[zalequin]

I don’t understand the cult of personality around Aaron. It’s like a self insert for people that fantasize about sticking it to the man or something; the tragic hero, the genius boy who died not realizing his potential, the man who dared to defy the authorities. Yawn.

Fact is Aaron was an angsty teen with an axe to grind with the authorities . Reading Chomsky certainly didn’t help. Acting out childishly by spreading copy righted material, getting caught and whining about how all of this is so unfair…

Look, he was no genius. Genius does not invent reddit; it invents facebook and then proceeds to take over the world because actual, real, genius understands the rules of the game.

Aaron was smart enough to understand just how fucked things are but oh so very dumb to act out on his aggressive impulses. The very same impulses that later lead him to kill himself.

Ironically his suicide accomplished far more than his technical know how could ever hope to achieve.

p.s. aaron was no hero. You dont ever want to be him and you certainly dont want your children to be him. His ideals were pure and correct, but he could not accept we’re living in a world filled with trash humans. Should’ve played the game correctly imho.

[johnny53169]

Cult of personality? Are we living on the same planet? As far as I know people talk about him a couple of time a year. No statue, no memorial.

Yeah people erase his flaws a bit, yes it's a bit annoying, but he actually tried to do something positive in his life instead of trying to get rich at any costs like that "genius" of Zuckerberg (genius for what?).

So people remember him, I doubt most people will care when Zuckerberg will die, he just didn't do anything to deserve it, your money doesn't make you a good person.

[MisterBastahrd]

Zuckerberg will be remembered in the annals of history. Swartz won't even be in a footnote.

One of the things about having ridiculous amounts of wealth is that it affords you to make a ridiculous number of bets. You only have to hit on a few to be remembered as a genius.

Just ask Tommy Edison.

[Topolomancer]

Not sure whether this is your intention, but your comment comes across as lacking some empathy. Had he been convicted, he would face 1 Million USD in fines as well as 35 years in prison. I cannot imagine what it must be like to be under such pressure. Please do not make light of the complex motives that drive people to suicide.

(and if someone is reading this who is mentally in a bad place right now, please seek out some help: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/)

[DoreenMichele]

My recollection/understanding is that the authorities/court system locked up his bank account, he was legally not allowed to say that while trying to crowd source funds to help pay his attorney and cope in the midst of the case so people jumped to the wrong conclusion and lambasted him rather than support him and his suicide followed shortly on the heels of that (like within a day or two, iirc).

He was painted into a corner with seemingly no way out.

People who are suicidal frequently have intractable problems and are frequently treated like they are merely crazy. The best way to help people who are suicidal is to not be dismissive of their very real problems and, of possible, actually be helpful. But as a baseline, don't act like it's all in their head. That actively makes it harder to solve intractable personal problems.

[tzs]

> Had he been convicted, he would face 1 Million USD in fines as well as 35 years in prison.

That's a common misconception, largely due to the ridiculous way the DoJ writes its press releases.

Each Federal crime carries a range of possible prison time. What you actually get depends on a large number of factors, such as how much damage you caused, whether or not your crime was a drug crime, past criminal history, and many others.

When the DoJ writes press releases they just add up for each charge the maximum that it is theoretically possible for someone to get from the crime if they hit all the factors that push for longer sentences and none of the factors that push for shorter sentences.

So when they arrest you for crime X and write their press release, they don't actually tell what you, the first time offender who committed a mild instance of the crime with no aggravating factors and several mitigating factors is facing. No. They tell what the Voldemort or Moriarty or Hitler of whatever activity you were doing would face for crime X.

It is even worse, because they actually even exaggerate what Voldemort or Moriarty or Hitler would actually face, too! If a person is charged with multiple crimes from the same underlying act, say crimes X, Y, and Z, and is convicted of all of them the crimes are grouped together into one for sentencing, with the sentence for the group being the sentence you would have received for whichever for X, Y, or Z you would have gotten the longest sentence for if that was the only one you were convicted on.

Here's a good article on this in general: "Crime: Whale Sushi. Sentence: ELEVENTY MILLION YEARS." [1]

Here's a couple articles specifically on the Swartz charging.

This one covers the charges themselves: "The Criminal Charges Against Aaron Swartz (Part 1: The Law)" [2]

This one covers the prosecution, including a look at probably sentencing: "The Criminal Charges Against Aaron Swartz (Part 2: Prosecutorial Discretion)" [3]

[1] https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentenc...

[2] https://volokh.com/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-charges/

[3] https://volokh.com/2013/01/16/the-criminal-charges-against-a...

[vouwfietsman]

Wow this is some harsh criticism.

I'd be curious to know why he deserves to be attacked for his technical know-how. Also I am curious to know why you think committing a crime out of conviction is inherently immoral. If we equate laws with morals we will never improve our ethical understanding of the world.

It is exactly the people willing to commit crime with the goal of improving our moral compass that should be celebrated as heroes.

If we would all "play ball" then we would be stuck without voting rights in a feudal system of kings and peasants.

Finally, if genius invents Facebook let's pray we ran out of geniuses.

[rambambram]

Maybe not a genius, but definitely a hero.

Following your logic, then the real heroes are actually the cowards?

[secondcoming]

A hero in the same sense that Che Guevara or even Pablo Escobar are considered heroes by some people.

[blinzy]

I don't like how people downvoted this comment without even saying why.

The wording may be harsh (not what I think, just attempting to guess) but I believe there is truth in it; although the idea of allowing free access to academic journals is laudable, the way he went about it was naive/wrong in my opinion and impulsive as you say.

[tinco]

Because it's disrespectful, and dismissive of the effort Aaron made to make our world a better place. It's also overly pessimistic, sure there's trash people on the planet and they're often in positions of power. But they are not a majority and it is possible to genuinely affect change through activism and drawing attention to causes, no how matter how childish or petty the activism might seem.

Finally and most importantly on this site specifically it should be down voted because it is flagrantly anti intellectual to resign to the status quo and to tell people to not be disruptive and to basically "play the game" and go work for Facebook or whatever.

What's a person who has those views even doing on this site? Just go outside and play golf with the governor of Missouri or whatever.

[Maakuth]

Do you have better suggestions how to allow such access? As far as I know, Sci-Hub is the current leader in this field, with methods not that different from Aaron's. The official methods to achieve this proceed at snail's pace and one doubts if they would move anywhere without the pressure caused by the activism.

[secondcoming]

Comment is flagged now. Bizarre.

[mberning]

Agree completely. By all accounts he was a bright guy, bu he did something very foolish. He did a crime and rather than play ball he martyred himself. Yes there probably was prosecutorial overreach and yes our criminal justice system could use reform. But this guy was no saint in the matter and could have easily got off with a minor sentence.

[tsimionescu]

So you think Rosa Parks was also a criminal for having the foolishness to refuse to give up her seat for a white?

Breaking immoral laws is a sign of being a hero, not a criminal. Unfortunately the monied interests were more powerful than a brilliant kid, so we have to live in a world without Aaron Swartz but with rich idiots in charge of scientific publishing.