Is it really that surprising that people are genuinely upset he took his own life after being harassed by the US government? This is a community that tends to dislike extreme prosecution, copyright laws and generally agrees with Aaron's ideology.
And on another note: Can HN not care about a guy without people saying we're "raising him to demi-god status"? With how often that accusation is thrown around, you'd think we have enough to sell our demi-god surplus to cults in need of more.
PS: The "I'll be downvoted for my contrarian idea but ..." stuff is for reddit, not here, tbh.
Whilst that may be true, I've not read about a lot of tragic deaths where everyone who knew the person thought they were a prick.
The point being raised is "Do we really think his theories had unusual insight/value or is his work being viewed through the lens of his death being tragic?". It seems like an entirely valid question to ask.
In terms of "the joker being a rational actor who achieved his goals". Well personally I think he's misinterpreted the film/characters, but I know i'm not an expert on such things so the most I can say is that I'll take his view with a pretty chunky pinch of salt.
You're rewriting history. Read up a bit about Reddit early days etc
He's raised up to demi-god status because he checks some boxes in the same way Turing does, and as with Turing, people believe the "history" they want to believe to fit their own views. Personally, I find it distasteful to use people like this, and it belittles everyone elses lives and contributions.
The thing I like most about Aaron's writing is that he was relentlessly introspective. But this definitely rubbed some people the wrong way. There were many who dismissed his articles as navel-gazing when they were originally posted.
That is a demonstrably false statement, as you admit. No one is loved by everyone. No one is hated by everyone. No one is "evil", and no one is a "saint".
This ridiculous habit some people have of putting people in two boxes (good, bad) is just so stupid. People do good things, and do bad things. Everyone does some amount of good, and some amount of bad. People aren't good or evil.
But I also take issue with that false placement of him, that is again expressed in that OP title: "Aaron Swartz’s Theory on How to Save the World". That is not serious and is also in a way of disrespecting him.
It is remotly similar when Obama got its Nobel Price. I think it was done with good intentions, but was completely misplaced.
Uncharitably throwing misplaced attributed at a deceased person, because it goes well with the intention of selling a book is not human, but kind of perverse.
He may have been a great guy. He may have been nice and caring. But he is not a great role model, no matter how much people wish he could have been.
He didn't fit in that mold, as many didn't here. His mind didn't fit in the rule following process at all, which honestly IS what showed his great promise. He was capable of more and brave enough to try.
While I don't like post humous articles that use someone else to push your ideas, someone who can't speak for themselves anymore, this comment just made me sad.
[1] Same high school, a few years older. [2] https://newrepublic.com/article/127317/school
He may have many flaws, but that's the one thing you can't say about him. Watch this part of Internet's Own Boy: https://youtu.be/aePSFMLzBBM?t=12m50s
To narrate that part of the video, as a school kid he goes to Washington to listen to Lawrence Lessig challenging the Copyright Laws in the Supreme Court. The video shows him saying that he's doing this because it's such an important case. How many school kids are interested in that kind of thing? And among other things, he participated (at a very young age) in the RSS specification, and was part of the team which wrote Reddit (PG calls him co-founder).
Many of us (especially here on HN) were aware of his accomplishments way before he took his own life. He's not someone who became a hero after or due to his tragic death.
I for one judge people on their accomplishments, not whether he finished school or not.
BTW, have you noticed that people saying that do not get downvoted as much? Such a complain works well, in spite of HN's official policy against it. People keep saying it because it works ;-)
No? My impression is that people saying it get down-voted more.
Indeed I've occasionally down-voted people just for saying it, because it usually reads to me like "I know HN most readers are too stupid to understand my opinions, but..."
"I'm going to get down voted for saying this" is the HN equivalent "I don't mean to be a jerk, but [says jerk things]".
Just to be a complete hypocrite: I personally don't think it's unreasonable to express a likely contrarian viewpoint and apologise in advance for that - but hey, I'm British, and some of us were brought up to be polite.
Given the wide range of opinions expressed on HN, you can reasonably assume any opinion you express will be contrary to some of them. Expressing the expectation of downvotes is not apologizing in advance. "It may not be a popular opinion, but ", or "I'm sorry, but I've never understood..." are two alternatives. I'm sure there are better ones.
It's also important to consider whether it's worth expressing what you want to say if you also feel you need to apologize for it. Over half of pieter1976's initial comment is about the downvotes, including a Paul Graham reference justifying expressing a contrary opinion. The referenced essay specifically discusses this:
When you find something you can't say, what do you do with it? My advice is, don't say it. Or at least, pick your battles.
...
The most important thing is to be able to think what you want, not to say what you want. And if you feel you have to say everything you think, it may inhibit you from thinking improper thoughts. I think it's better to follow the opposite policy. Draw a sharp line between your thoughts and your speech.
Is ignoring community guidelines worth expressing the opinion "I have never understood the raising up of Aaron Swartz to demi-god status by this community"?
Neither do I! There is a subtle but important difference between "pardon me if I'm missing something, but..." or "from the other comments on this thread it seems X is a widely-held view; I can't, however, seem to get my head around Y aspect of X" and advertising one's expectations of being down voted.
The former makes an effort to make sense of the views one disagrees with. That shows respect for the speaker. The latter dismisses it off the cuff.
If you're expressing a contrarian view, express it. If you want to apologise for it, do so politely. Better yet, incorporate why you think others will disagree into your response. Preemptively complaining, without offering any reasoning, is petulant.
They don't. The majority of people will downvote the comment because they disagree with it.
There is no way to disagree with the groupthink, without expecting to be downvoted.
I personally would love it if downvotes required an explanation. Such would be a great way to separate the "your comment was out of line for legitimate reason" type of downvote vs. the "I'm downvoting you because you're wrong and I'm not even going to say why" type of downvote.
You can learn something from the former type of downvote; the later sort of downvote is completely useless.
It comes down to, its more effective to lead a conversation than to just dispute and disagree. Its true on the internet; its true in person.
Then expect to be downvoted without explicitly posting that expectation. Nothing good will come of it.
Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downvote you or proclaim that you expect to get downvoted.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
You may not agree with it (which is fine), but it's largely accepted by the community.
The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.
To dismiss the entire catastrophe as a "cautionary tale" is heartless. People who stand up to the powers that be know damn well that it is likely they'll have to suffer the consequences. Aaron was fully aware of this, despite your claims of his naivety. This is a cautionary tale only if the lesson to be learned is: never stand up to power. For shame.
You may not like the existing copyright laws or the justice system. And I fully understand it, as I don't like parts of them either. But that doesn't give you the right to break the law. A society where people break laws just because they disagree with them simply can't work.
Your claim that laws must always be obeyed in a democracy is gross. Are enslaved people supposed to follow the laws in a democracy that say they cannot fight for their freedom? Are we to condemn black people who organized sit-ins to protest apartheid? Are you not aware that practically all rights we enjoy today are the result of activists who risked their life to fight for these rights? Think for a second about the implications of blind obedience to the law, and the ugly historical record thereof!
What he did was inconsequential and then he preferred to quit rather than face the consequences (to which he would probably get support from the whole internet)
A.S. looks like more than a prankster who never got told that actions have consequences and an idealist that was too naive for his own good.
Lastly your whole comment is framed as a personal attack. You say "inconsequential" even though we have no clue what he was planning to do since he was made to delete the files, and you say "prankster" like was just trolling MIT and JSTOR. I recommend instead that you instead try to read a little about him, he accomplished much more then you gave him credit for.
True, I had considered this angle but I ended up not adding it to the comment. But I recognize the importance of those factors
> the consequences in this case were disproportionate to the crime, with JSTOR listing inflated damages
No contest on the inflated damages, which is part of most legal cases unfortunately, but he could have gotten the best lawyers to this case.
> even though we have no clue what he was planning to do
Scraping files is an action on itself that gives several suggestions on what he was going to do with them.
> and you say "prankster" like was just trolling MIT and JSTOR
Well he was at least doing that.
> A few years ago, he downloaded a significant portion of the articles on the Westlaw legal-research database in order to analyze their sources of funding, in the hope of determining whether economic interests affected their conclusions. He gave the data to a Stanford law student, and she published an article in the Stanford Law Review based on his findings. [1]
[0]: https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamj...
[1]: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/03/11/requiem-for-a-d...
You say you don't understand why people estimate him. What's the point in saying that ? Who cares ?
Are you asking the arguments justifying why people seam to estimate him so much ?
Are you calling back into question the arguments justifying that he is estimated ? Them give us your arguments.
That you don't understand that Aaron is estimated could have many explanations. You could be stupid. You could discard or ignore data points. Your "measuring stick" could be bogus or too subjective. Some people may glorify him as semi-god because they are themselves stupid or want to piggy bag their reputation with the one of Aaron. Or maybe Aaron was just an impostor as you might be inferring.
My feeling is that "ignorance" is overrated these days. A comment that just say "I don't understand X" has very low pertinence value and, in my opinion, should not be upvoted on hacker news.
Please reformulate the point you would like to make and present your arguments. Only arguments are really relevant. I downvoted you for the reasons above.
His ideas had always much less weight then his persona that was created by others and to some degree by him. There is no reason to judge him for that, because we all strive for significance and nobody is perfect. But I agree we should stop to further support that bumptious memory of him.
In the end, he was also a victim of dynamics that where not in his influence. There was people who wanted to make an example of him, because he (like many others) wanted to set information free.
I liked him because he was good looking in a JFK kind of sense. His confident charisma was pleasant and comforting, his words never misplaced. I miss him.
Every time he's mentioned, someone feel the overwhelming need to pop up and share their "unpopular but realistic opinion".
I think that is embarrassing.
One does not detract from or rule out the other.
Step out of line and she can be your demon too. Or mine.