

Aaron Swartz wanted to save the world. Why couldn’t he save himself? - woodhull
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/02/aaron_swartz_he_wanted_to_save_the_world_why_couldn_t_he_save_himself.single.html

======
danso
Despite the weekly articles and coverage since Aaron's death, this is by far
the best of the pieces, especially in terms of detail. I think even Aaron's
haters will think it's the best, as it dispels a lot of the exaggerations that
have cropped up around Aaron's material accomplishments.

But even in this more realistic, nuanced light, the tragedy of his suicide
seems even more profound. There's no easy answers or conclusions, though this
piece does the best job I've seen so far of explaining the political tensions
and context leading up to Aaron's prosecution and death. Definitely a
worthwhile read, even after reading thousands of other words on the subject.

The OP downplays Aaron's role at Reddit considerably, to the point where it
sounds like he did nothing at all except dream about social activism before
taking the money and running. But even if he wasn't the full time engineer,
wasn't his contribution in converting Reddit to web.py considered noteworthy
toward the success/maintain ability of the site (at least at its early stage)?
<http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/rewritingreddit>

Edit: this was discussed in the Reddit thread five years ago though not really
conclusively answered

[http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/1octb/reddit_cof...](http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/1octb/reddit_cofounder_aaron_swartz_discusses_how_he/c1odpo)

~~~
panacea
reddit hasn't seen fit to include his avatar in the 'reddit alumni'
<http://www.reddit.com/about/team/>

------
corporalagumbo
Reading this I kept shaking my head and thinking "what a sad little boy/man."
Everything about his life makes me cringe: the awkward adolescent photos, his
gravitation towards adult "friends," his dependence on a largely analytical
basis for relationships and connections, the endless dissatisfaction and
detachment, the fruitless big dreams, the inability to focus and work on one
objective, the recklessness, the grueling self-analysis and self-exposition,
the anger and the impotence...

I think, from reading this, that Aaron was a person with something missing
inside of him. To compensate, he tried to change everything around him -
everything but himself. People like that have poor odds in life. When the
world resists their efforts and they are forced to acknowledge the limits of
their agency, their big dreams of quick change come crashing down. They can
find themselves with little to retreat to in the aftermath.

~~~
etherael
It sounds like you're disappointed in him for not succumbing to aspects of the
modern world which could fairly be described as diseases. I understand this is
a widespread and basically normal opinion, but I don't understand how people
can hold it without being aware of how subjective and ridiculous it is.

It would be like going back to the time of Galileo and Giordano Bruno and
commenting how sad it was that they couldn't just make nice with the powers
that be and toe the line like everyone around them, and how much more
fulfilled and happy they would have been if that were the case.

The world needed changing then, and it needs it now. To ignore this is to
totally miss the point of this entire episode.

~~~
corporalagumbo
Disappointed? Huh? What are you talking about?

Aaron was unhappy his entire life. He behaved recklessly, attracted criminal
prosecution, and capped it all of by killing himself. Do you find that noble?
I don't. I think he failed: failed to see the world realistically, failed to
direct his thoughts and energies in a constructive manner, and failed to
achieve much of anything. He puffed himself up and charged into something that
didn't budge, and then he lost control. That's not noble to me at all. Just
sad.

As for: > _aspects of the modern world which could fairly be described as
diseases._

Can you elaborate? (And do you mean that these aspects behave similarly to
pathological infections in organisms or to epidemiological dynamics among
populations?)

And > _Galileo_

Bad comparison. Galileo was explicitly ordered by the Catholic Church not to
"hold or defend" the Copernican system. I.e. the dominant social power of that
time and place decided they didn't like the concept, and they suppressed
efforts to discuss and spread it. When Galileo edged around the constraint,
they clamped down even harder. It was a clear cut case of a social power
deciding to restrict free speech to prevent an idea from even being _thought
about._

In contrast, there is no dominant social power in modern times. No one is in
even a remotely comparable position in 2013 to suppress ideas. You and I are
free to discuss copyright liberation or whatever we want. Aaron was free to
write blogs, tracts, hand out pamphlets, send letters to politicians, make
websites, etc etc etc. No one suppressed him in any of those activities. It is
only when he crossed the line into illegal behaviour that he was prosecuted -
according to open, democratically-developed laws and prosecutorial guidelines
- all subject to normal processes of democratic oversight.

> _The world needed changing then, and it needs it now._

Dangerous language in my opinion. Nothing "needs" anything. Deciding that the
world "needs" changing means you set up a very rigid condition for success.
And this is what I think happened with Aaron: inevitably people who think the
world needs changing run into roadblocks, which their rigidity does not
prepare them for. Then, failing to make the changes they believe are
necessary, they fail to meet their rigid victory condition - and because of
its rigidity, they fail, in their own opinion, absolutely. Which is
devastating, and in Aaron's case, seems to have pushed him past his limits.

A healthier perspective is that the world might be better with some tweaks -
but it will probably never be perfect, and you should accept that you might
not be able to do everything you want - and so on and so on. Aaron could have
done with a bit of that perspective I reckon. How about you?

As far as I'm concerned, all of Aaron's convictions and all of the bickering
about the technicalities of the case are red herrings here. The fact that so
many people haven't stopped to think harder about all this, and have instead
jumped on the instant rage bandwagon is one of, if not THE real issue, I
think. It speaks to a real trend of snap-judgement reactionary groupthink,
which seems to be prevalent in contemporary internet culture. The angry people
yelling about democracy and shouting dissidents down are the real danger to
open society.

~~~
Riesling
> No one is in even a remotely comparable position in 2013 to suppress ideas.

Of course not. That would be weird, as those events lie hundred of years in
the past. It is a total different world today. Thinking that those events map
one-to-one is far beyond ridiculous. You need to refer to the principle.

The hard truth is, that much of the publicly funded research is kept away from
99,9 % of the people, just so a few can make profits.

Fine, it might make it easier for you to say to yourself, that

> democratically-developed laws

back up your opinion.

But the actual truth is that many laws are written by lobbyists.

Also the laws are and always have been up to interpretation. The prerogative
of interpretation is under a constant challenge.

If you think that the current system will be seen as just in 100 years from
now you are probably wrong. If we want to accelerate human development we must
make sure, that everyone has access to current research, just as we make sure
that everyone has access to the modern software due to open source.

Sadly, for every Aaron there are thousands of people with your mindset that
chose the way of least resistance. And when I hear those people pitying the
ones who are trying to make the world a better place, it makes me angry and
sad.

~~~
corporalagumbo
1) You've got the wrong end of the stick mate - it was etherael who tried to
make the Galileo comparison - I was pointing out to him how ridiculous that
comparison was - and you have mistaken my critique for his original
comparison. Aim your criticisms at him.

2) _The hard truth is, that much of the publicly funded research is kept away
from 99,9 % of the people, just so a few can make profits._

How about you back up _that_ opinion? Because it sounds like reductive
hyperbole.

3) _the actual truth is that many laws are written by lobbyists._

I would never deny the influence of special interests, and you misconstrue me
if you think I do - or if you think I am arguing that current political
systems are perfect. I am sick of this false dichotomy that you can only have
two opinions on modern democracy - either you are a raving critic who thinks
it is all corrupt and shit, or you are a placid simpleton who thinks
everything is fine. I take a middle road - I try and see the good and the bad
in balance. The harsh black and white perspectives common among e-activists
are severely in need of some balance.

4) _the laws are and always have been up to interpretation_

Yes, of course. Did I argue that this is not the case, or should not be the
case? The question is the mechanism through which laws should be reappraised.
Aaron Swartz thought reckless, desperate and illegal behaviour was an
appropriate mechanism. People like you seem to think that angry crowds of
people on the internet demanding the change they want is an appropriate
mechanism. I think that careful, focused consideration of all pertinent issues
by qualified experts is the most appropriate mechanism. Shocking, I know, but
no, I don't think people on the internet tend to come to particularly balanced
opinions on political issues. My greatest sin seems to be that this isn't sexy
or modern enough - it is after all a mechanism which modern democracies employ
all the time. Apparently that makes me one of the "thousands of people... that
chose the way of least resistance" (because it sure is a walk in the park
venturing and defending my position against the anti-government consensus on
Hackernews...)

5) _If you think that the current system will be seen as just in 100 years
from now you are probably wrong._

Again, this false dichotomy - can I not simultaneously believe that there is a
lot of good to be found in the democratic systems we have developed so far,
and believe at the same time that there is room for improvement? I don't see
how the two are mutually exclusive.

The problem I think is that people today are not particularly educated about
how the history of the development of modern political and economic systems,
and they have no understanding of how much they have improved on previous
formats, and how many benefits we derive from these advances. They are blind
to the benefits of what has been achieved, and can only see problems. So they
have no perspective.

6) _we must make sure, that everyone has access to current research_

We must, I would argue, also make sure that we protect the systems of
incentives that allows creative work to be done. This to me is the singular
arrogance of e-activists - the belief that anyone profiting from creative work
are fatcats, that no allowances should be made for creators in making
information free, that anyone affected by the actions of e-activists is just a
dinosaur, that the world must adapt to them. It's unhealthy. I think if we
really want to accelerate human development we must be careful not to succumb
without critical scrutiny to the allure of impressive-sounding causes such as
open-everything. How often do e-activists question their actions? How often do
they say "what if the things I believe in are wrong and damaging?" Not often,
from what I can see.

6) _when I hear those people pitying the ones who are trying to make the world
a better place, it makes me angry and sad._

Oh, get off your damn high horse.

------
Yuioup
I'm kinda gettig tired of all these Aaron Swartz posts. There I said it.

~~~
shock
Therein lies the power of the oppressors: the public attention span to any one
subject is severely limited. I admit to also getting tired, but I wish it
weren't so, because it doesn't seem we've accomplished much. The petition has
stalled and no reforms have been made.

~~~
corporalagumbo
Welcome to 2013 and the sound and fury of insta-activism. Welcome also to 2012
(KONY) and 2011 (Occupy). Am I missing anything?

~~~
panacea
"Am I missing anything?"

Stop SOPA?

~~~
corporalagumbo
Ah yes. Sometimes the mob does have teeth.

------
guard-of-terra
If you ever played computer games you will know: Having one healer you can
heal everyone but that healer; Having two healers you can heal just everyone.

------
xijuan
I know many of you are getting tired of articles about him. But I still find
this article really interesting!

------
roel_v
Here's an only tangentially related question I've wondered about several times
now, reading various articles about this case: his girlfriend's last name is
"Stinebrickner-Kauffman", and consistently so. I know of Spanish customs where
children get the last names of both parents, but these names don't sound
Latino. Is it customary for (sorry if I'm making a wrong assumption there)
Israeli/Jewish people to take both last names as well, or had she been married
before? (again not to be stalkerish, I don't really care if she had been
married - I'm just wondering if there are other cases than in Spain where it's
customary to take the name of both parents).

~~~
tokenadult
Here's an article on surname patterns in the United States, previously
submitted for HN discussion:

[http://www.npr.org/2012/07/19/156923573/when-hyphen-boy-
meet...](http://www.npr.org/2012/07/19/156923573/when-hyphen-boy-meets-hyphen-
girl-names-pile-up)

~~~
roel_v
Oh that's interesting, missed that the first time around, thanks.

------
corporalagumbo
The comment thread, by the way, is fantastic. Entertaining seeing what a
relatively non-tech crowd (with a few nuts sprinkled in for good measure) has
to say about all this.

~~~
corporalagumbo
E.g. - from user Catfitz: "You've put your finger on something I've felt a
long time about life and death of Swartz and his case -- there's an
authoritarian arrogance there about hacking and stealing 4 million articles to
decide for other people, the JSTOR system and the universities and scholars
who participate in it, how they should live -- and be forcibly "liberated" as
he "expropriates from the expropriators" like a common Bolshevik. This is
dressed up in so much talk of "free" and "open" that people forget that it
bears all the signs of technocommunism -- everyone is to be forced to work for
free and share everything in a collective farm. How will costs be met?"

------
smogzer
Could the guy responsible for making the contents of his hd available online
do it so. Use the dd command by the way, don't just copy files.

------
xijuan
I like all the stories about him. It is like seeing him from a different angle
every time. Pieces by pieces, I start to see the whole picture. I feel I
understand more of him each time. But at the same time, I feel there are more
and more things I still don't know about him.

------
j-kidd
Great article. The most interesting part for me is that the JSTOR servers
couldn't sustain continuous download from a wireless connection. If only they
have more competent developers...

------
michalu
Seems like writing about Aaron Swartz still generates traffic.

------
dylangs1030
"Aaron Swartz wanted to save the world, so why couldn't he save himself?"

...Really? There are implicit assumptions in that title, and the way in which
it was presented, which I find somewhat disrespectful.

Why do we need to question that he couldn't "save himself"? Why do we need to
assume he had that responsibility at all?

And why does attempting to save the world beg the question of inability to
save oneself?

The answer: it's just a title to get you to read it, hoping to have enough
pathos that you don't think too critically about it.

Why do we force ourselves to take on the burden of overanalyzing the man? It's
obviously a sad passing, but people are dwelling on it in what I believe to be
the wrong way. Stop questioning and just appreciate for its own sake. It
wasn't preventable. At least not for the reporters and readers of these
articles. And I'm sure his loved ones are not appreciating news articles that
implicitly try to find something _wrong_ \- it delays peace.

~~~
intended
The full title is: "The idealist: Aaron Swartz wanted to save the world, so
why couldn't he save himself"

The article itself, is good journalism in the in-depth detailed vein. After
finishing it, I found the question in the title to be relevant.

There was no over-analysis of the man.

edit: missing quotation marks.

~~~
dylangs1030
I agree with you, I have no difficulty with the article itself. The article
was well-written.

And while this is admittedly subjective, I find the title itself to invite the
sort of things I mentioned above, borderline to link-bait.

------
LatvjuAvs
Maybe he did, only our reservation of what he did prevents us to recognize
that.

