I want to change the focus here from all the negativity that was existent in HN to some positive stuff -- andrewljohnson's defense of Aaron, which now shows his incredible insight.
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.
> 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.
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.
God dam I hate the term "man up", it really is a hugely degrading phrase. If someone is having a hard time and asks for the help the worst thing you can do is tell them to "man up" or "get over it".
Thank you, not sure I could have phrased it any better. I'm not sure many of us will ever fully understand what Aaron went through, something obviously dark enough that he felt the only way out was to take his own life. If some of the condolences and sympathy on offer right now had been given back then maybe a brilliant mind would still be alive. Hopefully all of us will think twice before dismissing calls of help with "man up" from now now.
Depends on the context and situation. Between friends, its a pretty good phrase to tell your buddy (regardless of sex), to be the responsible party and take some positive actions. I would never say it to a stranger or someone I didn't know well, but to a friend that needs to hear it, yes.
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.
I don't see how anyone can read that phrase in that thread as referring to Aaron's _depression_. It was entirely in the context of taking responsibility for his _activism_, and under a presumption that he had considerable resources.
Something particularly bugs me about edw519's comments in the thread you linked to and the recent one about the tragedy -- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5047571. It's an odd contrast.
Where is the contrast? edw519's past remarks remain consistent with the one you've linked to in your comment. Expressing the idea that Aaron should be expected take responsibility for his actions does not imply any ill will on edw519's part.
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?
I don't seem to have commented on those threads. But if I had, most of my thoughts now are similar to how they were then.
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.
An unforseen event will make you regret critising [Apple/SteveJobs/Qualcomm/bananas]. In otherwords... stop trying to assign blame to someone for this. We didn't know his intention, nor is anyone directly responsible for it..
It sucks that he killed himself, but its not something you could have prevented unless you were there.
It is an interesting thread...I had wondered why Aaron hadn't beat the drum for support but clearly he hadn't yet won the support of the community...I didn't post in that thread but I could see myself thinking, "He's a successful startup guy, why does he need our money?"...which apparently fueled some of the skepticism back then. I guess it's worth keeping in mind when assessing MIT's soul-searching: how many of the people involved then also thought, "This privileged bratty kid can take his lumps?" and let the issue roll as it did?
I wondered the same and checked out the submissions & comments of AaronSw. He had stopped commenting 140 days ago.
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).
I view HN as a community/forum of mostly "business hackers" (for obvious reasons: startups, duh). By analogy, I wonder: would a "business hippie" be more or less sympathetic to the original "hippie" goals? In either case, while I don't consider business and hippie/hacking to be a contradiction, I do think it's a tenuous combination that can easily re-frame one's original values unsympathetically.
This might the single most illuminating comment here about how this tragedy was allowed to reach its terrible conclusion. It perfectly illustrates the indifference towards unjust laws as long as they concern somebody else.
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.
Sometimes it takes a shock for people to reconsider their position, especially if what they're really doing is defending their own lack of action. Let's not run to judge the people who posted in that thread many months ago.
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.
My first thought on hearing about his death was thinking of the picture of the boycotters singing together in the Montgomery jail. We don't have songs of solidarity any more. Instead it's months of indictments and pre-trial proceedings and motions and legal fees, all over things we didn't even see happen in the first place, in a snarky community that will tear people down at least 50% of the time. I can't really think of a less effective resistance strategy.
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.
I don't know that they would, or that they should. Aaron's actions were not a matter of some simple black & white reasoning. Some of the comments come across as harsh criticism for someone who has recently passed, but these were comments before he passed. The context cannot be separated from the content in this case.
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.
If you are going to advocate free information transmission, then you better open up your finances to prove you are bankrupt if you ask for funding. Especially if you are successful.
Our government is sick because our culture is sick, and our culture is sick because masses of individuals are sick, and few of them want to look in a mirror. And I am most definitely thinking about many of the posters here at HN.
I think the takeaway here is to stop assuming you know entirely what is going on and give people the benefit of the doubt. There may be more factors involved than the ones you see; in fact, there always are -- something HN is notorious for not doing (read: AirBnB, Dropbox, etc, etc, etc, etc).
Word. I have been refuted, disproven, turned around 180, subsequently enlightened when more is revealed so many times on so many issues... It's embarrassing.
I'm trying very hard to be less of an outspoken opinionated blowhard.
So this is on the OP, which quotes the Lessig post:
> 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?
This question, along with the question why the EFF didn't fund Aarons' defense are close to the heart of all this. I've sent dr. Lessig an email asking for some enlightenment, I don't expect an answer (he's got other stuff on his plate right now) but I really would like to know what that was all about. It seems important.
Presumably the problem wasn't in asking for funds, the problem was in explaining why the funds were necessary. I read a recent story, probably linked here on HN, about how standard procedure for the Justice dept. is to freeze all your funds so you can't afford adequate representation, then dump so much paperwork on you that you have no chance to defend yourself. All of this would have been facts related to the case which the judge could easily gag.
This is TechCrunch playing the role of Jerry Springer.
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.
> the fact is that suicide is simply a symptom of mental illness, and nothing else.
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.
grandalf's comment is inaccurate, but it's also a sort of understatement to say that mental illness "is a factor in some attempted suicides or completed suicides". It's by far the biggest factor.
> 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)]
I attempted suicide at age 17. I am very clear it was due to social and physical factors, not mental illness. I blogged about that yesterday. I doubt you care, but this accusation of "he was merely mentally ill, the way he was being treated by people doesn't matter" is something I think is pure evil and merely an excuse to say "not my problem" and cover your ass.
Not merely mentally ill. Mental health in general should be taken more seriously. Many of our institutional systems (schools, prisons, etc.) are not conducive to habits that promote good mental health. Please be assured I am not dismissive of the importance of it.
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.
As the OP of the HN thread in question, the response then saddened me. But that pales in comparison to the grief I feel now. I hope HN takes this as an opportunity to reflect and introspect.
On the one hand, it is probably unlikely that HN could have done much to prevent Aaron's death. He was facing a terrible situation, one that he could not bear to face, and I doubt anyone here could have substantially changed his situation.
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.
I dunno...as you say, having a community behind you, especially one you count yourself a respected member of, feels much better than going at it alone. I don't know if I had read his defense fund thread and didn't care enough to register a comment or just missed it...either way, I feel a little guilty of not inquiring more about how his case was actually going. I didn't know him personally but was absolutely crushed to hear the news, more than I had imagined I would be.
I distinctly remember that thread, and not commenting. I was disappointed at the responses. I had given a small amount towards his defense fund since I thought his goals were worthwhile. I consider it a privilege to have contributed.
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
That Edmund Burke quote just spurred me to donate $X (where X=a substantial amount relative to my income) to Demand Progress in Aaron's memory. Thanks.
Readit News
Deleted Comment
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529484
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.
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.
Dead Comment
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?
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.
Some calling him to face what he was directly responsible for and some going as far as siding with the prosecution.
It sucks that he killed himself, but its not something you could have prevented unless you were there.
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).
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.
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.
There's lots of people they can help fight for now.
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.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4528083
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=79982
"Is Aaron Swartz the Paris Hilton of Web 2.0?"
> I wonder what Swartz will be like when he's 40.
...
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?
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.
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...
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.
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