MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award
media.mit.edu
media.mit.edu
So many people struggle to make a difference, no matter how small, and being honored for their efforts, when it's most likely that it rarely if ever happens in real life, would be inspiring to them to keep up what they're doing.
For those interested in reading about the original post covering in detail the thoughts behind the award, see this blog post:
＊＊＊Aaron Swartz＊＊＊ Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves. The world's entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the sciences? You'll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier.
(From archive.org: https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamj...)
> Eligibility requirements for the $250,000 prize
> The recipient must be living.
So that rules out Aaron Swartz.
I'd also be happy if Aaron Swartz won!
Alexandra Elbakyan is not an example of disobedience. In fact, she is very obedient to the rules of society she lives in (she is an avid Putin's supporter), it's just those rules are different from the West. Her risks over SciHub project is negligible while she lives in Russia, and given her views, I think it's unlikely she want to live somewhere else. In her early interviews/posts in Russian, she considers the project as a Russian crusade over the West of some sorts, so I don't believe this is in any way similar to the Aaron's case. Aaron was a political activist and a champion of human rights, and Alexandra is neither.
To be honest, the way in which Western media frame her baffles me: they used a common western narrative and slotted her into it instead of telling the true story.
>a live political activist and champion of human rights
You emphasized "live" there, but I would rather emphasize
> political activist
> champion of human rights
Alexandra Elbakyan is neither. It's just an opportunistical breaking of rules that are not enforced in Russia, and nothing I've read from her (except her interviews to Western media) implies her "political activism" or "championship of human rights".
However, if you still thing that she is worthy of the prize, I would also suggest nominating the owners of pornolab.net. It's one of the largest porn trackers out there, and it's online for a dozen years at least. It's in Russian, which I believe is one of the main reasons it's still online.
On the more general note: the enemy of your enemy is not your friend, it's a tactical ally.
Her blog - https://engineuring.wordpress.com/ Her email - mindwrapper@gmail.com
Also, who runs Library Genesis? Those people could use the prize too!
The award is clearly for people who are being disobedient for the benefit of society.
Breaking rules for the sake of breaking rules is just anarchy or trolling. You're just inconveniencing people who set out to recognise real contributions to society.
Unless there is an Aaron Schwartz foundation or something, nominate people who are still doing work.
That would be a much bigger contribution to society than any one person walking away with this award.
The next person? There are people CURRENTLY downloading free stuff and sharing it.
Nominate an appropriate person. Vote for someone who really deserves it NOW. Show these people that we support civil disobedience when it benefits society. Take the fucking money.
At this point, I have to believe that the people who want to flood them with ineligible nominees are simply trolling HN and trolling the MIT Media Lab. You guys are potentially throwing away 250K for no real reason.
Also from the page > Both individuals and groups are eligible to win the prize.
We must repeal (and not replace) the cfaa. Of course, we should name and shame MIT at every junction (shame on you, MIT!) However, we shouldn't lose sight of the bigger picture. CFAA is evil.
http://tech.mit.edu/V133/N12/swartz.html
Perhaps the rest of MIT deserves shaming, but please don't punish the Media Lab.
Aaron Swartz was not an MIT affiliate, alum, faculty, or student. MIT had no obligation to "have [his] back" for violating MIT network policy and federal law.
Having "no obligation" to do something is never an excuse for any behavior.
It's TCO though, because no matter what, Aaron will not be alive, and cannot be considered for the prize.
Giving it to Aaron Swartz would provide both the title and the money to advance the cause of Aaron's Law or similar reform of the CFAA, enacting which would do more for socially positive disobedience than the equivalent amount of money.
The funds presented to the winner of the award are not a work grant. There are no strings attached as far as I am able to tell by the rules or hidden agendas via the applications; for example, "If you are the winner, how might the $250k prize make a difference?"
Basically, to have expectations of how the winner might spend the funds is what it is, but to state it's basically a work grant is inaccurate.
A bit like if your friend comes to your house, you tell him, "don't smoke weed outside, the cops around here will arrest you," and your friend says "I support marijuana legalization, so I'll smoke wherever I want." Your friend smokes up on your front steps, you try to get him to stop (it's your house after all), and then the cops show up, rough you up a bit, and arrest him.
There are many more deserving than Aaron Swartz of this award, within and without the MIT community.
Rather he was arrested by a federal secret service agent for CFAA violations that were based on extremely tenuous arguments that at the least most legal commentators concede was an egregious case of over-prosecution.
I'd love to hear your list of deserving award winners who are somehow notable dissidents without breaking something as lowly as a trespass law.
Do I think he should have been rung up on federal charges? No. But he wasn't a student, or a teacher, or a visiting researcher, or an alum. He had no official affiliation to MIT, and he showed no understanding of or respect for our culture. The flip side of an open culture is respect for and maintenance of the commons, and instead he exploited ours. It was really hard to defend him at the time for abusing the openness of the MIT community.
(And now, in fact, MIT affiliates like Aaron and me no longer have access to MIT's institutional subscriptions, in what I can only assume is partly a response to his actions.)
MIT's history has no shortage of people who were part of the institution and part of the culture, who the administration failed to support when that support was more justified and more needed than it ever was in Aaron's case. I'm sorry for the outcome, and I don't think he deserved it, but I don't think he deserves either some kind of posthumous award, nor does MIT deserve the scorn heaped on it by those who would canonize him.
Lessig has been calling this fallacy "I'm right, therefore I'm right to nuke you."
Aaron Swartz was not a saint nor a demon. MIT failed to act after the prosecution had gone too far. They get as much blame for that as they deserve.
The AS widows are becoming annoying
The people who never knew him, and who don't know MIT or MIT culture, and who want to turn Aaron into some kind of Internet freedom martyr all out of proportion to who he was and what he actually accomplished, those are the folks who I have a beef with.
I think one of the messages is that mental illness can affect anyone. Even people who seem perfectly normal. Even those who are rich. Even elites.
One reason Aaron took his own life might be that he felt he had no one to turn to. Or maybe he felt he shouldn't turn to anyone because he'd somehow be considered a failure.
Although it's perfectly valid to say that he was a victim of an injustice, I think we should also be conveying an additional message: That if you're dealing with something heavy, it's ok to reach out.
Hand in hand with that, the stigma against mental illness needs to end.
However, what 26 year old computer nerd without a black belt wouldn't give suicide some thought when staring at an unjust sentence in a federal prison of fifty years, AKA five decades, AKA half a century, AKA the majority of their remaining life expectancy, AKA about twice as long as their entire life up to that point and more than twice as long as they can remember?
Who wouldn't at least consider suicide when faced with the realization that even with time off for good behavior, by the time they got out they'd be closer to retirement age than to a reasonable age for restarting a career? That they'd have spent the most productive years of their life rotting away in prison instead of producing?
Weighing your pain avoidance instinct against your self preservation instinct is entirely rational. We don't put all of the blame on mental illnes, even if the person was mentally ill, when someone jumps to their death from a burning building or when a cancer patient opts for euthanasia. It's inappropriate to do so for Aaron Swartz.
Giving this award to Swartz, and giving the money to his parents, along with a public statement of remorse and a public commitment to behaving more honorably in the future, would be an excellent way for them to do this.
I'm not saying that this prize corrects the injustice done. It's an orthogonal option to do good. My 2c.
http://tech.mit.edu/V133/N12/swartz.html
The rest of MIT might deserve shaming, but please don't punish the Media Lab.
> The mood changed later in the memorial when speakers began criticizing MIT’s involvement in the Swartz case. Swartz’ partner, Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, asked MIT to consider whether it considered itself a “scientist” or “bureaucracy” and expressed skepticism about the Abelson report.
It's clear from the dialogue in here that this was not a sufficient response for the wider community, and that more reform and response was (and still is) expected. The perception is that there was a largely neutral response from a part of MIT that should have been one of the loudest.
I just spent a month in Cambridge, and while I met some great people working on important things, I have to say, there's definitely some ossification over there and it's a real problem. We need some very loud advocates for online and software freedom in the academic world right now, perhaps more than we've ever needed them. And yes, we still need the right to read research produced with public funding.
I agree with many of the people in here that this should have been named the Aaron Swartz Disobedience Award, in his honor. Or keep the name, but say that it being awarded in his memory. It would have sent a powerful message, both to future Aarons and to the MIT upper admins that have steadfastly refused to own up to what they did.
This award is a great idea, but the silence of not even mentioning his name in it when it's the thing on everyone's mind is deafening.
What does "ossification" means in this context?
aaron's dad (Bob Swartz) worked as a patent attorney at the media lab. Not sure if he still does, but he did.
some external reference: https://www.media.mit.edu/videos/aaronsw-2013-03-12/
Consider this: her actions parallel Swartz's actions (she liberated information), except that they could potentially benefit many, many more people the world over; Swartz's disobedience would primarily benefit academics (though of course the benefits would sort of trickle down to the rest of the population, eventually).
Additionally, Chelsea Manning is alive, and would benefit from the award. Nominating Aaron Swartz post-humously seems to me like nothing more than an attempt to rub MIT's nose into its own mess ...except of course that the people involved with the award are not the people responsible for Aaron Swartz's treatment.
When they involved the police, they had no idea who it was that was apparently attacking them. They just knew that an unknown party was causing serious disruptions, and was actively trying to evade their countermeasures, and had moved on to trespassing and equipment tampering.
It was only after Swartz was arrested that his identity became known.
Everything after that was in the hands of prosecutors. MIT did tell prosecutors that MIT did not advocate jail time for Swartz.
So disruptive to MIT that they didn't even notice it until JSTOR emailed.
Well, if they don't, that's still a SINGLE organization to my eyes.
Just because some people there might disagreed at the time, it doesn't absolve the organization.
>Aren't these the people that failed to defend Aaron Swartz?
So no, these aren't the same people. However, it is the same parent organization, but I don't think anyone is disputing that even though that's the strawman you are attacking.
Organizations consist of people. There is some more stuff beyond that -- just some legal documents, buildings, and other assets, but the thing that actually has the agency to drive an organization is people.
>So no, these aren't the same people. However, it is the same parent organization, but I don't think anyone is disputing that even though that's the strawman you are attacking.
They are the same people that worked there and didn't protest publicly about the actions of the organization and/or didn't resign.
So nobody has left or joined MIT since the Aaron Schwartz case?
Even ignoring that detail, I have a lot more respect for people that change an organization from within rather than quit immediately anytime something disagreeable happens. If everyone operated the way you are suggesting, we would essentially have institutions that would never change because nobody with different viewpoints could join.
"I was just following orders" and/or "I disagreed, but I was in the minority" is not an excuse.
Yes is is, both are valid.
I'm not sure what part of the mission of the MIT Media Lab is really involved with rocking the boat. And 250k seems like a heck of a lot of cash to do this. 50k seems like a good amount. I would rather see 5 winners.
But I notice that Philip Morris isn't on that list any more, like it was in 2004 [2] and 2005 [3].
Philip Morris makes a lot of money from disobedient kids who won't listen to what their parents tell them about not smoking. And they do pay a lot of disobedient scientists who are willing to dispute the scientific consensus about the dangers of smoking. [4]
[1] https://www.media.mit.edu/members/member-companies/
[2] http://web.mit.edu/annualreports/pres04/07.05.pdf
[3] http://web.mit.edu/annualreports/pres05/07.06.pdf
[4] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/low-tar...
If not, can it still be considered helping a fugitive?
Yes, according to the Washington Post.
> Federal prosecutors have filed a criminal complaint against Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked a trove of documents about top-secret surveillance programs, and the United States has asked Hong Kong to detain him on a provisional arrest warrant, according to U.S. officials.
> Snowden was charged with theft, “unauthorized communication of national defense information” and “willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person,” according to the complaint. The last two charges were brought under the 1917 Espionage Act.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-ch...
So, if you decide to honor disobedient people, you accept it will carry some kind of consequence for yourself, or else you're full of it.
The MIT should definitely honor someone that the US government doesn't like, instead of, say, the Chinese government, as a matter of principle (and consistency).
There are plenty of ways to disobey without breaking the law.
Isn't this ironic. Basically saying, Your disobedience must be obedient to our criteria of ethics. Isn't every disobedience unethical to someone?
Typical 'better than you' attitude of elites, we know what the best kind of disobedience is, based on our narrowly defined ideals.
So expect the winner to be, paradoxically, someone who is completely obedient.
Source: Intimately familiar with the Media Lab. As with most places, there is a type of conformable non-conformance. Kind of like casual Fridays at work, or office humor. The Media Lab, and Joi in particular, would never reward non-conformance. Now, if a liberal in Saudi Arabia breaks conservative laws, that they would reward. But that's conforming to their standards.
1. Get caught by CP's, pay $500 fine
2. Claim $250,000 from Media Lab?
1. Flaunt hacking ethics posted in the Tomb of the Unknown Tool.
2. Disobey "No Toad Sexing" sign.
3. Dose the milk and cookies left for FBI at Bexley Hall LSD lab.
4. Congratulate RMS for his life's work on Open Source Software and Linux.
5. Claim $250,000 from Media Lab?
I ended up stomping around a mainland Chinese tourist attraction half-naked in it, giving speeches to massive Chinese crowds about an inclusion issue. http://i.imgur.com/9Dz9M9N.jpg
Anyone who knows anything about China will tell you how unbelievably dangerous this is.
But I was protesting the MIT Media Labs best buddy Make Magazine so I'm sure my application has been directly filed in the trash- even though I'd be very surprised if anyone else applying has done anything that dangerous.
I'm also in China, a bit further up north, in 山寨版silicon valley, aka. Beijing, Haidian, but I'm really interested in what is going on in Shenzhen. Any chance we could chat?
Like 2muchcoffeeman commented:
>>The award is clearly for people who are being disobedient for the benefit of society. Breaking rules for the sake of breaking rules is just anarchy or trolling. You're just inconveniencing people who set out to recognise real contributions to society.
In regards to what good he has done, he is ostensibly trying to make America great. Less controversially, it is agreed by virtually everybody that he has been the cause for dramatically increased political engagement by the complacent American population and has served to expose multiple vulnerabilities in the American political system especially with regards to Presidential powers, that many people assumed were not a threat to democracy.
> “Trump is the Silicon Valley candidate in every way except that the ideology is flipped,” said Sam Altman, a prominent technology leader, chief executive of Y Combinator and a major Hillary Clinton donor. “He’s an outsider. He took on a system he thought was broken and then disregarded the rules, he got to know his users well and tested his product early and iterated rapidly. That’s the start-up playbook. That’s exactly what we tell our start-ups to do.”
(Sam Altman has also built a tool for holding Trump to his campaign promises.)
More about this would be much appreciated. Is it general purpose (could it work on arbitrary politicians)?
One can't disobey "conventions". One disobey laws, and in particular, laws that are enforced, and the breaking of which carry real threats to their freedom.
Also, you can't be disobeying if you're the boss and decide who gets tried and who doesn't. So since DJT has been president he can't disobey no more.
Not sure if your comment was ironic; if yes, fine, if not, you're very wrong.
You are playing a semantics game. Replace disobey with ignore, and the intent is the same.
> you can't be disobeying if you're the boss and decide who gets tried and who doesn't
The United States is a constitutional democracy, not a fascist regime. In the past, presidents have indeed disobeyed, and one was consequently impeached.
Attacking the media is not healthy or helpful.
His most egregious crime is destabilizing public trust in climate change facts. The world climate is changing because of human actions, and drastic action must be taken by world leaders to prevent catastrophic damage (aka, human extinction events). Leaders like Trump that deny the facts contribute to the damage that may cause these extinction events.
So if you call contributing to effects that could lead to flooding most of our major population centers with rising sea water over the next hundred years "making america great," by all means support the man.
EDIT: Because Trump supporters always say "but Trump didn't say x y z!"
Let's listen to the man: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/26589529219124838...
"Listen to what he says, he's going to make america great." Yea, I'm listening.
If coal is dead, so are millions of humans. It remains a significant source of global energy, especially in developing countries.
We can craft strawmen and knock them down with cherry-picked quotes all day long.
Exhibit A: Hillary's "super predators" comment - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0uCrA7ePno
Exhibit B: Bernie's "white people don't know what it's like to be poor" comment - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6IlGoeDIUQ
If we don't do something about climate change right now, it will kill our species. We were doing something, and those efforts are already being reversed via anti-environmental (and anti-human) EPA appointments.
Your arguments about racism are irrelevant to me considering the context.
"You are not being nuanced by calling them sheep, consider these perspectives on power structures"
Winner will be a sheep =]
I bet MIT will be very brave and give Swartz and Snowden prizes after they get permission from trump