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Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

harpers.org

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Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#221

Post by anonymouz »

ucee054 wrote: post #134
anonymouz wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a fallacy to assume that just because some lynch mobs took part in an effort with ultimately positive outcome (it took much more than a mob to establish democracy or justice systems), all, or even most, of them are positive. A vendetta against a prosecutor, carried by hugely one-sided, unreflected and self-reinforcing blog-posts does not even come close.

But a vendetta against a prosecutor because people are fed up with plea bargain abuse DOES.

So you propose an overzealous and exaggerated prosecution of one individual based on doubtful accusations just to drive a point home and serve as deterrent to others?

Sounds awfully like the thing you claim to be protesting.

Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#222

Post by olefoo »

jrockway wrote: post #185

It makes me sad how reactionary government is. Oritz was overreaching before Swartz killed himself. Why wasn't something done before someone got the death penalty for downloading a few free journal articles? I'm happy to see the change and the backlash against Oritz, but I wish this happened sooner.

Yes. We all wish that Aaron had not reached that conclusion. We don't know what he was thinking at that moment, and whether anyone could have said something to change his mind.

My personal view is that suicidal impulses are similar to septic fever; the causes are understood, the consequences are terrible, and both prophylaxis and treatment are effective.

But, it is not always possible to reach victims when they need help.

Beng the target of an unjust and overreaching prosecution is the sort of stressor that could provoke even a strongminded person to suicide.

Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#224

Post by gknoy »

YuriNiyazov wrote: post #125
kragen wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having grown up in New Mexico, I didn't classify Aaron as "white". I don't know if he did.

What do you mean?

He might have meant that the mental categories he used when classifying Swartz did not include race. If you'd asked me, I'd have acknowledged his race, but I wouldn't have used it as a way to describe him. "Young hacker", not "Young white hacker". Rich, even, but it would not have occurred to me to mention the color of his skin. We have been, after all, discussing the content of his character instead.

Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#225

Post by aw3c2 »

chris_wot wrote: post #144
aw3c2 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mother Theresa let people die slow, horrible and unnecessary deaths. You should never use that person as a good example for anything really. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa#Criticism

Huh... That seems to have been removed!

Link to a random version that has it. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mother_Teresa&... and then the 5th paragraph onwards.

Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#226

Post by aw3c2 »

pvaldes wrote: post #192
aw3c2 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mother Theresa let people die slow, horrible and unnecessary deaths. You should never use that person as a good example for anything really. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa#Criticism

> Mother Theresa let people die slow, horrible and unnecessary deaths Instead to, err... dispacht them quick and efficiently?

Instead of treating their illness and making them not die.

Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#227

Post by anonymouz »

jlgreco wrote: post #111
MichaelSalib wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I wrote earlier, I don't think universities would ever provide a pirated archive. They wouldn't need to. Grad students talk. They pass around USB drives. And pretty soon, everyone has the archive on their laptop.

Such a system would never replace a subscription to JSTOR. You have massive tunnel vision if you honestly think it could.

It could cause them financial harm. Libraries have a fixed budget and choose wisely which subscriptions to take. If people at a department already know where to get the stuff that JSTOR offers for free, that will make the JSTOR subscription less valuable and other subscriptions more valuable to them.

Academics are quite used to being creative in acquiring articles. It's not untypical to ask colleagues and friends at other universities to scan and email articles that they can't get access to through their own library. Before the advent of the Internet this was done with letters. Downloading a torrent is a minor inconvenience in comparison.

A large majority of people I have talked to have at some point acquired scans of at least on book online (be it to give it to students because the library has only one copy, for convenience during travelling or because the local library has no copies and an interlibrary loan would take some time while they need the book now).

Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#228

Post by Volpe »

dchichkov wrote: post #215
mpyne wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* "Aaron was just violating TOS" * "They were pushing for 35/50 years in prison" * "This is just like using my neighbor's Wifi" * "They were trumping up charges to make an example of Aaron" (before you downvote, read Kerr's posts). * "They were aiming for harshest possible sentence" * There was also the very nice individual who doxxed Ortiz, who I'm sure is a fine representative of all that is right with hacktivism.…

>> And in the meantime there has been very little commentary over the major (not only, but major) cause of this (untreated depression), presumably because that doesn't play into the agenda. Likewise there is little discussion on ways to amend CFAA to make it better-aligned with what we intuitively feel would be appropriate (because in the hacktivist mold the only good change would be to repeal CFAA entirely). Feel fr…

Seems odd to argue he didn't suffer from depression (despite his fathers words).

Do people who aren't suffering from depression commit suicide? I'd always thought that (attempted) suicide was like the smoking gun for diagnosing depression?

Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#229

Post by Vivtek »

YuriNiyazov wrote: post #199
ojbyrne wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to guess he means "Jewish." Some people don't consider that white.

Wow, well ain't that some shit. And in year 2013, no less.

Yeah, my grandma died four years ago - 2009 - and I'm pretty sure she considered Jews kind of a third group, neither white nor "colored". I couldn't swear that my own contemporaries still in Indiana don't think the same, but everybody's wised up to the point that they don't actually come out and state anything explicitly. (This is a good thing; it'll slow down the transmission of that attitude to their own kids.)

America's a weird place.

Re: Carmen Ortiz Strikes Out

#230

Post by andybak »

jlgreco wrote: post #207
mpyne wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Appeal to authority. I at least bothered to respond with arguments at all (both mine and links to Olin Kerr's), and I did so without reciting high school debate knowledge under the assumption that HN readers are smart enough to figure out the difference between debating tactics and logical argument. You have responded with a doubling-down of the appeal to authority, as if it would really be that unusual for a judge i…

So on one hand you accuse people of being unqualified to hold an informed opinion, then when people come with people who are qualified, you say they are making an appeal to authority. You are so full of shit.

People are often overzealous in labelling things logical fallacies.

"My argument is proved because person x thinks so" is a fallacious appeal to authority.

but there is nothing wrong with arguing "The fact that person x thinks this increases the probability that the argument is correct." as long as you correctly weight this factor amongst others.

Not all arguments need to follow the rules of deductive logic. There is such a thing as heuristics.

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