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."
it's a philosophical question:
do you have the freedom to remove your own freedom?
death represents zero freedom
therefore, if you restrain a person, physically prevent them from doing what they want to do, which in any other situation is freedom depriving, in the instance of someone choosing suicide, it is freedom preserving
you can suicidal people everywhere who considered it, tried to do it, or were stopped from doing it, or failed in their attempt, later happy they did not commit suicide
if someone had been there to block Aaron's attempt, the man could have lived to fight another day, and maybe grown to be happy he would be still alive, and free
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
No, his body is dead. He isn't. He is simply not here. You can't prove I am wrong.
uh, no. if you are dead, you have no choices
your word play is some nice poetry, but there is zero freedom in death
if you believe otherwise, this places you in the realm of religious lunatics
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
He risked everything by going after the JSTOR's livelihood. There are actual people behind JSTOR. Mortgages, kids, etc. Where is the empathy for JSTOR and their entrepreneurship?
If it wouldn't have further destroyed JSTOR's public perception, then they should have sicked the dogs on the late Mr. Swartz.
Some folks on Slashdot live in some kind of la-la land. They assume that the reactionary/revolutionary gets all of the glory with none of the consequences. On the contrary: it's usually all of the consequences with none of the glory.
cool story bro
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
He committed a crime, and knew full well he was doing it. Comparing him to what happened to Turing and why, is shameful on your part.
Good-bye
Fuck their dirty subscription money. This guy was a hero. He was dedicated to freeing information and thus improving the world for everyone. As opposed to restricting information so that a few guys can get rich. Not everything can be free as in beer, but information is one of the few things that can be. At least in this digital age.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.