Aaron Swartz Commits Suicide 589
maijc writes
"Computer activist Aaron Swartz committed suicide yesterday in New York City. He was 26 years old. Swartz was 'indicted in July 2011 by a federal grand jury for allegedly mass downloading documents from the JSTOR online journal archive with the intent to distribute them.' He is best known for co-authoring the widely-used RSS 1.0 specification when he was 14, and as one of the early co-owners of Reddit."
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Re:Have some shame (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Have some shame (Score:5, Interesting)
Imagine yourself stuck in a case where you are facing 30+ years for putting up documents online, then the organization saying "Haha! Nevermind, we were going to put everything out in public domain anyway!" (typical PR?) and still be trapped in it.
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Or be educated on the concept of a metaphor...
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how does that in ANY way shape or form promote sciences and the arts
It inspires other people to be creative, build their own teams of people to produce their own films and entertainment franchises. Just like so many other successful people do, every day, right now. Because, of course, you (and they) would also benefit from the same protections for your work - which you can waive any time you want if you think the rest of the world should have your work to play with as they see fit.
myths about incentives, control and waivers (Score:5, Insightful)
[Q]. . .how does that in ANY way shape or form promote sciences and the arts [?]
[A] It inspires other people to be creative,. . .
Many of the classic works now still under extended copyright were created when the term used to be much shorter (e.g. 28 years renewable on fee for another 28), and they just got a longer ride at the expense of all of us when the proprietary interests (not usually the authors) procured changes in the law to extend the terms and increase the range of restricted acts & crimes. The current range of criminalized activities to do with copyright has been _heavily_ extended since those days. So, no, the current penal legislation was _not_ needed to inspire or incentivize those works.
. . .protections for your work - which you can waive any time you want. . .
I had the interesting experience of trying to access online a paper that I actually wrote, and found myself invited to pay a copyright fee to access it. (No, I didn't assign the copyright to anybody.)
So I wonder how, exactly, could I or any other author in a similar position 'waive the protections' for our work? -- it turns out we don't even control them, as it is.
-wb-
Re:Have some shame (Score:4, Insightful)
landed a crazy gig making 60K in a different state by meeting someone at a conference when I was 18.
I hope you know that this is all that separates you from all your minimum-wage friends, this is where your fates diverged. A stroke of luck, a "networking" connection.
Re:Have some shame (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of college kids have never been to a conference and have never talked with a prospective employer without being at a recruiting fair where everybody is trying to get a job. What they should have been doing was having lunch with people who work in the types of jobs they might want--not lunch to ask them for a job or hand them a resume, lunch to talk to them and find out if the job sounds like a good fit. They should be meeting people at conferences where people are there to talk about ideas and skills (not recruiting events where everybody just jabs at the recruiters with their resumes). All that separates this guy from his minimum wage friends, is that he actually did *something* where as they did nothing.
I should note, that I was one of those people...I went to recruiting events on campus, had some internships that came from similar recruiting events, and had full-time interviews from people who did on campus recruiting. None of that worked well--what worked was when I finally realized that talking with people (without explicitly trying to get a job...just trying to find out more info) was leagues ahead.
Re:Have some shame (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Have some shame (Score:5, Interesting)
Imagine yourself stuck in a case where you are facing 30+ years
I don't fucking need to "imagine" it, you fucking pussy.
I have BEEN in a similar situation.
I once faced 16 years' imprisonment for some trumped-up charges that
might have stuck if I had gone to trial. So like most other people who get
in trouble in the United States on the federal level, I copped a plea with the
agreement that my sentence would be limited to far less prison time.
In the end I served 30 months in federal prison. It was easy time, and I was
in a medium security facility. I cannot say it was pleasant, but it was not even
close to being a scenario in which I could have been the victim of homosexual rape
or any of the other awful things idiots on Slashdot speculate about when they imagine
prison. The truth is that I had a lot of time to relax, I read many excellent books, and
I ate quite well ( food in fed prisons is actually pretty damned good, it is the food in
state prisons which sucks ).
So, what if I had responded to the prosecutor's BULLSHIT attempts to scare me
and killed myself ? I'd be dead. Instead, today I am going to enjoy a nice motorcycle
ride and give my cat a lot of love, and eat a wonderful meal later on. Life has ups
and downs, and there WILL be dark days for all of us, sooner or later. If you let
a dark day push you into committing suicide, you will have failed yourself.
Instead of being dead, I can honestly say that prison was a growth experience
for me and that I am today happier than I have ever been.
NEVER EVER GIVE UP, no matter what some bastard is doing to you.
If my story is not powerful enough for you, look up the story of Primo Levi.
That story will be enough to leave a permanent imprint on your brain, I
assure you.
Re:Have some shame (Score:5, Insightful)
And if you're the type of personality that refuses to plea bargain then you face 30 years and a prosecutor that'll demand it.
Very likely a system that'll give it too, just to punish you for not taking a plea bargain.
Fuck that system, and its suicidal outcome.
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I cannot say it was pleasant, but it was not even close to being a scenario in which I could have been the victim of homosexual rape or any of the other awful things idiots on Slashdot speculate about when they imagine prison.
I'm glad you got lucky, but it's hardly mere "speculation": the prevalence of rape in U.S. prisons, by both guards and other inmates, is well documented [hrw.org].
Re:Have some shame (Score:5, Interesting)
Been there too. Faced 1024 years. Copped a plea for 4 and the judge made it 6. All fed camper time. I lived through it and might just be better for it. Served time with Boesky and Milken (not charges related to them, I was a phracker.)
10780-074
Re:Have some shame (Score:5, Interesting)
This has deeper roots than the court case (Score:5, Informative)
He very clearly struggled with depression for a long time. After he got fired from Wired, he made a blog post [aaronsw.com] about someone committing suicide. He changed the person's name to "Alex" later, but it said Aaron when he wrote it. His friends took this to be a suicide note and called the cops to intervene. Afterwards, he denied [reddit.com] that it was a suicide note, but admitted he wasn't in a good state of mind at the time.
He also posted an online 'will' of sorts [aaronsw.com] back in 2002 when he was only 16. For a 16 year old kid to be making such concrete plans in case of his death speaks to his own expectations about his life.
Re:Have some shame (Score:5, Informative)
As a ... well, I'm never sure if I should use the term "suicide survivor" or "failed suicider" ... anyway, as one of those, allow me to respond to your polite request for having some shame with an equally polite "no".
Just because you don't like sick jokes about certain subjects, doesn't mean the rest of us don't.
To some of us, humour is a stress reliever and coping mechanism - telling us that we shouldn't use it, trying to shame and ostracise us for using it, is in fact likely to make us more inclined to follow in Aaron Swartz' footsteps.
There are few things as life affirming as laughter, and some of us have a really hard time finding those laughs in everyday situations.
Laughter is one of the very few parts of the universal human vocabulary, it is delightfully infectious and as far as I know the only emotion that is basically a one way street. I.e. once you start giggling and laughing, it is almost impossible to stop, whereas someone really sad or depressed will almost always start to laugh when faced with others laughing.
I do agree with you though, that the jokers in here should take a long hard look at themselves, but for very different reasons. I think anyone who can make light of a sad situation makes life more bearable, and for people like me, that is a life saver.
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You post basically confuses the fuck out of anyone who wants to know how they *should* be responding to news of a suicide. Instinctively they feel they shouldn't make any jokes out of respect, and yet you basically say "bring it on" since humour is a copying method (which may very well be true). But you try that in the flesh with real people in front of you, and it's very likely few will see the funny side, and you'll be ostracised and treated as an uncaring bastard.
So unfortunately I can't agree, sorry. It
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You post basically confuses the fuck out of anyone who wants to know how they *should* be responding to news of a suicide.
How about honestly, instead of in some measured manner meant to influence other people in ways that arent honest.
You shouldn't need to be told this at this point in your life.
Re:Have some shame (Score:4, Insightful)
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For some people, telling people who joke to take a long, hard look at themselves is their coping mechanism. It shouldn't be taken away from them.
I cope by telling people who tell people who tell them to take a long hard look at themselves to lighten up, to take things a little less unseriously.
There are people trying to mourn here. We can all do it in our own screwed up way. Screwed up mourning is a fitting tribute to a cofounder of Reddit.
Poor guy.
Re:Have some shame (Score:4, Interesting)
In fact, that's one simple way to determine if someone is seriously suicidal, or just doing it for the attention. Make a joke about death and suicide, and if they don't laugh, they're probably just doing it for the attention.
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In fact, that's one simple way to determine if someone is seriously suicidal, or just doing it for the attention. Make a joke about death and suicide, and if they don't laugh, they're probably just doing it for the attention.
Or they've already commited suicide.
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if I were struggling with suicidal tendencies, I think I would definitely try to fight against them with my reason instead of my feelings
Problem is, it's your feelings that tend to cause you to choose suicide, not your reason.
Unless you find yourself in a situation where you belly flop onto a grenade or see a dozen people around you die (which is on the whole quite a rare opportunity) then suicide is likely to be a last resort because you don't feel able to do anything else.
That's not a reasonable position. Anybody else can step back and suggest a more interesting and constructive course of action. Even if it does involve buying an automatic
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I'm going to put this picture [amazonaws.com] up on my wall to remind me daily about
Re:Have some shame (Score:5, Insightful)
He purportely stole some information created with public money, but granted to privated a privated party, with the objective of returning it to the public. And was in line to get 35 years of prision for that. How much can you get if you murder someone in the US, by the way?
The (in)justice system did still not prosecute him, years after he was marked as a felon and had his life destroyed. That's what it shouldn't have been doing. If you intend to destroy the life of somebody while he awaits judment, that judgment must be quick.
But yeah, you are just trolling.
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As far as I know, the highest possible penalty for murder in the U.S. is death penalty.
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Don't forget that he caused MIT to be denied access to JSTOR for several days while he repeatedly attempted to get around the blocks setup by MIT admins. Thousands of scholars rely on that access every day. Plus all of the heartburn he caused the admins at JSTOR. Real people had their lives interrupted by his little stunt. Had he been smarter he would have done it undetectably.
I'm sorry, but what he did was astoundingly foolish and stupid. Especially for someone who was an "ethics scholar" or whatever
seeming case of oppression by justice system (Score:5, Insightful)
If Aaron Swartz had not committed suicide, his case would still look like oppressive overreaction by proprietary interests and by the justice system which too often seems to act as if it were their private proxy.
This question of disproportion survives whatever may be said technically about the legalities and moralities of unauthorized downloading of the information he handled or mishandled. In its parts that was essentially long-published and public. Any prison term at all, let alone up to 35 years, looks to me totally disproportionate to the seriousness of what was done with this kind of material. It also compares unfairly to the lenient treatment or official conniving with those who do things that are at least equally serious or much more so. For example it deserves to be compared with false claims (made knowingly or recklessly) to copyright in cases where there is none -- that is such an everyday occurrence that no-one seems to give it a second look, but those who perpetrate such frauds generally get off scot-free. It also deserves to be compared with the corrupt or fraudulent procurement of legislation to remove parts of the public domain and reduce them to private ownership, arguably much more serious, and when was anybody last pursued for that kind of misdemeanor?
It may be that Swartz was tipped over the edge into suicide by a feeling that the only other course for him would be a lifetime turning on the spit as a legal victim. If so, he may have been right, there may not have been any third option. And if so, there is more than one tragedy there: not only his death, but also the continuing injustice that more serious offenders are routinely condoned.
-wb-
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> He purportedly committed several crimes
Is that the same argument by which the treatment of Alan Turing by the judicial/penal system was fine? You just care whether something is a "crime" as opposed as to whether it should be or not?
Re:Have some shame (Score:5, Insightful)
He committed a crime, and knew full well he was doing it. Comparing him to what happened to Turing...
...sounds pretty reasonable to me at first glance, since Turing also committed what he knew to be a crime.
Re:Have some shame (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it is apt, and appropriate.
At the time, homosexual relationships were illegal, classified as a sex act on par with raping dogs or children, and carried harsh penalties which Turring endured.
There was a sharp disconnect between what is ethically sound, and what is legally necessitated.
Likewise here: the voting public paid to have that research conducted, were being double dipped, (actually more than that..) and denied access unless they were themselves subsidised scholars of some sort. A morally offensive situation is being maintained (people are compelled through threat of violence and or incarceration to hand money to the government who then gives that money to private firms and researchers, presumably for the public's benefit, but are then strictly denied access to the results of that research which they financed.) For the benefit of rentseekers (JSTOR, Eslevier, and all those other publishing house whores.), at the detriment of public knowledge and education. (Really, far larger databases of information are maintained by community organized efforts than these clowns maintain, and those community orgs provide their services for free. The main reasons why these for prfit orgs can't do that, is because they aren't in it for science or knowedge, but instead are only in it for money, which quite bluntly, they are not entitled to.)
This man sought to move that data out of the rentseeker's filing cabinets, and into the public's waiting hands, since the public has already paid for that information through funding the godamn research to begin with. (Imagine: megacorp funds a lab to answer some scientific question: the lab then double dips on printed copies (per copy) of results, and asserts ownership of the works. Does this really happen to big corps? Fuck no it doesn't. "Works for hire", and all that. But it does to normal people and universities, because magically, once taxpayer money goes through the ravenous maw of the government debt machine, it isn't a work for hire!)
The renteekers go all pedant on him, and ruin his life sufficently that he is finally motivated enough to actually end his own life to get away from his problems.
Wish I knew why (Score:3, Interesting)
Without context this is just another sad story.
If he committed suicide because the government/JSTOR ruined his life then over what was claimed to be "trumped up charges" then this is a story that needs some action. But if this was because his girlfriend dumped him or some other personal reason, then this will fade into the background wand wont have the same impact.
Still it's sad to see that one of our esteemed contributes to society has been lost.
Re:Wish I knew why (Score:5, Insightful)
I read a bit of the indictment [archive.org] and I find it hard to believe the charges are 'trumped up' because they are so easy to disprove.
Did he or did he not buy the laptop?
Did he or did he not access an MIT wiring closet?
Did he or did he not program the above purchased laptop to retrieve a massive number of documents in a manner inconsistent with their terms of use?
Personally I think his passion for his political/legal positions drove him to commit crimes, crimes for which the penalty was so great it may have driven him to suicide, but as the previous poster mentioned - we don't know why he did it. (was there a note?)
Suicide is the second leading cause of death among his age group (after accidental death), there are likely causes outside his achievements that drove him to take his own life, like the other 5-6,000 suicide victims in his age group each year.
Re:Wish I knew why (Score:5, Informative)
Rather than read the indictment, or press releases from his side, I prefer actual journalism. Here's a well-written and informative article:
http://www.zdnet.com/hacker-activist-aaron-swartz-commits-suicide-7000009725/ [zdnet.com]
Re:Wish I knew why (Score:5, Informative)
The indictment is the legal document that says what he was charged with, no more, no less. I don't understand why you would have an issue with a review of the actual charges against him, since many here (and elsewhere) are trying to portray this as a Turing-like harassment by the government (which it is not).
He (allegedly) installed his own computer into an MIT wiring closet, took repeated steps to overcome MIT's efforts to stop him, hid from security cameras, and violated the terms of use for accessing the computer system. Since you prefer journalisim, take a look at this Wired article [wired.com] - it details the charges against him.
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"Intent to piracy" is not in the indictment, his intentions aren't at issue, it was his actions.
Re:Wish I knew why (Score:5, Insightful)
1. His attempts were not misguided.
2. There is nothing wrong with breaking the law. The law is arbitrary and stupid. Particularly in this case. It's the folks behind JSTOR that should be in jail.
sad day, and sad reality (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:sad day, and sad reality (Score:4, Insightful)
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Here's a weird one, why do whites commit suicide at a much higher rate than other races [globalaging.org]?
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Re:sad day, and sad reality (Score:5, Funny)
We ARE just animals. What are you, a sentient rock?
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Maybe so - but no matter how magnificent the peaks we rise to (of our intelligence specifically) - we can always fall. And no-one can ever stay at those heights for all contexts.
The default state of all matter is unintelligent - so that we achieve any at all at any time is marvellous. And there's quite a strong correlation between personal "intelligence" and suicide. The extra mental flexibility comes with attendant weakness - otherwise we'd long ago have continued to evolve towards higher and higher intell
Re:sad day, and sad reality (Score:4, Insightful)
Depression is an illness. An illness is not selfish. You cannot even decide to have or not have an illness.
Of course it doesn't help that people often call a normal sadness a depression. But that's just a misnomer, just like calling the common cold a flu is.
The smoking gun (Score:5, Insightful)
"So I hope you’ll forgive me for not doing more. And hey, it could be worse. At least I have decent health insurance."
- http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/verysick
Someone's got their priorities all wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
If this doesn't get you enraged about the larger problem at hand, I don't know what will.
Re:Someone's got their priorities all wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Kill a person: 10 years in prison.
No, it's more like:
First-degree murder: Manadatory death sentence or life-imprisonment
Second-degree murder: Manadatory minimum 10-years to life inprisonment.
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Uh, I have papers on JSTOR. I've never been paid a dime for any of them. That's the thing about being an academic, you don't get paid for most of your publications (books and the very occasional book chapter being the exception....altho' my last book has done quite well for a book in my field, and at the 25cents a copy I get in royalties I can't say I'm getting wealthy...actually it hasn't paid for my out-of-pocket costs for producing it yet). Nope, I doubt there's double-digit livelihoods affected by relea
RIP (Score:5, Insightful)
"The light that burns twice as bright, burns half as long. And you have burned so very, very brightly." (Bladerunner)
Re:RIP (Score:4, Insightful)
Rents kill, and Aaron was one of the victims. All of us are the losers, except for the people with the corrupt rent stream.
DO AN AUTOPSY! Seriously! It could be murder! (Score:3, Interesting)
Half of all deaths are assigned to the wrong cause.
And I would not be one bit surprised, if it turns out to be murder for lack of evidence in trial.
I know of similar stuff that happened to colleagues of close relatives, who were willing to give away government secrets. (And government secrets are secret *exactly* because you would not like that which is secret.)
Shot in the head by snipers from buildings... at the moment they left the airport of the 3rd world country they fled to, and nobody giving a shit about it. After threatening his whole family.
Yes, the great United States of America's CIA does stuff like that.
Worst of all, you'll probably mod me down because you can't accept it. (I don't blame you. I blame the propaganda machine.)
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In that case, fuck the family.
People should be taught how to play safely. Autoerotic asphyxiation is not safe or sane.
More sources? (Score:2)
So far, the only information found is ultimately sourced back to his uncle - no other confirmation.
Then we have this from his last blog entry [aaronsw.com]:
Thus Master Wayne is left without solutions. Out of options, it’s no wonder the series ends with his staged suicide.
Not saying this is fake, just that I'd like to see something from an official source .
C. Doctorow on A. Swartz (Score:5, Informative)
Lessig's (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's a word from another friend of Aaron: http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bully [tumblr.com]
A symptom of a broken system (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole system is broken, and this is just another symptom in a sea of them. The entire system has been co-opted and subverted to protect the monetary interests of the few. Whenever anyone steps up to threaten those interests, the DoJ and various other law enforcement entities step in to wreak havoc on those who dare to step out of line.
Anyone who has been in the computer underground, or who has had a single thought of wanting freedom or a life free from a government that grows more and more oppressive with each new law that they pass, completely understands this. The system is not setup to do the best for the most. It is setup to protect the few from the many.
Computer security is the perfect example. Rather than invest the money in education and technical training to go out and fix the flaws, the system decides to divert that money into lawyers and laws. A murderer is a threat to a single person. A hacker on the other hand can bring down the entire system, and "must be punished appropriately, so that others who might consider doing the same are given cause to think twice and decide against doing so". Unfortunately Aaron learned that the hard way. He probably thought that what he was doing was good, and right. And it probably was. Information that was paid for by tax dollars should not be locked up behind pay walls. But that is not the way the system works. The system maintains order with punishment and fear. It crushes lives by placing insane debt burdens upon those who stray from the rules, no matter how inane or obtuse those rules might be. For those too poor to be fined, there are prisons.
Aaron Swartz gets chalked up in the column of bright minds crushed by the system. The system does not want visionaries. It does not want bright minds who can conceive of better ways to live. It wants sheep, who will consume and die to protect their way of life. It wants a population that fears the rest of the world, because it sustains policies that anger the rest of the world... that steal from that world, to maintain the system. The system that sacrifices the many, for the benefit of the few.
I wonder how differently this tragic situation might have turned out if Jury Nullification were a part of the popular discourse. If Aaron had known that there would be people in front of the court during his trial, urging the jury to do the right thing and aquit him. That is where change really has to start. The system only continues to work because people who should know better, do not and they continue to convict. It only requires 2 people to change the system... 1 to challenge the law, and 1 to refuse to convict.
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Freedom is a measure of how many options are available to you. If you are dead, you have literally zero freedom.
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freedom from life - depending on your thoughts, beliefs and opinions at the time.
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According to that definition, you are more free in a totalitarian dictatorship than in a democracy: In the totalitarian dictatorship you are free from the need to make decisions and you are free from having to form your own opinion.
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I would say the definition of 'freedom' was relative to your mental disposition at the time.
In a totalitarian dictatorship you are not free from the need to make decisions - you are forbidden. There is a big difference, society forbids suicide and maybe society should have seen the signs that this might happen. But as much as society is free from blame for doing nothing to prevent this person taking his life. Aaron had the right to take his own.
At least he is now free from society, although in a better fr
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Freedom is a measure of how many options are available to you. If you are dead, you have literally zero freedom.
I did not say freedom. I said free. Free as in unrestricted or no longer burdened. He has no freedom after his last choice, but freedom to choose does not guarantee good choices.
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Zero freedom or infinite freedom? I guess that just depends on your viewpoint, but I think it's probably best for most of us to just keep on living.
1 in 1 people die, so the stats are against us.
Re:He Is Free Now (Score:5, Insightful)
He chose to take his own life. It was his decision. I don't agree with it, and I don't endorse it as a reasonable choice, but it was his decision.
There is an endless supply of "we want everything to be free and open! don't lock us in! what if I want to ABC? who's to say I can't XYZ?" Are we not hypocrites to say he cannot be free with his own life?
The world lost something of value with his passing. It was his choice to deprive the world of what he gave it. It is sad, and it is hard, but it is done.
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Which is a strong hint that he wasn't free at the time when he made that decision, but rather has seen, rightly or wrongly, that decision as the only way out of his current situation.
And of course whether he is free (or even exists) after having done it doesn't depend on whether it was his decision or not.
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It's possible he was depressed enough that he didn't make a choice, in which case the discussion is moot, so I'll assume he was culpable or at least largely culpable.
He chose to take his own life. It was his decision. I don't agree with it, and I don't endorse it as a reasonable choice, but it was his decision.
You lack the vocabulary to even describe this.
It was immoral and wrong for him to commit suicide. It's immoral simply because human life is not an expendable asset that you can manufacture or dispose of at will, and that includes yours. There are quite a few nations on this planet right now where the authorities believe they can, and they are a
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So due to some "rules" declared as societal law (and thus differ depending on what society you're living in) your life isn't yours? Whose is it then? You declare in your same argument that it isn't someone else's or the government's so are you saying it is nobody's?
Re:He Is Free Now (Score:5, Insightful)
I know nothing about the lawsuit or the whole scientific paper stuff, but it's a shame that such a bright mind is lost to the world now. All we can do now, and all I'll do is wish his family and friends all the best in the coming difficult time.
Re:He Is Free Now (Score:4, Funny)
Although his death is regrettable, everyone must still be prepared to face the consequences of their actions. The journals that published the articles he downloaded depend on subscription money to operate. People working for the publishers have families to feed, etc.. What he did was to damage their freedom to make a living under existing copyright law, which creates incentives for the journals to vet and publish the articles in the first place. I would argue that what Swartz did was to strike a blow against one of the pillars of science - independent peer review.
Unless you can invent a way for everything to be free (as in beer), which is another way of saying you think things should appear out of thin air, Swartz's actions amount to reducing the collection of freedoms available of everyone in the entire scientific journal ecosystem.
Hence we are more free under the current copyright system than we would be if people had no way of earning a living under current copyright law.
Re:He Is Free Now (Score:5, Insightful)
We have many intellectual works that predate copyright, as probably already know. And you can't conflate ideas with physical objects because there is no shortage of "idea copies": they don't disappear from my mind when you make a copy, so yes, they basically appear out of thin air. Even the originals often do because they appear when you are working on something else.
Non sequitur, sorry. The current copyright system restricts the freedom of the majority for no proven reason in order to provide monetary gain to a minority, and authors are not part of that minority in most cases either. So we have a system that doesn't benefit the general public and benefits very few of the producers. That looks like a net loss of freedom to me.
Re:He Is Free Now (Score:5, Insightful)
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The discussion doesn't make sense after the fact. The deed is done. And we should have helped him choose otherwise.
However, most ethical frameworks regards the choice to end your own freedom as an unfree choice. Kant goes as far as saying that it is immoral; it is an attack on his humanity and ours as well (thus, we should not kill ourselves with regards to others, like others have a moral responsibility to help us not commit suicide).
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Re:He Is Free Now (Score:5, Interesting)
"you can't have any pleasure when you are dead, therefore, you have no freedom when dead."
otoh, the opposite is also true:
"you can't have any pain when you are dead; therefore, you have total freedom from pain and suffering."
death is absence of EVERYTHING. you are not free or a slave. you have left both 'sides' and you now are not part of anything.
ie, you walk away from both the positive and negative.
people who end their lives are trying to remove the bad parts of their lives and the good parts are not enough of a balance to convince them 'stay here'.
I think its just that 'simple'. when your life is filed with pain and you want to end the pain, suicide does seem to be a way out of it.
Re:He Is Free Now (Score:5, Insightful)
yes, but there are other ways to relieve pain. plus, the pain is temporary. of course, it can feel endless, but that doesn't mean it is endless
i used to suffer from excruciating back pain. it lasted a long time, months. i completely understand the feeling a hopeless state of permanent pain. except: i don't have back pain anymore. i could have killed myself. but that means i would not be here typing these words, and enjoying a pain free life
if i had killed myself, i would have permanently destroyed the freedom i have now. suicide is a freedom destroying choice. opposing the choice of suicide, even externally from the individual, is a freedom preserving act
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I am not going to pretend to know the psychic pain of a suicidal person.
But I am going to insist you recognize that that pain can be relieved by other methods than death.
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your word play is some nice poetry
Question. What makes what Xiph1980 said "word play", but what you said "philosophizing"?
This world is too stupid for real geniuses !! (Score:3)
This world is far too stupid for real genius like Aaron.
There are far too many idiots around, and because of the idiots, too many geniuses, such as Mr. Aaron Swartz, have no way to go but to go deep within.
I can understand the pain. I do.
RIP, Aaron !
You are free now.
Them idiots won't be able to bother you now.
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I'd rather have the old slashdot with its trolls than the current bleh. For instance, it used to be that you could occasionally read insightful comments even on science topics.
Re:I understand (Score:4, Funny)
I remember 2003 as well.
Re:I understand (Score:5, Insightful)
> I'd rather have the old slashdot with its trolls than the current bleh.
I would rather NOT go back to Ogg, Natalie Portman with hot gritz, and goatse Thank-You-Very-Much.
IF the /. community jumped the shark years ago we have no one but ourselves to blame.
A community is what you put into it. Not only what you get out of it.
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Reddit serves a purpose, it keeps a lot of imps & trolls off of slashdot, i dont use reddit either because i dont like the content but it serves a purpose (it provides a place imps & trolls to vent)
Hate to tell ya, but 99.9% of the articles on /. have already been posted on Reddit, or other aggregation sites, before it gets here.
That's the point GP was making. The other sites winnow the chaff. By the time the stories get here, few reddit readers (or other, more popular sites' readers) will deign to post on /., because the stories will seem old and chewed up to them. To us, they're semi-fresh and we get to discuss them with some intelligent geeks who are not too unlike ourselves, with only the occasional troll (and at least they're often attempts to be humorous instead of genuine trolling).
I don't know about everyone else, but I
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Default reddit is terrible, but there are plenty of subreddits that have far higher quality than Slashdot. This place has been a fucking cesspool for years and nobody of note even posts logged in anymore.
Can you recommend some good "subreddits"? I keep finding the same junk that is on the front page.
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Actions speak louder than words (Score:3)
If everyone here thinks Slashdot is so awful, then what are you all still doing here?
Re:Why is this not major news on Reddit? (Score:5, Informative)
Fuck JSTOR (Score:4, Informative)
There is good coverage at metafilter.com :
http://www.metafilter.com/123777/Open-access-open-internet-closed-book [metafilter.com] [metafilter.com]
But seriously, fuck JSTOR.
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http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/16ffph/reddit_cofounder_aaron_swartz_commits_suicide/ [reddit.com]
It's at 3000 points.
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The general reckoning over there seems to be that someone's been intentionally removing it from the front page for some weird reason. There have been a whole bunch of posts that have been highly upvoted, most of them just got pulled.
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Well, you should have gotten your Cartmanesque ass off WoW and helped, maybe?
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