
MIT Media Lab giving out $250K cash prize for disobedience - stepny
https://www.media.mit.edu/posts/disobedience-award/
======
NamTaf
Perhaps they could've given it to Aaron Swartz to support the legal issues
they threw him in as a result of his responsible, ethical disobedience aimed
at challenging our norms, rules, or laws to benefit society.

I'm half-tempted to nominate him as an act of disobedience.

~~~
allenleein
Can't agree more.

~~~
arcaster
The irony is painful.

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Dowwie
Really, MIT? [https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/03/29/the-inside-
stor...](https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/03/29/the-inside-story-mit-
and-aaron-swartz/YvJZ5P6VHaPJusReuaN7SI/story.html)

Why doesn't the university just send that money to Schwartz's family instead?

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webmaven
Heck, rather than a _prize_ , IMO a better idea would be to create a
"Disobedience Legal Defense Fund", the sort of thing that might have helped
Aaron Swartz.

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x1798DE
Assuming a posthumous grant to Aaron Swartz is not possible, I would think
Alexandra Elbakyan from scihub would be a good choice for this award.

~~~
NamTaf
The rules state that the person must be living, but in the theme of
disobedience I felt it pertinent to ignore that.

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webmaven
How fucking _convenient_ that their timeline of examples ends in 2012, a year
before Aaron Swartz committed suicide.

In a different way, it is rather interesting that Occupy Wall Street (2011)
didn't make the cut.

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allenleein
＊＊＊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)

------
burntrelish1273
Some inspiration:

[https://www.wired.com/2015/11/racing-extinction-louis-
psihoy...](https://www.wired.com/2015/11/racing-extinction-louis-psihoyos/)

The Cove -
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1313104/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1313104/)

The Yes Men -
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379593](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379593)

Hologram/projection protesting -
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3038317/The-
world-s-...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3038317/The-world-s-
HOLOGRAM-protest-Thousands-join-virtual-march-Spain-against-law-banning-
demonstrations-outside-government-buildings.html)

