Aaron, 5 years later • Hacker News Board

Re: Aaron, 5 years later

#131

Post by dgroshev » Mon, Jan 15, 2018, 1:26 PM UTC

pazimzadeh wrote: post #20

CydeWeys wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Aaron would've been happy with the developments in the field of scientific publishing over the last half decade, had he been able to see them. I've specifically got Sci-Hub in mind here. Sure, it's not exactly legal, but everyone uses it regardless.

It's too bad Aaron and Alexandra Elbakyan never met. They might have made a good team.

They won't because they have widely different worldviews. For one, Aaron believed in freedom, while Alexandra did it literally for the glory of Motherland. Please don't buy into the simplistic narrative pushed by most Western outlets, Alexandra is Putin's fan who vehemently represses any discerning voice on platforms she controls. Like, a few months back she outright banned Russian IPs from accessing sci-hub over what she perceived as a personal insult [1]. This is very, very different from what I know about Aaron.

Tangential: the way she's covered by Western media is such a crying shame.

[1]: https://medium.com/@alexandraborissova/sci-hub-banned-in-rus...

Re: Aaron, 5 years later

#132

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 12:57 AM UTC

tzs wrote: post #69

andreyf wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't consider Aaron's death a suicide, either. It was not exactly a Magnitsky-style beaten-in-prison death, but overly-zealous prosecutors trying to "make an example" of him had more to do with his death than mental illness. Note what happened, in that context, when someone who was not an American political activist did what criminal prosecutors were going after Aaron for: https://www.sciencealert.com/this-woman-h…

The scihub woman isn't doing any of the thing Swartz was being prosecuted for. All she's doing is copyright infringement.

[deleted]

Re: Aaron, 5 years later

#133

Post by syshum » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 2:23 AM UTC

tzs wrote: post #124

notthemessiah wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They wanted to throw him in a federal prison for 50 years. How is that not robbing someone of their life?

It was around 7 years, and that only if it went to trail and basically everything at the trial when the prosecutor's way [1]. If the plea bargain had been accepted it would have been around 6 months. Here's a good article on how those ridiculously long, completely unrealistic, sentence claims come about so often for Federal cases [2]. [1] http://volokh.com/2013/01/16/the-criminal-charges-against-aa... [2] https://www…

>If the plea bargain had been accepted it would have been around 6 months.

I always love how people think the prision term is the only effect or punishment, 6 mos + a felony record for life which is not something that should be taken lightly.

Any felony conviction is a life sentence, you are a 2nd class citizen, you are denied everything from housing to employment, you are denied your rights as a citizen, can not vote, can not own a gun, can not do many things.

This moronic idea of "well it was really only 6mos" is bullshit.