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The Darker Side of Aaron Swartz (2013)

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Re: The Darker Side of Aaron Swartz (2013)

#161

Post by pdonis »

pipeline_peak wrote: post #56

"His girlfriend Taren always dealt with taxi-drivers, with waitresses." "The guy in front of me’s leaning all the way back, but I’m in the last row so my seat doesn’t go back, and I have to lift my legs up to stretch out a muscle that was sitting funny while I was asleep" I feel like Aaron Swartz was never truly an adult, just a boyish intellectual. I can't imagine his submissive behavior was a net positive to his me…

> I feel like Aaron Swartz was never truly an adult, just a boyish intellectual.

I think it is telling that people close to Swartz, such as Lawrence Lessig, referred to him as a "boy" when talking about him. I have to think that Swartz himself got that vibe from them. The problem is, as the saying goes, you can't send a boy to do a man's job. To Swartz's credit, he didn't shrink from trying to do a man's job; but it might have helped if others around him had reinforced more that he was a man doing an man's job.

Re: The Darker Side of Aaron Swartz (2013)

#162

Post by pdonis »

z3ncyberpunk wrote: post #79
pipeline_peak wrote: post #56

"His girlfriend Taren always dealt with taxi-drivers, with waitresses." "The guy in front of me’s leaning all the way back, but I’m in the last row so my seat doesn’t go back, and I have to lift my legs up to stretch out a muscle that was sitting funny while I was asleep" I feel like Aaron Swartz was never truly an adult, just a boyish intellectual. I can't imagine his submissive behavior was a net positive to his me…

So what? Why do you need to conform to a socially constructed persona?

> Why do you need to conform to a socially constructed persona?

Being an activist and doing things to further causes you believe in, when those things are predictably going to anger those in power, means you are trying to do an adult's job. And that means you have to be an adult. That's not a "socially constructed persona"; that's a fact of life. You can't be a "boyish intellectual" and take on the establishment.

Re: The Darker Side of Aaron Swartz (2013)

#163

Post by borski »

jedberg wrote: post #86
borski wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not diagnosing, obviously, but a lot of this, including the phobia of fruit and non-white and yellow vegetables seems… on the spectrum, at the very least. I wonder if Aaron had undiagnosed autism of some sort.

He was a super taster. When he stayed with me he insisted on the plainest of food and told me it's because he's a super taster. Although thinking back now, maybe that was just an excuse to cover for something else.

Yeah, my fiancé is a supertaster as well, but still has managed to avoid a literal phobia of various colors of foods. My best friend, on the other hand, has a similar phobia to Aaron's and is, admittedly, probably somewhere on the spectrum (though again, undiagnosed; but we've talked about it and she agrees it's a definite possibility).

Re: The Darker Side of Aaron Swartz (2013)

#164

Post by borski »

HumanReadable wrote: post #107
borski wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I relate to this so much. The very odd “aggrandizing” that is so often necessary for starting and running a company, coupled with my massive impostor syndrome that is just never going to go away at this point, is a very very hard cognitive dissonance to manage. I’ve done it, and will do it again, but it makes me squirm on the inside.

Do you have any advice or wise words on how you manage this? I find myself in a leadership position, but I feel immensely uncomfortable when directing others. In my head there's always a nagging voice that replies 'who are you to tell us what to do?'

The sibling comments nailed it, but in short: be authentic. I readily admit to my employees when I am confused, ask for their help when needed, and am as transparent as reasonably possible. In general, we make decisions by consensus (though not always, as some cases necessitate that). I freely admit they are better than me at many things, as that was literally the point of hiring them. My job, in turn, is to ensure they can do theirs spectacularly and with minimal annoyance and maximal happiness. Being a glorified 'shit umbrella' can get lonely, so it's important to find other folks to talk to about it (ideally that are unrelated to the company you work for).

Most importantly: arbitrary decisions will kill your team. If you cannot answer the question "why?" with something other than "because I said so," or worse, "because management said so," you are in for a world of trouble. To build loyalty and get your team to follow you into pretty much any 'battle,' get your hands dirty, fight on their behalf (but this requires knowing what they care about), and help them improve and grow. That is the job of a good manager.

Everything else is secondary.

Re: The Darker Side of Aaron Swartz (2013)

#165

Post by AlchemistCamp »

xibalba wrote: post #28
cryptica wrote: post #26

It's sad how the system punishes smart altruists. If you're smart, you'd better be evil or the system will destroy you.

I don't agree that "the system" punished a smart altruist. As this article makes clear, Swartz did something he knew to be illegal. This was not his first brush with mass copyright violation. He was then prosecuted for his crimes. IMO, the charges were vastly disproportionate, but you expose yourself to prosecutorial overreach when you (knowingly) commit crimes. This appears to have been a trend with Swartz. He seems…

> I don't agree that "the system" punished a smart altruist. > > As this article makes clear, Swartz did something he knew to be illegal.

Depending on the laws, sometimes an altruist must do things that are illegal.

In the extreme case, consider that when authoritarian regimes round up ethnic or religious minorities, they invariably make non-cooperation with their attrocities illegal.

Laws should align with altruistic ideals, but it's a grave error to assume they always do.

Re: The Darker Side of Aaron Swartz (2013)

#166

Post by simplestats »

shkkmo wrote: post #156
simplestats wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about giving a more lenient sentence if the person is remorseful and admits what they did was wrong? Because that's effectively the same thing as a plea deal. Even innocent people would still sometimes admit guilt and apologize, destroying their chances of winning at trial either way, to get a shorter sentence.

Leniency during sentencing is not effectively the same as plea bargaining at all. A plea deal comes from threats and fear, a lenient sentence handed down by a judge comes from remorse and judgment. Lenient sentences can come without a guilty plea anf a guilty plea doesn't guarantee leniency. The incentives are entirely different.

The incentives are identical, less jail time. The fact that one is guaranteed deal while one is a standard sentencing practice is a distinction without a difference. The effect will be the same, innocent people "admitting" guilt. In Japan, plea bargains were illegal until recently. Yet standard police behavior when arresting someone was to notify them how much more lenient the system wold be on them if they admited guilt. And they were just stating facts about how the system works, not guaranteeing you anything... and racking up a 99.9% conviction rate. A lawyer in any country would tell you the same thing if your chances didn't look good.

Re: The Darker Side of Aaron Swartz (2013)

#167

Post by shkkmo »

simplestats wrote: post #166
shkkmo wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leniency during sentencing is not effectively the same as plea bargaining at all. A plea deal comes from threats and fear, a lenient sentence handed down by a judge comes from remorse and judgment. Lenient sentences can come without a guilty plea anf a guilty plea doesn't guarantee leniency. The incentives are entirely different.

The incentives are identical, less jail time. The fact that one is guaranteed deal while one is a standard sentencing practice is a distinction without a difference. The effect will be the same, innocent people "admitting" guilt. In Japan, plea bargains were illegal until recently. Yet standard police behavior when arresting someone was to notify them how much more lenient the system wold be on them if they admited g…

The incentives for the judge and for the prosecutor are very different, though it sounds like the incentives for the police in Japan might be similar.

Re: The Darker Side of Aaron Swartz (2013)

#168

Post by low_tech_love »

Ok piece, but clickbait title. I read through the whole thing and couldn’t find any dark side. The only person trying to make him look bad is his girlfriend, and all the reasons seem to be due to their private relationship. I don’t see why they’re any different or special compared to most other relationships. All I saw in this was the description of a human being who was remarkable in some ways, flawed in others, and deeply normal in the rest. Like basically almost everyone else.

Re: The Darker Side of Aaron Swartz (2013)

#169

Post by antifa »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #149
zozbot234 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> claimed that left-leaning cities are unlivable crime-ridden hellholes Now I'm wondering, does SF count as a "left-leaning city"? Sure, it's a single datapoint but still.

Arguably, but I think it's the claim that SF is an "unlivable crime-ridden hellhole" that they would take issue with.

In the context of those conversations, there's a lot of implied "therefore you should vote republican", if it's not out right stated.

Re: The Darker Side of Aaron Swartz (2013)

#170

Post by kilna »

themacguffinman wrote: post #140
pm90 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, is the point here that hackers are susceptible to any idea that’s not mainstream? However racism doesn’t fit that category does it? Racism is a mainstream idea and not a novel one.

Depends on where you live. It's not mainstream in the big tech cities. It's not mainstream on the American internet. "Racism" is also arguably not mainstream in most American cities, though there are plenty of accusations that certain areas are still indirectly or implicitly racist because it's a very subjective term.

Racism is expressed by systems that benefit some to the exclusion or detriment of others, based on race.

Remind me, what are the "mainstream" demographics of big tech companies?

Tech companies are famous for externalizing their problems into their local communities. How is that expressed in terms of race?

Capitalism simply doesn't work without an underclass. Capitalism exploits labor the most efficiently with a divided underclass, because class awareness and solidarity undermines capitalism. As such capitalism is invariably paired with racism. Every capitalist economy is built on some form of bigotry.

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