
July 11, 2020 RIP my darling boy - constantinum
https://twitter.com/beadmomsw/status/1282305932140130304
======
charia
This short story from Aaron Swartz' blog changed my life.

[http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/handwritingwall](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/handwritingwall)

It played a significant role in shaping my understanding of humanity, charity
and what impact as a single human being can have. It was a big factor in why I
joined the Effective Altruism movement and donate 10+% of my income yearly. I
highly recommend reading it.

It saddens me greatly that person who was so forward thinking and was only
looking out for the future of humanity was taken away so young.

~~~
serniebanders
I actually donated all of my income this year, all the money I earned after
paying for food and rent. That amounted to about 300k. Saved my ass during
taxes yesterday. Owed the government around 80k, but then after I put my
charitable donations it looks like I may actually get some money back from the
government (which again, I would be donating).

~~~
scanny
Wow, what promped you to give it all away?

~~~
serniebanders
I realize my dependence on comforts made me mentally weak. I become easily
irritable and feel exposed and vulnerable when I'm not around my comforts.

Ultimately, it started feeling like I'm paying to become mentally weaker so
now I opt to live a life with nothing to lose.

After I no longer care about my income, I can now fearlessly call people out
on their bullshit at work and challenge their decisions. It helped me focus
more at work and make the right decisions instead of the easy ones.

~~~
loquor
That's amazing. What did you do about retirement, health insurance, emergency
funds?

~~~
serniebanders
Health insurance is standard high deductible provided by my company. I don't
care about retirement and emergency funds. 3 years ago I cleaned out my 401
and donated it and it actually wasn't so bad. I'm doing the max for tax
deductible so that I get some company matching and no taxes but after I quit
my job I plan to clean it out again and donate them like I did 3 years ago.

Imo, if you are truly happy, you can find happiness no matter how bad your
situation is. So I don't care about the distant future. I optimize for the
impact I can make today.

------
rvense
"Aaron dead. World wanderers, we have lost a wise elder. Hackers for right, we
are one down. Parents all, we have lost a child. Let us weep."

(Tim Berners-Lee)

~~~
ionwake
Thanks for the quote when did he say this?

~~~
austinjp
[https://mobile.twitter.com/timberners_lee/status/29014045421...](https://mobile.twitter.com/timberners_lee/status/290140454211698689)

------
an-allen
Everytime I am reminded of this event, I remember the rage... and it cuts just
like it did when it happened 7 and a half years ago. It actually makes my
stomach wrench and my eyes swell with tears... this is what injustice looks
like. this is what a failing society and culture looks like. this is tragedy.
this is heartlessness. this is evil.

------
gws
His death was incredibly touching to me, and I’m not a sentimental guy. I
asked myself why that was the case and the answer I came up with is that he
was a true idealist, what I longed to be but did not have the ____ to

------
austinl
Take some time to read through Aaron's blog if you haven't:
[http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/archive](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/archive).
I'd recommend starting with his series of posts called _Raw Nerve_
([http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/rawnerve](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/rawnerve)).

~~~
JCharante
Once you finish those, there's loads more to find on archive.org of the
previous two iterations of his blog. At least those are the ones I know about.

------
_bxg1
For those who don't know who this is:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz)

~~~
matsemann
I learned of him some time after the events, by joining HN. What was the
discussion here like at the time? Both the charges and later his death.

~~~
radicalriddler
Searching on hn.algolia.com

Top voted post at the time -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5046845](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5046845)

Five years later -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16141013](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16141013)

------
_bxg1
Nobody's life should be ruined over something as banal as copyright
infringement. Nobody. Period. Idealist or not. This should be enshrined in
law.

~~~
akersten
It's disgusting that we've allowed violation of _copyright_ to be a criminal
offense. It should be a civil offense at most, with no possibility of jail
time. No wasting money extraditing Kim Dotcom from NZ, no ruining kids' lives
for downloading music from the internet.

I'm appalled at Disney, Comcast, and any other media giant that has
successfully lobbied for the expansion of the monstrous copyright regime in
the USA.

Did you know the FBI wastes time looking into this kind of stuff? Shameful.

~~~
ve55
Copyright laws are often some of the most user-hostile laws that regularly
seem to be passed in many countries recently

~~~
_bxg1
It's a very efficient mechanism for a handful of very powerful companies to
slurp a limitless amount of money up without doing any work. Once a work is
created, people will pay for it over and over again forever. And where there's
a money-making scheme, there's legislation to back it up.

------
fmajid
His mother's grief is heartbreaking. Prosecutors in the US are almost as
lawless as the police.

------
rglovejoy
The way MIT persecuted Aaron is one reason why this alum no longer gives it
money.

~~~
ta17711771
Did they?

Or did they just not speak out publicly against the prosecutor?

------
seebetter
Based on this story with Aaron and experiences in the 1990s with hacker
friends, my opinion of federal prosecutors is very low. I see them as highly
educated people who excel in relativism and twist ethics and law to achieve
narrow goals without regard to principles.

Compounding this, I also got into a dispute with two former federal
prosecutors, both of whom did wildly unethical things. One represents the
Police Chief and the Sheriff of a major city. I can't even believe that former
US Attorneys would act this way, but then I'm reminded by Alexander Acosta who
protected Epstein.

~~~
rapind
I don't think this happens in a bubble. You have to look at the incentives.
What's their reward? Political capital? Quotas?

~~~
VHRanger
Conviction rates for one.

~~~
Thorrez
Does the prosecutor get to choose which cases to prosecute? If so if you're
optimizing for a high conviction rate you should drop all cases except your
absolutely most solid case. Then just ride that 100% conviction rate for the
rest of your career while dropping all future cases.

~~~
jjk166
Conviction rates don't exist in a vacuum though. If you have a 100% conviction
rating but have only prosecuted one case, no one is going to care. The real
key is to bring extreme charges against large numbers of people and then offer
them palatable plea deals. You get a large number of convictions with little
effort and the few people who risk going to court aren't going to hurt your
conviction rate much even if they win.

------
rasengan0
Found this on Reddit? rss?

I just think about all the influence a life can have.

Thank you Aaron

Sorely missed.

------
justanotheranon
i recently came across some info the implications are shocking.

read this thread:

[https://threader.app/thread/1214173689111031808](https://threader.app/thread/1214173689111031808)

Aaron had been helping Assange and Wikileaks very early on. In 2009, Wikileaks
released files from the Congressional Research Service, apparently obtained by
scraping their website using a trivial by-pass to access non-public files.

Aaron had worked on the staff of Congressman Grayson during the same time
period.

What if it was Aaron poking around the CRS website as part of his job duties
who found that bug and then gave it to Assange?

That would make Aaron the "source" for that 2009 leak--one of the first things
published by then young Wikileaks.

what if the reason DOJ so harshly persecuted Aaron was because of his
involvement with Wikileaks? This is speculation, as there is no explicit
evidence supporting this. Aaron's connection to Wikileaks seems like an
important enough coincidence that I cannot rule it out.

But I have always wondered: just how far does the US govt go to suppress and
permanently silence people who are Enemies of the State? Especially talented
programmers who are digitial natives well equipped to challenge systems of
power which are more and more based on technical and information supremacy?

~~~
rshnotsecure
There have been rumors that people are being permanently held in Corecivic
prisons, where all their communications are monitored via Securus
Technologies. Of course the guards don't know, they're good people...they are
just told so-and-so "is crazy and thinks he discovered a conspiracy".

No comment on this, although I posted to show what the farthest extent
postulated is for the question you asked. But Corecivic.com is not a good
company certainly and likes to pretend it is the Bureau of Prisons (which has
real authority from a legal sovereign state), and lol has previous hosted on
Huawei Cloud of all places.

------
disposekinetics
Aaron was so many things I aspire to be. He was hero who's contributions to
technology so many of use use daily.

------
jupiterboy
Whether we're comfortable calling it as such or not, this should be considered
a culpable murder. Suicide is the reasonably foreseeable outcome of being
capriciously targeted by the overwhelming violence of the government. I am so
sorry for the loss. Aaron was clearly a hugely valuable human being.

~~~
slg
I agree that the prosecutors were unnecessarily aggressive in the way they
want after Aaron in this case. However it is a dangerous precedent to set that
anyone who does something that might be seen as a catalyst for suicide can be
found culpable in a murder. If someone gets fired for their job and commits
suicide, is their boss liable? If someone is dumped by their significant other
and commits suicide, is their former partner liable? This also isn't getting
into the problem this presents for the legal system. Does someone fabricating
suicidal thoughts force the government's hand into a lighter sentence?

Also suicide is never a "reasonably foreseeable outcome" when someone is faced
with a 6 month jail sentence. There are literally millions of people in jail
in this country for longer sentences that never consider suicide. Anyone who
thinks throwing away the 50 years post jail sentence is worth not having to
endure a rough few months is not in a good mental state. This country does a
horrible job helping people with mental health issues. That is generally what
kills people who die by suicide. It isn't whatever event is ultimately the
impetus for the action.

~~~
wtallis
> However it is a dangerous precedent to set that anyone who does something
> that might be seen as a catalyst for suicide can be found culpable in a
> murder.

Most people don't have such inescapable power underlying their threats. The
government is a good deal more fearsome than most individuals who aren't
directly threatening murder in the traditional sense.

> Also suicide is never a "reasonably foreseeable outcome" when someone is
> faced with a 6 month jail sentence.

It's a bit disingenuous to call it a threat of 6 months in jail. That was a
plea bargain offer with other strings attached, that came after Swartz was
threatened with up to 35 years and then more charges were added bringing the
potential up to 50 years. By the time the 6 month offer was made, Swartz had
already been subject to more abuse and harassment than his actions could have
ever justified. He was deep into a Kafkaesque nightmare before the prosecution
offered the first shreds of mercy.

~~~
ryanlol
> Swartz was threatened with up to 35 years and then more charges were added
> bringing the potential up to 50 years

This never happened.

~~~
wtallis
There are copious news reports from the time that state the charges filed
against him carried those maximum penalties. It happened.

The prosecutors did eventually state that they would not seek maximum
penalties, but that's not a guarantee, and it's not something that was
communicated at the time the charges were initially brought against him.

~~~
ryanlol
> There are copious news reports from the time that state the charges filed
> against him carried those maximum penalties

Yes, and those reports fail to accurately communicate the possible range of
punishments that Swartz could’ve received.

At the time the prosecutors claimed that Swartz could’ve faced at most 7
years. A very harsh, but unlikely sentence.

~~~
wtallis
> At the time the prosecutors claimed that Swartz could’ve faced at most 7
> years.

From what I can find, "at the time" here means _at the time of the plea
bargain offer_ , not at the time he was charged, or at the time they added
more charges.

~~~
ryanlol
Are you saying that the sentencing guidelines changed during the trial?

Suggesting that Swartz was threatened with a 35-year sentence requires some
extraordinary mental gymnastics.

~~~
ionwake
I’m not from the US but I remember reading at the time that the max sentence
was 50y

~~~
javagram
News articles and press releases from the DOJ often include a theoretical
maximum sentence that is unconnected with how a judge will actually assign a
sentence.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Federal_Sentenci...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Federal_Sentencing_Guidelines)

A defendant with competent legal counsel (as Aaron Swartz had) would have been
informed by them of the likely actual range of the sentence if found guilty.

------
ykevinator
What is this about?

~~~
klyrs
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz)

~~~
SwiftyBug
Why did his mother tweet "July 11, 2020 RIP my darling boy"? Wikipedia lists
the date of his death as January 11th 2013.

~~~
wonnage
scroll down and 7/11 is the anniversary of the grand jury indictment

------
xvilka
People who work for JSTOR are complicit in this crime.

~~~
nicoburns
I thought JSTOR wanted not to press charges, but the public prosecutor decided
to do so anyway.

~~~
ryandrake
A little off-topic but the idea that a private party can request (or not) to
“press charges” is kind of a TV/Hollywood trope, isn’t it? It’s not some
button that a victim of a crime can go and “press” to activate a trial.
Prosecutors decide whether or not to pursue criminal cases.

~~~
pravus
No, it's correct. I've been involved in several incidents where the police
asked if I wanted to "press charges" against the offender. For minor incidents
this greatly reduces caseload while giving me the opportunity to ensure I get
justice.

Prosecutors have the option of pressing charges on behalf of their
jurisdiction for criminal cases and can sometimes do so even if the violated
party declines to press charges themselves.

~~~
jasonwatkinspdx
Assuming you're talking about the US, you're slightly mistaken. The police
just use the phrase in the colloquial sense, as a way of asking if you'd co-
operate with a prosecution. The actual report gets written up then goes to the
DA's office. The DA's office ultimately makes the call. Your cooperation is a
big factor, but it won't force their decision. A private citizen doesn't have
the authority to force the DA to bring charges if the DA decides it's not
worthwhile.

------
troughway
Has the prosecutor on his case been brought to light and justice yet? If not,
why not?

~~~
jupiterboy
Using a throwaway in effort to avoid being arbitrarily harassed, but: of
course not, almost as a matter of course, the state does not bring justice
against itself, especially when you can defer or abstract away the
fundamentals as "law enforcement" or "investigations."

A reminder that even with the wave of media attention, approximately zero of
the cops involved in the recent unambiguous murder of black people have been
brought to justice.

~~~
tux1968
> approximately zero of the cops... have been brought to justice.

Is that true though? At least in the recent George Floyd case the 4 cops
involved were all fired the next day from their jobs and have all been charged
and are awaiting trial.

~~~
GaryNumanVevo
After weeks of protests, they were charged. I have no doubt if it weren't for
the protests the officers would have had desk duty for a few months and put
back out on the street.

~~~
tux1968
They were all fired the very next day after the incident.

~~~
jgon
After the murder. They were fired the very next day after murdering a man.
When we call it an "incident" our sanitized language steals all of the context
and meaning of the event.

When a person drinks too much at a Christmas party it is an incident. When
someone has a nervous breakdown in public, it is an incident. When someone
kneels on a person's neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, as they beg for mercy,
say they can't breath, and then cry out for their mother it is a murder.

They were fired after murdering a man. Can you imagine that standard being
applied to literally any single other field than police officers?

~~~
tux1968
I have never seen the video and I don't know enough about it to declare it a
murder, sorry. The main point of my reply was to assuage the fears of the
parent that they would have gotten desk duty and been put back on the street
without weeks of protest.

------
Kednicma
Never forget. We are fighting for our rights.

Also never forget that we're having this discussion on a site that is hostile
to us.

~~~
pjc50
HN is not hostile to fans of Swartz.

~~~
Kednicma
Feel free to let my five downvoters know; I'm sure that that "not hostile"
will change their minds.

HN is hostile to people like Swartz who actively work to tear down information
silos, shine light on government and corporate secrets, and advocate for
intellectual property reform.

It's not an accident that shit_hn_says, n-gate, /r/SneerClub, and other
critics of HN, can make most of their commentary simply by _quoting_ HN
discussion and juxtaposing it next to basic paraphrases of what was said; so
much of what's said here is rude towards the rest of the world that merely
quoting the discussion is sufficient to highlight its farcical and close-
minded nature.

~~~
solarengineer
Sorry, you are making things up. At the time of Aaron's demise, the entire
first page at HN was full of articles about him. We'd all discussed quite a
bit here as well as elsewhere.

As for "shit hn says", we are all not even from the same part of the world and
have very diverse cultures and divergent viewpoints as well. There's no single
"hn" that you allude to.

~~~
Kednicma
Oh, shit_hn_says [0] is a Twitter account which mocks the serious-yet-rude
attitude of folks on this site. Their posts are curated selections from normal
HN discourse; the entirety of the criticism is that some person genuinely
believed what they wrote.

I'm not trying to paint some picture of folks unsympathetic or uncaring. I'm
saying that no amount of thoughts nor prayers are going to be equivalent to
doing the hard work of changing the world to be less horrible. If we are going
to spend a thread remembering the sacrifice of such a person, martyred for not
just their beliefs but their works, then we ought to at least acknowledge the
mismatch between what Swartz did with his life, and what commenters here are
doing with their life while they're sending in thoughts and prayers.

[0] [https://twitter.com/shit_hn_says](https://twitter.com/shit_hn_says)

~~~
solarengineer
I have become one of the idiots who attacks strangers on the internet. My
apologies.

