So what happens next time one of Ortiz's targets decides to die, rather than face trial?
Still More About The Death Of Aaron Swartz
61–70 of 70 posts
Re: Still More About The Death Of Aaron Swartz
#62I think this article speaks to why the case is getting so much attention. Lets presume for the sake of argument the trial didn't contribute to the suicide in the slightest. But it did cause us to look at the case, and you can't just un-see the fact that maybe you're not entirely comfortable with the way justice is being carried out in your name. We tend to trust in our legal system, one way or another. Even if that w…
As much as my personal beliefs align with Aaron's and I am saddened by his passing, I think people are being more than a little disingenuous in their references to the charges he was facing. I'd understand the indignation if we were talking about an actual sentence, but these were just charges. The maximum possible sentence for those charges might be dizzying, but realistically, Aaeron was never going to be handed th…
I experienced "just charges" a few months ago after just getting steady employment a week prior. A cop in a suburban community was bored to shit and decided to run tags on the borrowed car which I was driving which wasnt registered with the state ($38 fee) which he proceed to tow about half a mile (cost $176) and charge me a days worth of work to appear in court to pay $100 in court costs to have the charges dismissed. Totally innocent. Charges are not free.
Re: Still More About The Death Of Aaron Swartz
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Basically my thought is that blame is not zero sum. Assigning some blame from one party should not in any way be taken to mean another party is not less to blame. Multiple parties could each be (for lack of better terminology) "100% to blame".
Mathematics isn't failing here. You're mixing contexts. If you look at it from the perspective of the victim, it's less than 100% of the blame. If you look at it from the perspective of a single perpetrator, they're 100% to blame because the other perpetrator doesn't absolve them of any of the blame. If you try to add the 100% of each perpetrator in isolation together, you're making an error.
My point isn't that mathematics is failing somehow, but rather that blame or responsibility is something that cannot be summed. Trying to do so is like trying to add up happiness and sadness. Ethics, and the underlying human emotion, don't have a system of arithmetic that we are aware of.
Re: Still More About The Death Of Aaron Swartz
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mathematics isn't failing here. You're mixing contexts. If you look at it from the perspective of the victim, it's less than 100% of the blame. If you look at it from the perspective of a single perpetrator, they're 100% to blame because the other perpetrator doesn't absolve them of any of the blame. If you try to add the 100% of each perpetrator in isolation together, you're making an error.
My point isn't that mathematics is failing somehow, but rather that blame or responsibility is something that cannot be summed. Trying to do so is like trying to add up happiness and sadness. Ethics, and the underlying human emotion, don't have a system of arithmetic that we are aware of.
Re: Still More About The Death Of Aaron Swartz
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
As much as my personal beliefs align with Aaron's and I am saddened by his passing, I think people are being more than a little disingenuous in their references to the charges he was facing. I'd understand the indignation if we were talking about an actual sentence, but these were just charges. The maximum possible sentence for those charges might be dizzying, but realistically, Aaeron was never going to be handed th…
I experienced "just charges" a few months ago after just getting steady employment a week prior. A cop in a suburban community was bored to shit and decided to run tags on the borrowed car which I was driving which wasnt registered with the state ($38 fee) which he proceed to tow about half a mile (cost $176) and charge me a days worth of work to appear in court to pay $100 in court costs to have the charges dismisse…
Cops will often pursue petty things in hopes of discovering something more serious to charge you with. By impounding your car, they are clear to search it without your consent.
This happened to me a few years ago in Maryland. As a new resident, I didn't realize I needed to fill out a form called FR-19. My registration was flagged, and an Anne Arundel cop pulled me over one evening.
As luck would have it, my insurance paperwork was a few months out of date. Strike two. I was given several charges adding up to a year in jail, my car was towed, and I walked home.
After buying new license plates to replace the ones he took, I picked my car up from the lot ($250+). Everything inside was strewn haphazardly; even the ash trays were turned up. You know what they were looking for.
The good news? A few months later, the court dropped all charges when they realized I had insurance the whole time. No harm done!
Re: Still More About The Death Of Aaron Swartz
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
I experienced "just charges" a few months ago after just getting steady employment a week prior. A cop in a suburban community was bored to shit and decided to run tags on the borrowed car which I was driving which wasnt registered with the state ($38 fee) which he proceed to tow about half a mile (cost $176) and charge me a days worth of work to appear in court to pay $100 in court costs to have the charges dismisse…
Cops will often pursue petty things in hopes of discovering something more serious to charge you with. By impounding your car, they are clear to search it without your consent. This happened to me a few years ago in Maryland. As a new resident, I didn't realize I needed to fill out a form called FR-19. My registration was flagged, and an Anne Arundel cop pulled me over one evening. As luck would have it, my insurance…
Right. The whole registration revocation was in their system with the car I was driving was because of an insurance lapse on the owner's part that was already taken care of, but either hadn't registered in their bullshit system yet or had and he just saw fit to fuck with me. Either way, too much power is entrusted to these people; from the federal to municipal, gov't is rife with grade A stupidity and abusiveness.
Re: Still More About The Death Of Aaron Swartz
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Excellent points. "So when we're faced with a case like Swartz's, why are we so quick to find someone to blame?" Let me answer that for you by quoting Rahm Emanuel: "You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."
I've never heard that quote before, and as sad as it is, it's a pretty damn good one. Honestly, prior to his suicide, I didn't really know much about Aaron Swartz, and I certainly had no idea that the U.S. prosecuted this harshly for what seems like a mild/minor crime.
Understand that "never let a crisis go to waste" was also the mindset that allowed the Bush administration to pivot from 9/11 response to invading Iraq--despite a complete lack of connection between the two.
My point is that while crisis creates opportunity, it does not justify all responses. It does not exempt us from the need to soberly and (as much as possible) objectively consider the merits of what people propose to do.
Re: Still More About The Death Of Aaron Swartz
#68I think this article speaks to why the case is getting so much attention. Lets presume for the sake of argument the trial didn't contribute to the suicide in the slightest. But it did cause us to look at the case, and you can't just un-see the fact that maybe you're not entirely comfortable with the way justice is being carried out in your name. We tend to trust in our legal system, one way or another. Even if that w…
As much as my personal beliefs align with Aaron's and I am saddened by his passing, I think people are being more than a little disingenuous in their references to the charges he was facing. I'd understand the indignation if we were talking about an actual sentence, but these were just charges. The maximum possible sentence for those charges might be dizzying, but realistically, Aaeron was never going to be handed th…
What was the prosecutor's last offer two days before he died?
Re: Still More About The Death Of Aaron Swartz
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nicely put. I was more aware (marginally) of his political activism and vaguely knew something of his past (I do really like his writing about web.py - and now that I'm reading it, all of his writing). It seems to me he was driven by the need to score a coup, and move fast. To be the hero who liberated an entire database, instead of a contributor to a slower process that would have slipped past their defenses - which…
What I don't understand is his rush. He could have gone for stealth mode: get a few laptops, program them to download at (largish) random intervals. Leave them operating a year or two. Check up on them every once in a while. He wouldn't have been caught, at all.
I totally get it. I don't know how you originally got into programming, but imagine you were good at it during your early teens, like many of us, and like Aaron. Now imagine that when you met the outside world, people other than your parents were amazed at your ability - imagine you wangled your way onto a W3C committee at 14. Now imagine that by sheer blind following of the next interesting thing, and talking to the next interesting person, you wangled your way into Y Combinator and into the Reddit sale. You're damn good at programming, but it turns out that being great at writing and programming doesn't translate at all into being good at business.
When I was 14, I assumed that I was going to program computers and get rich, much like Gates or Jobs. Aaron got a hell of a lot further down that adolescent trajectory than I did - I had all kinds of intermediate small failures along the way to soften the blow when it turned out I wasn't good at business. Now, ten years later, I've learned to be better at business.
Aaron bounced off, apparently really hard. He longed for those days when - just by talking and thinking and coding - he was taken as a surprising genius by people he'd never met. He wanted to walk in and surprise people with the fait accompli, cut right to the chase of being admired.
Or so I imagine. Because I know that at his age I thought exactly that way. I even have depressive tendencies - never been bothered by suicidal ideation, but then I never failed so badly as he did after the Reddit sale, and I could certainly see that happening to me in that case.
I may very well be projecting. But essentially, when I look at this, I just think, there but for the grace of early failure and family commitments go I.
Re: Still More About The Death Of Aaron Swartz
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
What I don't understand is his rush. He could have gone for stealth mode: get a few laptops, program them to download at (largish) random intervals. Leave them operating a year or two. Check up on them every once in a while. He wouldn't have been caught, at all.
I totally get it. I don't know how you originally got into programming, but imagine you were good at it during your early teens, like many of us, and like Aaron. Now imagine that when you met the outside world, people other than your parents were amazed at your ability - imagine you wangled your way onto a W3C committee at 14. Now imagine that by sheer blind following of the next interesting thing, and talking to the…
Wow I really think you are projecting! You assume his life was a failure after Reddit ("I never failed as badly as he did after the Reddit sale").
I review his life, and it appears to me he started to find his true passions after reddit, and it wasn't about making $, or finding the next big .com, but rather achieving reforms in the areas where his passion(s) took him.
Sadly his final action ends his life but doubtful it ends his legacy. Because of his fame (regardless of any controversy surrounding it), so many are now more aware of needing to step up and "demand progress".
Edit: to fix hanging sentence