I'm still disgusted by the behavior of the MIT officials in all of this. Whenever I see or hear 'MIT' the first thing that comes to mind is: "that's the school that was responsible for the death of Aaron".
Aaron Swartz died three years ago today
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Re: Aaron Swartz died three years ago today
#32I just watched "The Internets Own Boy" again last night. It amazes me what our justice system can do to people and not be held responsible. Had I done the same thing to Aaron, I'd have been given lethal injection by now.
> It amazes me what our justice system can do to people and not be held responsible.
Just to play devil's advocate here (and I understand this goes against prevailing opinion), but he did break the law. That much isn't in dispute, they had a video of him entering the MIT network closet. And he didn't commit misdemeanors, he committed a half dozen felonies (actually more, but the prosecution dropped a few of them).
The prosecution was offering a meager 6 months in a low-security prison (for multiple felonies, that's peanuts) for his crimes but he rejected the offer (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#Arrest_and_prosec...).
I understand what he was fighting for and agree with him and his ideology. I support Open Access, but let's not kid ourselves or delude ourselves - he wasn't innocent. He did commit crimes. I don't think this is the justice's systems fault. They were going to go extremely light on him but it was he who chose to fight.
Re: Aaron Swartz died three years ago today
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I had known growing up that the country I lived in was like this, I'd of not cared about it so much. I used to stand when the national anthem would come on and deeply be thankful for what I had.
First, Aaron was as much our country as the people who persecuted him. He cared about it; you should too. You can react two ways: 1) impotent anger or 2) stand up and continue his fight. Which will it be? Find friends and others and we can all pitch in to create a method of distributing knowledge in a way that can't be controlled. The internet makes it possible, the only thing missing is the will and the effort. Anyo…
> You can react two ways: 1) impotent anger or 2) stand up and continue his fight. Which will it be?
False dichotomy and manipulative, there's many ways to react outside of those narrow choices.
Re: Aaron Swartz died three years ago today
#34The response to his death is creepy to me, like "His name is Robert Paulson". There's so much misinformation, and misuse of his death for ideological and social purposes unrelated to the actual person. The fact that someone made something called "Internet's Own Boy" only compounds this. If it were me, I'd want to come back to life just to tell you all that I'm not your puppet, and you have no clue why I died; you didn't know me, and I am not "your boy". Since I couldn't come back to life, I'd hope there'd be people who would speak against this groupthink on my behalf.
Re: Aaron Swartz died three years ago today
#35He did not "die", he was murdered.
No he was not murdered; he committed suicide rather than face jail and fight. Using hyperbolic language and calling a suicide murder doesn't do anything useful.
Re: Aaron Swartz died three years ago today
#36He was a pretty argumentative guy, but he was right about so much. He genuinely put his heart into what he believed in. Without him (and Lessig), SOPA easily could have gone the other way. He didn't deserve what the justice system did to him. Let's be honest. Almost no one does. Aaron is definitely missed.
>Almost no one does. That's not even remotely true. Our justice system may be severely fucked in many ways, but it's not completely nonfunctional. But we hear about the problems whenever something goes wrong. The other 99.9 percent of the time when things go smoothly we don't even notice...
There is a huge difference between things going smoothly and things being just. Something like 95% of cases in the US don't even go to trial. They're ended in a plea bargain, which allows the prosecutor to serve as both judge and jury. I do not think that is a sign of a healthy justice system, nor a sign of a justice system that actually pursues justice.
Re: Aaron Swartz died three years ago today
#37He was a pretty argumentative guy, but he was right about so much. He genuinely put his heart into what he believed in. Without him (and Lessig), SOPA easily could have gone the other way. He didn't deserve what the justice system did to him. Let's be honest. Almost no one does. Aaron is definitely missed.
>Almost no one does. That's not even remotely true. Our justice system may be severely fucked in many ways, but it's not completely nonfunctional. But we hear about the problems whenever something goes wrong. The other 99.9 percent of the time when things go smoothly we don't even notice...
I'm not sure what the original commenter meant, but some of us (a minority I'm sure) believe that no person deserves arrest, prosecution and jail in the forms they exist today even if that person is guilty of a crime. Things can go "smoothly" but still result in people being subjected to intimidation, cruelty and violence.
Re: Aaron Swartz died three years ago today
#38I'm still disgusted by the behavior of the MIT officials in all of this. Whenever I see or hear 'MIT' the first thing that comes to mind is: "that's the school that was responsible for the death of Aaron".
And why would that come to mind when none of it is true? Firstly, Aaron is responsible for his own death, it was suicide. Secondly, it's the zealous prosecutor you should be mad at, MIT is not to blame here; Aaron broke many laws and they were well within their rights to have him arrested. Good intentions aside, what Aaron did was illegal and he deserved to be arrested for it; what he didn't deserve was more than probation and a slap on the wrist.
Re: Aaron Swartz died three years ago today
#39He was a pretty argumentative guy, but he was right about so much. He genuinely put his heart into what he believed in. Without him (and Lessig), SOPA easily could have gone the other way. He didn't deserve what the justice system did to him. Let's be honest. Almost no one does. Aaron is definitely missed.
>Almost no one does. That's not even remotely true. Our justice system may be severely fucked in many ways, but it's not completely nonfunctional. But we hear about the problems whenever something goes wrong. The other 99.9 percent of the time when things go smoothly we don't even notice...
> The other 99.9 percent of the time when things go smoothly we don't even notice...
Or just don't care if it really goes smoothly.
Re: Aaron Swartz died three years ago today
#40I just watched "The Internets Own Boy" again last night. It amazes me what our justice system can do to people and not be held responsible. Had I done the same thing to Aaron, I'd have been given lethal injection by now.
> It amazes me what our justice system can do to people and not be held responsible. Just to play devil's advocate here (and I understand this goes against prevailing opinion), but he did break the law. That much isn't in dispute, they had a video of him entering the MIT network closet. And he didn't commit misdemeanors, he committed a half dozen felonies (actually more, but the prosecution dropped a few of them). Th…
> Just to play devil's advocate here (and I understand this goes against prevailing opinion), but he did break the law.
Aaron himself said "There is no justice in following unjust laws."
> https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamj...
I even go further and say that you can't be good and lawful at the same time - at least not in any currently existing system of laws.