Aaron Swartz, Asking For Help, 119 Days Ago
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
> I sincerely hope that he gets the punishment he deserves which should be a firm slap on the wrist. I'm uncomfortable with the idea of him getting any jail time
I'm starting to suspect that HN discussions have a pretty strong snowball effect where it begins to seem like everyone agrees with the early comments near the top.
It sucks that people were so harsh in the first thread. One big takeaway from Aaron's story for me, is that whenever someone is facing federal prosecution, consider that a huge risk factor for stress and mental breakdown, and err on the side of sympathy. This also reaffirms my principle of siding with individual humans (Aaron) over institutions (JSTOR, MIT, DOJ). I'm not out to get anyone if they're the former inflicting a minor institutional flesh wound on the latter.
There are several 'patterns' that have emerged over the years, the snowball is definitely one of them, especially if one of the first commenters is one with name recognition on HN
> This also reaffirms my principle of siding with individual humans (Aaron) over institutions (JSTOR, MIT, DOJ).
I've tried to make that point elsewhere but unsuccessfully.
I hold a lot of the same views as Aaron. This is especially true in the case of the PACER incident, which is speculated to have been a source of the malice on display from the Justice Department, but I also recognize that a lot of the reasoning presented by edw519 and tptacek (just a couple of examples) is sound. It's entirely possible for there to be sound arguments on both sides of a discussion.
Definitely agree that both sides of an argument can have good points. If you don't see that as being the case here, maybe read this: http://lesswrong.com/lw/gz/policy_debates_should_not_appear_..., which is part of the "Politics is the Mind-Killer" series on LessWrong.
So, to an outside observer, you might suggest that these users game Hacker News but the real answer is that they have an audience. It's debatable whether that's their fault, on a case-by-case basis, though.
Then you could probably say it goes the other way: a large part of the community feels a certain way because Ed says so (in the top position), or Thomas says so. I've noticed the atmosphere of a thread change after a comment from a "well-known" person is left, rather rapidly on occasion. The momentum of a community like Hacker News is an interesting study, and although I didn't get an opportunity to watch the thread under the microscope, I bet a large part of it was shaped by Ed's comment.
Recently I've learned how Hacker News threads are living organisms, and I've noticed the impact of the commentary that I make. If you pay close attention, you'll be surprised at how the thread evolves and grows, particularly based upon what's in the top position.
It took some work, but I managed to corner him.
I didn't want to lose this argument because he was trying to make me look foolish when I was technically right. Since he has a lot of street cred, I feared that a lot of people would take his ramblings as correct.
And some did. I got at least three down votes on the first message.
There are many factors that could contribute to a power law for karma distribution. One conjecture is that other users tend to "trust" high-karma users and therefore tend to upvote their comments just because they have high karma.
Another is that high-karma users receive gratification from using HN and therefore use it more. Which leads to getting more karma.
Either of the two conjectures I advanced could explain a small number of users having a disproportionate amount of Karma.
High-karma users have followers. I've left comments on very old stories in out-of-the-way places and found them voted up. So we accumulate karma faster in part because people are simply more likely to see our posts, because they go out of their way to do so.
high karma people have a halo effect (while that sounds a little like one of the others ones mentioned) I think it's distinct.
I had an experience the other week with the halo effect as follows.
I was somewhere and struck up a conversation with a man that I believed to be the actual head of a top 10 law firm in the US (a distant relative who I met for the first time). With a private jet, home in Aspen and a few thousand lawyers under him. While I was talking to him, I was noticeably aware of literally how important he seemed on one hand, and how "down to earth" he seemed on the other. (He actually didn't seem that sharp to go with who I believed him to be, in a George Bush kind of way.)
But the halo was still there (I was doubting my instincts all along).
After speaking to him for 45 minutes or so I asked for his card. It turned out that he wasn't the head of the firm, he was the son of the head of the firm (he was a senior partner none the less).
Or are you suggesting this is what people actually do, to the point of upvoting a comment past all others to the number 1 position. In this second case, I think you have a long way to go to prove your point.
Relative ranking of comments are not opinion polls and should not be construed as such. 'The HN community' is rarely of one measurable mind about anything. Finally, caring much about what the net-total click-voting is on any particular item may be a sign of misplaced priorities or insecurities. What's right and what's good is not dependent on anyone's polling.
I'm honestly baffled by this question. He didn't just not support what Aaron did, he treated him badly when he requested help and discouraged others from helping. ("man up?" it's difficult to be more contemptuous in so few words.)
After reading that original post I wouldn't have called this newer post a contrast. I would have just assumed that his "OH NO" post was an expression of sarcasm from a very, very mean person. I am happy to assume that others are correct and that this probably isn't the case, but still, the contrast is very clear.
It isn't, please take my word for it. Ed is definitely one of the good guys and mean is an adjective I'd never ever use to refer to him. He's helped countless people here with his insights and care and I'm pretty sure that if he could take that stuff back that he would do so. Words said carelessly can come back to haunt you, the only way to avoid that is to never speak, or to only speak in weasel words. Ed is not very good at weasel words and I consider that a good thing.
I _do_ find the need people have to defend the indefensible (namely his original post) troubling, but I suppose it's not my problem...
Did you feel bad when Steve Jobs died, even if just for his family and friends? Did you ever say anything critical of Steve Jobs? That doesn't make it a contrast...
You're not reading carefully enough. The post we're discussing goes beyond disagreeing with what Aaron did. That's not the issue. The expression of contempt - "man up" - and the message that asking one's friends for help is a mistake is troubling.
Why does this issue have to be made into something so polarizing? With many here, it's either you believe Aaron should've been able to walk away scot-free, or you support an oppressive, overreaching, corrupt government, and the efforts to limit free access to information. Isn't it?
NOBODY KNEW THESE DETAILS AT THE TIME. Aaron was apparently prevented from sharing them. They are shocking. It is not reasonable to get angry at people for reasoning through questions and failing to account for secret information.
I've taken that lesson to heart personally, just from this thread alone.
No, but he did assume he was asking for funds simply because he
wasn't manning up
Do people need to start including disclaimers when they comment? "This comment is based on my understanding of the situation as presented by the article and would be revised if new things come to light that are not included in this article"?
Let's try this on for a little more discomfort: what do you think the odds are that Aaron himself read the comments of a few threads posted here about his case?
Your entire argument here seems predicated upon people absolutely needing to comment on things that they have no special knowledge of. I don't think that's very defensible.
About 100% or so. That's the bit that hurts the most.
The simple solution is this: If you're going to say something positive, absent information feel free to do so.
On the other hand, if you're going to say something negative you'd better make damn sure you know what it is that you're talking about. If you don't those words might take on a life of their own at some unspecified point in the future.
No discussion mean no learning.
Hindsight is 20/20, and perhaps knowing Aaron was the type who would do something like this would prevent someone from commenting entirely, but it wasn't necessarily a stupid comment to make.
I have no idea why you're making excuses for him based on his not understanding the situation. Can't he speak for himself?
You are asking people to not jump to conclusions about people who jumped to conclusions.
I had no idea it was that high. I think few of us did.
If I had seen that conversation (I missed it) and known that fact back then (I didn't), I'd have definitely corrected Ed at that point.
Also shocking is that the purported punishment is so far out of line with what people have gotten in the past. Based on previous examples like Robert Morris (accidentally shut down most of the Internet) and Randal Schwartz (cracked passwords for many accounts at Intel - yes I'm aware of the extenuating circumstances) I would not have expected any jail time to be involved for this "crime".
That shocking discrepancy is why I was so fast to sign the petition to fire this particular prosecutor.
Fully in support of his goals. Mixed feelings about his methods. Thinking that civil disobedience gains some of its moral authority from being willing to pay a price. But that the price in this case was completely out of proportion to the violation. Thinking that the feds never should have been involved.
Pretty much where I am now, with the added anger/pain about a young man who had already contributed more to the world than most people ever will being hounded to death in a showcase prosecution.
"If I had ... been asked ... whether Aaron’s actions were “wrong”, I would probably have replied that what Aaron did would better be described as “inconsiderate”. In the same way it is inconsiderate ... to download lots of files on shared wifi or to spider Wikipedia too quickly, but none of these actions should lead to a young person being hounded for years and haunted by the possibility of a 35 year sentence."
It sucks that he killed himself, but its not something you could have prevented unless you were there.
Some calling him to face what he was directly responsible for and some going as far as siding with the prosecution.
And some of the comments on that submission are just downright acerbic. I'm sure Aaron would've checked them and decided HN wasn't going to help him (honestly after such reaction, why would anyone think otherwise).
Even so, these careless and unfounded words must have hurt tremendously, much more so than had nothing been said at all.
It angers me to think that HN could have contributed in any way to the dark place Aaron ended up reaching. More so because many of those comments bothered me at the time and I neither knew Aaron nor the severity of the situation. They were unwarranted even in absence of the full story.
Anyone who's suffering should avoid negative sentiment or you'll just find more reasons to be depressed.
It was a fundraising post for legal defense. Not a plea of mental health distress. People expressed negative opinions of the request, some in light of the presumed financial position of the defendant. Are we seriously discussing review of those remarks simply for their psychological supportiveness?
I don't see where it matters if you can tell if someone will bring drama or not. It is pretty disrespectful to assume that someone making strong/emotional statements is merely a drama queen. They usually have their reasons for feeling strongly.
The women I have hung out with haven't taken offense when they had the phrase used on them, and one did use it on me (it was something I needed to hear at the time although I was in a bit of a snit for a couple of days because of her saying it).
Thinking about it, there are a lot of phrases and ways to express things that I wouldn't use on a message board or to people I didn't know well. To the people I know well, I'll use any phrase or approach that I think can reach them.
Also, I do not see and equivalence between "man up" and "get over it". The former is asking a friend to take some responsibility and action, the later is asking them to get beyond their feelings while assigning no responsibility.
There's lots of people they can help fight for now.
Personally, I gave up on participating in any kind of activism about 10 years ago, partly because I didn't feel we were getting anywhere and the next generation didn't seem to care. I feel pretty uncomfortable about that now.
It's also mostly fueled by indifference and self-interest, not activism. Most file sharers just don't care that they are breaking the law; they want to do what they want to do. If these laws are to ever change we're going to need to start downloading and sharing on the Capital Steps, or get arrested for printing free books for poor kids. We are going to need to be prepared to go to jail ahead of time, before they decide to come after us. That way people like Aaron who don't have the support network and preparation aren't the only ones facing this.
Unfortunately, in my experience the existing activist networks are not the place to start. The anarchists just want to relive the 70's, labor is watching their power dwindle and is focused myopically on the little that remains, poverty campaigners are burned out from fighting years of losing battles and the Occupy, anti-globalization and professional activists seem perfectly happy to march just to be doing anything at all. Many people can agree on the problems, but few people can agree on the solutions (much less small, concrete steps to get there) and so they don't accomplish anything. In intellectual "property" rights laws, however, I think we have a well-defined problem where direct action could be effective.
And to all those people that suggested seeing things from prosecution's vantage point -- now might be the time to also consider how Aaron might have felt reading those comments.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=79982
"Is Aaron Swartz the Paris Hilton of Web 2.0?"
EDIT- dcurtis says Aaron is egotistical in his blog posts, as a comment on a post that asks what Aaron has ever done. The parallel to recent threads about dcurtis is eerie, to be honest. It's jarring enough that it should make everyone on all sides of that issue take a step back and get some perspective.
As pg says in that thread, egotism is a common flaw in bright youths. Perhaps some...not tolerance exactly, as guidance away from the flaw is a reasonable response, but maybe a realization that it's to be expected. And in the big picture, maybe it shouldn't really count much against them anyway.
If you are referring to other stuff: What else happened in the last 3 days that bugs you?
> I wonder what Swartz will be like when he's 40.
...
1) I don't think Aaron made more than six figures from Reddit. Soon after acquisition, he went on walkabout, and then he got canned. He probably got some money, but did not vest most of his share. So, don't worry - he's poor enough for your pity and support.
2) As to your second line of thought, that we should punish him because he consciously broke the law... I disagree with anyone on this forum who says that Aaron didn't know the potential consequences of his actions, and therefore should not be punished. But I also disagree with you.
This was a victimless crime, and the only ones pursuing it are some relentless G-men. Where is the corporation or person that has been wronged? Who, in the public, wants to pillory Aaron? What did Aaron gain? Do we really need to make an example of him, so this doesn't happen again? Is this really good a use of taxes?
My reaction is just shame and disgust... I mean, really? This brilliant kid is going to jail because of civil disobedience? Just so we can show there is still a book than can be thrown?
The prosecution's perspective is warped by incentives - we should never care about how prosecutors feel or think - they are just tools of the people. Prosecutors need convictions, promotions, and press to succeed at their jobs. At this point, it's not JSTOR who wants this case prosecuted, it's just government agents. And they are just going through the motions.
It may be up to a jury to do the right thing - they stand a better change of being unbiased, thankfully for Aaron.
What's terrifying to me is that I could have ended up doing the same thing. You're on a fast network, you have a bunch of PDFs you want to crawl, you're particularly handy with python... why not? It's in the same ballpark as doing a site-rip.
I'm trying very hard to be less of an outspoken opinionated blowhard.
And to admit whenever I've been wrong.
> For in the 18 months of negotiations, that was what he was not willing to accept, and so that was the reason he was facing a million dollar trial in April — his wealth bled dry, yet unable to appeal openly to us for the financial help he needed to fund his defense, at least without risking the ire of a district court judge.
I never understood this assertion. Under what procedural grounds would a judge punish someone raising funds for their defense? Or is referring to more of a "the judge will be annoyed at you" kind of sanction?
"It happens that the appointed lawyer was someone of considerable reputation and experience, but the feds neutralized the appointed lawyer’s skill by pouring more than 360,000 pages of disorganized documents onto him"
In spite of the way many interest groups are trying to make Aaron's suicide into a symbol, the fact is that suicide is simply a symptom of mental illness, and nothing else.
Unless we have reason to believe otherwise, most of us assume that those whose actions/views we discuss on HN are of normal (average) mental health.
So while Aaron's death is jarring, it's the mental illness that is jarring and not the nuanced view expressed by edw519.
TC must be hurting for clicks/readership these days. I think that story (sadly the current top story on HN) is a new low.
Also, people can have lapses in their mental health and then recover.
There are also most certainly lots of factors that can push people to their limits. I do note that you were not successful in committing suicide, and in the name of discussion I might ask (if it weren't inappropriate to do so) why you were not successful in committing suicide. I have done a few thought experiments about suicide and it seems that some methods routinely fail while others never do.
Thanks for sharing your story, and I apologize if my comment came off as insensitive or as an attempt to washy my hands of the key issues. I'm strongly opposed to the kind of stuff that was being done to Aaron fwiw.
I still find your remarks objectionable. Severe duress often cannot be clearly distinguished from "mental illness". I have seen too many stories where someone was dismissed as paranoid, a drama queen, mentally ill, making shit up, etc where it later turned out their "dramatics" were 100% true.
I 100% agree with this in terms of its accuracy in describing the symptoms. And I do not think mental illness should be stigmatized any more than other illnesses should be (which is not at all).
The key though is that once mental illness occurs, rationality goes out the window. To a large extent causality goes out the window. You can't persuade a clinically depressed person to cheer up using a rational argument, the brain chemistry is going to overrule your rationality.
So my intent in my initial comment was to draw a distinction between Aaron's explainable behavior (that which was derived from his rational process) and his unexplainable behavior (that which was derived from his brain chemistry getting out of whack and his conclusion that taking his own life was a good decision).
I realize my sentiment ignores the possibility that the suicide was a direct and rational response to the prosecutors' tactics.
Peace. And have an upvote.
However stress is stress. People of any IQ feel stress from a variety of factors. One purpose of the human emotional system is to deal with stress and to respond appropriately... sometimes this means flight, sometimes fight, sometimes take a deep breath, etc. Healthy emotional development is separate from IQ and very dependent on genetics and environment.
Pretty much anyone who isn't completely average in all respects is going to find some kinds of interactions with other humans stressful. So I think that it's tough to make the case that certain traits like high IQ are inherently more stressful or make a person more likely to display mentally unhealthy behavior.
Which is why I think there is a general quality of mental health, which can get better or worse in the same person over time (and can change quickly and slowly)... which is an accurate descriptor of the meta factors that contribute to the proper functioning of the person's cognitive and emotional systems to respond to the inevitable stresses of daily life.
A minor nitpick: In UK law we have the Mental Capacity Act. People must not be seen as lacking capacity to make decisions just because they have a mental health illness. Even someone detained against their will under section of the Mental Health Act can make decisions about their care.
But your point - "People with major depression and suicidal thinking probably lack capacity to make a rational decision about suicide" is true.
I did want to mention that the new DSM (and even the current one) does cover situations such as yours. I understand the reluctance to call duress (whether that be social, emotional, etc) "mental illness" and surely an argument can be made that it is not, however in some ways it is.
I think the real point here is that there are forms of therapies that can help someone through these tough times. Of course that takes finding the right psychologist; which takes effort.
Anyways, the main reason I commented was just to say that "mental illness" doesn't necessarily mean you are crazy or have a chemical imbalance. It is a much broader term. The opening paragraph on the wiki page for mental illness describes it well.
Have a great day/evening/whatever.
Great to hear you are doing well otherwise.
Which makes it a useless definition, in my book.
This is simplistic and wrong.
Mental illness is a factor in some attempted or completed suicides.
But is mental ill health the only factor? No. There are many things that contribute to someone attempting suicide. Significant factors include debt, relationship breakdown, recent release from a MH hospital, previous attempts at suicide, a relative who completed suicide, etc.
Many people have mental ill health, and not all of them kill themselves. The difference between the people who try suicide and those who don't is not severity of illness, but severity of other pressures.
> More than 90 percent of people who die by suicide have [depression and other mental disorders, or a substance-abuse disorder (often in combination with other mental disorders)]
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/suicide-in-the-u...
And who are the screaming people making asses of themselves on the show?
On the other, I can think of few things worse than facing a terrible situation, and feeling like you're doing so completely alone. The amount of speculation and analysis of Aaron's case here on HN was absurd (at one point prompting my only comments on the matter, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4544693), and yet for all that analysis and speculation, there were ever so few comments that came out fully in Aaron's support.
Then he takes his own life, and suddenly it's torches-and-pitchforks for the prosecuting team, it's "why didn't he ask for help", it's "this was unjust", it's "this was unfair", it's "why didn't he have more support". I felt saddened by the news, but I also felt a rising amount of bile for the HN community, and I'm glad that nikcub and Arrington have shone a light on this.
Now, I wish I had given more, and I wish I had commented on that thread.
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke
Your job is to find things that suck and call them on it/make them better. Unfortunately this tends to carry over into all aspects of life, that we can be/are overly critical of everything. Look at almost any great tech/design mind - they can be overly cynical at times.
One of the skills I respect most in a technical person is when they can say, "I hate this, but I love this" at the same time. Or better yet, "You're good at what you do, but this isn't your best work. X is good, but Y really sucks, fix the Y."
Honestly we have a long way to go regarding dealing with people.
His case was muddy. He did a few things that most of us would never do without expecting to be punished. He deserved a slap on the wrist, not to be robbed of his assets and locked up for years.
I think HN would have rallied to his cause after we realized how disproportionate the punishment was. I remember personally thinking things seemed weird, but was naively optimistic that it would turn out fine.
Lesson learned, the very hard way: it can't hurt to rally around someone even if they're not 100% in the right, if it looks like they're being bullied.
The notion that Aaron's legal position caused his suicide is an opinion of many people on this board. Despite the numbers of those holding this opinion, it is still only an opinion, and needn't be read as fact for any other analysis or opinion. The insistence that everyone hold _your_ opinions for all of _their_ opinions and moral calculations is, at very best, deeply problematic.
These "opinions" are shared by his family, read the statement.
_You_ are problematic.
I don't mind causing problems for people doing that.
I am terribly sorry for the family and their loss. But that loss does not make them arbiters of responsibility.
Neither do the needs of any cause give anyone the right to dictate what others think or conclude or hold as fact. I could agree with your "cause" 100% and I would still, I hope, oppose this sort of demand for mindless conformity with "correct" opinion.
To hold him, or anyone else for that matter, hostage to what he said 120 days ago is dishonest.
24 points in 26 minutes should have this article in the #2 slot, not #26. Is HN downmodding because it doesn't like the mirror?
#pts hr min
130 2 0
382 6 0
146 3 0
24 1 0
20 0 56
120 4 0
165 5 0
57 2 0
82 4 0
52 3 0
165 6 0
15 1 0
65 3 0
93 5 0
26 2 0
232 10 0
35 3 0
171 8 0
26 3 0
73 6 0
24 3 0
20 2 0
68 6 0
24 0 26
194 11 0
28 4 0
115 9 0
Before: "Aaron should man up, take responsibility for his actions, and pay his own bills."
Then: Aaron can't pay his bills, decides to take one form of responsibility and kills himself.
Now: "OH NO! Stunned & heartbroken." "Thank you, Cory. This wonderful post will bring understanding (and maybe even comfort) to many of us who are sad and confused today. It will also probably save some lives."
It's not that Ed is to blame for Aaron killing himself, it's that there's a marked change in sentiment and sympathy after his death.
Did it really have to take Aaron killing himself for us to change our sympathies towards him? It seems not many of us really cared that much until he hung himself - and now we can't stop talking about him.
So the point I'd like to make is there's something wrong with a world that only cares after you kill yourself. Maybe Aaron even made the right choice is this is really how it works. Otherwise he might have quietly lived out his 50 years in prison and died later and no one would have given a shit the entire time. At least now this is getting some attention.
After researching founders for my interviews I can tell you that it's easy to make anyone look bad based on old posts. It's much harder to stay focused on what's important.
Paul Graham also mentioned somewhere that he's been collecting examples of "middlebrow dismissal" as a common kind of default response, in an attempt to understand/combat the phenomenon.
The real value, for me in HN, is on topics where real discussions take place and other users are able to produce more information on topics, not so much where highly rated, articulate power users grace us with their opinions.
I will do my best to avoid reading anything written by Arrington from now on.
Considering the outcome... Does anyone know an example of what judges do when defendants appeal openly for financial help? Was this really good legal advice?
Again, please don't put too much weight on this, it is purely speculative but it is the best I've been able to come up with so far.
A quote on this subject: "One of the most important reasons for not selecting a member of the panel to sit on the jury is prior knowledge of the case."
Source:
This seems very unjust, when the prosecutors love to hold a media circus where the handcuffed "perp walk" is the star attraction.
That's the way hackers work and speak - and that sort of frankness is one of the major reasons that HN remains outstanding in terms of signal vs noise. We don't escape everything with weasel words and second-guess the way it's going to be interpreted. Commenters say what they think. Voters agree or disagree.
Yes, it comes back to haunt people. Yes, people are wrong on here every single day. But that's the nature of the discourse, and it will be a sad day if HNers start to worry about voicing their opinion because it could be taken the wrong way.
And, to pre-empt what I know will come, NO-ONE ever has all the facts. Ever. If we needed all the facts before we formed an opinion then we would have none.
Unfortunately, it means that when you jump into a new thread and contravene your other clearly-stated positions, it's a rather transparent attempt to get more attention.
You're not part of Aaron's family, you're not related, and your own words were pretty clear as to what you thought about the guy: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529484.
For the love of all things good, can people who didn't care in the first place about Aaron or his cause stop their fake sympathy now that he is dead? I didn't do anything for him either, but not going to cry any crocodile tears to show everyone how politically aware and smart I am.
A person can disagree with an individual's actions and still be sad when that person passes away.
There was no need for this by techchrunch. In fact this article is useless, and complete bullshit.
This article does nothing productive, it adds no value to anything, but only takes away from the whole situation.
One thing that's been bugging me is how, to be blunt, intellectually lazy so many people seem to have been about this whole thing, especially the case against Aaron. Everyone is looking for the easy answer, the soundbite that wraps the whole thing in a bow. I thought that HN was a bit smarter than that, that's a sucker's game, it's a game for tabloids and cable news, not a way for smart people to approach complex problems. And this is a complex problem with no easy answer. The case against Aaron was complex. The law involved was complex. And the application of the law was also complex. It's not as easy as "he was innocent!" or "he was guilty!", because even if either one were easily established in the "court of public opinion" then that's really only the starting point of several much more difficult questions.
I think it's probably fair to say that guilty or not the prosecution was overzealous, as the sorts of punishments he faced was all out of proportion to what one would expect for a white collar crime, even one potentially involving thousands of dollars of losses.
In the same vein people have been reacting to this tragedy by trying to find scapegoats. Whether that's the prosecutor, or edw519, or MIT, or whomever. I don't think I need to spend time addressing why that sort of behavior is a bad idea.
Going back and looking at the comments in the older thread about Aaron's legal troubles I've spotted a few instances of several trouble behaviors that I've noticed have become more and more common. One, the idea that "rich" people are less deserving of sympathy because of their wealth. I've seen this in the rise of the "99%" mentality and other phenomena. Personally I don't think there is any amount of wealth that renders an individual's pain and suffering unworthy of caring about. Two, the idea that punishment is reasonable after being charged but before being sentenced, or infliction of pain and suffering in general as a response to crimes. You see this sort of thing in support for torture, support for poor conditions in jail, sympathetic depictions of police brutality in fiction, public approval of widespread sexual assault in prisons, etc. And you also see it in the idea that there's nothing wrong with a trial being a punishing, life-altering, resource draining experience.
I think these sorts of things are antithetical to the ideals of liberty, equality, justice, rehabilitation, etc. that we should desire our societies rest upon, rather than base instincts like jealousy, revenge, punishment, retribution, schadenfreude, etc.
I don't think this saga bears much, if any, similarity to a fight between absolute heroes and absolute villains. I think that even in as much as the prosecutor was overzealous it's as much a systemic problem of the way that computer and IP related "crimes" are perceived and handled by the criminal justice system as it is to be due to any ill-will or villainy on her part.
I'd much rather we, HN and the tech community in general, were taking the time to talk through the details of the case more carefully, discussing the details of the relevant law (and whether it's well grounded, meaningful, useful, and generally well applied), and bigger issues such as IP issues, computer security issues, problems with our criminal justice system in general, etc. than looked for quick-fix easy answers and tried to fit this story into a simplistic mold. I wonder what sort of discussion Aaron would have preferred take place.
Clearly, plenty of people agreed with Ed at the time, enough that it was the highest-rating comment. Similarly, plenty of people (at least in the US) agree with tough-on-crime policies. Singling out people, name-and-shame, etc is something only relevant in so far that the actions of an individual deviate, in a bad way, from community norms. This is not the case here.
The new EFF post https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/01/aaron-swartz-fix-draco... seems particularly relevant in highlighting some of the insanity that has come to be U.S. computer crime case law.
I am suddenly reminded of a Thoreau quote that Aaron's friend Laurence Lessig used in the opening of his book, Republic, Lost - "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." I think a lot of people admire Aaron for being one of the latter.
I also remember, half a year ago, looking at his comment history that seemingly appeared as if he was fine, thinking "How is this guy taking it? If it was me I am not sure I'll be able to handle the pressure".
I realise now he was only human, like us, and everyone needs other's support in their darkest times, but it's too late.
It's saddening that a positive response to that appeal might've actually helped him - both mentally and financially.
This is a good lesson, in general. But what I love is the irony - the way people are sending out this message is by being dismissive and mean to edw519! If (God forbid) something ever happened to edw519, and someone in 4 months posted this thread, the same people condemning edw519 will b IN EXACTLY THE SAME SHOES as they think he is now. How are the people posting so blind to this?
Note: edw519 is a great person and member of this community. Despite the lesson that I believe can be learned from this post, I absolutely DO NOT think he did anything wrong, and thinking otherwise is clearly because things look different in hindsight, especially given more information. Seriously edw519 - consider this another person who is sure you did absolutely nothing wrong.
I couldn't give him much money, but it sounds like just talking to him about the case would have helped, and I doubt even people who thought he did the wrong thing or should have gone to jail to continue his protest would have begrudged him that.
Sorry, Aaron. :(
While that might have been partially what Aaron was doing, I think the headline leads you to picture a horrifying scenario in which the young man's death might have been avoided, if only the community had been more encouraging or sympathetic. Instead, you find that he was asking for financial support, and there's of course no reason to believe that sending him money could have altered the tortured course that ended with him taking his own life.
It may seem like a trivial point but in my opinion it completely warps this whole conversation. For example, suppose someone shares with you that they have been terribly depressed and contemplating suicide. In this case, I agree, telling them to "man up" is pretty bad form. But that is not exactly what happened here.
There were nasty comments about Aaron in that HN post, which got nasty replies.
There were nasty comments about Ed in this thread, which got nasty replies.
There were nasty comments about Michael in the linked post, which got nasty replies.
We can say the most criticizing things in a way that is not nasty, how? but putting question marks instead of exclamation points. By talking about facts and not opinions. By being aware that the persona we are taking about is also a person, by always thinking what if I was on the other end of that comment.
Is there any drawback in being nicer? I can't think of any. Is there any benefit for being nasty? I can't think of any either.
I didn't think much of Aaron Swartz while he was alive. Most of his writings seemed self-absorbed to me. I had difficulty understanding how someone with his politics could be a mac fanboy. People I think highly of (Chris Webber, John Sullivan) thought highly of him so I was induced to give him some benefit of the doubt on those grounds, but I certainly couldn't understand what they saw in him.
I assumed he was a millionaire with enormous resources that he was using to thumb his nose at powerful people. I felt that if I had the resources (I assumed that) Aaron had, I would use them differently.
I saw the thread about Aaron's campaign fund and I didn't post, but I did read it.
And I read Edward's comment and I agreed with it.
I knew very little about Aaron's case. But the way that fund was being put together seemed underhanded to me, like he wanted to take people's money without really acknowledging it. Is he a millionaire or not? I wondered, and if not, why doesn't he come out with it and explain what happened?
Of course now I know of the existence, from Lawence Lessig, of the bizarre Kafkaesque muzzle the judge had on Aaron, but how could anyone who wasn't very closely familiar with Aaron and his case know about that?
There's a sort of sick serendipity in this for me. Just last week I read Kafka's The Trial. The word "Kafkaesque" keeps getting thrown around but it's stunning---stupefying to me, how many parallels there are between that book and Aaron's case.
In Kafka, after the protagonist is arrested he's immediately released. The police even escort him to work and tell him to go about his life. At first he thinks that's an great thing that he wasn't hauled off in custody, but as the trial grinds on he comes to realize that being forced to live every day as the facsimile of a free man being required to do what free men are inclined to do while carrying the additional burden of dealing with his trial, is itself torture.
If anyone remembers the bruhaha around Dmitry Sklyarov, or before that DVD John or Kevin Mitnick knows that this community rallies around men sitting in jail while the authorities try to come up with a crime to charge them with. There's no doubt in my mind that if the prosecution had hauled Aaron off to jail "for downloading some PDFs" the reaction would have been swift and boisterous.
I've learned a great deal about this country's "justice" system over the past two days, and mostly I've learned about the special sort of hell it put Aaron in, and I've come to realize that I was complicit in its work through my ignorance and indifference.
And all I can say about that is I feel a little bit sick. And that it won't ever happen again.
Is it really such a shock people might inhibit their opinions after someone has just killed himself. No one expected it to get to this, Aaron probably wasn't completely innocent, And Our judicial system seems to have failed him.
Trying to polarize it into some "You're either with Aaron" or "you're against him" just means falling deeper into this cesspool of a thread.
"I agree. He was extremely foolish and arrogant at best. I don't think this belongs on HN. Also didn't he make a ton of money selling Reddit?! :/"
This topic is the backyard.
I'm not going to comment on Ed's unfortunate statements because I've been an asshat to people in the past too.
It's a terrible thing when you don't have the opportunity to apologise later.
I'm sorry for all parties involved.