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Comment by scrollaway | Hacker News Reader

He was young, showed great promise, was clearly ahead of his age, everybody who knew him found him to be a genuinely nice and caring person...

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.

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>everybody who knew him found him to be a genuinely nice and caring person...

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.

I found it frustrating that famous technologists and thought-leaders had stories and praises for him after he died, which were not seen while he was alive, fighting prosecution, and needing their support. From an archived Wikipedia page, you see few statements of support: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aaron_Swartz&oldi... Aaron was private about his difficulties with the case, but it was not at all a secret... I think many people -especially those with influence in the open data space- were aware of it and doing nothing.

> everybody who knew him found him to be a genuinely nice and caring person...

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.

You're rewriting history.

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.

> everybody who knew him found him to be a genuinely nice and caring person...

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.

I agree with every paragraph, that comment bothered me too.

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.

Call the "U.S. Government" by name. Carmen Ortiz and Stephen Heymann perpetrated the crime.

But he didn't really show great promise. He dropped out of high school. He dropped out of college. (At least according to the article... I didn't know him.) He didn't hold jobs. He broke laws, even if for arguably good reasons. He didn't get the legal help he needed. He didn't get the psych help he needed. And his life ended in tragedy.

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.

Probably biased because I knew Aaron[1] but if you've read his fundamental belief on schools[2], which he held very early, it is not a big surprise that he didn't finish the process.

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

> But he didn't really show great promise. He dropped out of high school. He dropped out of college.

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.

Are you kidding? Wasn't he one of the developers of the RSS protocol? Plus he was starting companies and giving lecture before most of us finished college.

I for one judge people on their accomplishments, not whether he finished school or not.

> PS: The "I'll be downvoted for my contrarian idea but ..." stuff is for reddit, not here, tbh.

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 ;-)

>BTW, have you noticed that people saying that do not get downvoted as much?

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..."

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