
MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award - rbanffy
https://www.media.mit.edu/disobedience/
======
saycheese
As someone that actively engages in disobedience it is disheartening that
they'd award $250k to a single winner instead of $50k to five, $10k to twenty-
five, etc.

So many people struggle to make a difference, no matter how small, and being
honored for their efforts, when it's most likely that it rarely if ever
happens in real life, would be inspiring to them to keep up what they're
doing.

For those interested in reading about the original post covering in detail the
thoughts behind the award, see this blog post:

[https://joi.ito.com/weblog/2016/03/21/on-
disobedience.html](https://joi.ito.com/weblog/2016/03/21/on-disobedience.html)

~~~
allenleein
We should still nominate still Aaron Swartz.

＊＊＊Aaron Swartz＊＊＊ Information is power. But like all power, there are those
who want to keep it for themselves. The world's entire scientific and cultural
heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly
being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations. Want to
read the papers featuring the most famous results of the sciences? You'll need
to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier.

(From archive.org:
[https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamj...](https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamjuly2008_djvu.txt))

~~~
ploggingdev
From the post :

> Eligibility requirements for the $250,000 prize

> The recipient must be living.

So that rules out Aaron Swartz.

~~~
ReverseCold
But it's a disobedience award, so... disobey the rules.

~~~
sebastianconcpt
You can disobey as long as you fit the narrative. This is an issue far beyond
MIT even countries

------
toastednz
I've nominated Alexandra Elbakyan of sci-hub and encourage everyone else to do
the same.

I'd also be happy if Aaron Swartz won!

~~~
tricolon
The first eligibility requirement: The recipient must be living.

~~~
oopsietazer
The first word in the award: Disobedience.

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
That's just stupid.

The award is clearly for people who are being disobedient for the benefit of
society.

Breaking rules for the sake of breaking rules is just anarchy or trolling.
You're just inconveniencing people who set out to recognise real contributions
to society.

Unless there is an Aaron Schwartz foundation or something, nominate people who
are still doing work.

~~~
oopsietazer
This isn't about Aaron. It's about the next person who downloads too much free
stuff doing it emboldened by the thought that MIT will have their back when
the feds come knocking. If only because not doing so costs MIT 250 thousand
dollars.

That would be a much bigger contribution to society than any one person
walking away with this award.

~~~
newjersey
While we are on this topic, let's not forget the real culprits: cfaa and
widespread abuse of discretionary power by prosecution.

We must repeal (and not replace) the cfaa. Of course, we should name and shame
MIT at every junction (shame on you, MIT!) However, we shouldn't lose sight of
the bigger picture. CFAA is evil.

~~~
codewiz
Joi Ito, Director of the Media Lab, highly praised Aaron during the memorial
held at the Media Lab in 2013:

[http://tech.mit.edu/V133/N12/swartz.html](http://tech.mit.edu/V133/N12/swartz.html)

Perhaps the rest of MIT deserves shaming, but please don't punish the Media
Lab.

------
slg
After reading the comments on this page, I am a little disheartened that
apparently most people want to give what is basically a work grant to a dead
guy. Regardless of what you think of someone like Aaron Swartz, there are
plenty of people who are currently doing good work who could greatly benefit
from something like this. Giving it to a dead person simply to make a
political statement diminishes any impact this award could have.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> Giving it to a dead person simply to make a political statement diminishes
> any impact this award could have.

Giving it to Aaron Swartz would provide both the title and the money to
advance the cause of Aaron's Law or similar reform of the CFAA, enacting which
would do more for socially positive disobedience than the equivalent amount of
money.

------
glomek
It doesn't matter if Aaron Swartz is ineligible. We should still nominate him.
We should nominate him so many times that granting the award to anyone else
makes this award an obviously disingenuous publicity stunt.

~~~
kevinr
Unpopular opinion: Aaron Swartz abused the trust which was placed in him by
MIT as its guest when engaging in his civil disobedience, and MIT was
perfectly justified not to intercede in his case.

A bit like if your friend comes to your house, you tell him, "don't smoke weed
outside, the cops around here will arrest you," and your friend says "I
support marijuana legalization, so I'll smoke wherever I want." Your friend
smokes up on your front steps, you try to get him to stop (it's your house
after all), and then the cops show up, rough you up a bit, and arrest him.

There are many more deserving than Aaron Swartz of this award, within and
without the MIT community.

~~~
raverbashing
Exactly

The AS widows are becoming annoying

~~~
glomek
Aaron Swartz being dead is becoming annoying.

~~~
komali2
Aaron Swartz is mostly dead because of untreated mental illness. The things
that happened to him were bad, but it's not MIT's fault he was suicidal.

~~~
glomek
That absolutely may have been a factor.

However, what 26 year old computer nerd without a black belt wouldn't give
suicide some thought when staring at an unjust sentence in a federal prison of
fifty years, AKA five decades, AKA half a century, AKA the majority of their
remaining life expectancy, AKA about twice as long as their entire life up to
that point and more than twice as long as they can remember?

Who wouldn't at least consider suicide when faced with the realization that
even with time off for good behavior, by the time they got out they'd be
closer to retirement age than to a reasonable age for restarting a career?
That they'd have spent the most productive years of their life rotting away in
prison instead of producing?

Weighing your pain avoidance instinct against your self preservation instinct
is entirely rational. We don't put all of the blame on mental illnes, even if
the person was mentally ill, when someone jumps to their death from a burning
building or when a cancer patient opts for euthanasia. It's inappropriate to
do so for Aaron Swartz.

------
YeGoblynQueenne
I see a lot of support for nominating Aaron Swartz on this page. Why not
Chelsea Manning instead?

Consider this: her actions parallel Swartz's actions (she liberated
information), except that they could potentially benefit many, many more
people the world over; Swartz's disobedience would primarily benefit academics
(though of course the benefits would sort of trickle down to the rest of the
population, eventually).

Additionally, Chelsea Manning is alive, and would benefit from the award.
Nominating Aaron Swartz post-humously seems to me like nothing more than an
attempt to rub MIT's nose into its own mess ...except of course that the
people involved with the award are not the people responsible for Aaron
Swartz's treatment.

~~~
Chris2048
Manning isn't in a position to do much now, though?

------
reachtarunhere
How about Alexandra Elbakyan who started sci-hub. Her work is pretty similar
to Aaron's. I feel that by defying the rules sci-hub has really helped bring
the cause of open-access to everyone's attention and we are all watching it
change the system for good.

------
snsr
MIT was complicit in the prosecution of Aaron Swartz for seemingly qualifying
activities.

~~~
tzs
How was MIT complicit?

When they involved the police, they had no idea who it was that was apparently
attacking them. They just knew that an unknown party was causing serious
disruptions, and was actively trying to evade their countermeasures, and had
moved on to trespassing and equipment tampering.

It was only after Swartz was arrested that his identity became known.

Everything after that was in the hands of prosecutors. MIT did tell
prosecutors that MIT did not advocate jail time for Swartz.

~~~
nikcub
> "causing serious disruptions"

So disruptive to MIT that they didn't even notice it until JSTOR emailed.

------
curyous
Aren't these the people that failed to defend Aaron Swartz?

~~~
dom2
MIT is not one uniform entity.

~~~
coldtea
Then it should have made several conflicting announcements at the time, but I
just saw one.

~~~
hueving
Because everyone at MIT has authority to make press releases. Similar to how
everyone in the US is allowed to use the Whitehouse press secretary to
announce things.

~~~
coldtea
> _Because everyone at MIT has authority to make press releases._

Well, if they don't, that's still a SINGLE organization to my eyes.

Just because some people there might disagreed at the time, it doesn't absolve
the organization.

~~~
hueving
Did you even read the context of the comment you originally replied to? It
refers to _people_ , not an organization.

>Aren't these the people that failed to defend Aaron Swartz?

So no, these aren't the same people. However, it is the same parent
organization, but I don't think anyone is disputing that even though that's
the strawman you are attacking.

~~~
coldtea
> _Did you even read the context of the comment you originally replied to? It
> refers to people, not an organization._

Organizations consist of people. There is some more stuff beyond that -- just
some legal documents, buildings, and other assets, but the thing that actually
has the agency to drive an organization is people.

> _So no, these aren 't the same people. However, it is the same parent
> organization, but I don't think anyone is disputing that even though that's
> the strawman you are attacking._

They are the same people that worked there and didn't protest publicly about
the actions of the organization and/or didn't resign.

~~~
hueving
>They are the same people that worked there and didn't protest publicly about
the actions of the organization and/or didn't resign.

So nobody has left or joined MIT since the Aaron Schwartz case?

Even ignoring that detail, I have a lot more respect for people that change an
organization from within rather than quit immediately anytime something
disagreeable happens. If everyone operated the way you are suggesting, we
would essentially have institutions that would never change because nobody
with different viewpoints could join.

------
bluetwo
I appreciate the spirit of the award, however it seems to be coming from an
odd place for an odd amount.

I'm not sure what part of the mission of the MIT Media Lab is really involved
with rocking the boat. And 250k seems like a heck of a lot of cash to do this.
50k seems like a good amount. I would rather see 5 winners.

~~~
DonHopkins
The MIT Media Lab has always had a long list of corporate sponsors [1]. And
some of them are real boat rockers. If by boat you mean yacht, and by rock you
mean race.

But I notice that Philip Morris isn't on that list any more, like it was in
2004 [2] and 2005 [3].

Philip Morris makes a lot of money from disobedient kids who won't listen to
what their parents tell them about not smoking. And they do pay a lot of
disobedient scientists who are willing to dispute the scientific consensus
about the dangers of smoking. [4]

[1] [https://www.media.mit.edu/members/member-
companies/](https://www.media.mit.edu/members/member-companies/)

[2]
[http://web.mit.edu/annualreports/pres04/07.05.pdf](http://web.mit.edu/annualreports/pres04/07.05.pdf)

[3]
[http://web.mit.edu/annualreports/pres05/07.06.pdf](http://web.mit.edu/annualreports/pres05/07.06.pdf)

[4] [https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/low-
tar...](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/low-tar-
cigarettes/481116/)

------
iandanforth
I nominated Edward Snowden. I'm sure I wasn't the first.

------
bane
I feel like a disobedience award should be met with a little disobedience. I'm
not sure what all the chit-chat about rules and eligibility is around here,
I've nominated Aaron Swartz -- fuck the rules.

------
aristus
Seems like a great way to catch a nasty case of conspiracy to commit a felony.
The reason the Nobel committee can give an award to a political prisoner in
another country is that they are in another country.

~~~
sokoloff
To take another comment, suppose the Media Lab awards Snowden the $250K. What
possible conspiracy charge could the Media Lab (or the person(s) who nominated
Snowden) catch?

~~~
bobsam
Has Snowden been charged with anything?

If not, can it still be considered helping a fugitive?

~~~
Pyxl101
> Has Snowden been charged with anything?

Yes, according to the Washington Post.

> Federal prosecutors have filed a criminal complaint against Edward Snowden,
> the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked a trove of
> documents about top-secret surveillance programs, and the United States has
> asked Hong Kong to detain him on a provisional arrest warrant, according to
> U.S. officials.

> Snowden was charged with theft, “unauthorized communication of national
> defense information” and “willful communication of classified communications
> intelligence information to an unauthorized person,” according to the
> complaint. The last two charges were brought under the 1917 Espionage Act.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-
ch...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-charges-
snowden-with-
espionage/2013/06/21/507497d8-dab1-11e2-a016-92547bf094cc_story.html)

------
justinclift
Wonder how many times Edward Snowden will be nominated? :)

~~~
bloaf
"Engaged in" makes it sound like they're more interested in ongoing
disobedience, e.g. the folks at sci-hub.

~~~
natch
Not sure where you are drawing your implied conclusion that Snowdon is not
engaged in ongoing disobedience, but I would say Snowdon has remained pretty
darn engaged with the issues he brought to light. And his disobedience is
certainly ongoing, in that he isn't obeying the call from authorities to turn
himself in to a system which is virtually guaranteed to deny him fair
treatment.

~~~
natch
Snowden* sigh, can't edit any longer.

------
slim
Why is this award not named after Aaron Swartz?

~~~
appleflaxen
Because MIT is one of the public institutions that persecuted him.

------
revelation
Todays radical act of disobedience for me was disabling JavaScript on this
site. Quelle surprise, it promptly broke and was all black, despite being
literally a form.

~~~
tedmiston
It looks like Typeform which depends pretty heavily on interactivity, like for
keyboard shortcuts. It's somewhat surprising they wouldn't have a no JS
fallback but on the other hand the experience would be markedly worse than
those with JS on.

~~~
gpvos
The default HTML form experience is still way better than a black page. I
don't see the form really needing any more functionality than that.

------
Wonderdonkey
White type on black background made my eyes disobey my wish to have
functioning vision for about three minutes after I clicked away.

------
perfmode
Remember Aaron.

------
dominotw
> ethical disobedience

Isn't this ironic. Basically saying, Your disobedience must be obedient to our
criteria of ethics. Isn't every disobedience unethical to someone?

Typical 'better than you' attitude of elites, we know what the best kind of
disobedience is, based on our narrowly defined ideals.

------
Mithaldu
Ah good, another page that renders literally nothing without JS. Only this one
is black instead of white.

------
holografix
Give it to the white helmets. They disobey their basic human survival
instincts everyday.

------
erinniehaus
I nominate Fiskkit.com A new site which is a BS filter for news/online content
and lets there be a discussion of an article or text that favors facts and
logic. Kinda cool. Anyone can tag news article for true/false/bias and nine
other things...democratizing civic engagement and disobedience by putting BS
filter into hands of anyone. I know they are looking for help to try and root
out the crap that passes for news and discourse online and get people more
engaged.

------
alexmlamb2
The winner is almost guaranteed to be a conformist, given that the
organization selecting the winner is part of the dominant, mainstream power
structure.

So expect the winner to be, paradoxically, someone who is completely obedient.

~~~
SexyCyborg
Yup. I submitted my application based on the FashionTech wearable I designed,
built and wore to protest the lack of inclusion of _any_ local women at a
Western tech event here in Shenzhen.
[http://i.imgur.com/2D8dESV.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/2D8dESV.jpg)

I ended up stomping around a mainland Chinese tourist attraction half-naked in
it, giving speeches to massive Chinese crowds about an inclusion issue.
[http://i.imgur.com/9Dz9M9N.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/9Dz9M9N.jpg)

Anyone who knows anything about China will tell you how unbelievably dangerous
this is.

But I was protesting the MIT Media Labs best buddy Make Magazine so I'm sure
my application has been directly filed in the trash- even though I'd be very
surprised if anyone else applying has done anything that dangerous.

~~~
severine
Hey, I'm going through your Pastebin
([http://pastebin.com/u/SexyCyborg](http://pastebin.com/u/SexyCyborg)) and
it's really interesting, informative, and eye-opening. Keep it up, that's some
voice!

~~~
SexyCyborg
Thanks:)

------
williamle8300
We're always going to remember Aaron Swartz...

------
SagelyGuru
It is hard not to be cynical about this, coming from an organisation that
called the cops on Aaron Swartz and let the attorneys hound him to his death.
It looks like a belated PR exercise to ease their conscience or public image.
If they at least named the prize after him, then it might come across as more
genuine.

------
sergiotapia
Aaron Swartz should be declared the winner.

------
hxgb
Of course I'm nominating Ross Ulbricht

------
rubberstamp
A better name would've been TakeNoBullshit award. Because that is what which
rots the world and Aaron tried to fight it to save others from being subjected
to the same bullshit.

Like 2muchcoffeeman commented:

>>The award is clearly for people who are being disobedient for the benefit of
society. Breaking rules for the sake of breaking rules is just anarchy or
trolling. You're just inconveniencing people who set out to recognise real
contributions to society.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13848430](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13848430)

------
ingenieros
How ironic that the page won't open because I'm running Privacy Badger on my
browser.

~~~
d4l3k
I'm also running Privacy Badger and had no issues opening the page. What
browser are you on?

~~~
ingenieros
Chrome

------
ouid
How can a disobedience award be a thing? Aren't those concepts fundamentally
incompatible?

------
nullnilvoid
I would vote for Julian Assange and Edward Snowden in a heartbeat.

------
ape4
Sounds interesting but I disobeyed the [START] button.

------
joelg
How are so many people bringing up Aaron Swartz? Media Lab !== MIT and this is
probably entirely Joi's idea. And the MIT administration has changed
significantly since 2013.

~~~
oopsietazer
If that were indeed the case then this shouldn't have been called an MIT
award.

~~~
williamle8300
Yuup.

------
rrggrr
If Boaty McBoatface can win a ship naming contest with almost 130,000 votes,
certainly Aaron Swarz can be nominated with 2x that number - win or lose.

------
ldehaan
Aaron Swartz

------
mroll
Vote for Aaron Swartz

------
ehudla
Noam Chomsky.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
I just nominated Donald J Trump. He has disobeyed all political conventions in
regard to his election campaign and especially in regard to his relationship
with the media. In fact, many people believe he has disobeyed the supreme law
of the United States: the Constitution with regards to the emoluments clause
and not having a religious test with regards to his immigration ban executive
order. He has taken personal risk of failure and being the object of ridicule
by tens of millions of people throughout the world.

In regards to what good he has done, he is ostensibly trying to make America
great. Less controversially, it is agreed by virtually everybody that he has
been the cause for dramatically increased political engagement by the
complacent American population and has served to expose multiple
vulnerabilities in the American political system especially with regards to
Presidential powers, that many people assumed were not a threat to democracy.

~~~
Semiapies
I think the main thing that should disqualify him would be his lack of
intention. But yes, that's the best-case result of his presidency.

~~~
suyash
Trump intentions are absolutely clear if you listen to him. I vote for Trump
as well, he is going to make this country truly great.

~~~
komali2
Coal industry is dead, pretending otherwise is not healthy or helpful.

Attacking the media is not healthy or helpful.

His most egregious crime is destabilizing public trust in climate change
facts. The world climate is changing because of human actions, and drastic
action must be taken by world leaders to prevent catastrophic damage (aka,
human extinction events). Leaders like Trump that deny the facts contribute to
the damage that may cause these extinction events.

So if you call contributing to effects that could lead to flooding most of our
major population centers with rising sea water over the next hundred years
"making america great," by all means support the man.

EDIT: Because Trump supporters always say "but Trump didn't _say_ x y z!"

Let's listen to the man:
[https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/26589529219124838...](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/265895292191248385?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

"Listen to what he says, he's going to make america great." Yea, I'm
listening.

~~~
am_i_down
There is no human organization that should be free from scrutiny. Actions
taken by members of the media and academia have significantly contributed to
public distrust, long before Trump entered the political arena. He is simply
capitalizing quite effectively on those, and other, sentiments.

If coal is dead, so are millions of humans. It remains a significant source of
global energy, especially in developing countries.

We can craft strawmen and knock them down with cherry-picked quotes all day
long.

Exhibit A: Hillary's "super predators" comment -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0uCrA7ePno](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0uCrA7ePno)

Exhibit B: Bernie's "white people don't know what it's like to be poor"
comment -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6IlGoeDIUQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6IlGoeDIUQ)

~~~
komali2
Hillary and Bernie hasn't used a bully-pulpit to attack climate change facts.

If we don't do something about climate change _right now_ , it will kill our
species. We were doing something, and those efforts are already being reversed
via anti-environmental (and anti-human) EPA appointments.

Your arguments about racism are irrelevant to me considering the context.

------
suyash
The President is the most deserving winner of this award. Please vote for
Donald Trump now.

~~~
WuDing
Definitely disagree!

------
jabgrabdthrow
Winner will be a sheep

"You are not being nuanced by calling them sheep, consider these perspectives
on power structures"

Winner will be a sheep =]

I bet MIT will be very brave and give Swartz and Snowden prizes after they get
permission from trump

