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Aaron Swartz commits suicide

tech.mit.edu

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Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#361

Post by eliasmacpherson »

alan_cx wrote: post #245
rohamg wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is right. I'm shocked at the "suicide apologists" in this thread.

I'm shocked at "life bullies". Which lets face it is a Christian rule, and not applicable to all people. I would like to die right now. I'm just too cowardly. There is no simple switch to do it quickly and painlessly. No way to stop others being upset. No way to stop others discovering something that may scar them. I do not wish to mess up others. Why? I simply do not belong. I don't understand the human race at all,…

Being down in the dumps is not good for your mental health :) You've very accurately described a humour that I find myself in from time to time, sometimes for years, and it's no fun.

The tired tropes are society's collective knowledge on how to deal with it, so to trot them out: I've had to grin and bear it as the saying goes, get some fresh air, cook myself proper food on a regular basis and seek company without getting intoxicated. Sometimes, music is the answer (upbeat stuff does it for me, no radiohead - although even radiohead works for some people). I make a routine of doing these things. I eventually forget the frame of mind, while still remaining a contrarian at heart.

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#362

Post by [deleted] »

jacques_chester wrote: post #116
monsterix wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we not know who exactly (their faces/names etc.) were the people working in the "US Attorney Office" bent to indict him? It's easy for people to term it was not JSTOR, it was the Attorney Office but ultimately these things happen only because people forget how to treat other people properly.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'd just like to place on the record that if I die under similar circumstances, my wish is that nobody will start an ugly witch hunt in my name.

[deleted]

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#363

Post by n09n »

polarix wrote: post #356
tesmar2 wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is terrible news, but, not knowing much about the case, how was it morally right to download a bunch of pay-for documents?

This is the sum total of human academic knowledge. It must be freed. The first tragic thing was that he failed to torrent it immediately. Now this. A great loss.

>It must be freed.

That doesn't follow.

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#364

Post by betterunix »

tesmar2 wrote: post #354
konstruktor wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aaron Swartz did something he knew was morally right but very probably illegal in some way, and, him being a prodigy, I'm very confident he was aware of this. It is called activism, and is a very brave and noble thing to do, something most people don't have the guts for. Governments often try to break activists who threaten their agenda (or in this case, that of a dying industry), and it seems they have succeeded wit…

This is terrible news, but, not knowing much about the case, how was it morally right to download a bunch of pay-for documents?

Anyone with access to a university network has access to those documents. I have access to JSTOR also. What moral issue can you possibly raise with someone using their access to download these documents? It's OK to download 10, but not 1000000? Do you have a moral issue with automated downloads -- and if so, how can you justify JSTOR itself?

It is worth noting that JSTOR did not want to press charges in this case. After contacting Swartz, they were satisfied that he was not going to share the documents with others (and they "recovered" them, whatever that means), and that would have been that. The government decided to prosecute, probably to show how serious they are about restricting access to human knowledge (or whatever it is that they thought this prosecution would accomplish).

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#365

Post by DanBC »

beadmomsw wrote: post #252

Thank you all for your kind words and thoughts. Aaron has been depressed about his case/upcoming trial, but we had no idea what he was going through was this painful. Aaron was a terrific young man. He contributed a lot to the world in his short life and I regret the loss of all the things he had yet to accomplish. As you can imagine, we all miss him dearly. The grief is unfathomable. Aaron's mother

Losing someone to suicide is terrible. I am so sorry that you're going through this.

Many people had immense respect for your son. He was seen as a good person. Clever, decent, principled, kind, generous.

> The grief is unfathomable.

I cannot understand the depths of that grief. But yes, the grief is unfathomable.

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#366

Post by revskill »

usaphp wrote: post #114
jspthrowaway2 wrote: post #21

I have no words. I've been sitting with my phone's cursor blinking in this box and, for the first time in a long time, my stomach has turned so much from this news that I have nothing to write. What an absolutely dreadful shame. My heart is wrenched for his family and all of us, who lost a brilliant young man. I'm a month older than he was, and to imagine someone my age thinking there was no way out... with all of th…

When you are faced with 35 years of jail and $1Mln fine - i guess you start thinking out of the box...

What about being in jail with a laptop and internet ? That kind of prison seems more human in this case.

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#368

Post by pajju »

Aaron Swartz's presence in various networks:

In HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=aaronsw

Pinboard: https://pinboard.in/u:aaronsw

His last tweet was on Jan 9th, https://twitter.com/aaronsw

Reddit: https://aaronsw.jottit.com/reddit

Google Scholar: http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=PGTlB14AAAAJ

Writings: https://aaronsw.jottit.com/writings

---------------------------------------------

Things he made:

https://www.jottit.com/

http://openlibrary.org/

http://watchdog.net/

http://reddit.com/

http://webpy.org/

HN will miss your contributions.

Rest in Peace. #Love.

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#369

Post by bane »

beadmomsw wrote: post #252

Thank you all for your kind words and thoughts. Aaron has been depressed about his case/upcoming trial, but we had no idea what he was going through was this painful. Aaron was a terrific young man. He contributed a lot to the world in his short life and I regret the loss of all the things he had yet to accomplish. As you can imagine, we all miss him dearly. The grief is unfathomable. Aaron's mother

Thank you for the gift of your son while we had him. He was a light in the world.

Re: Aaron Swartz commits suicide

#370

Post by DanBC »

stesch wrote: post #367
dscrd wrote: post #306

Why isn't this anywhere on reddit.com?

The news got removed from multiple subreddits. Even a picture of him was on the frontpage and on top of /r/pics/ for a short time is now removed.

This is a good thing.

I guess Reddit is trying to avoid the Werther Effect (copycat suicides) and a huge Reddit Mob attacking random bystanders.

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