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Comment by SteveGerencser | Hacker News Reader

> don't aspire to be like Altman

Aspire to be like Aaron Schwartz.

I've read a lot about Aaron's time at Reddit / Not A Bug. I somewhat think his fame exceeds his actual accomplishments at times. He was perceived to be very hostile to his peers and subordinates.

Kind of a cliche, but aspire to be the best version yourself every day. Learn from the successes and failures of others, but don't aspire to be anyone else because eventually you'll be very disappointed.

The gist is, when you find your biggest flaw, work on it, and repeat; you’ve already gone great distance.

I knew Aaron back in my IRC days. He hung out with us to talk about RDF for a good couple of years. We chatted almost every day.

He was lovely. And a genius. Maybe he changed, but he was a truly nice person.

Yeah, definitely not a statement on Aaron himself. More a statement on idolizing people. There will always be instances where they didn't live up to what people think of them as. I think Aaron was fine and a normal human being.

That's what happens to martyrs. They become larger than life and history remembers an idealized version of them

* Swartz

But yes.

(Except for the tragic ending, of course.)

If more would be like him, there might be a happy ending.

Agreed.

Don't sell your soul, is all.

But survive. This too will pass.

Indeed

Why should kids aspire to be like Aaron if it is not rewarded in our society? Comparing with such "kings" as Altman or Musk.

Why should anyone aspire to do what is rewarded over what they believe in and what will satisfy them?

Not everything virtuous is rewarded monetarily but we aspire to be virtuous, no?

Modern society has stopped to aspire of being virtuous a long time ago. Unfortunately, that's nowadays a minority view.

Aaron was not happy. Neither is Trump, or Musk. I don’t know if Bernie is happy, or AOC. Obama seems happy. Hilary doesn’t. Harris seems happy.

Striving for good isn’t gonna be fun all the time, but when choosing role models I like to factor in how happy they seem. I’d like to spend some time happy.

I think it’s fairly crazy that you believe you have an authentic view into the happiness levels of these people.

I used the word ‘seem’ three times. I think it’s pretty unremarkable to report a personal impression without any claim of special insight.

If human beings could be categorized as Happy/Not Happy the world would be a very boring place and life not worth living.

Musk looks happy throwing his hand from the heart to the sun.

Try to imagine a society where people only did things that were rewarded. Could such a society even exist? Thought experiment: make a list of all the jobs, professions, and vocations that are not rewarded in the sense you mean, and imagine they don't exist. What would be left?

You mean better pay for teachers? It would be nice.

(Since we are dreaming, can I add sane hours for medical doctors (like <= 8 per day)?)

Teachers, sure. But what about janitors & garbage collectors, paramedics, farm laborers, artists, librarians, musicians, case managers, religious/spiritual leaders?

I don't need to imagine. Teachers almost everywhere around the globe have poor salaries. In my country there are lower enrolment requirements to universities to become a school teacher than almost every other field of study. Means the dumbest students are there.

And then later they go to the school to teach our future, working with high stress and low salary.

Same with medical school in many countries where healthcare is not privatized. Insane hours, huge responsibilities and poor pay for doctors and nurses in many countries.

Nowadays everyone wants to be an influencer or software developer.

For teachers, sure. For medical doctors, in USA or Europe, I think they are much more paid than sw engineers.

In east EU, like Poland sw engineer makes two-three times more than a doctor with much less of effort, education and no responsibility.

And nurses - they work at minimal salary in Poland. Even in USA if you count hourly rates it will be quite poor salary for nurses.

We need them to help us build a better society.

Looks like we need salesmen much more as we value their work more.

We’re just terrible at pricing negative externalities and rewarding positive ones

Because kids' brains are not as poisoned into believing the most profitable things to do are the most meritorious. Not yet, anyway.

Because only one person can be king, but everybody can participate and contribute. Also there's too many things out side of just being "the best" that decide who gets to be king. Often that person is a terrible leader.

Upvoted not because I agree, but I think it‘s a valid question that shouldn‘t be greyed out. My kids dream job is youtube influencer, I don‘t like it but can I blame them? It‘s money for nothing and the chicks for free.

Tragedy of current days. No one wants to be a firefighter, astronaut or a doctor. Influencers everywhere! Can you blame kids? Do you know firefighters who earns million dollars annually?

AaronSw exfiltrated data without authorization. You can argue the morality of that, but I think you could make the argument for OpenAI as well. I'm not opining on either, just pointing out the marked similarity here.

edit: It appears I'm wrong. Will someone correct me on what he did?

Arguing for the morality of OpenAI is a little bit harder given their history and actions in the last few years.

One argument would be means to an end, with the end being the initial advancement of AI.

Again, I'm not offering an opinion on it.

This is an argument, but isn't this where your scenario diverges completely? OpenAI's "means to an end" is further than you state; not initial advancement but the control and profit from AI.

Yes, they intended for control and profit, but it's looking like they can't keep it under control and ultimately its advancements will be available more broadly.

So, the argument goes that despite its intention, OpenAI has been one of the largest drivers of innovation in an emerging technology.

> edit: It appears I'm wrong. Will someone correct me on what he did?

He didn't do it without authorization.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz

> Visitors to MIT's "open campus" were authorized to access JSTOR through its network.

He wasn't authorised to access the wiring closet. There are many troubling things about the case, but it's fairly clear Aaron knew he was doing something he wasn't authorised to do.

> He wasn't authorised to access the wiring closet.

For which MIT can certainly have a) locked the door and b) trespassed him, but that's a very different issue than having authorization to access JSTOR.

At that same link is an account of the unlawful activity. He was not authorized to access a restricted area, set up a sieve on the network, and collect the contents of JSTOR for outside distribution.

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