Ask HN: Share your memories of Aaron Swartz - webmaven
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webmaven
I didn't know Aaron well. The only time I met him in person was in San Diego
at OSCON 2002, where he struck me as a cocky, earnest, and bright person,
tilting his head back to ask the taller people around him what technologies
and tools they thought he should learn next. He didn't seem young, so much as
just short and inexperienced, but raring to go.

And go he did. After that first encounter, it seemed like I was always running
into him online. Like some illuminating flare shot from a mortar, he shone
brightly enough to light up many important debates and throw them into stark
relief, often with sharp, sarcastic wit, and a healthy disrespect for
authority figures. He gave the world so much, with his own blend of
technology, activism, building the world he wanted to live in, whacking away
at the parts that were crude and and unnecessary holdovers from the past, and
just plain stirring shit up that needed stirring. It may sound weird, but for
all that Aaron was sixteen years younger, he was the kind of person I want be
when I grow up and get my shit together.

And now, we'll never get to see what sort of person he would have become.

Note: Adapted from
[https://plus.google.com/+MichaelBernstein/posts/2pYp53qSnSx](https://plus.google.com/+MichaelBernstein/posts/2pYp53qSnSx)

