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Comment by mithaler | Hacker News Reader

In the hypothetical you raise, Weev is at best an unprovoked aggressor, and at worst a bully who harasses people because he can. In contrast, MIT can reasonably claim that Swartz was the aggressor against them; he was the one who sneaked into a network closet to "liberate" JSTOR.

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We can debate whether or not MIT is a bully, though I have no interest in doing so. It seems painfully clear to me.

What I think is not debatable, unless you think humans are emotionless automatons who cannot be influenced by the treatment of others (a viewpoint seemingly being espoused by several here), is that bullies can be held partially morally^ accountable for the suicides of their victims.

^ I am not saying legally accountable.

I do not believe MIT was a bully. A bully is someone who harms others because they can; MIT was responding, I believe reasonably, to a person breaking into their network closet and violating their terms of access. That that person happened to be at risk of suicide was tragic, but not their fault; I can't even think of a way the legal system would be able to reasonably take that into account, nor can I imagine how a system of morality can indemnify a person's actions because they happen to be suicidal.

You might not think what Aaron did was morally wrong or deserving of negative repercussions, but others might reasonably disagree.

I'll give you that MIT was less the bully... and more the parent standing idly by enjoying the show. As far as I am concerned, that is an equivalent position.

> You might not think what Aaron did was morally wrong or deserving of negative repercussions, but others might reasonably disagree.

That has absolutely nothing to do with this discussion. Nothing in the slightest. If you think that is what this discussion is about, then I have to wonder what exactly you have been reading.

Whether Aaron's actions were morally wrong is irrelevant to a discussion of the morality of MIT's response to them?

Yes? Particularly if I am not making the claim that Aaron's actions were not morally wrong? It is just plain off topic.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6128690

How does one make the claim that a response to an action was disproportionate, without implicitly claiming that the action that precipitated it was a lesser evil?

Either way, I don't think either of us is ever going to convince the other of anything on that score, so it's probably best to agree to disagree on it.

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