aaron Swartz is not exactly Willie Horton. Even if you paint him as a dangerous computer hacker, that doesn't strike me as a particularly convincing political ad.

Willie Horton is an inapt comparison for every scenario in which Ortiz would try to capitalize on her record that I can think of. Willie Horton was a spoiler, not a feather.

Re: Still More About The Death Of Aaron Swartz

#23

Post by cbs »

I think this article speaks to why the case is getting so much attention. Lets presume for the sake of argument the trial didn't contribute to the suicide in the slightest. But it did cause us to look at the case, and you can't just un-see the fact that maybe you're not entirely comfortable with the way justice is being carried out in your name.

We tend to trust in our legal system, one way or another. Even if that way is by ignoring it and assuming everything will sort itself out. Events like Aaron's suicide put it on your radar in a way that makes some of the public sit up and reexamine whether or not the power we have entrusted in others, to carry out our buisness, is being exercised as we would like it to be.

Something smells like bullshit about the case, and just because a prosecutor with political ambition can issue a cover-your-ass statement isn't entirely comforting when faced with the convoluted web that extends beyond her to the entire nature of justice in the country.

Welcome to being a citizen in a democracy, please stay engaged beyond this single case.

edited: speeling

Re: Still More About The Death Of Aaron Swartz

#24

Post by gruseom »

sociotech wrote: post #8
dasht wrote: post #6

A focus on the prosecutor helps distract attention from the question of whether and how Swartz was mistreated by being made a (somewhat artificial) "tech celebrity" at a very young age only to become a kind of semi-outcast in some tech circles just a few years later.

Bingo. I've been trying not to say petty things out of respect for recently departed people and his family, with whom I sympathize for this terrible, terrible thing. But the radical loss of perspective here is just jarring, and the case is big enough now that it's hard to refrain from trying to put things into perspective. I am aware of the full history, having been a programmer with significant open-source and other…

I've read many of your comments and am glad you've been posting them. They're well-written and well-reasoned, and I hope you stick around in the future and continue to speak your mind with the freedom that your current format seems to be providing. The combination of legal and technical expertise is valuable and rare.

That being said, your comments seem to me to pooh-pooh the impact of what the prosecutors/system did in this case as (a) standard practice and (b) not that big a deal. Most people here (well, I anyway) did not know much about this and, having learned it, feel that it is a big deal. This makes me wonder whether your senses have been dulled by taking too much of that standard practice for granted. Maybe the people here to whom this is new and disturbing are not the only ones experiencing "radical loss of perspective".

It's straightforward to explain why Aaron's story has had such an impact on this and similar communities: he is easy for many of us to identify with, so the shock has a personal effect. This isn't hypocritical, it's human nature: one takes in this kind of information through the emotional medium of a story one can identify with. There's no contradiction between that and learning that a great many less-advantaged people get treated far more abusively still – quite the opposite.

Setting aside the obviously dumb comments as a cost of doing business on a public forum such as this, I am also pretty sure that people here are not nearly as naive about Aaron's personal history as your critique and the GP's suggest. Taste enters into this.

Re: Still More About The Death Of Aaron Swartz

#26

Post by homosaur »

michaelochurch wrote: post #20
dasht wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very harsh but I find fault with some of the adults who made him a "celebrity" in the first place. Here's a link to the (yes, harsh) piece I wrote about that. It's significant, in my view, that Swartz "came to fame" right as the first "dot com" bubble was cresting. Hype was ridiculously excessive, back then. Looking back at what his celebrity "friends" were saying about him back then, it's painfully obvious that…

Yes, when you're young people make all sorts of hype about your minor accomplishments. Isn't that what VC-istan and acq-hire welfare checks are for, though? To make phony celebrities then tear them down? With a few notable and impressive exceptions, that whole machine stopped doing technology some time ago. Most of these "startups" (at least in NYC, which may be a different scene) are hare-brained marketing experimen…

Isn't that what the entirety of US pop culture is for? We lionize young people for small accomplishments constantly only to tear them down when they cannot meet our expectations from Lindsay Lohan to now Manti T'eo... It seems to be a larger problem of this celebrity driven bullcrap. Remember when Valleywag was a thing?

Re: Still More About The Death Of Aaron Swartz

#27

Post by hudibras »

rhizome wrote: post #22
eli wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I buy that. Aaron Swartz is not exactly Willie Horton. Even if you paint him as a dangerous computer hacker, that doesn't strike me as a particularly convincing political ad.

Willie Horton is an inapt comparison for every scenario in which Ortiz would try to capitalize on her record that I can think of. Willie Horton was a spoiler, not a feather.

Well put. At this point, Swartz will be Willie Horton for any of Ortiz's opponents in the hypothetical Democratic primary.

Re: Still More About The Death Of Aaron Swartz

#28

Post by sociotech »

gruseom wrote: post #24
sociotech wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. I've been trying not to say petty things out of respect for recently departed people and his family, with whom I sympathize for this terrible, terrible thing. But the radical loss of perspective here is just jarring, and the case is big enough now that it's hard to refrain from trying to put things into perspective. I am aware of the full history, having been a programmer with significant open-source and other…

I've read many of your comments and am glad you've been posting them. They're well-written and well-reasoned, and I hope you stick around in the future and continue to speak your mind with the freedom that your current format seems to be providing. The combination of legal and technical expertise is valuable and rare. That being said, your comments seem to me to pooh-pooh the impact of what the prosecutors/system did…

"This makes me wonder whether your senses have been dulled by taking too much of that standard practice for granted." Yes, that is totally fair. I have been thinking hard recently about the role of gradual change vs. radical change.

I agree about "taste" too. I'd never have said anything, but there comes a point in the popularization of a case where truth starts to be important.

Re: Still More About The Death Of Aaron Swartz

#29

Post by [deleted] »

michaelochurch wrote: post #19
sociotech wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. I've been trying not to say petty things out of respect for recently departed people and his family, with whom I sympathize for this terrible, terrible thing. But the radical loss of perspective here is just jarring, and the case is big enough now that it's hard to refrain from trying to put things into perspective. I am aware of the full history, having been a programmer with significant open-source and other…

I think the sign that the VC-istan technology world is terminally fucked is that we even have "celebrities" in the first place. Aaron Swartz may not have been a technological heavyweight. Nor am I. Nor are 99.x percent of the people reading this. That's not so bad. What is bad is that there's so much complete nonsense in our so-called "scene" that no one seems to give a rat's ass about actual technology anymore. It's…

[deleted]

Re: Still More About The Death Of Aaron Swartz

#30

Post by MichaelSalib »

gruseom wrote: post #24
sociotech wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. I've been trying not to say petty things out of respect for recently departed people and his family, with whom I sympathize for this terrible, terrible thing. But the radical loss of perspective here is just jarring, and the case is big enough now that it's hard to refrain from trying to put things into perspective. I am aware of the full history, having been a programmer with significant open-source and other…

I've read many of your comments and am glad you've been posting them. They're well-written and well-reasoned, and I hope you stick around in the future and continue to speak your mind with the freedom that your current format seems to be providing. The combination of legal and technical expertise is valuable and rare. That being said, your comments seem to me to pooh-pooh the impact of what the prosecutors/system did…

Taste cuts both ways though. I'm seriously concerned about how younger people in the community might respond to the hagiography. I'm afraid that some might come to believe that the CFAA isn't a real law so there's no problem with breaking it or that suicide is the best way for activists to enact real change.
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