Aaron Swartz Commits Suicide

Have some shame by benjfowler · 2013-01-12 01:39 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

Re:Have some shame by jfdavis668 · 2013-01-12 01:42 · Score: 4, Insightful

I don't know him personally, but many people who are successful that early in life are rather high strung. The feeling of helplessness in dealing with a court case may have pushed him over the edge.
Re:Have some shame by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-12 01:53 · 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.
Re:Have some shame by MartinSchou · 2013-01-12 01:57 · Score: 4, 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.
Re:Have some shame by Grax · 2013-01-12 02:01 · Score: 5, Interesting

Very said. I met him once at an ArsDigita event when he was around 14. I was surprised to find that the posts I had been reading came from someone so young. He was a very smart guy and he made a lot of waves. I am sad to see him go.

--
Coding Blog
Re:Have some shame by cjjjer · 2013-01-12 02:19 · Score: 4, Insightful

Imagine yourself stuck in a case where you are facing 30+ years for...
Lots of people have been faced with worse time than this and don't kill themselves; some even face the death penalty. Most people who try and succeed in committing suicide have pretty much in some form or other harbored daemons their entire life. It would not surprise me that he has often throughout his life pondered suicide and maybe even tried and failed.
Re:Have some shame by marcosdumay · 2013-01-12 02:38 · Score: 4, Insightful

He purportedly committed several crimes...
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?

When he killed himself, he had still not yet been prosecuted. I seem to be missing the part where the "(in)justice system" did something they shouldn't have been doing?
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.

--
Rethinking email
Re:Have some shame by Jafafa+Hots · 2013-01-12 02:54 · Score: 4, Insightful

" Most people who try and succeed in committing suicide have pretty much in some form or other harbored daemons their entire life."
There's an unspoken assertion in your comment that there are people who exist who harbor no demons.
I'm pushing 50 and have known many people and I've yet to see one.
Or evidence of one.

--
This space available.
Re:Have some shame by hairyfeet · 2013-01-12 03:14 · Score: 4, Insightful

As others have rightly pointed out "the flame that burns brightest also burns the quickest" and when they are writing specs at 14 years old you can expect a burn out. Some go nuts, some end up junkies, but when you are THAT driven THAT young you can pretty much count on a major flameout, just a shame his flameout was fatal.
As for copyrights, i have an ironclad argument that pretty much obliterates any pro copyright trolls and I think the more people point this out to the average folks the quicker we can get this scam taken out...Do you realize that many of Walt Disney's FIRST works, made when cars were started with a crank, airplanes were made out of cloth, and antibiotics were but a dream are STILL under copyright? The man has been dead for longer than most of us have been alive and they will STAY under copyright until most of us are dead, now how does that in ANY way shape or form promote sciences and the arts as the founding fathers intended?
All our insane copyrights and patents are doing is making sure that Asia becomes the next superpower as you won't be able to get anything done here without getting screwed by all the tollbooths. Most of the games I grew up with are now in copyright limbo, so many of the 80s companies went under yet you can't do anything with the games because the copyrights, that won't expire for over a century, are just hanging there like a sword of Damocles over them, and any cool idea you can possibly think of will have a dozen bullshit vague patents that will break you if you aren't a megacorp.

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ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Re:Have some shame by wonkey_monkey · 2013-01-12 05:43 · Score: 4, 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.

--
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Re:Have some shame by wierd_w · 2013-01-12 06:06 · Score: 4, 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.
Re:Have some shame by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-12 06:16 · 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 by ottothecow · 2013-01-12 08:10 · Score: 4, Insightful

To be fair, it's not really a stroke of luck or the sleazy "networking" you referred to. He was doing real networking (without sleaze-quotes). When everybody else was either a senior in high school, playing video games and riding easy after being accepted to college, or a college freshman finding their path and drinking a lot, this guy was out at a conference meeting people and talking about the coding he had been doing for years.
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.

--
Bottles.
Re:Have some shame by Jafafa+Hots · 2013-01-12 08:27 · Score: 4, Insightful

Anyone who claims that they themselves don't have any problem are people who have done no introspection and therefore force others to have to deal with the effects of their own issues.
Nobody reaches adulthood without something they need to work on.

--
This space available.
Re:Have some shame by Cederic · 2013-01-12 12:04 · Score: 4, 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.
Re:Have some shame by Nethead · 2013-01-12 19:08 · Score: 4, 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

--
-- I have a private email server in my basement.

sad day, and sad reality by sketchbag · 2013-01-12 01:48 · Score: 4, Insightful

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

Re:sad day, and sad reality by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-12 02:21 · Score: 5, Funny

We ARE just animals. What are you, a sentient rock?
Re:sad day, and sad reality by maxwell+demon · 2013-01-12 03:10 · 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 Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.

The smoking gun by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-12 01:48 · 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

Re:Why is this not major news on Reddit? by ohnocitizen · 2013-01-12 01:55 · Score: 5, Informative

Incorrect: Reddit Cofounder RIP. Front page. 1294 votes and climbing. Submitted 4 hours ago. 84 comments vs the 24 here.

Someone's got their priorities all wrong by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-12 01:56 · Score: 5, Insightful

Spread knowledge: 30+ years in prison.

Kill a person: 10 years in prison.

Rape a woman: I don't even know how much.

Be a banker and fuck people's lives by investing their well-earned money into bad assets: Earn a bonus.

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 by Desler · 2013-01-12 02:16 · 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.

Re:He Is Free Now by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-12 01:57 · 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.

RIP by Marcion · 2013-01-12 02:16 · Score: 5, Insightful

"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

Re:Wish I knew why by kenh · 2013-01-12 02:30 · Score: 4, Insightful

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

Re:He Is Free Now by Xiph1980 · 2013-01-12 02:54 · Score: 4, Insightful

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

Re:Wish I knew why by colfer · 2013-01-12 03:08 · Score: 4, 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/

Re:He Is Free Now by fredprado · 2013-01-12 03:10 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

C. Doctorow on A. Swartz by Organic+Brain+Damage · 2013-01-12 03:16 · Score: 5, Informative

This was written by someone who knew Mr. Swartz. http://boingboing.net/2013/01/12/rip-aaron-swartz.html

Re:He Is Free Now by TheGratefulNet · 2013-01-12 03:21 · Score: 4, 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.

--

--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."

Re:He Is Free Now by circletimessquare · 2013-01-12 03:26 · Score: 4, 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

--
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it

seeming case of oppression by justice system by waterbear · 2013-01-12 03:50 · Score: 4, 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-

Re:Wish I knew why by kenh · 2013-01-12 03:56 · Score: 4, 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 - it details the charges against him.

--
Ken

Re:Wish I knew why by 0111+1110 · 2013-01-12 04:23 · Score: 4, 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.

--
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.

Re:I understand by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-12 04:28 · Score: 4, Funny

I remember 2003 as well.

Re:He Is Free Now by gomiam · 2013-01-12 04:33 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

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.

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.

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:I understand by UnknownSoldier · 2013-01-12 06:04 · 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.

Lessig's by anarcat · 2013-01-12 06:07 · Score: 4, Interesting

Here's a word from another friend of Aaron: http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bully

--
Semantics is the gravity of abstraction

This has deeper roots than the court case by Fred+Ferrigno · 2013-01-12 08:10 · Score: 4, Informative

He very clearly struggled with depression for a long time. After he got fired from Wired, he made a blog post 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 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 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.

myths about incentives, control and waivers by waterbear · 2013-01-12 11:04 · Score: 4, 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-

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