Slashdot Mirror
Aaron Swartz Commits Suicide
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."
This is the lesson - copyright kills. High time for a copyright reform.
No he's not. He's dead, and you're a terrible person for implying otherwise.
Actually, he's dead. There's a difference.
A young man took his own life. And so far, I'm only reading sick jokes and flamebait. This isn't Digg.
The first posters to this discussion should take a long, hard look at themselves.
I am astounded at the response to this.
This is major news over at Hacker News. The top 12 items on the first page are related to this.
Currently, it's the top item here at Slashdot.
But at this very moment, there is not even a single mention of it on the front page of Reddit!
What a rotten, rotten community Reddit has become. The hipsters and social outcasts there do not show even the slightest remorse nor any sign of sadness over the death of one of the core founders of their community. There is not even A SINGLE SUBMISSION relating to this on the front page! There are numerous stupid "meme" pictures, and much other asinine content, but nothing about this event! Astounding! It's astounding!
sad to see a statistic so tragic. among the age group 25-34, suicide is the second highest cause of death (cdc, 2010 [ http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/10LCID_All_Deaths_By_Age_Group_2010-a.pdf ]). All i can say is this is a tragedy in the specific, and its a tragedy in the general. Build communities where you can, and if you stand up for your beliefs try and make bonds that will help you through troubled times when the shit hits the fan as a result. our best and brightest should be here to fix the problems left behind by the poor choices of others, because if the best and brightest arent...who is going to? please stand by activists if you agree with them, and if you have suicidal thoughts (related to, or unrelated to activism), seek better bonds with others or medical help if necessary
"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
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)
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
If this doesn't get you enraged about the larger problem at hand, I don't know what will.
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.
"The light that burns twice as bright, burns half as long. And you have burned so very, very brightly." (Bladerunner)
My little Linux and tech blog
I read a bit of the indictment 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.
Ken
The old world order resists change. RIP
You assume death represents zero freedom, which is incorrect. Death doesn't represent zero freedom, it represents am empty collection of freedoms. It's not zero, it's not one, it's not infinite, it's nothing.
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.
Manuals are your last resort only
The idea of freedom or choice is irrelevant when there is not someone to choose then nothing to choose from. If the person is dead he is neither free or restrained, he simply isn't.
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
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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.
"Intent to piracy" is not in the indictment, his intentions aren't at issue, it was his actions.
Ken
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-
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.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
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.
> 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.
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.
[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-
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).
Defining Statistics and Social Research