Obviously Aaron Swartz impact on the internet, his relevance to this community and obvious closeness to many people explains it. But take away who he is and the circumstances are sadly far from rare. Aaron Swartz' ordeal is being relieved right as we speak in numerous places around America and the world.
It's just unfortunate that for many it took this long to empathise or understand their plight.
The problem with Guantanamo is the lack of legal process, and the way some people were swept up who shouldn't have been (which mostly got resolved in 2005-2006), not that many of them aren't horrible criminals. I'd be fine with prosecuting them all in federal civilian court with fair trials.
That's what makes (made?!) America so great in the eyes of many (myself included) that have never set foot in there, i.e. the concept that anyone deserves a fair trial, based on actual evidence, and that you wouldn't be f.cked up by the judicial system during the whole process (perdon my French).
That's what happened in Aaron's case, he was f.cked up by the system, at least that's how I see the initial threat of spending 35 (or was it 50?) years in prison for something that didn't involve murdering young kids and raping them after the deed. A judicial system that depends on threats (doesn't matter if they're implicit or not) gets dangerously close to pure dictatorship.
Like OP, I'm surprised to be so upset about someone I didn't know about a few days ago, but I keep reading everything by or about him, and man ! What a loss...
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529484
the top commentator in this topic, edw519, back then wasn't that reflective. hindsight is 20/20.
Maybe it hurts because seemingly reasonable, well educated people are behind this. This wasn't some looney that snapped and walked into a school with guns blazing. The people responsible are representatives (in one way or another) of the United States of America. Land of the free. Home of the brave. Supposedly good people. But they can do this (thanks to the wallets of hard working American people) and will probably get away with it? They have this kind of power? They can ruin a person's life for a victimless crime, even when the alleged 'victim' chooses not to pursue legal action? That's a devastatingly scary thought. And it's not just Carmen Ortiz and Steven Heymann. Our justice system is wrought with corruption, and that's scary, because it's probably the best justice system in the world (or at least touted as such).
By whom? The US has more citizens in prison than even China; and that is talking about absolute numbers, not even a percentage. Also, I often read posts by Americans that sarcastically mention justice going to the highest bidder. I never heard it touted as "the best", or even just "acceptably okay", for that matter.
Land of the free. Home of the brave. Supposedly good people.
That was never true, never will be, even though lots of countries and groups think that of themselves. It's like a child whistling in the dark; you don't do that because there is music all around you, but because there isn't. Actually brave and free people would never call each other, and surely not themselves that. Why, they wouldn't even have a word for it, they'd just be it.
I don't get this at all... Harvard fellow uses MIT's network surreptitiously to violate the terms of service to download a nonprofit's entire database and then give it away for free, putting them out of business. Gets busted and charged with crimes. Where's the problem here?
Ok the prosecutor may have been overzealous, but we do have an adversarial system and it was Swartz's bad decisions that brought the hammer down. They didn't plant drugs on him. He wasn't doing it to feed his family. Sorry to all the people here that knew him personally, and to whom this is a personal tragedy, but this is not the kind of travesty of justice that you are making it out to be.
Whether the gate-keeper is nonprofit or not isn't really important. In point of fact, the entire system of journals charging fees for access to academic papers is outdated and broken, and is merely a parasitic relic from an age where it cost large sums of money to print and distribute paper-based media. Remember that universities pay a fee to access journals, and sometimes even pay a fee to have their papers published in journals, all the while generating and peer reviewing the content at their own expense.
In other words we can do better. And we should do better. By releasing JSTOR's content publicly Aaron was engaging in activism for the common good. You're welcome to your opinion that he deserved the book throwing at him and a $1M legal bill, but (in my opinion) you should think again.
* Why is this a Federal crime at all? Because some computer in another state was involved? If so,then soon all crimes will be federal.
* It appears they used mostly catch-all laws. The vague wording is subject to confirmation bias where almost any action looks like a violation. This is a particular problem with laws related to computer use; but also includes laws like "obstruction of justice" and "lying to a federal agent".
* In order to have a "reasonable" sentence on the table at all, he has to give up his right to a trial.
* As far as I can tell, no damage was actually done to anyone yet.
* Since when is violating a TOS a criminal issue? Did we outsource the writing of laws to company legal teams?
Do you notice the contradiction in 'non profit' and 'putting them out of business'?
We're upset because the full legal power of the government was used as a weapon against him almost as if he was mass murderer instead of his "crime" being just setting information that was technically free in the first place, actually free.
We're upset because instead of waiting pensively for what his sentence would be and protesting what would undoubtedly be unjust, all we can do is remember who he was and triumph his cause in the hope that this won't happen again.
He didn't deserve to feel this was his only way out and he had so much more to contribute based on his past accomplishments.
I guess the problem with us identifying with Bradley Manning in comparison is he didn't do things like contribute to RSS and Markdown. But the information he set free is just as important.
No, my problem identifying with Manning was that he exposed private communications involving the State Department, which could have consequences for our foreign relations and national security. Swartz was downloading scientific journals, which is an entirely different ballgame.
Very few people believe that State Department communications should be public. So, even if you convince everyone that some injustice was done to Manning because of specific situations that called for whistle-blowing, it does not reveal any general problem in the federal justice system.
With Swartz, I think just telling his story will cause many people to realize how broken the federal justice system is.
So I would disagree about how public you think it is just because it's not on the nightly news.
A friend pointed out Aaron Swartz is our Lady Di of the hacker culture and it fits nicely.
The US (loony) laws and the US "justice system" is fueled by that blinding hysteria in which commensurability is just a muted voice of reason far away.
I wish Bradley Manning would receive this fierce reaction of an actual influential lobby like us. And he didn't take the easy way out.
I am too a cold, rational bastard and yet I've found myself fighting tears over and over these last two days. And I barely knew who Aaron was until two days ago.
But I think the OP nailed it, for me and I'm sure for many more. I can still recall when I was an idealist as a child and a young teen. But I preferred to become cynical rather than suffer from injustices in the world. Much easier to be above, untouched, than fight for change and inevitably suffer, a lot.
But we still viscerally admire somebody like Aaron, somebody who took the hard route, somebody we could have been but hadn't the courage to.
That's why we suffer so much today, the best part of us has died.
For the fly-blown words that make me spew
Still in his ears were holy,
And he was born knowing what I had learned
Out of books and slowly.
Later on he ends:
But the thing I saw in your face
No power can disinherit:
No bomb that ever burst
Shatters the crystal spirit.
However, as both a cause and a "martyr" of sorts, Aaron's death has become a rather large stick to hit both government and the copyright lobby with.
I hazard a guess that Aaron would have been happy for us all to use that stick with a vengeance.
We should keep hitting these powerful lobbies with that stick until they break or the stick breaks.
---
1. What concrete steps can people take to prevent cases like Aaron's from happening again? What enduring commitments can be made, and to what causes or organizations?
2. Who should we be listening to and supporting who is of like mind with Aaron, and has been neglected so far? Who is doing good work out of the public eye, like Aaron was?
I join you in commiseration. I'm going to look for a local organization to join in support of online freedom. Perhaps find a club to mentor promising youth in tech. I hope the Americans here will take every feasible step in correcting overzealous prosecutors (and nonetheless calling for justice where it hasn't been meted out). Aaron's passing must not be in vain.
---
So you saying 'Aaron is what I wish I was' is the correct analysis - Aaron had everything that we here strive for - he was recognized for his potential when he was a teenager, he had been accepted by YC, was part of a successful exit, was a highly respected and idealistic Internet activist and intellectual... These are the goals people strive for when they tell themselves 'if I only could achieve XYZ, then I will be happy - I will put all my energy into XYZ, because it will eventually be worth it'. The reality is more complex. Even with all these achievements, the highest potential that we can strive for can be destroyed. In his case by the beast of depression when driven by senseless persecution through the political apparatus.
Aaron was an absurd hero who chose not to revolt. He just didn't imagine himself happy, so he agonised about the futility of living with every breath he took. He remained a stranger in his own life even with each new career summit he topped. Ultimately he chose to check out thinking that was the only way from the inevitable. Tragic. It needn't have been.
Like most of the high achievers of Aaron's age, your generation has achieved so much so quickly that you've missed the barely audible slow burning whisper of your own existential questions. The din of success, of the ceaseless twittering of Twitter, of the vacuous flapping on Facebook and the daily showboating wankery of blogging has made you forget that it's the SILENCE that matters. It's the silence of your thoughts to yourself that will answer your questions. Slowly and with meditated patience.
I'm upset too. I'm upset that his parents have to deal with this tragic loss, that his surviving loved ones are looking for answers to this tragedy. I'm upset that traditional methods of calming, of seeking, of surviving are lost to this generation - a generation addicted to instantaneous Google-fed answers and one that is now gyrating to hokey lyrics like "partying & bullshit", "we're gonna die young"* ... :-(
This generation that obviously knows a great deal about internet startups and computer science, and Batman and world peace knows very little about how to answer their own questions about a meaningless existence. Their parents did it. Same shitty world, shame shitty life - they made it! How??
Finally, I now know what a pointless Sisyphean desk job has to offer to a young person: how to suffer patiently without self-destructing. How to fold, without going all in on the flop.
Much love,
AK
-----
* I like the songs, btw :-)
But excellent attempt at using someone's suicide to vent a lot of your anger at today's kids.
I didn't say that really, did I?
I've lived long enough to hear more than one case of rapid success claiming a suicide victim in the field of arts. We all know them. Many of these cases are often dismissed as some sort of underlying pathology and the rest as inevitable result of the individual's pathetic circumstance. All of course inadequate in truly explaining the "storm inside".
But guess who the high-achieving rock star child prodigies of today are, if not the erstwhile artists? The new kids have given up their piano keyboards for computer keyboards ... and there are plenty more of them in every second suburban basement than there are talented musicians, actors and artists today. And they are winning! And good for them! But some of the winners are even dreaming, no - decided, about ideals like social justice, equality, freedom. No amount of black and white binary talent will help answer the grey of these concepts that have plagued humanity since the beginning of human conscience.
Wisdom is a slow cooking dish ... that's never going to be ready. I guess you'll just have to grow up, kid.
(I'm sorry to sound patronising but there's no point in blaming the morons at MIT, the tits at JSTOR, the vindictive FEDS or the rotten capitalistic system. All really irrelevant.)
But it wouldn't, because we allow our fears to convince us to keep our thoughts to ourselves. And I am upset the very persons who are courageous enough to fight for our interest are eliminated, leaving us.
Please don't compare yourself to anyone else. It's pointless, disempowering, and generally a waste of time. Your "best you" is what I wish you wished you were.
I am a bright technologist...
You are not alone. There are many of us here, like you and like Aaron.
...but I've never built anything of note.
The things you build do not have to be famous to be "anything of note". Do people use the software you have written? Do they benefit from it? If yes, then it is most certainly "of note".
I have strong opinions about how to improve this world, but I've never acted to bring them to pass.
That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. That means you're normal. 99% of us are in exactly the same boat. We go about our daily business, taking care of ourselves and those close to us, making the world a better place in a thousand little ways.
Think of it this way. We're all just one great big football team. The Aaron Swartzs and Steve Jobs of the world are the quarterbacks and ball carriers whose names are in the press all the time. But they would accomplish little if it wasn't for those of us around them who block and tackle all day long. Don't be upset that, up to this point, you've been a blocker or tackler. Be proud. And realize that your turn to carry the ball has yet to come.
I have thoughts every day that I would share with the world, but I allow my fears to convince me to keep them to myself.
Congratulations. You have just taken the first step toward addressing that issue with that statement here on Hacker News. Now please take Step 2. Start a blog. If it's anything like this post, then I want to read it. And others, I'm sure, will want to also.
If I were able to stop being afraid of what the world would think of me, I could see myself making every decision that Aaron made that ultimately led to his untimely death.
You don't know what really led to Aaron's untimely death. No one does. The decisions you make are just one input to a complex process we still don't understand. So go easy on yourself and don't jump to unnecessary conclusions.
I am upset that we have a justice system that would persecute me the way it did Aaron.
Many of us are upset about this and a lot of other things too. But we won't allow any of them to stop us from living our lives fully. You can be upset about things in background and still have a wonderful happy life in foreground. Give it a try.
I am upset that I have spent 27 years of my life having made no discernible difference to the world around me.
I bet if I asked those close to you if the felt they same way, I'd get a resounding "No!" Maybe you should, too.
Most of all I am upset that Aaron's work here is done when there is so much more he could have accomplished.
Agreed. I guess that means that each of us now has a few more things to add to our own To Do Lists.
Thanks, John, for the great post. Best wishes for feeling better and getting on with it. Ultimately, that's what we hackers always do.
While, to a large extent, I already knew everything that you'd written, I'd like to thank you for reiterating it.
| Please don't compare yourself to anyone else. [...]
| Your "best you" is what I wish you wished you were.
Taking inspiration from someone you perceive as Y and defining X++ in the pursuit of Y is fine. Just so long as you recognize success and failure are X++ and X--.
I personally interpreted this statement in abstract terms, rather than in concrete terms: to be a builder, to have the courage to voice our beliefs, and to put our beliefs into action.
These concepts are abstracted high enough from "the actual Aaron Swartz" that they are just general positive traits. Striving to embody these traits (rather than trying to mirror Aaron Swartz, for instance) is in my opinion, health (to a limit, of course).
In that sense, "Aaron Swartz" was a personification of these abstract virtues that perhaps many of us wish we could project more strongly in our own lives.
It's very rare to see strangers stand up for each other, say a kind word, or generally just be..._nice_. Especially in semi-anonymous places like the comments section of HN. It's always a welcome change, and I hope we see a lot more of this.
It's been my experience that a lot of "bright" people are angry that the world, and the people they know, don't "live up" to their "in a perfect world," clean-room expectations. Instead of using that as fuel for empathy and character-building, they use it as a weapon and turn it outwards to attack others, or inside to stoke their own misery. Sometimes this drives them to try to achieve more and more and more to shut up the desperate voice inside, but this never works. Maybe they achieve, but achievements don't make them feel better.
This makes the whole situation sadder because everyone expects a person with achievements to be happy.
Unfortunately, sad truths about how a person contributes to his/her own troubles and miseries, aren't considered kosher or polite to mention in the wake of a tragedy. But Aaron was a complex human being and I don't think it does him any honor to whitewash the complexity.
If he'd been planning to use his own death to bring about radical change, you'd think he'd at least have arranged for a suicide note to appear on his website after he was gone, or something.
I haven't seen anything like that, and if it existed and was accessible to the public, I'm sure it would've appeared on HN's front page by now.
Then again, if he was planning this, we could account for our observations by saying maybe he mailed instructions, passwords, documents and public statements to someone he trusted to make the greatest impact with it, and that person's sitting on the information, watching the momentum build, waiting for the most effective time to release it. The noise about this has been deafeningly loud for us in the tech community for quite some time, but only in the last day or so have I noticed this story being picked up by mainstream news outlets.
Look around; the state is not your friend and it never has been, look at the statistics for democide in the previous century if you need any more proof. It's mindboggling to me that with all that goes on, when the blowback of business as usual in a modern western nation state hits closer to home people are actually shocked and amazed.
Look at the representatives of the law here on HN bleating about the nature of the offense in question as within the strictures of the law and thus beyond reproach and simply a symptom of a system that needs further tuning; This is how the state operates, this is what it runs on. Changing this fact doesn't require a simple tuning of a few dials here and there, it requires a fundamental re-examining of the central role of the westphalian nation state and the gears and levers upon which it operates in the modern world.
To be fair and admit my biases, yes, I believe castrating the beast is necessary, and this is just one more on a practically endless list of bullet points that demonstrate this.
As important as what happened here is and as much as it is nice to see people actually appearing to finally notice what is being done in their names and with their tacit consent, I simply can't see that actually happening. In a few weeks people will become resigned to the fact that they have no actual power and cannot make any actual change.
The depressing fact of the violent and compulsory nature of state authority coupled with it's extreme innate resistence to any kind of actual, real change are simply too entrenched for just this event to actually make any more difference than the millions of others just like it that ended up hitting some other tribe instead of ours.
Pity.
In a democracy, the state is what you make of it--it is your family, friends, and neigbhors. It is not some monolithic evil construct.
A much larger problem is when otherwise good people can be convinced that evil is good, and are wholesale conscripted into the commissioning thereof. Look at the statist lawyer pack currently continuously stating that this is just business as usual in this case. They're absolutely right, but that they can accept that state of affairs purely because it is done under color of law should be telling.
Any organisational structure given unlimited power and no direct oversight by market forces will historically trend toward this kind of behaviour, that is why I believe as I do that it is an innate characteristic of a state. The ability to write your own rules and modify them at will and without effective limit to power, coupled with the ability to levy compulsory fees on your "customers" is put simply a recipe for disaster. Democracy is a laughable hedge on that of power, the subversion of which on a daily basis ought to be evidence enough that this is true.
I am aware of the traditional refrain that the solution is better educated voters and less money in politics and a whole raft of other prescriptions, but I am similarly aware that they never come to pass and all attempts are made to keep the violent, psychopathic machine chugging along as it was before with nary a sideways glance for other possibilities.
The reaction from the subjects when this is pointed out to them is disappointing, but telling. I apologise if I sound overly shrill on the topic, it's not my intent, I am simply tired of seeing this pattern repeated over and over again only to have people utterly unwilling to examine the real root of the problem.
I've also been wondering about the depth of my emotion on this event. I have looked up to Aaron Swartz mildly in the past, but the turn of events and subsequent reactions have occupied my attention greatly since.
I too wish to be more like Aaron Swartz in many ways, and I too am strangely moved by his story and his passing. Reading my thoughts in someone else's blog is appreciated.
Say what you will about his activities not being in the accepted norm, or his mistakes, but the way we treat mental illness in this country is something we should be ashamed of, and I'm not just talking about the medical establishment.
It is not the right time to analyze Aaron Swartz, but if you look at what is publicly written about his tenure at Stanford, Reddit, etc., you will see what I am talking about. Is it that important? You bet.