I've been incredibly vocal about my stance on depression here on HN in the past, specifically that saying things like "man up" is absurd.
Depression, like every other disease on the planet, is not something you "man up" through. It's a disease that happens to manifest itself in the same places that personality does. To a casual, uninformed observer, depression is a choice of behavior.
It isn't. You don't get depression from weakness in the same way that you don't get cancer from weakness.
Depression also kills more people per year than cancer does.
I've been incredibly vocal about my stance on depression here on HN in the past, specifically that saying things like "man up" is absurd.
And this is exactly why this article from TC needs to be banned from HN. The article suggests Aaron asked for help because he was depressed. This is simply NOT true. First, it was submitted by sethbannon[1] and second, nowhere on the website do I see anything directly from Aaron asking for help[2]. The fund is overseen by Bettina Neuefeind and funds go directly to pay legal costs.
I need to leave HN soon if this is the type of shit that continues to get over 400 points and sticks on the top of the frontpage for hours.
blhack - I'm not blaming you for any of this, hopefully your not taking this as an attack against your specific comment.
He certainly seemed to support the outrageous, overreaching prosecution that Aaron was facing.
"Aaron should man up, take responsibility for his actions, and pay his own bills."
This sounds a lot like "screw you, what you did is wrong, and you should quit whining about it."
"man up" clearly implies that Ed Weissman feels that going up against the massive US justice system to allow people without university affiliation or piles of cash to read publicly funded scientific research is an immature act.
As someone who has been blocked in the past from doing research because of lack of funds to pay the journals, this attitude disgusts me.
EDIT: Let me be absolutely clear that I am not implying that Ed had any blame in what happened or anything ridiculous like that. What I find objectionable in his commentary is his cavalier attitude towards the heavyhanded prosecution of those trying to make publicly funded research publicly available. This suggests a very elitist attitude towards the distribution of valuable public research.
Aaron did something wrong [/edit: wrong in the eyes of the law: illegal, poor word choice/], something that he knew was wrong and that is an accepted fact, correct? If he did something he knew was wrong then what edw519 said is right, he should "man up" and accept the consequences, as everyone should do when they do something wrong.
The problem is what has come to light since that post was made, it has come to light that Aaron was not being held accountable for his "actions", he was being used. He was being made into an example, he was being turned into a tool to help peoples careers. This is what is important and why we should have supported him.
At the time nobody knew what he was facing, we know now and I'm sure if everyone here could go back they would support him more. Go back to the thread, forget everything you know about the case and situation and read the link (the appeal page on Aaron's website) and then the comments in the thread and form an opinion. It won't match what you're saying here because what you're thinking about now (and holding edw519 to) was not known at the time.
See, here's the problem. In one sentence you're arguing that he should "accept the consequences", and in literally the very next sentence, you're describing how bad the consequences ended up being.
That is what is wrong with saying, "just accept the consequences", when you have no damn idea what the consequences are.
A story and the reality are always different. The story as presented to people at the time was Aaron had done something (legally) wrong and was in trouble for doing it, some people believed what he did was for a just cause (education material should be free) and others didn't.
If the people reading the story at the time were expected to act on the situation by donating, why is it wrong for them to act in the form of a comment? How can it be fair to say people should have donated based on their understanding of the situation but not be able to comment on the situation?
Every single person in that comment thread is just as guilty of wrong doing if edw519 is guilty of any, because they all formed an opinion around something they knew very little of. It just so happens that the opinion edw519 expressed is unfortunately one that is at odds with the reality of the situation.
First, just to be really clear about this: Ed is pretty much the very last example of bad behavior that I would ever look to on HN. He's a heck of a nice guy, and I wish he wasn't the one being discussed here.
That said, surely you can acknowledge that there's a difference between donating and posting a comment?
oh of course, they're very different things that have very different motivations and very different results, what I'm trying to argue is that they are both actions that come from an interest in the subject at hand. If you act on something (regardless of the specifics of that action) then you're making a commitment to that subject.
The point is every single person that acted on that post was doing it under exactly the same idea, "I have read about this situation and based on what I have read I believe x to be (true / false) and therefore I (support / don't support) Aaron" so when someone said "I believe that Aaron does not deserve to be bearing the burden here, I am donating $10 to his fund" they were making exactly the same assumptions as edw519 made when he said "I believe that Aaron is responsible for this situation and therefore should be responsible for the consequences".
The only difference is edw519 is on the wrong side of the outcome. Those that donated didn't know that Aaron was in some serious shit way beyond what anyone imagined, just like edw519 didn't know that Aaron was in some serious shit way beyond what he imagined.
If everyone took the line you're talking about, "I don't know the full story (because nobody ever can) so I'm not going to pass any judgement" Aaron would not have been the recipient of any donations, because Aaron could have been more in the wrong than edw519 thought! Maybe the prosecution had evidence that showed Aaron intended to rip people off, or commit a terrible crime? I don't want to be behind supporting that! I had better just ignore everything.
I think I'm misunderstanding the point you're making, I'm not much good at interpreting things. From what I understand of your comment:
That is what is wrong with saying, "just accept the consequences",
when you have no damn idea what the consequences are.
I think you're saying that he shouldn't have passed judgement because he wasn't aware of the situation, although now reading your emphasis on ""comment publicly" to "pass judgement"" I suspect you may have meant that edw519 is at fault for his specific action (commenting that he thought Aaron should accept the consequences) not for thinking that Aaron should have accepted the consequences? If that's the case then my comment will not have been particularly relevant, sorry about that.
> I suspect you may have meant that edw519 is at fault for his specific action (commenting that he thought Aaron should accept the consequences) not for thinking that Aaron should have accepted the consequences?
Yes, exactly, with the caveat that I'm absolutely not putting Ed "at fault" for anything here -- I'm talking about comments like that one, in general.
Everybody judges things, we on HN perhaps most of all. That's fine, it's part of our nature. However, we really need to think it over before we declare our judgement in a comment on a public forum, especially when it's likely that we aren't fully aware of the situation we're judging.
> If that's the case then my comment will not have been particularly relevant, sorry about that.
> when you have no damn idea what the consequences are
Because this is unprecedented. People are still shocked at the excessive nature of the charges. No one expected it. To expect everything to be so severe would be paranoia.
I guess that's fair. I honestly hadn't considered that; I've had enough dealings with the justice system to know that it's impossible to overestimate the damage they're willing to do to someone's life when it suits them.
I think I remember that thread, and I remember thinking of typing "criminal defenses, guilty or innocent, are extremely expensive, and this is by no means a good thing" but I guess I didn't pull the trigger and say it.
In retrospect, I wish I'd made it, and I also wish I'd said "even though I consider Aaron in the wrong, I'm still donating $5 so he knows that other people know he's alive, and I encourage those who are on his side to donate as well." Lots of donations, even if small in amount, would have at least helped him not feel alone. Depression sucks.
I'm not entirely certain that Aaron knew he was doing something wrong, or, for that matter, whether he was in fact doing something wrong. It seems he made little effort to cover his tracks and pretty much acted out in the open. And from what I've heard from friends who've met him in person - Aaron was brilliant, idealistic, a nice guy, and hopelessly naive about how the world actually works.
I'm pretty sure that he believed strongly that he was doing something right and that he must have been very upset at being persecuted in the way that he was for doing what was right.
There is this bit: "It is better to ask forgiveness than to ask for permission". This especially holds true if you're up against what we'll loosely label the establishment here, especially if said establishment is capable of marshalling serious force against you. Once it's done it's done, but during the execution phase just getting the job over with is often the smartest course of action.
See the PACER incident for how that can play out when it works. And I guess the JSTOR one for when it doesn't.
It has worked well for me so far. Of course it always does until it no longer works so this is just another instance of survivor bias. Unfortunately for poor Aaron it did not work out well for him.
More to the point, why did he keep taking specific action to evade the feeble roadblocks the admins managed to put up in front of him before he finally just hooked his laptop to a switch? Why did he ignore the Terms of Use statements when he started off on the Wifi MIT network?
Guys, aaronsw was wicked smart, he was undoubtedly at least vaguely aware of there being a Federal law covering "computer crime". It's far easier to believe that he felt he was doing the right thing despite the law than to believe he was completely unaware.
It's possible to believe you're doing something right and still be acting against the rules.
Let's just imagine -- completely hypothetically, of course -- that I recently wrote a crawler specifically designed to rescue client websites from a terrible DIY website service (which might or might not be Jimdo). Let's imagine it was tuned to load Jimdo-related assets (or the assets of a similar service), fix broken code, etc.; I'm pretty sure this would have been against Jimdo's rules (or the rules of a related service, if I had done such a thing, which, surely, I did not), but let's say I did it anyway because I think it's reprehensible that they don't provide a way for their customers to export their websites.
It's possible that I could have found myself on the pointy end of an expensive lawsuit over something like this. It's possible that I would have broken some laws that I am unaware of, had I done that -- and, had I done that, it would only weaken my case further to claim foreknowledge of the laws being broken. It's likely that there are laws which could be loosely enough interpreted to make me guilty of some form of "hacking". (And it would be most certainly utterly stupid to even consider leaving a comment like this under my regular username -- if, of course, I had done such a thing. Fortunately, as HN occasionally reminds me, I'm not competent enough to have done something like this.)
But there's no way I'd ever say that I did something "wrong", and there's no way I would have asked for Jimdo's permission to do something like that. I simply knew what the rules were, and I believed it was the rules, not I, that were wrong.
Is it wrong to jaywalk? Assuming you'd say yes then, if one jaywalks across the street to pick up the cure for cancer and subsequently disseminates said cure, would you persecute him for jaywalking? Because jaywalking seems like a pretty good analogy to Swartz's causing a short disruption of the Jstor service, and it wouldn't surprise me if the open publication of all scientific knowledge had the direct result of curing cancer, or the equivalent, many times over.
And just like hacking, in many places, Cambridge included, "jay" walking (I refuse to acknowledge this preposterous concept with its own word) may be purportedly illegal, but is actually accepted and encouraged. But you still must beware the rare meddling fed; they don't like people undermining the need for painting all those hazardous crosswalks.
You're basically saying that the ends justify the means. You may believe that (we probably all do, for some ratio of ends:means) but please keep in mind that the legal system does not believe that in general, as that logic has often been perverted in our history.
Maybe you have heard of The Underground Railroad? Or "Separate but equal" policies and the movements which nonviolently opposed them? Or the United States of America, which was born of disagreement with the rules of the time?
Laws and rules are written by humans. Sometimes other humans don't agree with the rules as they are currently and try to make the world a better place. Sometimes they succeed. Sometimes they fail.
Everyone has to accept the consequences. Reality doesn't allow you not to. There's no way to 'log out' of the real world; the most you can do is kill yourself, and then your suicide becomes the consequence.
Whenever someone says "accept the consequences" they mean "accept the consequences in silence", as opposed to accepting them under vocal protest and attempting to challenge them. When the consequences are unjust, accepting them in silence is acquiescing to the injustice, which only serves to perpetuate it.
Merely accepting the consequences is inevitable; accepting the consequences in silence is a choice, and it is not always the best choice.
"Aaron should man up, take responsibility for his actions, and pay his own bills."
~Ed
Sounds like Ed was a bit harsh on someone who was going through allot of trouble. The comment was excessively cruel. Not to mention it was the top comment, which must of added large dosage of salt on an already wounded soul.
So he(Ed) rightfully deserves any criticism thrown at him.
It's such a tool bag comment, Ed should apologize. Your defending such a vitriolic comment, sorry but you sound like scum.
I really respect Ed Weissman's contributions and knowledge, so this is not meant as any type of personal attack. But I was thinking back when I read this comment four months ago that it seemed unusually harsh for someone who was facing 35 years in prison for something that _might_ deserve a slap on the wrist. So it's not all hindsight.
I was also surprised that it was the most-upvoted comment of the thread. And it also wasn't the only harsh comment in that thread. So if anyone deserves criticism, it's the Hacker News community for not showing a more compassionate side. I'd rather say it was the responsibility of the community as a whole rather than a single person.
It makes no sense to discuss if anything would be different if the HN community had responded differently to this story, but in general, giving an unsupportive collective response to someone who is down is probably not the best idea.
> So if anyone deserves criticism, it's the Hacker News community for not showing a more compassionate side.
This is a general problem, not just for HN. The internet in the aggregate suffers from excessive binary thinking.
Everything has to be black and white, without room for colour or even shades of gray. So discussions tend to create their middle ground not by proportional movements but by jerks to +100 and -100. The more polarized the subject the stronger these reactions will be. Anything involving politics, a brush with the law, religion and so on will create those responses with a high degree of predictability.
Aaron was never, even in our most paranoid fantasies revealed true with this case, in danger of actually spending 35 years in prison for this case.
Those who feel otherwise do not understand the U.S. Federal legal system. I would like to think Ed understood this when he wrote his original comment; I remember reading his comment at the time, and the only impression I got was that Aaron "dun goofed" and needed to skip to the part where he gets his light sentence. But that was under my assumption that even failing a jury trial with a strict judge couldn't result in more than a couple of years in prison.
The feds going after a 20-something idealistic activist, who we all knew was completely harmless, and hadn't committed a real crime? That can't be anything other than a severe and cruel abuse of power. I'm sorry but enough information was known at the time to conclude what was going on.
There was nothing tinfoil about it. The indictment was publicly available, and a cursory search of news.google.com also brings up articles like this one
I'm sorry, but I don't think you're replying to what I'm asking. I was looking for information from back then that sheds light on the severity of Aaron's situation, not just comments of the doubters. However, the stress of this thread is getting to me, and I need to back out. There's so much anger, sadness, and confusion concentrated in one place. I think it's best for me to step away for a couple of weeks.
It was known well in advance of that thread asking for help on HN that Aaron was facing major prison time from the prosecution by the feds, and we also knew a fairly detailed description of his 'crime', i.e. how he didn't really commit one.
6-8 months is not "major" prison time by any reasonable definition of that term.
Using upper limits only for theoretically possible court sentences is the same tactic the RIAA/MPAA uses to characterize copyright infringement damages, and it's just as much of a propaganda tactic in support of aaronsw as it is in support of those clowns.
> 6-8 months is not "major" prison time by any reasonable definition of that term.
That sounds like plenty 'major' for me. Have you been in prison? I have been in 'lock-up' for about 6 hours for the terrible crime of driving a foreign car in the Netherlands. I can tell you I did not enjoy it one little bit and the prospect of doing that 6 to 8 months would change me in ways that I would prefer not to think about. Jail is not funny, and multiple months are horrible, forget about years.
Not to mention that a conviction under some of the charges he faced no doubt would have come with punitive terms that would bar him from computer and telecom use for many years beyond his actual sentence as terms of probation. For someone who grew up on the net, for whom much of his social support structure existed through virtual relationships, for whom identity and livelihood are defined by having access to these means of communication--the potential of that must have been a devastating prospect.
I've been in a submerged metal tube for some number of months. In many respects it's a worse environment than prison (though I can at least vouch for my fellow "inmates").
No email, no internet, no sleep, the stupid periscope watch with hydraulic oil dripping on your face.
Of course, I chose to do that. I would think that aaronsw knew that some nominal prison term would be a possibility of the choices he made, but I can only speak for myself.
> I've been in a submerged metal tube for some number of months. In many respects it's a worse environment than prison (though I can at least vouch for my fellow "inmates").
I think a big difference with prison is that prison is not voluntary.
> I think a big difference with prison is that prison is not voluntary
I tried to note that, but to be more clear: If you voluntarily take actions, over a long period of time, that involve the possibility of prison as a direct consequence of those actions, then I don't think you get to act completely surprised or indignant.
It's the reason I didn't complain too much (then or now) about my "plight"; as you say, I chose to be there.
How do we make sure we remember all the lessons in this? Are these just growing pains of the internet as a whole, or are we fated to relapse the next time it happens again?
Hindsight is not merely 20-20 but prevents us from seeing the past as it truly appeared. Because we cannot unknow what we now know, the mind's eye is an unreliable witness.
Exactly we should not mobbing on to Ed. We all make harsh comments sometimes at one point or another. We should only try to keep all this as a remainder that sometimes it's better not to make a comment than a comment too negative when it's made on a person and that it may affect him personally.
You're just as capable of hurting people. Maybe you just pushed someone over the edge by calling them scum. Tomorrow, will I get to call you names and talk about how your comment was excessively cruel and vitriolic? Do you know if the person you just blamed and insulted is stable and can handle it?
Geez, I didn't know I just as capable of hurting people. I learned some new on HN. Of course even the dumbest person in the world know this.
What matters is that those comments were hurting someone who was only looking for help. There is a big difference between someone who responds to comments and someone who attacking someone's call for help.
"Do you know if the person you just blamed and insulted is stable and can handle it?"
If you know someone is asking for help, why would you berate them. Please get a clue and increase your social IQ.
No. The difference between your comment and his is hindsight. Well, that and that his comment had some thought behind it. You are just as nasty with your commments and have absolutely no shame because you're anonymous.
And you sound like a drama queen. The severity was not conveyed. According to HN users in this thread, it couldn't be for whatever reasons. We didn't know the extent of the trouble. Sure, he was rude, and I don't like it when people are rude, but some people in this thread are making it sound like he pulled the fucking trigger. Give it a rest.
Why don't you "man up" and acknowledge, the comment was not only very distasteful, but extremely vitriolic and damaging for someone who was asking for help.
He was asking for help, is this the type of rude comment you make when someone ask for it.
Severity wasn't conveyed, what does everything have to be explicitly spelled out for you in order to understand.
Ed commented in the general tone of HN. His comment was unexceptional, except that later events called it out as such.
Focusing on Ed is counter-productive. What should be the topic is the harmful, negative and alienating tone that HN comments adopt. The upvotes that such comments garner show that they are not individual actions, but rather the result of community incentives.
I'd like to hear suggestions of how to cultivate useful, supportive, productive comment threads. That is, of course, if the community decides it wants to change, rather than just heaping scorn on a single instance of a systematic problem.
You say this as if it was the fault of the poster. Why did HN in general not upvote another, more positive comment? WTF kind of witch hunt is this even? I don't like the comment either, but cut it out, all of you.
> I am a woman. I go around telling women to "woman up".
Well, the difference between "woman up" and "man up" is that, for men, showing emotion is a sign of weakness, so "man up" means "don't show emotion". That's a very dangerous thing to tell people who have serious emotional problems.
It's not, though. There's a perception that showing emotion is a sign of weakness for men. However, think about how you actually react to men who show emotion. How did you react to Lessig's or Doctorow's posts about Aaron, with all their emotion? Did you think them less of a man for it?
I think there is a strong taboo against men appearing out of control of themselves or their situation. But that's not really gendered: when women appear out of control, we label them "crazy bitches".
> there is a strong taboo against men appearing out of control of themselves
Exactly. This applied to Aaron asking for help he badly needed for his legal fund. This did not apply to Larry or Cory. They may have been sad or angry, but they were not personally scared, threatened, unable to fund their own legal defenses, etc., so they did not violate the taboo. Their posts were more along the lines of a father mourning a lost son. Emotion is expected there.
Absolutely. This is a perfect example of how restrictive gender norms (or, what some might call "patriarchy") can harm men as well as women, and are something we all need to care about.
> This is a perfect example of how restrictive gender norms (or, what some might call "patriarchy") can harm men as well as women
And this is why I hate the term "patriarchy" in this context: It implies men always get the best of it, there are no downsides for males, and therefore we should be dismissive of male problems.
I know this isn't what academic feminists think. It is, however, what a disturbing number of people who call themselves feminists out in the real world apparently believe.
Yup. Male privilege exists and is real (and unfair), yet it is also true that gender norms can harm men. It's a shame so many folks act like the truth of one of those statements disproves the other. I guess the combined statement is too subtle to fit in a sound bite or rallying cry.
"And this is why I hate the term "patriarchy" in this context: It implies men always get the best of it, there are no downsides for males, and therefore we should be dismissive of male problems."
Feminism benefits men as well. Patriarchy DOES exist to the detriment to men, your anger is misapplied.
"> Feminism benefits men as well.
It depends on how it's applied, doesn't it?"
Destroying systems of entrenched privilege may not be viewed as beneficial by all men that cling to these systems, no. But equality does provide for a healthier system, if one appreciates women healthy in mind and body.
Harping on straw "Feminists" won't improve our situation.
"And this is an example. It states that gender equality from the female perspective is automatically equivalent to "Destroying systems of entrenched privilege", which is a courtesy not given to the male perspective on the same concepts."
As I stated, it does by lessening strict gender roles.
> As I stated, it does by lessening strict gender roles.
But that's also true of looking at gender equality from the male perspective, yet whenever someone attempts that the old MRA strawman stereotypes get thrown around.
"But that's also true of looking at gender equality from the male perspective, yet whenever someone attempts that the old MRA strawman stereotypes get thrown around."
Generally, it's because MRAs tend to find gains for women zero-sum. There are issues with regards to divorce, child support, and custody that can be discussed, but all these can be addressed as a feminist and do not require "masculinism" as some sort of a counter. There is a difference between discussion of gender and the movement's adherents.
> Like I said, there's no need to craft Straw Feminists from whole cloth. Make your points without these fabrications.
I'm not lying and your need to claim I am damages your case.
An example from Reddit, which is very much the non-academic Real World I've been talking about:
ImaLamer:
> As someone who was raped by a woman, while drinking, something you've put full responsibility on her for in other comments, you quickly dismissed my feelings and the impact this has in my life. It was not statistically significant for you to care. So much so you took it as an opportunity to further bash men as a class.
Saganomics:
> Well ladies and gentleman, that's what Men's Rights thinks. There you have it.
The claim of ImaLamer's post being edited afterwords is difficult to take seriously: Edited posts are marked with an asterisk, which is not present on ImaLamer's post. Also, Saganomics' post happened long after the very brief window when you can edit without an asterisk appearing.
> Generally, it's because MRAs tend to find gains for women zero-sum.
The stereotypical MRA does.
> There are issues with regards to divorce, child support, and custody that can be discussed, but all these can be addressed as a feminist and do not require "masculinism" as some sort of a counter.
Your experience might be different than mine. In my experience, any mention of the idea that men can be raped by women, for example, gets shouted down by 'feminists' (you can take that label as you will) as 'hijacking' the 'real' discussion, which is solely about men raping women. Men being raped by men is, at best, a side-show to that discussion. Women being raped by women is similarly absent as a topic.
> Harping on straw "Feminists" won't improve our situation.
Mentioning they exist is not the same as harping on them.
And this points out an asymmetry: Whenever a man focuses on the male perspective of gender equality, people drag out the 'MRA' stereotype. While the stereotypical MRA exists, that stereotype is no more relevant to the issue than the stereotypical straw feminist is relevant to the female perspective of gender equality. Yet, online, in the real world outside of the academy, that MRA stereotype is in constant use.
> Destroying systems of entrenched privilege may not be viewed as beneficial by all men that cling to these systems
And this is an example. It states that gender equality from the female perspective is automatically equivalent to "Destroying systems of entrenched privilege", which is a courtesy not given to the male perspective on the same concepts.
This asymmetry is divisive and serves to perpetuate the pointless hatred that keeps equality from being realized.
I don't think it's showing emotion, I think that it's that we expect men to be self-reliant and should not need or want help from others. Men are responsible for their own outcomes. Women aren't seen as any worse for wanting help, and it's acceptable to attribute their outcomes as caused by their relationships or social environment.
I'm sure they do actually, but likely with slightly different language like "stop crying"; same thing. Just because a statement isn't gender neutral doesn't make it sexist.
An honest appraisal? That is one way of looking at it. Another way is he threw out a giant derogatory 'Meh' to someone asking for help.
Does he bear responsibility for what happened to Aaron? No, but it is also not hard to see how the top ranked comment from a respected member didn't carry some weight in how people perceived Aaron and his situation.
The big take away here is that words matter and maybe if you don't have all 'the facts available' you can give someone the benefit of of the doubt. Or the next time you feel like making a 'meh' post, just say nothing at all.
I don't think this is fair. You cannot read a comment, or a bunch of comments, from over 100 days ago in light of the recent suicide. If people make their actions dependant on someone's post on HN, that is the problem, and making the right posts that magically know what will happen in the future, and what happened behind closed doors (such as the district judge basically shutting Aaron up, if I catched that correctly, sorry if I didn't) is not the solution to it. Yes, more love is what the world needs, so in that sense you are right and would be in whatever context you said the above, and maybe I am just contradicting you because I often am a callous SOB online. But still.. this isn't fair. Yes, he asked for help, but every single US citizen pays taxes for the reason he asked for help. So if you're gonna play the blame game, play it and see where it actually leads, don't just stop at convenient scapegoats like Ed. I cannot speak for Aaron, but it does seem to me that he was scared of jail or worse; he didn't kill himself to hurt anyone, so maybe don't use it that way. There is no way to make sense of all this, but there are ways to make good come of it.. I would do that just to spite someone who killed themselves out of revenge, but how much more so when they didn't. That is all, I feel weird even speaking to this, but I hope it helped.
I up-voted his original comment I would do so again.
Aaron knew what he was doing. There are many charities more deserving than his legal defense fund -- that isn't changed just because he was apparently mentally ill enough to take his own life.
There should be a high burden you have to overcome to successfully find crowd-funding for anything including a legal defense.
...and at the time, I said the same thing I am saying now: Aaron Swartz was doing the right thing and should be praised for being brave enough to try to use access to a university to make human knowledge available to others. When universities are in the business of punishing people who spread knowledge, there is a serious problem with society, and Aaron knew that -- and unlike most people, he went out and tried to do something about it.
I was angry when the prosecutor tacked the extra charges on. I am just as angry today.
Exactly. While he may have been being put under undue pressure, I disagreed with his actions, his reasoning, and his approach, and so I didn't think his legal defense was worth my money. That doesn't mean I don't regret his death, but his death wouldn't change my action in an analogous situation tomorrow.
I'm actually in the same position: I didn't give any money to the guy's legal defense fund and I think any rational assessment of my budget and the merits of the case would result in the same decision if I had it all to do over. I don't think that is really the point, though.
There's a world of difference between choosing not to help someone or some cause when they need it - a choice we all make, passively or actively, all the time - and mocking them and encouraging others not to help. That's just kicking a guy when he's down. That's the part some of us find really objectionable.
Push anyone far enough and they'll take their own life. The threshold varies from one person to the next, but blaming his suicide on mental illness is IMO disingenuous.
Which causes deserve funding is a matter of personal choice.
>Push anyone far enough and they'll take their own life.
This is ridiculous hindsight bias, people have been charged with far more than Aaron and didn't kill themselves. Aaron had been depressed for a long time leading up to all of this, yet everyone seems to argue that the prosecution is what did it and he would have been completely fine otherwise.
They have nothing to base that off of, but that's still the case that is frequently made here.
Hindsight bias, not really either, a plain old fact. Some people are more resistant than others, but at some point anyone will snap (for the toughest it may require severe sleep deprivation and torture, but most people have a much lower threshold).
I didn't know Aaron Swartz, and I am thus not familiar with the details of his alleged depressive past.
There are usually a lot of factors that bring people to kill themselves. Assuming he was indeed depressed, the intensity of the symptoms get modulated by external influences. The absolute weight of the charges is also completely meaningless. They were intentionally unfair, and the meaning of a given sentence varies from people to people.
Blaming depression for his suicide on depression alone simply shows you don't know what you're talking about (FWIW I hold a MD).
Your logic here is fuzzy man. Asserting that everyone has a point at which they will kill themselves? Maybe you're basing this on knowing that YOU have a point at which you'd take your own life.
But what in the thousands of years of human suffering gives you this certainty that "everybody" has this suicidal breaking point?
You can't make an assertion into a "plain old fact" just by repeating it.
The MD is relevant regarding my knowledge about depression.
I know you can't prove the threshold thing, short of trying to break each and every person on earth. That being said, there are various ways to weaken people (including, for the die hards, prolonged isolation, sleep and sensory deprivation, manipulation, mental and physical torture, destroying their social status, friendships and families... I never practiced this, BTW), and I believe that you can drive anyone to suicide using them.
For example, put someone in a situation where he has the choice between killing himself or killing someone he loves. 5 seconds to decide, after which, if he didn't act, the other person is killed.
This is becoming really gloomy. I balk out.
Edit, actually the bargain I set up above is not a good example of what I meant exactly, but a good example of the level of cruelty you can use.
Edit2: I didn't downvote you, BTW (AFAIK, you can't downvote the answers to your comments).
It is more a statement of probabilities, do I know thats what pushed him of the edge of course not, is likely to have played a significant role, I think yes. It does not have to be all or nothing to change my opinion and my future actions.
> Push anyone far enough and they'll take their own life.
Perhaps, but many, many people have been in situations such as Aaron's and not killed themself, so it's warranted to at least ponder if there was something else going on than a mean prosecutor. And here we don't have to wonder, it's been reported already that there was a lot of depression involved.
I've written on my blog about my own encounters with him; but the biggest thing that stands out was his naivete, his childlike perspective.
It's telling so many eulogies of him describe him as a boy.
IMO, it was his innocent perspective, combined with what he thought was the clear and obvious path, that drove him to do what he did, not understanding the consequences.
There are many charities more deserving than the coffeeshop you go to, those nice kickstarter projects you backed and the companies who make your clothes. One thing doesn't null the other.
Well, hopefully the next time that you feel like making a 'meh' comment, you will at least consider whether you're making a positive contribution.
Ed made a comment that was pretty harsh, although true given the information available at the time, and is now being singled out by Techcrunch and the rest of the HN community. Of course, in fine HN tradition everybody is now jumping on Ed in exactly the same way that he jumped on Aaron at the time.
I keep remembering Tim Bray's adage that "A change in perspective is worth 40 IQ points." The average HN user has 40 IQ points more now than Ed when he wrote that comment - I don't think they have more than 40 over the current Ed.
Also note that tptacek seems to have been driven away too - hopefully not permanently.
"The big take away here is that words matter and maybe if you don't have all 'the facts available' you can give someone the benefit of of the doubt. Or the next time you feel like making a 'meh' post, just say nothing at all"
It was, evidently, demoralization that killed Aaron. Ed took away moral support. So don't say he doesn't partly bear some responsibility.
Whether you think he deserves a measure of blame or not depends on whether you think his original remark was just or not. Evidently some could not tell ahead of time that the remarks were unjust, and evidently, this sort of person makes up the majority on HN, and it is just this sort who is making excuses for the original remark. They refuse to look in the mirror.
Or are you simply saying the act of making the original post on HN amounts to taking away moral support and consequently Ed bears some responsibility?
If so (and please correct me if that's not what you are saying) then I don't agree with that. What you are implying is that people can't speak their mind in a public forum about how they feel about something. (That has already happened with this issue as I've gotten some bullying behavior by someone simply because I questioned something because everyone is so worked up over this.). Or, perhaps people who are thought leaders (and/or top commenters on, say HN) need to be especially careful of what they say. Specifically what their opinion is which others are free to use their mind and agree or disagree with.
I'm saying that IF you believe Ed's initial post was unjust, then you believe he's responsible for an unjust -- i.e. immoral -- action. And if you believe that his statement possibly led to removing moral (and financial!) sanction from Aaron, then you're going to have to hold him responsible for that too.
The argument that he could have had the foresight to not do what he did is a separate matter.
"IF you believe Ed's initial post was unjust, then you believe he's responsible for an unjust"
I think I understand but to be clear you are saying that because he is a top commenter, and can change the opinions of others, on HN he needs to be especially careful and restrict what he says?
(For the record I don't have a problem with what he wrote as I read it.)
No, I'm not saying he needs to be "careful," I'm saying he needs to be just, and I think else everyone does too (including those who upvote unjust remarks). It's certainly not just him I'm talking about, and if it were only him who engaged in immoral behavior like this, then Aaron never would have been in the spot he was in in the first place. We live in a sick, depraved culture, and Ed's remarks are just one among millions.
> He gave his honest appraisal of what was happening in a current events story on a message board, based on the facts available to us at the time, which included none of the outrageous details that have come to light in the last few days.
So, so true. I mean, it's not like people could have simply, y'know, avoided speculating publicly on another person's case when they didn't have all the facts.
No, don't go trying to direct the flames back at TechCrunch. Ed is consistently one of the nicest damn people on HN, and it's a bit of a shame that he ended up being the example that they pointed to. But, let's not pretend that HN isn't full of people that will wring an ocean out of their hands one day when it's popular and then go right back to slinging insults at each-other the next.
If this article results in a little bit of navel gazing for a few people here, great. I doubt that it will, though.
TC is far from my favorite online news thingy, and perhaps there is room for them to do some consideration too, but that doesn't mean that HN isn't also overdue for some introspection in how people are treated here.
I don't know much about Ed, only met him briefly once, but that said, most people here (myself included) have gone out of their way to voice their support for him as a member here and regret that it was his comment that got hilighted on TC.
I don't know how else TC could have pointed out this aspect of the HN community without picking on someone; in a way, it might be best that they picked on one of the most well-liked contributors here.
This in fact happens on HN from my observation frequently.
It goes like this.
Someone says something and if people don't agree they downvote and sometimes say something nasty in return.
Someone write a "Please Help" plea on HN and all the sudden everybody is nice and considerate and rolls out the red carpet (at least time times this happens that the plea gets voted up).
People of course don't know if the person they are being nasty to is suffering from depression, having a bad day, just got fired etc. Unless of course they specifically announce that fact in the "Subject" of what they write (or in a blog post etc.)
No need to ask why that happens (why people are nice when someone lays on their belly asking for help) because it's obvious. The question is why are people so quick to be a "dick" if someone doesn't reveal any weakness.
You're right; his lazy, incurious dismissal of the news article didn't make Aaron kill himself. EVERYONE's lazy, incurious dismissal of the news article and the surrounding circumstances (Myself included; I am ashamed that when I read that article my {unposted} response was "not my problem, good luck dude"), taken in aggregate, made him kill himself.
Ed just has the bad luck to be the most widely upvoted person saying what a sizable majority of the readers here were thinking: "who gives a shit, man up"
Hacker culture has this incredibly harmful idea of perfect self-reliance, that makes it really hard for people to come out and ask for help. Genius ninja hacker wizards aren't supposed to cry. Brilliant wunderkind business masters aren't supposed to fail. People who are surprised that he killed himself so suddenly should remember that this wasn't sudden at all; he asked for help, and he was treated with derision and suspicion and more or less told to go fuck himself. And this is a relatively well-known and respected dude. Imagine how the average nerd/loner feels, seeing that example. "They wouldn't stand up for Aaron Swartz, why would they give a shit about me?" And the answer, every time, is "they wouldn't".
We should be better people, all of us, and this would be a really good time to start.
Please forgive me; I do not think that hacker culture is a bad thing. I think that hackers are, for the most part, wonderful people. I think that the aspects of hacker culture you mentioned are good, positive, and praiseworthy things. I just believe that SOME ASPECTS of hacker culture are problematic. I didn't mean to dismiss the entirety of it, or disparage hackers in general, and I'm sorry it came out that way. I just felt like this might be a good opportunity to ask people to try to, for lack of a better phrase, be excellent to each other.
We should be like this, all the time: "Hacker culture positively celebrates failure... Its overriding ethos is working together and helping each other out..."
This isn’t Ed’s fault, nor is it yours. But TechCrunch is completely right to call us all out.
Aaron asked for our help and yet it’s difficult to find a single compassionate voice in that whole thread. Both Ed and yourself eloquently shut down anybody arguing on his behalf.
“There is virtually no chance Swartz is going to spend time in prison.”
That was you in the thread by the way. You also devolved the conversation into an argument involving Nazis at one point.
I think it’s definitely worth all of us thinking about how we could have responded differently. There’s no use in us defending our actions.
Did any of us drop him a tweet or email just to ask him how he was doing, or whether he was scared?
I am ashamed.
I hope that in the future I will be able to recognise when another human being needs my help, that I will not be swayed by popular voices, and that I will show honest care.
>But TechCrunch is completely right to call us all out
Agree with you.
If you look at Aaron's activity on HN[1], you will see that there is none from around 144 days i.e. 15 days before from after the help submission[2] was discussed. If you see earlier activity, he had been posting things with a gap of 10-20 days. So it can't be ruled out, that perhaps he felt let down by the community. Sad.
I don't think the writer was blaming edw519, you or any of the other commenters on that thread. The writer was basically pointing out that the community as a whole was pretty dismissive and even a bit dickish. And that's a true assessment.
One reason I don't enjoy HN as much as I did several years ago is that the default behavior seems to be to attack civil libertarians, free software enthusiasts, file sharers, builders who place idealism over profit... basically everyone but the sellers.
Don't get me wrong, I see value in business. But choking all of the less buttoned-down, more rebellious voices is a pretty sure path towards killing the creative spirits that made a lot of today's profits possible. Every time I see a front page full of self-promotional blog posts, people pushing their info products or yet more tips on how to optimize the value one extracts rather than creates or worse yet, comments defending the TSA, MPAA etc... it makes me miss the Reddit of old.
EDIT: This was a response to tptacek's (now deleted) comment which scolded the article.
"One reason I don't enjoy HN as much as I did several years ago is that the default behavior seems to be to attack civil libertarians, free software enthusiasts, file sharers, builders who place idealism over profit... basically everyone but the sellers."
I've definitely seen a lot of this behavior on HN, but I think it used to be a lot worse than it is now.
HN used to be mostly made up of startup founders and others very close to the startup scene, who are typically strong believers in capitalism, with an instinct to sympathize with business owners and valorize profit making.
As HN has grown, lots of others unrelated to the startup scene (even unrelated to technology) have joined. As a result, the views getting expressed on here have become a lot more varied. There's actually quite a nice balance now, with representatives of all those you mention: civil libertarians, free software enthusiasts, file sharers, and builders who place idealism over profit.
Look at threads about RMS, or even the thread linked to here, where Mr Swartz was attacked.. plenty of people come to their defense and express their idealism. Your own post is an example of this.
Of course, the startup-loving, pro-capitalist types still tend to dominate here, but not nearly to the extent they used to.
> One reason I don't enjoy HN as much as I did several years ago is that the default behavior seems to be to attack civil libertarians, free software enthusiasts, file sharers, builders who place idealism over profit... basically everyone but the sellers.
Don't get me started on smug narcissistic assholes who engage in self love at every opportunity and make every issue on here about themselves and their self promotion. Some individuals on this board sicken me (just look at this thread), it's a living proof that people will be people and that just because you're a young entrepreneurial hipster who likes to think of himself as a hacker doesn't make you better than other people... more likely than not, it makes you an arrogant dipshit.
I find it odd that everyone here is pointing fingers at edw519 for his 1 comment on that thread, when there were several comments from tptacek that I think did far more to sway public opinion at the time.
In the abstract he had very valid points, but in the context of that specific thread I think he did a pretty effective job at convincing people that
* Aaron did something wrong
* JSTOR backing out doesn't really mean anything
* the prosecution is justified in trying to make an example of him
* Aaron probably won't serve serious time, this is just a scare tactic
:quote:
In the abstract he had very valid points, but in the context of that specific thread I think he did a pretty effective job at convincing people that
* Aaron did something wrong
* JSTOR backing out doesn't really mean anything
* the prosecution is justified in trying to make an example of him
* Aaron probably won't serve serious time, this is just a scare tactic
:/quote:
All but one of those are correct though. Why is this a bad thing? Even the one that isn't (point 3) is close to an accurate recital of one of the goals of the U.S. justice system (to deter crime by making the perceived risk of conviction unacceptably high).
Wrong - morally not, legally maybe.
JSTOR backing out - MIT didn't back out.
An example is justified - absolutely not, given that the act is not morally wrong.
Aaron won't serve serious time - well, we're seeing the time he's serving now. He's lost his life and he isn't the first under these circumstances.
Well for a legal prosecutor "legally wrong" is the point that matters (and it's this way for a very important reason).
Likewise the state prosecutes in some situations even if the "victim" doesn't want to press charges, as the responsibility of the state extends far beyond just the party that was allegedly wronged.
I've mentioned it elsewhere but it's well enough to reiterate: Even know we know that there was a plea offer actually on the table for a 6-8 month prison sentence, even with the failure of the legal fund drive for Aaron. That is not "serious time", is well in line with first-time offenders where the offender doesn't cause major damage, etc. Aaron didn't want to accept the offer because he would still be a "Felon", but that was his choice to make.
And also, as I've mentioned elsewhere, many, many people have faced Federal charges and not killed themselves. It was only 50 years ago that poor sharecroppers were having fire hoses turned on them, flaming crosses, and being strung up and killed for simply trying to be judged on their actions.
So I would like to think we can maintain perspective on what types of government abuse might reasonably lead to someone taking their own life, and then look at what was going on here, and honestly compare.
“The thing that galls me is that I told Heymann the kid was a suicide risk,” Good told me. “His reaction was a standard reaction in that office, not unique to Steve. He said, ‘Fine, we’ll lock him up.’ I’m not saying they made Aaron kill himself. Aaron might have done this anyway. I’m saying they were aware of the risk, and they were heedless.
Bradley Manning was claimed to be a suicide risk and thereby placed on suicide prevention watch, under conditions so severe that the military judge overseeing the case later gave a reduction on any eventual sentence based on his initial treatment. So no matter what you do you're apparently going to make somebody very unhappy.
Heymann's actions were unpalatable, but it's based on its own merits (using high-pressure tactics more appropriate for drug lords), not because someone else claimed he might later kill himself. Either way, Good was Swartz's own attorney, not a psychiatrist.
What I find much more concerning is that plea deal involving no jail time had been reached, and fell apart because of MIT. a) Why was MIT concerned that he serve time behind bars, and b) Why did the prosecution care that much what MIT thinks?
We are the people who called him Paris Hilton and told him to man up. We are the people who consistently criticized him just because he was well known. We told him to shut up about ethics and get back to coding. We told him he wasn't any good at coding, either. We didn't treat him as badly as we could have, as we've treated some other people, but I think trying to recast ourselves as "family" is incredibly disrespectful of his actual family who lost their child.
The hypocrisy on this topic has been truly something to behold. So many people calling for prosecutors to explain themselves, but whenever a question is asked of a local, it is "time to grieve, not ask questions."
I never post and I never comment, but I had to login to say something.
HN needs to "man up" and accept that the majority of the attitudes in the original post are exactly why things ended the way they did. People bitching about the styling of payment buttons? Telling someone to "man up" or exclaiming (with plenty of IANAL disclaimers) that no one would get jail time for something like this is typical for your average HN discussion thread. This thread (and the subject of this thread) is exactly what I've come to expect from HN - a bunch of (mostly) know-it-all hyper-competitive hyper-critical 20-something assholes trying to backstab or one-up each other to the top.
And Ed, "Not here, and not now" is such a cop-out I'm not even sure how to react to it. Own your shit.
Edit: Said differently, with friends (or family) like these, who needs enemies.
To all those replying to edw519 - please stop witch-hunting. First prosecutor, then MIT, then.. edw519? Its possible any of these parties made a mistake.. now that they can look back and reflect. But, even after reflection its very possible that each party made the best decision they could with the information at hand. Maybe I'm lucky, but I find 99%+ of people I meet in this world are well intentioned, and if I invest the empathy cycles I almost always can see their point of view and understand why they made the decision that they did.
Does your sympathy towards aaronsw merit that you throw empathy out the window? No. Do you actually understand the complex set of events that occurred and how these events relate to one another and the rest of the world? No. Surely, a solution to prevent such a terrible scenario from re-occuring is far removed from personal attacks:
- if you don't like how district attorney works - get moving on changing the law
- don't think prosecutor did their job? point out their job description vs their actions to the proper authority
- don't like how MIT managed case? reach out to the MIT beaurocracy and work with them to improve their process
- don't like edw519 *most upvoted* post on the Sept article? suggest policy changes that could prevent such a comment from appearing on HN
- etc
When you start with the point of view that we are all reasonable, and well intentioned.. the problem then becomes about process and culture, and you can actually start making progress.
To add to this, it might be useful to add why Ed was wrong. He wasn't wrong because he lacked empathy or because he was looking to be a bully. He was wrong because his mental model of how federal cases work was wrong.
He, much like my self, probably assumed that someone with millions of dollars could fund the litigation of a federal case, however, the nature of these prosecutions tend to freeze assets, alienate friends and business partners who could help fund a defense and generally make it impossible for justice to be done. I would have been wrong about this too.
We all get stuff wrong from time to time, and to be honest, I'm not sure where the line should be drawn. However, I firmly believe edw519's comments come from a place of experience, love, and support even if it might not be what we always want to hear.
My hope is that my comments when based in love and charity would not be subject to similar comments that edw519's comments have been. It's okay to disagree and edw519 might even disagree in someways with what he wrote.
> - don't like edw519 most upvoted post on the Sept article? suggest policy changes that could prevent such a comment from appearing on HN
Let's just eliminate the ability to vote on comments. Seems reasonable. Or pg could shut down the site. Then Ed couldn't make the comment in the first place, right?
Maybe Ed still thinks he was right and he feels compelled to backpedal because in hindsight his comments seem insensitive.
Or maybe your 99%+ statistic is wrong and wisdom of the crowds isn't all it's cracked up to be. If anything, the juxtaposition between this thread and the original thread shows the hypocrisy endemic to crowd driven discussion.
> When you start with the point of view that we are all reasonable, and well intentioned.. the problem then becomes about process and culture, and you can actually start making progress.
In my studies of nonviolent resistance, this was the core message: People act on what they feel is the right thing to do at the time. If the world deems that wrong, that's a different discussion, and a learning experience for both the world and the actor.
In order to make progress, you must empathize with that person, communicate with them on their terms, and open a discussion on both of your beliefs without judgement.
You can also "man up" and admit you might have been wrong to characterize a hacker, however successful, asking for financial help in the face of a very serious legal battle as "seriously wrong". No shame in that. Or, alternatively, you can "man up" and own your original opinion.
This is HN. I don't think edw519 or any of the critics back then would change their mind as a result of the suicide, not because they don't care but because reacting to the suicide would be an emotional reaction and the critics made their opinions based on an unchanged set of facts. It's clear even back then that the core facts were known.
>It's clear even back then that the core facts were known.
The "core facts", about whether or not it would be "seriously wrong" for Swarz to ask the community for financial assistance, would be knowledge of Swarz's financials. Was edw519 privy to this information? Probably not.
Ah... so edw519 knew Aaron was worried about being financially able to see his case through, but thought he should "man up" and be financially decimated (or financially unable due to frozen assets). Makes sense.
You are merely pointing to the fact that some people shouldn't opine until they bother to look into the facts. Having a half-understanding about what's going on and making a proclamation always seemed foolhardy to me ...
Exactly. edw519 more or less said Aaron's privileged and made money in the past so he doesn't need help from the community now. He rallied the community against supporting Aaron making an assumption that Aaron didn't need the support.
I think edw519 is a common example of a celebrity case who feels obliged to condescend his important opinion on any mildly prominent case, in a know-it-all, bold manner. And there's no lack of readily available supporters willing to nod and upvote their idol.
I have respect for his technical background, but with fame comes a greater responsibility, which not many carry out well.
I'll be honest, I thought the same thing as Ed originally.
It's a tragic story and I'm sure there is much to learn but let the family grieve rather than make click bait and throw people to the wolves ( ironically what this article is commenting on)
How should people who though like you and ed act differently now?
Aaron did not receive enough help on his defense bills. This likely part of the reason he is now dead, but only part of it.
Given this how should actions change, if at all? If you think the world would be better if people that held similar opinions to you ed's were slightly different, how should they be different and what argument would have moved you in that direction earlier?
< How should people who though like you and ed act differently now?
If his opinions have changed then he is free to express that. People say and do things relying on the information they have at that time. I didn't write anything because it was just a gut thought, which is why I didn't donate.
I'm sure that if Aaron had told his side of the story then it would have hurt him in court, but it may have garnered him public interest and funds.
For his immense abilities, Aaron made a lot of enemies due to his confrontational behaviour. This seems to be getting glossed over at the moment and having a close network of people may have been able to save him.
<Aaron did not receive enough help on his defense bills. This likely part of the reason he is now dead, but only part of it.
Definitely part of the reason, but he also had massive depression issues and talked and wrote about suicide long before.
<Given this how should actions change, if at all? If you think the world would be better if people that held similar opinions to you ed's were slightly different, how should they be different and what argument would have moved you in that direction earlier?
I had an opinion but didn't take action because it was negative and of no use. I had no idea about him other than he was a Reddit co-founder that I hadn't heard of before, that he made a bit of money, that he had broken the law and that someone was asking for money for his defense.
I don't think the world is a better place for having held those views, it is what it is.
I would say what would have changed my mind was either Aaron or his friends arguing his case in public. All the people he worked with are now vocal about how great he is, but where were they back then?
For one example: Reddit could have created a funding drive but didn't as far as I can tell. Do I blame them? No.
At the end of the day it is really sad. Nothing will change that.
Witch hunts only create a quick fix to our need to rationalise our anger and pain. Ed wrote a criticism that could equally have been written by Aaron, I'm sure the regret he feels now is far worse than anything you can say.
> Witch hunts only create a quick fix to our need to rationalise our anger and pain.
They are, at least sometimes, more then just that though. They can arise out of desire to make the world different so the same problem does not happen again, or to change community standards, and/or ones own judgment heuristics. Ultimately ineffective and undesired nonetheless. It is hard to come up with solutions that have a quick enough feedback to satisfy short attention spams as much as a which hunt will unfortunately.
Remembering the earlier thread through the fog of memory, I assumed he had the funds to pay it himself, and that was cause of much derision, ala "why is he asking for help? He's rich!" and things of that nature.
Its hard because it is very difficult for our brains to realise the concept that Reddit was profitable but no-where near as profitable as companies that we've never heard about.
I am surprised people have taken issue with the words man up. It's only connotation was that Aaron should pay for his own defense, a reasonable statement.
I am more taken aback by the overall tone implying that Aaron had some golden-ticket-chance-of-a-lifetime...In hindsight, I don't think anyone would have wanted to shoulder his burdens. I don't think anyone would still say he had a golden ticket.
Probably the greatest lesson in empathy I learned is, "Breaking a child's lego ship causes the same pain as sinking an adults real ship." Your actions and words leave an impression on others. That is a responsibility we too often neglect.
Happiness and meaning can only come form within by definition. Looking at others, judging others, being jealous of others are all ways to deflect our own true feelings. what a shame because feeling our own pain is the only way to truly feel anothers.
Look at all the great people who lived on this Earth, Like Aaron Swartz, the selfless ones who put everyone ahead of them, and examine their lives and you will see DEEP DEEP PAIN.
It is a difficult reality to accept, but to truly put others ahead of yourself as Aaron did, you must know what it feels like to be persecuted.
If there is one lesson to take out of this story it is to learn to look within yourself and find happiness and recognize that you have it pretty great, in fact you have it perfect. Perfect for you. Don't be so quick to be jealous of others, Dont be so quick to wonder why they get away with everything or why their life is so much better than yours.
Look Within, and Truly Become Happy With Your Lot.
It's connotation was that Aaron was acting like a woman. The intended message was that he should shoulder sole responsibility for the costs, unlike (apparently) a woman. A) that's sexist and B) counter-productive. Collaboration and mutual support gets us further than we can get on our own: demonizing those traits as "feminine" just leads to lonely alienation.
> I am surprised people have taken issue with the words man up. It's only connotation was that Aaron should pay for his own defense, a reasonable statement.
I think it only becomes reasonable after you present a well thought though argument for why the world is better off when Aaron pays for his own bills vs volunteers helping him with is bills. Until that it is just a statement and opinion.
We are all partially responsible in a small way. We did not take a stand when that link was posted. Each one of us who did not donate or pass that link around.
Maybe we were swayed by the comments, maybe not. Call ourselves hackers, get influenced by some prick who sounds like an uppity high school headmaster. Think we're principled, refuse to take a stand for what's right.
At the very least, we can learn. To take a stand in what we believe in. Without getting swayed by the fakers.
edw519 is allowed to have an opinion, and his opinion does not, at least to me, seem unreasonable.
Not everyone is going to agree with your civil disobedience actions, or you asking for help with the consequences. That doesn't make them bad people, or wrong people, for saying they don't like your approach, think you should accept consequences, or whatever else. For example, MLK didn't hate the clergymen that disagreed with his direct action approach. He essentially told them to man up, join the movement, and accept the consequences of sitting in jail sometimes as a result.
Not that edw519 is quite as eloquent, but none of edw519's comments are patronizing, they were his description of the situation as he saw it, and the outcome he thought should occur.
Characterizing this as "spitting in the face of someone asking for help" is pure hyperbole.
If everyone agreed on a course of action and outcome, you wouldn't actually need a movement. That a person died tragicallly does not mean that everyone who did not see eye to eye with that person is an egotistical patronizing dickhead who spit in their face because they did not want to help the movement. It just means they did not see eye to eye.
Acting as if it is more than that is, as others have said, a circular witchhunt. Sometimes tragic events are just that: Tragic events.
The whole "news" story is ridiculous. One can be sad and feel it a tragedy that a young man committed suicide, even if you disagree with the approach that person took.
Lastly, I'll point out that if edw519 were to meet an untimely demise, your post is exactly of the same tone and impression as his.
So being hypocritical is "pretense of having virtues, beliefs, principles, etc., that one does not actually possess"
You are assuming that edw519 does not find Cory's eulogy to bring understanding to sad and confused people.
You also claim it doesn't affect him deeply.
Maybe it does because he felt he was so hard on him?
In essence, I guess I justify this change by saying I believe his post when he said he feels it will "bring understanding to sad and confused people."
Again, it's perfectly reasonable to dislike or villify someone, but be sad or confused at their passing, and find comfort in a eulogy.
Let me risk a few pitchforks and say I used to villify former senator Ted Stevens. He was an unapologetic pork barrel politician.
When he died suddenly in a plane crash, that does not mean I was happy for his death, and I was definitely sad and felt bad for his loved ones. I was not at home screaming "wooh, that arrogant fucker's dead!" while dancing around the room. Had his eulogy been posted here and I noticed, I would have hoped it would bring understanding and comfort to those who loved him.
Does this make me a hypocrite?
No, because it's not a pretense. I was in fact, genuinely sad. Personally, I don't think that makes me anything more than "not a sociopath".
It could be i'm just different than a lot of folks, of course. As a lawyer, it's basically beaten into our heads to be dispassionate and objective when evaluating people, emotions, and events.
>Not everyone is going to agree with your civil disobedience actions
No, but those who don't support, say, MLK Jr., deserve to be shamed for their regressive attitude.
Practically speaking, the forces of regression are always louder and stronger than the voices for progress. But if we don't denounce and shame those regressive voices, then the voices for progress end up feeling so alone and unloved.
The truth about HN is that there are a lot of selfish, money-grubbing, right-wing people here who would happily shit all over Aaron because Aaron was a left-wing activist.
It's not okay to let these regressive, conservative figures steal the spotlight. If you don't support Aaron's actions, you don't deserve civility. You are beneath contempt and deserve to be spat on, insulted, publically humiliated, like any common racist, bigot, anti-abolitionist, or Ancieme Regime blue blood. Right-wingers simply deserve shame and mockery and if progressive people would hold the conservatives in our midst to standards of human decency, then those conservatives wouldn't be winning the day and our most powerful and successful left-wing activists like Aaron would be less likely to kill themselves.
Aaron literally sacrificed himself for the sake of the species and the response from HN was "fuck Aaron. What did he ever do to help MY bottom line?"
These right-wing assholes on HN should be shamed just like we used to shame racists, sexists, eugenicists, Nazis.
I say shame on all the people creating throwaway accounts to sling mud around.
'Let's take a step back.'
Techcrunch publish an article singling out a single negative post (among many more) on HN from 120 days ago, and suddenly the pitchfork brigade are screaming for an apology within the hour. No need to worry about the bullying prosecutor any more officer, we've found the man!
Because clearly none of these people have ever said anything rash on the internet. What sanctimonious rubbish.
"Techcrunch publish an article singling out a single negative post (among many more) on HN from 120 days ago"
Looking at the post, it would seem that edw's opinion was the most popular in the hivemind (judging by the upvotes on his comment), so it's fair to single out that post which summarized the thoughts of the many people upvoting.
Unless people just arbitrarily upvoted him, which would have other ramifications ...
It's not fair to single out one individual, particularly when the not so subtle (and completely speculative) inference is that the discussion led to Swartz's suicide.
Either you are new here, in which case you don't know Ed well enough to be leaving comments like this one, or you are a troll, or you are a regular member hiding behind a newly-created anonymous account.
well this is a newly created account, but I've been here for four years. I remember when people were missing comments by nicb, when patio11 wasn't a lead karma recipient. Ed fucked up man. And as I've said it now in three other comments, this guy sold a freaking book of his comments from this exact site. I've been an asshole. I've said things I really, really shouldn't have. But the people calling for Ed to publicly apologize have the least of it. And for the record, I'm not a regular contributor hiding behind a new account. I've commented less than a dozen times before the last few days, from two other accounts that I promptly forgot. Just because we don't have high karma doesn't mean we don't have relevant opinions and arguing the opposite sounds pretty shameful.
1. Ed did not "fuck up". He posted his opinion. I don't -- and didn't -- agree with it, but that does not make him a bad person. And, by the way, you are right now committing the exact same sin as you are accusing him of, which makes you a hypocrite to boot. If there is any discussion worth having here, it is not about that specific comment, it is about the tone and personality of this site.
2. He sold a book of things that people found insightful. So what? I have a collection of Robert Fulghum's short works, what's the difference really?
3. You're being an asshole right now.
4. The people calling for Ed to publicly apologize are misguided, at best. The only reason that they are even aware of that comment is because it ended up on TechCrunch, and how many of those people are, themselves, guilty of the accusations that they would levy against another respected member here? Once again, the only productive thing that could come from all of this colossal stupidity would be for HN to collectively reconsider its tone and personality.
5. Part of the etiquette here is that if you are going to accuse someone of wrongdoing, you bloody well ought to at least put your name behind it. Whether you agree with that or not, those are the rules here. Using anonymous accounts to spew hatred towards other people is cowardly, at best.
6. My reply to fermule had nothing to do with his internet points, and everything to do with the fact that his comments are so stupid, so inciteful, that either they are the work of a troll or of a member that should know better, or someone from somewhere else on the internet that doesn't know better. What I find most abhorrent about HN at this moment is that fermule's comments currently have a net positive score, despite being almost perfectly identical to the kind of garbage that you'd expect to find on Reddit.
Dude, stop acting and shut the fuck up. What you said amounts to cyber bullying and it's idiots like you who are setting the spiteful tone in HN comments. So much hate. No matter what other comments here say, you are in a way responsible for his death.
Whatever you think of edw, you should also consider the tone of your own comments. HN can be hard and reductionist, and in your attempt to highlight the problematic nature of the trend you've contributed to it.
We're a community where people come for insight and honest evaluations. However, those things do not have to be rude or dismissive, and we should all try to raise the tone of the conversation - especially when making uncomfortable statements.
Someone offers a thoughtful and considered opinion, and that's "cyberbullying"? Disagreeing with an opinion you hold, no matter how intelligently and reasonably, is "cyberbullying"?
Your post could have just stopped at "shut the fuck up". Because that's the essential gist of everything that followed.
edw519 comment 119 days ago on TC, does not present an argument for why it is better if Arron pays his own bills vs society helping pay his bills.
>Aaron should man up, take responsibility for his actions, and pay his own bills.
This comes across as edw519 saying "Aaron should" do what I think is right. Edw519 may have a deep and well reasons argument for why society would be better if it followed his opinion in the comment, but that argument is not in that comment. It would have be more valuable comment in my opinion if had included such a argument
Stating your opinion with out giving a well reasoned argument is by no means cyberbullying, but they do share some signals and indicators.
I believe he was referring to the top voted post from 4 months ago. We, as a community, did not come around for one of us, instead some of you bashed the guy when he was down, now he's dead. Shame.
>>some of you bashed the guy when he was down, now he's dead. Shame.
Also, fuck you.>>
I resent the last two words but it couldn't have been anything else or anything better.
Yes, you cognoscenti, you know everything and you are talking about everything. It's not just that people bashed him when he was down; they are doing the same thing they do good on HN - comment on anything, disagree with everything and then stick around to prove why you were right and that you were right even though what you said was bs and full of crap.
Who knows, Aaron might have read such comments and that could have added to his hopelessness, or maybe he didn't. No, of course not such a commenter was guilty of aiding his suicide(neither legally or just generally), but then again just look at you.
I mean, really? I come across such commenters with five figure karmas on HN. They sometimes put across a counter-argument because that is technically correct and hence disregard what was said originally and on other occasions they put it because they are practically correct and disregard other's statement anyway. It's always that "oh, I am one notch up now". And yes, everybody loves them - they are the pillars of truth on HN. They never own up to what they did or say, they just go on around arguing and arguing and arguing. They take care of their own and jump in when one of their elk needs some assistance. Very few ever dares(or maybe bothers) to cross them. They are simply correct by definition and design. The elders, maybe. What would I know, I am not one of them. But that's just fine, isn't it?
Cyber bullying? You created an account here just to leave this spiteful disgusting comment? Classic bully behavior - not putting your real identity behind your hateful words.
EDIT: updated as tptacek appears to have deleted all his contributions to this thread.
Agreed (with tptacek's deleted comment that people should lay off Weissman). Imagine if we all entered discussions assuming the other party was in an extremely fragile state. No skepticism, speculation, conjecture, kid gloves, boring.
Anyone who's cultivated an online persona has dealt with a variety of debating opponents. I can't imagine Aaron would have been moved either way because one HN commentator questioned the rightness of his fundraising effort. The pitchforking of Weissman by anyone angered by the prosecutorial pitchforking of Swartz is rather absurd.
However what I found more interesting in that thread [0] was additional examples of tptacek's strident establishment stance and how it really irks some HN commentators.
I'd already gathered from his vocal opposition to Wikileaks, and lukewarm opposition to SOPA et al that he's not a CCC-type hacker (a more generous characterization would be that he refuses to drink hacker kool-aid). I think part of that irked me in an irrational way, because really, if you're running a security consultancy in the US then adopting any philosophical position similar to Swartz or Assange would be a complete commercial non-starter.[1]
Perhaps some here expect that any notable hackers should all be Swartzs', sharing a similar social and political outlook, which is a little unrealistic to say the least.
[1] I'm also not implying you hold contrary public and private positions. Your advocacy of a more government / corporate friendly position goes well beyond devil's advocacy.
> [1] I'm also not implying you hold contrary public and private positions. Your advocacy of a more government / corporate friendly position goes well beyond devil's advocacy.
Yeah, I don't think his default pro-establishment slant is any sort of strategic business move. One would think that if he held different views privately he would just abstain from talking about those potentially politically troubling topics.
For better or worse, I think he says what he thinks, and means it. I am inclined to file that under "positive attributes".
(I am one of those "really irked" HN commentators.)
Completely agreed. And as someone who strongly supported what Aaron did at the time (and thus disagreed with you, Ed, et al), this techcrunch "article" is still disgusting.
This public singling out of one of us for ad impressions should be taken personally by every commenter here. I know it's the 3072nd time someone has said this, but techcrunch.com should just really be added to the spam blacklist.
Unfortunately, flagging kills any ongoing discussion. Someone with the ability should just take it upon themselves to edit the url of this topic to be self-referential or point to the old topic.
The introspective point raised is quite valid (and has already spawned discussion); the public shaming of an individual citizen of this community is unacceptable. It's not about censorship of ideas - it's about cutting off the funding (and in this case motive) for yet another case of a non-hacker outsider attacking one of us for personal gain.
I was being sarcastic, to highlight what i viewed as the absurdity of the parent comment. I'm sorry if that didn't come through. Unless YOU were being sarcastic and -I- failed to get it...
Oh god I don't know what's real anymore. Help, I'm trapped in a sarcasm factory.
This is what I consider the sick side of journalism. It does nothing but serve pageviews to TC. What irks me even more is the fact that I had to serve them up a pageview just to see context.
Is there a Chrome extension to (1) disallow me from going to their website and (2) remove their links from visibility on HN?
I've already created a mental ban on their website (because I think it's utter filth), but now I think I need to take a step further.
EDIT - Just realized the article was written by Arrington. Go figure.
Agreed. Ed should bear none of the responsibility for what happened to Aaron - this was an unexpected and tragic outcome to a desperately sad situation.
But Ed and others around here do need to take responsibilty for the comments they write - they heavily influence the nature and tone of the discussions around this precious corner of the Internet and Ed was misguided to post in such black and white terms. It would be nice to hear Ed say that he called it wrongly.
(I'm not sure how well known the obstacles Aaron faced were besides this article, this just recently made the front page after his death)
Would reading this piece back then (or before Aaron's HN post) been enough to change people's mind? Honest question. Looking at the donation site that Aaron put together, I don't blame anyone for not immediately taking his side. He may have been intimately aware of what was going on in his case, but his defense fund site was too dependent on people automatically siding with him for who he is*.
edit: by this, I mean that some more narrative of what was going on would've been really helpful for the call-to-action
his point is pretty clear @tptacek - he's saying that just because edw519 didnt know the facts - doesnt make it okay for him to have been a caustic douche back then.
He made a judgement based on the information provided to him. It wasn't conveyed in a nice tone, sure, and that's unfortunate. I'd prefer if everyone was nice, but sometimes things just come out really, really nasty.
The usual consequence is to take your downvotes/criticisms and move on...not to become the center of some impromptu witch hunt.
I disagree - I think if anything this should be made an example of how we as a society are really quick to judge and attack someone based on minimal facts. In an age where depression is more common than a common cold - this sort of behaviour only perpetuates our psychological issues. Why do we need to be so judgemental to start with?
calling someone a douche is significantly less aggressive than telling a person who's obviously PLEADING for help that he's wrong and should man up - based on very limited information.
Which we don't need, because a bunch of HN commentators handily volunteered to conduct a trial on the spot, right? Forming mobs is really what humans do best.
I wonder if that's what Aaron felt when he asked for help: that HN had formed a mob against him. That's certainly the impression I get from reading the original HN thread (that HN turned into a mob against Aaron), yet there's not a single comment directing HN's attention to the fact that they were behaving like a mob.
Are you referring to moral responsibility or legal responsibility? Let's make the distinction. And how do _you_ know who bears and doesn't bear _absolutely_ no responsibility?
I, for one, do not know what responsibility Ed bears, moral or otherwise. That's for Ed to determine. I do however find it harder and harder to respect people that when someone desperate asks for help, they get up on their high horse and emit absolute statements of the sort "you need to", "man up" and the like. Depression is a sickness and that by definition means you are not functioning normally. I am sure that Aaron would have "manned up" if he had the necessary mental strength.
I also don't have much respect for people that call their fellows, "clowns". So there. Wise up.
Tptacek, I always know exactly which threads you will post your combative, confrontational, annoying posts before I click on them. You are the drama queen of hackernews.
In a comment below you state NOBODY KNEW THESE DETAILS AT THE TIME
That is exactly why judgement should have been deferred. In the face of uncertainty, given the situation, withholding comment or querying neutrally would have been optimal. That is clear with foresight, not just obvious from hindsight. I did not see that thread the first time but it is the tone and not the words that would be so damaging.
Man up. Very likely he had already internalized the blame for his current state. Such statements would be seen only as confirmations of his weakness and foolishness. Criticisms would be isolating and over-weighted . For someone so prodigious it would have been especially difficult.
The risk from destabilizing a person genuinely going through very difficult external and or internal moments, even if they proportion fewer, far outcosts the risk of building a careless individual's misplaced ego by giving them attention in the form of neutral to supportive questions. Yes it will take a bit more effort to not follow all "I made a mistake" with "man up and learn from it" but I think we would all be better from it. Especially those at the extreme end where manning up requires prefixing with super.
I dare say I envy those whose paths through life is such that a phrase like that enters an initial treatment of someone facing any adversity. That they have never sensed helplessness so vast, it opens a vortex to the place of lost souls, washing away the vivid colors the manned-up paint with while slowly dimming any ability to answer the on appearance hopeless question of What now? Nothing of course.. ?
If everybody withheld comment until they knew the full story, nobody would post on Hacker News. Hell, people still don't know the full story of the Aaron Swartz court case, and yet you see an awful lot of folks willing to comment with the few tidbits they do know right now.
This is not a generic claim on all to withhold comment pending details. Nothing so general. What I am saying is if someone asks for help, particularly in so public a manner, it would be useful to assume by default that things are more complex than they seem.
There was no suicide note. There was no reason given. The closest thing we have is a suggestion from his family, which caused everyone to instantly jump on one of three different bandwagons getting as many people fired and as many laws changed as possible. We have no idea of gauging whether or not that suggestion is correct, so we all read in to things we THINK suggest the reasons for his suicide.
It's ridiculous how so many people here are claiming "You shouldn't comment unless you know about the situation" when knowing absolutely dick-all about the situation right now.
No we do not, but everyone still needs to decided if and how they will act differently going forward with this new data point regardless of what we do not know.
Jumping to conclusions is bad not changing at all is also bad.
There was his blog. Alas I did not frequent the right part of the internet to have fixed him to mind but those who read his blog should have seen someone who has for sometime struggled with his state.
No one says Ed bears responsibility for Aarons death - that's just you skewing the context completely. The point is he gave a biased/uneducated judgement - that was strongly worded on the verge of being hurtful - on a very public forum. This got voted to the top position. He bears responsibility for dealing an unnecessary blow to someone who was already sick (it wasnt a secret that he was depressed - just read his blog posts!). The fact that he suddenly expresses so much regret for his death is more a show of herd mentality ("oh - everyone else on HN is mourning his death so let me jump onto that bandwagon"). If you're response to this is going to be - "well you've not been around long enough to know that ed's a really nice guy" - the fact is - that doesnt matter - no one is saying ed is an evil person. All that's being discussed here is this particular issue. I'm not judging Ed. The larger take away is simply this - It's really easy for us - to sit in front of our laptops and post comments based on limited knowledge - without even making the slightest effort to dig deeper - based on our whims - most of the time - no one cares - but particularly when directed to people - these things can have a much more significant impact.
So Ed's comment was made despite him not being aware of the case's details. That didn't stop _you_ from going overboard on the thread in telling us what you think about how the JSTOR has been wronged did it?
* We can't see votes so to make ascent of an opinion visible adding a "me too" is actually different to an upvote.
* We can't see who has upvoted.
* The commenters standing - recognised by name, work and reputation by many here I'd warrant - makes a difference too IMO.
Whilst "me too" comments get annoying they carry info here that is otherwise not available.
Yes, if "me too" posts are only added in rare cases by accounts which have a lot of influence, such as yours, it would follow the point you're both making but that's not the case. You post a "me too" and it sets an example for others to follow. Case in point https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5056927
Further more, "to make ascent of an opinion visible" isn't necessary because an ascent is visible by it's very nature. The best posts rise to the top. Up-vote a post and it'll make it's ascent.
This isn't meant to be a heavy nitpicking argument. Please take it as a lighthearted discussion.
There's nothing in the UI to show this; presumably the highest top-level comments are those with the most upvotes (!== best, yeah, nitpicking) but the algo is hidden. There is no identification of who is assenting either.
I want to change the focus here from all the negativity that was existent in HN to some positive stuff -- andrewljohnson's defense of Aaron, which now shows his incredible insight.
1) I don't think Aaron made more than six figures from Reddit. Soon after acquisition, he went on walkabout, and then he got canned. He probably got some money, but did not vest most of his share.
So, don't worry - he's poor enough for your pity and support.
2) As to your second line of thought, that we should punish him because he consciously broke the law... I disagree with anyone on this forum who says that Aaron didn't know the potential consequences of his actions, and therefore should not be punished. But I also disagree with you.
This was a victimless crime, and the only ones pursuing it are some relentless G-men. Where is the corporation or person that has been wronged? Who, in the public, wants to pillory Aaron? What did Aaron gain? Do we really need to make an example of him, so this doesn't happen again? Is this really good a use of taxes?
My reaction is just shame and disgust... I mean, really? This brilliant kid is going to jail because of civil disobedience? Just so we can show there is still a book than can be thrown?
The prosecution's perspective is warped by incentives - we should never care about how prosecutors feel or think - they are just tools of the people. Prosecutors need convictions, promotions, and press to succeed at their jobs. At this point, it's not JSTOR who wants this case prosecuted, it's just government agents. And they are just going through the motions.
It may be up to a jury to do the right thing - they stand a better change of being unbiased, thankfully for Aaron.
> I disagree with anyone on this forum who says that Aaron didn't know the potential consequences of his actions, and therefore should not be punished.
What's terrifying to me is that I could have ended up doing the same thing. You're on a fast network, you have a bunch of PDFs you want to crawl, you're particularly handy with python... why not? It's in the same ballpark as doing a site-rip.
God dam I hate the term "man up", it really is a hugely degrading phrase. If someone is having a hard time and asks for the help the worst thing you can do is tell them to "man up" or "get over it".
Thank you, not sure I could have phrased it any better. I'm not sure many of us will ever fully understand what Aaron went through, something obviously dark enough that he felt the only way out was to take his own life. If some of the condolences and sympathy on offer right now had been given back then maybe a brilliant mind would still be alive. Hopefully all of us will think twice before dismissing calls of help with "man up" from now now.
Given Matt's from New Zealand, he would have been exposed to an excellent series of advertisements on depression by a former top All Black - John Kirwan. Kirwan, who was arguably the best All Black of his era, talks frankly about depression, mentions in one that toughening up is the last thing to do, and that the best way to help is to seek help, do the little things that make you happy and so on. It was a brave thing to do, and incredibly powerful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ9yRhCiLfAhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxBikj3kRcohttp://depression.org.nz/
The disconnect here is a simple one: how big a peril Aaron was in was not communicated clearly or effectively on the page asking for help. Apparently this was because of some legal constraints. I think that's what threw a lot of people on the wrong track entirely. Had they been in the possession of the full set of facts I'm pretty sure they would have reacted differently. See the page for yourself: https://free.aaronsw.com/ , it is as non-descriptive as it could possibly be.
Even so, these careless and unfounded words must have hurt tremendously, much more so than had nothing been said at all.
> Even so, these careless and unfounded words must have hurt tremendously, much more so than had nothing been said at all.
It angers me to think that HN could have contributed in any way to the dark place Aaron ended up reaching. More so because many of those comments bothered me at the time and I neither knew Aaron nor the severity of the situation. They were unwarranted even in absence of the full story.
I'm sorry but which "careless and unfounded words" are you specifically referring to? Set among these events, and with a great many people assigning responsibility all over the place, this kind of thing strikes me as nothing like responsible or precise.
It was a fundraising post for legal defense. Not a plea of mental health distress. People expressed negative opinions of the request, some in light of the presumed financial position of the defendant. Are we seriously discussing review of those remarks simply for their psychological supportiveness?
Not terribly long ago I had someone on hn tell me to "lighten up". Up until that point, I appreciated his sincere effort at respectful two way communication. At that moment, I decided he was being a dick and not worth talking to further.
I don't see where it matters if you can tell if someone will bring drama or not. It is pretty disrespectful to assume that someone making strong/emotional statements is merely a drama queen. They usually have their reasons for feeling strongly.
In this context, here's a hint: don't blame the sufferer. You don't tell someone with Multiple Sclerosis to just exercise more or a poor person to just make more money. It's facile and cruel and unhelpful.
Depends on the context and situation. Between friends, its a pretty good phrase to tell your buddy (regardless of sex), to be the responsible party and take some positive actions. I would never say it to a stranger or someone I didn't know well, but to a friend that needs to hear it, yes.
The women I have hung out with haven't taken offense when they had the phrase used on them, and one did use it on me (it was something I needed to hear at the time although I was in a bit of a snit for a couple of days because of her saying it).
Thinking about it, there are a lot of phrases and ways to express things that I wouldn't use on a message board or to people I didn't know well. To the people I know well, I'll use any phrase or approach that I think can reach them.
Also, I do not see and equivalence between "man up" and "get over it". The former is asking a friend to take some responsibility and action, the later is asking them to get beyond their feelings while assigning no responsibility.
I don't see how anyone can read that phrase in that thread as referring to Aaron's _depression_. It was entirely in the context of taking responsibility for his _activism_, and under a presumption that he had considerable resources.
Something particularly bugs me about edw519's comments in the thread you linked to and the recent one about the tragedy -- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5047571. It's an odd contrast.
A more cynical observation is that users with high "karma" point totals earn this by parroting the majority opinion or otherwise treating comment threads as a game.
That's not an observation, it's a conjecture, and one that is fairly baseless. many things operate according to a power law. If karma is like that, a small number of users will end up with a shitload of karma points even if they aren't attempting to game the system.
There are many factors that could contribute to a power law for karma distribution. One conjecture is that other users tend to "trust" high-karma users and therefore tend to upvote their comments just because they have high karma.
Another is that high-karma users receive gratification from using HN and therefore use it more. Which leads to getting more karma.
Either of the two conjectures I advanced could explain a small number of users having a disproportionate amount of Karma.
Both conjectures bear out in my experience. A third one:
High-karma users have followers. I've left comments on very old stories in out-of-the-way places and found them voted up. So we accumulate karma faster in part because people are simply more likely to see our posts, because they go out of their way to do so.
high karma people have a halo effect (while that sounds a little like one of the others ones mentioned) I think it's distinct.
I had an experience the other week with the halo effect as follows.
I was somewhere and struck up a conversation with a man that I believed to be the actual head of a top 10 law firm in the US (a distant relative who I met for the first time). With a private jet, home in Aspen and a few thousand lawyers under him. While I was talking to him, I was noticeably aware of literally how important he seemed on one hand, and how "down to earth" he seemed on the other. (He actually didn't seem that sharp to go with who I believed him to be, in a George Bush kind of way.)
But the halo was still there (I was doubting my instincts all along).
After speaking to him for 45 minutes or so I asked for his card. It turned out that he wasn't the head of the firm, he was the son of the head of the firm (he was a senior partner none the less).
Your own profile provides an excellent example of this phenomenon -- you have a "must-read list". Valuable contributions from the past mean certain people get noticed more in the present.
I don't know; consciously recognizing this tendency in myself is one of the reasons I deleted my reddit account and seriously scaled back my contribution here. I observed behaviour in myself that I found distasteful, but it wasn't before that behaviour had become entrenched and I had become a top-100 poster on HN (by overall karma) that I noticed it. I can easily postulate a reality wherein others, as I did, unconsciously adopt hivemind opinions so as to maximize the social validation of karma without realizing that they're doing so or intentionally gaming the system in that way.
The popularity of contrarian viewpoints on sites like HN and reddit are absolutely because people reward people more for expressing those views. Even just as a trend, it is worth considering.
If you think it was easy for Ed to post what he did about Aaron's legal troubles, you don't understand the sentiment on HN at all. He posted that comment because that's what he believed at the time.
It's not the comment that makes the votes, it's the voters. I tend to view high "karma" comments as resonating with the geist. If they're pandering to the crowd, they're just giving the crowd what they want to hear. So, sure we can scapegoat the panderers, but the fingers should possibly point elsewhere.
Some users get upvoted fairly quickly by username alone, too. Think pg, edw519, patio11, tptacek; I've noticed comments from them will have upvotes in seconds, regardless of content. It's just name recognition, for better or worse. pg could probably leave a comment saying only "This is a comment." and get a hundred points of karma off it. (I'd pay him to try.)
So, to an outside observer, you might suggest that these users game Hacker News but the real answer is that they have an audience. It's debatable whether that's their fault, on a case-by-case basis, though.
Then you could probably say it goes the other way: a large part of the community feels a certain way because Ed says so (in the top position), or Thomas says so. I've noticed the atmosphere of a thread change after a comment from a "well-known" person is left, rather rapidly on occasion. The momentum of a community like Hacker News is an interesting study, and although I didn't get an opportunity to watch the thread under the microscope, I bet a large part of it was shaped by Ed's comment.
Recently I've learned how Hacker News threads are living organisms, and I've noticed the impact of the commentary that I make. If you pay close attention, you'll be surprised at how the thread evolves and grows, particularly based upon what's in the top position.
That exchange was ridiculous. I brushed his ego by correcting him on what is supposed to be his core competency, and he resorted to bullying and fallacious reasoning rather than admitting he was wrong.
It took some work, but I managed to corner him.
I didn't want to lose this argument because he was trying to make me look foolish when I was technically right. Since he has a lot of street cred, I feared that a lot of people would take his ramblings as correct.
And some did. I got at least three down votes on the first message.
Where is the contrast? edw519's past remarks remain consistent with the one you've linked to in your comment. Expressing the idea that Aaron should be expected take responsibility for his actions does not imply any ill will on edw519's part.
Why does this issue have to be made into something so polarizing? With many here, it's either you believe Aaron should've been able to walk away scot-free, or you support an oppressive, overreaching, corrupt government, and the efforts to limit free access to information. Isn't it?
Does anyone here who has paid any attention to Ed whatsoever believe he would have written that comment had he known that Aaron had already been financially ruined by an overzealous prosecution that had confronted him with a dilemma of pleading guilty to 13 felonies and spending 6 months in prison or taking a crap-shot at 6-7 years in prison?
NOBODY KNEW THESE DETAILS AT THE TIME. Aaron was apparently prevented from sharing them. They are shocking. It is not reasonable to get angry at people for reasoning through questions and failing to account for secret information.
No, but he did assume he was asking for funds simply because he wasn't manning up. How many hundreds read/upvoted and made the same assumption? He should've held his judgment, especially with the weight he carries around here. I've been reading his comments for years. I know he's a good guy, but I still think it was a stupid comment to make.
No, but he did assume he was asking for funds simply because he
wasn't manning up
How can any comment ever be made on the internet about something happening then if every commenter is expected to a) assume they know very little of the situation b) not make judgement c) later be held accountable for what they've said based on information not known at the time?
Do people need to start including disclaimers when they comment? "This comment is based on my understanding of the situation as presented by the article and would be revised if new things come to light that are not included in this article"?
I don't understand this sentiment at all. What's wrong with simply not commenting? HN isn't a semi-private coffee shop; this whole post illustrates quite nicely that what is said here is public and long-lasting.
Let's try this on for a little more discomfort: what do you think the odds are that Aaron himself read the comments of a few threads posted here about his case?
Your entire argument here seems predicated upon people absolutely needing to comment on things that they have no special knowledge of. I don't think that's very defensible.
> what do you think the odds are that Aaron himself read the comments of a few threads posted here about his case?
About 100% or so. That's the bit that hurts the most.
The simple solution is this: If you're going to say something positive, absent information feel free to do so.
On the other hand, if you're going to say something negative you'd better make damn sure you know what it is that you're talking about. If you don't those words might take on a life of their own at some unspecified point in the future.
Jacques, incidentally, I think you deserve some praise for being a real stand-up guy here. Aside from being generally a heck of a decent person, you're one of the few here who seems to have taken some actual action throughout this -- reaching out to Aaron to offer assistance, and, later, contacting Lessig to follow up on the EFF's involvement.
I don't think I deserve any praise at all. I had my eyes firmly closed when it mattered (and I really should have known better) and nothing came of the things I did.
I got the impression he just thought Aaron was guilty of a crime, and consciously committed it to make a difference, so Aaron should accept the legal consequences that go with that.
Hindsight is 20/20, and perhaps knowing Aaron was the type who would do something like this would prevent someone from commenting entirely, but it wasn't necessarily a stupid comment to make.
The most important lesson that I have learned from this whole incident is that defending yourself from a federal lawsuit AVERAGES $1.5 million.
I had no idea it was that high. I think few of us did.
If I had seen that conversation (I missed it) and known that fact back then (I didn't), I'd have definitely corrected Ed at that point.
Also shocking is that the purported punishment is so far out of line with what people have gotten in the past. Based on previous examples like Robert Morris (accidentally shut down most of the Internet) and Randal Schwartz (cracked passwords for many accounts at Intel - yes I'm aware of the extenuating circumstances) I would not have expected any jail time to be involved for this "crime".
That shocking discrepancy is why I was so fast to sign the petition to fire this particular prosecutor.
I think that's part of the point, as someone else said; that we should reserve such stark judgment with the expectation that we don't know all the facts. Ed was pretty clear in his opinion, but probably would have held a different one had he known all the facts. To be honest, that supports the idea that he (and I; I agreed quietly) was wrong at the time.
I've taken that lesson to heart personally, just from this thread alone.
Also remember that the top comment position often goes to a 'contra' position with regard to the story. The reasons for this are many: the supporters have already upvoted the headline; those drawn into any comment thread are disproportionately those with some qualifying/contentious point to make; commenters in general may skew to skeptical/negative viewpoints compared to all community readers.
Relative ranking of comments are not opinion polls and should not be construed as such. 'The HN community' is rarely of one measurable mind about anything. Finally, caring much about what the net-total click-voting is on any particular item may be a sign of misplaced priorities or insecurities. What's right and what's good is not dependent on anyone's polling.
Are you suggesting that this is what people should do, which might be a nice sentiment, but not particularly relevant to the issue at hand.
Or are you suggesting this is what people actually do, to the point of upvoting a comment past all others to the number 1 position. In this second case, I think you have a long way to go to prove your point.
I don't seem to have commented on those threads. But if I had, most of my thoughts now are similar to how they were then.
Fully in support of his goals. Mixed feelings about his methods. Thinking that civil disobedience gains some of its moral authority from being willing to pay a price. But that the price in this case was completely out of proportion to the violation. Thinking that the feds never should have been involved.
Pretty much where I am now, with the added anger/pain about a young man who had already contributed more to the world than most people ever will being hounded to death in a showcase prosecution.
"If I had ... been asked ... whether Aaron’s actions were “wrong”, I would probably have replied that what Aaron did would better be described as “inconsiderate”. In the same way it is inconsiderate ... to download lots of files on shared wifi or to spider Wikipedia too quickly, but none of these actions should lead to a young person being hounded for years and haunted by the possibility of a 35 year sentence."
I'm honestly baffled by this question. He didn't just not support what Aaron did, he treated him badly when he requested help and discouraged others from helping. ("man up?" it's difficult to be more contemptuous in so few words.)
After reading that original post I wouldn't have called this newer post a contrast. I would have just assumed that his "OH NO" post was an expression of sarcasm from a very, very mean person. I am happy to assume that others are correct and that this probably isn't the case, but still, the contrast is very clear.
> I would have just assumed that his "OH NO" post was an expression of sarcasm from a very, very mean person.
It isn't, please take my word for it. Ed is definitely one of the good guys and mean is an adjective I'd never ever use to refer to him. He's helped countless people here with his insights and care and I'm pretty sure that if he could take that stuff back that he would do so. Words said carelessly can come back to haunt you, the only way to avoid that is to never speak, or to only speak in weasel words. Ed is not very good at weasel words and I consider that a good thing.
You can disagree with something someone does and still feel bad when they die. I don't understand why that is a contrast.
Did you feel bad when Steve Jobs died, even if just for his family and friends? Did you ever say anything critical of Steve Jobs? That doesn't make it a contrast...
> You can disagree with something someone does and still feel bad when they die. I don't understand why that is a contrast.
You're not reading carefully enough. The post we're discussing goes beyond disagreeing with what Aaron did. That's not the issue. The expression of contempt - "man up" - and the message that asking one's friends for help is a mistake is troubling.
An unforseen event will make you regret critising [Apple/SteveJobs/Qualcomm/bananas]. In otherwords... stop trying to assign blame to someone for this. We didn't know his intention, nor is anyone directly responsible for it..
It sucks that he killed himself, but its not something you could have prevented unless you were there.
It is an interesting thread...I had wondered why Aaron hadn't beat the drum for support but clearly he hadn't yet won the support of the community...I didn't post in that thread but I could see myself thinking, "He's a successful startup guy, why does he need our money?"...which apparently fueled some of the skepticism back then. I guess it's worth keeping in mind when assessing MIT's soul-searching: how many of the people involved then also thought, "This privileged bratty kid can take his lumps?" and let the issue roll as it did?
I wondered the same and checked out the submissions & comments of AaronSw. He had stopped commenting 140 days ago.
And some of the comments on that submission are just downright acerbic. I'm sure Aaron would've checked them and decided HN wasn't going to help him (honestly after such reaction, why would anyone think otherwise).
I view HN as a community/forum of mostly "business hackers" (for obvious reasons: startups, duh). By analogy, I wonder: would a "business hippie" be more or less sympathetic to the original "hippie" goals? In either case, while I don't consider business and hippie/hacking to be a contradiction, I do think it's a tenuous combination that can easily re-frame one's original values unsympathetically.
This might the single most illuminating comment here about how this tragedy was allowed to reach its terrible conclusion. It perfectly illustrates the indifference towards unjust laws as long as they concern somebody else.
And to all those people that suggested seeing things from prosecution's vantage point -- now might be the time to also consider how Aaron might have felt reading those comments.
Sometimes it takes a shock for people to reconsider their position, especially if what they're really doing is defending their own lack of action. Let's not run to judge the people who posted in that thread many months ago.
Personally, I gave up on participating in any kind of activism about 10 years ago, partly because I didn't feel we were getting anywhere and the next generation didn't seem to care. I feel pretty uncomfortable about that now.
My first thought on hearing about his death was thinking of the picture of the boycotters singing together in the Montgomery jail. We don't have songs of solidarity any more. Instead it's months of indictments and pre-trial proceedings and motions and legal fees, all over things we didn't even see happen in the first place, in a snarky community that will tear people down at least 50% of the time. I can't really think of a less effective resistance strategy.
It's also mostly fueled by indifference and self-interest, not activism. Most file sharers just don't care that they are breaking the law; they want to do what they want to do. If these laws are to ever change we're going to need to start downloading and sharing on the Capital Steps, or get arrested for printing free books for poor kids. We are going to need to be prepared to go to jail ahead of time, before they decide to come after us. That way people like Aaron who don't have the support network and preparation aren't the only ones facing this.
Unfortunately, in my experience the existing activist networks are not the place to start. The anarchists just want to relive the 70's, labor is watching their power dwindle and is focused myopically on the little that remains, poverty campaigners are burned out from fighting years of losing battles and the Occupy, anti-globalization and professional activists seem perfectly happy to march just to be doing anything at all. Many people can agree on the problems, but few people can agree on the solutions (much less small, concrete steps to get there) and so they don't accomplish anything. In intellectual "property" rights laws, however, I think we have a well-defined problem where direct action could be effective.
I don't know that they would, or that they should. Aaron's actions were not a matter of some simple black & white reasoning. Some of the comments come across as harsh criticism for someone who has recently passed, but these were comments before he passed. The context cannot be separated from the content in this case.
I hold a lot of the same views as Aaron. This is especially true in the case of the PACER incident, which is speculated to have been a source of the malice on display from the Justice Department, but I also recognize that a lot of the reasoning presented by edw519 and tptacek (just a couple of examples) is sound. It's entirely possible for there to be sound arguments on both sides of a discussion.
I'm still in roughly the same place I was. He was smart enough that he knew or ought to have known that what he was doing was illegal. I feel bad for the guy in an empathetic sense, because he believed in what he was doing, but not bad enough to cough up my own money for an almost hopeless defense.
Definitely agree that both sides of an argument can have good points. If you don't see that as being the case here, maybe read this: http://lesswrong.com/lw/gz/policy_debates_should_not_appear_..., which is part of the "Politics is the Mind-Killer" series on LessWrong.
That discussion seems much more favorable to Aaron. The top comment's supportive, and even his detractors, like 'bstar77, are measured in their criticism:
> I sincerely hope that he gets the punishment he deserves which should be a firm slap on the wrist. I'm uncomfortable with the idea of him getting any jail time
I'm starting to suspect that HN discussions have a pretty strong snowball effect where it begins to seem like everyone agrees with the early comments near the top.
It sucks that people were so harsh in the first thread. One big takeaway from Aaron's story for me, is that whenever someone is facing federal prosecution, consider that a huge risk factor for stress and mental breakdown, and err on the side of sympathy. This also reaffirms my principle of siding with individual humans (Aaron) over institutions (JSTOR, MIT, DOJ). I'm not out to get anyone if they're the former inflicting a minor institutional flesh wound on the latter.
> I'm starting to suspect that HN discussions have a pretty strong snowball effect where it begins to seem like everyone agrees with the early comments near the top.
There are several 'patterns' that have emerged over the years, the snowball is definitely one of them, especially if one of the first commenters is one with name recognition on HN
> This also reaffirms my principle of siding with individual humans (Aaron) over institutions (JSTOR, MIT, DOJ).
I've tried to make that point elsewhere but unsuccessfully.
The top reply to pg in that thread is dcurtis, and should maybe give everyone concerned a bit of a pause.
EDIT- dcurtis says Aaron is egotistical in his blog posts, as a comment on a post that asks what Aaron has ever done. The parallel to recent threads about dcurtis is eerie, to be honest. It's jarring enough that it should make everyone on all sides of that issue take a step back and get some perspective.
As pg says in that thread, egotism is a common flaw in bright youths. Perhaps some...not tolerance exactly, as guidance away from the flaw is a reasonable response, but maybe a realization that it's to be expected. And in the big picture, maybe it shouldn't really count much against them anyway.
Yeah. It's also interesting to watch this posthumous deification happening in real time, especially since so many people (who mostly didn't know him) considered him to be kind of a dabbler and a fuckup while he was still alive. Not saying all the praise is a bad thing or unwarranted by any means, just an observation. I never actually met him, but we shared a small footnote in history together: literally we were both cited in the same footnote of a book on the history of Wikipedia.
What bugs me a lot more than the meanness in either of those two historical threads is some of the stuff that happened in the last 3 days. That's the part I can not get my head wrapped around. It really bugs me.
You mean his death? To say that it bugs me would be an extreme understatement. Like many, I immediately felt devastated, even though I'd never met him.
If you are referring to other stuff: What else happened in the last 3 days that bugs you?
Some of the stuff people have been writing in these threads is so unbelievably callous and insensitive that I really wonder what drives us all to do these things.
If you are going to advocate free information transmission, then you better open up your finances to prove you are bankrupt if you ask for funding. Especially if you are successful.
Our government is sick because our culture is sick, and our culture is sick because masses of individuals are sick, and few of them want to look in a mirror. And I am most definitely thinking about many of the posters here at HN.
I think the takeaway here is to stop assuming you know entirely what is going on and give people the benefit of the doubt. There may be more factors involved than the ones you see; in fact, there always are -- something HN is notorious for not doing (read: AirBnB, Dropbox, etc, etc, etc, etc).
Word. I have been refuted, disproven, turned around 180, subsequently enlightened when more is revealed so many times on so many issues... It's embarrassing.
I'm trying very hard to be less of an outspoken opinionated blowhard.
So this is on the OP, which quotes the Lessig post:
> For in the 18 months of negotiations, that was what he was not willing to accept, and so that was the reason he was facing a million dollar trial in April — his wealth bled dry, yet unable to appeal openly to us for the financial help he needed to fund his defense, at least without risking the ire of a district court judge.
I never understood this assertion. Under what procedural grounds would a judge punish someone raising funds for their defense? Or is referring to more of a "the judge will be annoyed at you" kind of sanction?
This question, along with the question why the EFF didn't fund Aarons' defense are close to the heart of all this. I've sent dr. Lessig an email asking for some enlightenment, I don't expect an answer (he's got other stuff on his plate right now) but I really would like to know what that was all about. It seems important.
Presumably the problem wasn't in asking for funds, the problem was in explaining why the funds were necessary. I read a recent story, probably linked here on HN, about how standard procedure for the Justice dept. is to freeze all your funds so you can't afford adequate representation, then dump so much paperwork on you that you have no chance to defend yourself. All of this would have been facts related to the case which the judge could easily gag.
Great stuff, ta for the link. This bit is amazing:
"It happens that the appointed lawyer was someone of considerable reputation and experience, but the feds neutralized the appointed lawyer’s skill by pouring more than 360,000 pages of disorganized documents onto him"
This is TechCrunch playing the role of Jerry Springer.
In spite of the way many interest groups are trying to make Aaron's suicide into a symbol, the fact is that suicide is simply a symptom of mental illness, and nothing else.
Unless we have reason to believe otherwise, most of us assume that those whose actions/views we discuss on HN are of normal (average) mental health.
So while Aaron's death is jarring, it's the mental illness that is jarring and not the nuanced view expressed by edw519.
TC must be hurting for clicks/readership these days. I think that story (sadly the current top story on HN) is a new low.
I attempted suicide at age 17. I am very clear it was due to social and physical factors, not mental illness. I blogged about that yesterday. I doubt you care, but this accusation of "he was merely mentally ill, the way he was being treated by people doesn't matter" is something I think is pure evil and merely an excuse to say "not my problem" and cover your ass.
Not merely mentally ill. Mental health in general should be taken more seriously. Many of our institutional systems (schools, prisons, etc.) are not conducive to habits that promote good mental health. Please be assured I am not dismissive of the importance of it.
Also, people can have lapses in their mental health and then recover.
There are also most certainly lots of factors that can push people to their limits. I do note that you were not successful in committing suicide, and in the name of discussion I might ask (if it weren't inappropriate to do so) why you were not successful in committing suicide. I have done a few thought experiments about suicide and it seems that some methods routinely fail while others never do.
Thanks for sharing your story, and I apologize if my comment came off as insensitive or as an attempt to washy my hands of the key issues. I'm strongly opposed to the kind of stuff that was being done to Aaron fwiw.
I have a genetic disorder. At the time I attempted suicide, I was undiagnosed. In part for that reason, I ended up with severe low blood sugar while also under severe social duress. The short version is that relatives who knew the man I was arguing with had molested me as a child were telling me to "behave" instead of telling him to stfu. The severe low blood sugar interfered with my plans to slash my wrists. Had I been clearer-headed, I likely would have succeeded. I had a scar from an old accident marking exactly where to cut myself to successfully bleed out. Instead, I ended up with a really insignificant flesh wound. You can read the blog post if you want more details.
I still find your remarks objectionable. Severe duress often cannot be clearly distinguished from "mental illness". I have seen too many stories where someone was dismissed as paranoid, a drama queen, mentally ill, making shit up, etc where it later turned out their "dramatics" were 100% true.
I'm really sorry to hear about your struggles, and I sincerely hope you are doing better now.
I did want to mention that the new DSM (and even the current one) does cover situations such as yours. I understand the reluctance to call duress (whether that be social, emotional, etc) "mental illness" and surely an argument can be made that it is not, however in some ways it is.
I think the real point here is that there are forms of therapies that can help someone through these tough times. Of course that takes finding the right psychologist; which takes effort.
Anyways, the main reason I commented was just to say that "mental illness" doesn't necessarily mean you are crazy or have a chemical imbalance. It is a much broader term. The opening paragraph on the wiki page for mental illness describes it well.
Severe duress often cannot be clearly distinguished from "mental illness"
I 100% agree with this in terms of its accuracy in describing the symptoms. And I do not think mental illness should be stigmatized any more than other illnesses should be (which is not at all).
The key though is that once mental illness occurs, rationality goes out the window. To a large extent causality goes out the window. You can't persuade a clinically depressed person to cheer up using a rational argument, the brain chemistry is going to overrule your rationality.
So my intent in my initial comment was to draw a distinction between Aaron's explainable behavior (that which was derived from his rational process) and his unexplainable behavior (that which was derived from his brain chemistry getting out of whack and his conclusion that taking his own life was a good decision).
I realize my sentiment ignores the possibility that the suicide was a direct and rational response to the prosecutors' tactics.
Among other things, I think you are seriously underestimating the chronic stress that a "prodigy" typically lives with. I walked away from a national merit scholarship and homeschooled my very gifted but also learning disabled sons. Issues like OCD are incredibly common at very high IQs. So are serious social issues. For an introvert, being a social outcast for being too smart may be merely annoying. For an extrovert, it may amount to torture. I think it unlikely you can convince me personally that his depression was entirely due to wonky brain chemistry. What little I know about his life suggests huge confounding factors, well before he was charged with a crime.
I'd define having an extremely high IQ has having abnormal brain chemistry :) Surely living among people who are cognitively dissimilar would be very stressful, and living in stressful conditions can be bad for a person's mental health (mental health viewed as something that is fluid and that can change over time and in response to environmental changes).
Unfortunately, you are treading extremely close to saying "high IQ = mental illness". I don't think it has to be that way or should be that way. If I live another fifty years, hopefully I can make some headway on changing that general status quo (edit: I mean the very common view of "there is a fine line between genius and insanity" and the high social stress so many intelligent people routinely endure, yes, at a cost to their mental health).
I don't think I'm treading that line. Having an IQ that is a few standards of deviation higher than average makes a person quite different from average people... just as a person with average IQ would feel out of place among a group consisting mostly of people with IQs a few standards of deviation below average.
However stress is stress. People of any IQ feel stress from a variety of factors. One purpose of the human emotional system is to deal with stress and to respond appropriately... sometimes this means flight, sometimes fight, sometimes take a deep breath, etc. Healthy emotional development is separate from IQ and very dependent on genetics and environment.
Pretty much anyone who isn't completely average in all respects is going to find some kinds of interactions with other humans stressful. So I think that it's tough to make the case that certain traits like high IQ are inherently more stressful or make a person more likely to display mentally unhealthy behavior.
Which is why I think there is a general quality of mental health, which can get better or worse in the same person over time (and can change quickly and slowly)... which is an accurate descriptor of the meta factors that contribute to the proper functioning of the person's cognitive and emotional systems to respond to the inevitable stresses of daily life.
> The key though is that once mental illness occurs, rationality goes out the window.
A minor nitpick: In UK law we have the Mental Capacity Act. People must not be seen as lacking capacity to make decisions just because they have a mental health illness. Even someone detained against their will under section of the Mental Health Act can make decisions about their care.
But your point - "People with major depression and suicidal thinking probably lack capacity to make a rational decision about suicide" is true.
That's an important distinction. Certainly suffering from a degree of mental illness does not hinder many of the kinds of decisions needed to maintain personal freedom and dignity, etc.
> the fact is that suicide is simply a symptom of mental illness, and nothing else.
This is simplistic and wrong.
Mental illness is a factor in some attempted or completed suicides.
But is mental ill health the only factor? No. There are many things that contribute to someone attempting suicide. Significant factors include debt, relationship breakdown, recent release from a MH hospital, previous attempts at suicide, a relative who completed suicide, etc.
Many people have mental ill health, and not all of them kill themselves. The difference between the people who try suicide and those who don't is not severity of illness, but severity of other pressures.
grandalf's comment is inaccurate, but it's also a sort of understatement to say that mental illness "is a factor in some attempted suicides or completed suicides". It's by far the biggest factor.
> More than 90 percent of people who die by suicide have [depression and other mental disorders, or a substance-abuse disorder (often in combination with other mental disorders)]
Exactly, I didn't mean to generalize to claim that mental illness is the only cause, but I would say that mental illness is the common thread in 99%+ of suicides.
As the OP of the HN thread in question, the response then saddened me. But that pales in comparison to the grief I feel now. I hope HN takes this as an opportunity to reflect and introspect.
On the one hand, it is probably unlikely that HN could have done much to prevent Aaron's death. He was facing a terrible situation, one that he could not bear to face, and I doubt anyone here could have substantially changed his situation.
On the other, I can think of few things worse than facing a terrible situation, and feeling like you're doing so completely alone. The amount of speculation and analysis of Aaron's case here on HN was absurd (at one point prompting my only comments on the matter, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4544693), and yet for all that analysis and speculation, there were ever so few comments that came out fully in Aaron's support.
Then he takes his own life, and suddenly it's torches-and-pitchforks for the prosecuting team, it's "why didn't he ask for help", it's "this was unjust", it's "this was unfair", it's "why didn't he have more support". I felt saddened by the news, but I also felt a rising amount of bile for the HN community, and I'm glad that nikcub and Arrington have shone a light on this.
I dunno...as you say, having a community behind you, especially one you count yourself a respected member of, feels much better than going at it alone. I don't know if I had read his defense fund thread and didn't care enough to register a comment or just missed it...either way, I feel a little guilty of not inquiring more about how his case was actually going. I didn't know him personally but was absolutely crushed to hear the news, more than I had imagined I would be.
I distinctly remember that thread, and not commenting. I was disappointed at the responses. I had given a small amount towards his defense fund since I thought his goals were worthwhile. I consider it a privilege to have contributed.
Now, I wish I had given more, and I wish I had commented on that thread.
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke
That Edmund Burke quote just spurred me to donate $X (where X=a substantial amount relative to my income) to Demand Progress in Aaron's memory. Thanks.
I think this speaks a bit to the mentality of technical people.
Your job is to find things that suck and call them on it/make them better. Unfortunately this tends to carry over into all aspects of life, that we can be/are overly critical of everything. Look at almost any great tech/design mind - they can be overly cynical at times.
One of the skills I respect most in a technical person is when they can say, "I hate this, but I love this" at the same time. Or better yet, "You're good at what you do, but this isn't your best work. X is good, but Y really sucks, fix the Y."
Honestly we have a long way to go regarding dealing with people.
It must have been hard on him to see his peers throwing him to the wolves. I think he could have tried harder to appeal to the hacker community, or maybe he couldn't for legal reasons, and that's yet another travesty revealed here.
His case was muddy. He did a few things that most of us would never do without expecting to be punished. He deserved a slap on the wrist, not to be robbed of his assets and locked up for years.
I think HN would have rallied to his cause after we realized how disproportionate the punishment was. I remember personally thinking things seemed weird, but was naively optimistic that it would turn out fine.
Lesson learned, the very hard way: it can't hurt to rally around someone even if they're not 100% in the right, if it looks like they're being bullied.
I see zero inconsistency between on one day saying that someone should take personal responsibility for their activism, and on another day regretting that this same person took their own life.
The notion that Aaron's legal position caused his suicide is an opinion of many people on this board. Despite the numbers of those holding this opinion, it is still only an opinion, and needn't be read as fact for any other analysis or opinion. The insistence that everyone hold _your_ opinions for all of _their_ opinions and moral calculations is, at very best, deeply problematic.
You are advocating for your beliefs (here, ironically, freedom of information) by insisting that others surrender their freedom of thought.
I don't mind causing problems for people doing that.
I am terribly sorry for the family and their loss. But that loss does not make them arbiters of responsibility.
Neither do the needs of any cause give anyone the right to dictate what others think or conclude or hold as fact. I could agree with your "cause" 100% and I would still, I hope, oppose this sort of demand for mindless conformity with "correct" opinion.
This is BS. edw519, and most of us, are not politicians. We should be free to believe in something to the best of our knowledge at any time. I have changed my perspective on almost everything I have ever believed in based on what information I come across.
To hold him, or anyone else for that matter, hostage to what he said 120 days ago is dishonest.
Because you're flagging something for all the wrong reasons. You're assuming that this was submitted by someone just for pageviews but I see no evidence of that. TC articles hit HN with some regularity, sometimes within seconds of being posted there. Also, there is such a thing as the bookmarklet which makes such submissions as easy as clicking two buttons. Anything on TC mentioning Aaron Swartz is pretty much guaranteed to be submitted, and only the very first of those upvotes was the submitter. The 50+ following it were others and your 'flag' counts as heavy as 10 upvotes. So you're hitting 9 people for all the wrong reasons.
I don't think anybody is 'winning' here, especially not in the light of the last few days. You asked for arguments, I gave you some, if they're not good enough then that's fine with me.
Those that downvote this man, please stop, it serves no purpose.
The primary thing that stands out to me here, and what I believe is the main point of the TC post, is that edw and others clearly have very interesting 'before' and 'after' posts.
Before:
"Aaron should man up, take responsibility for his actions, and pay his own bills."
Then:
Aaron can't pay his bills, decides to take one form of responsibility and kills himself.
Now:
"OH NO!
Stunned & heartbroken."
"Thank you, Cory. This wonderful post will bring understanding (and maybe even comfort) to many of us who are sad and confused today.
It will also probably save some lives."
It's not that Ed is to blame for Aaron killing himself, it's that there's a marked change in sentiment and sympathy after his death.
Did it really have to take Aaron killing himself for us to change our sympathies towards him? It seems not many of us really cared that much until he hung himself - and now we can't stop talking about him.
So the point I'd like to make is there's something wrong with a world that only cares after you kill yourself. Maybe Aaron even made the right choice is this is really how it works. Otherwise he might have quietly lived out his 50 years in prison and died later and no one would have given a shit the entire time. At least now this is getting some attention.
In most cases, people simply don't know how bad it is or can't imagine it could be that bad or have no idea how to help, etc. It makes me crazy and I wish the world were better about such things. Yes, it took his death for people to "care", because his death was clear information about how very bad it was. People are still talking in part to try to figure out how to see it more clearly beforehand next time and not have to wait for such a clear signal. At least I hope that is part of the motive, for some people.
edw519 is a good member of this community. Let's not turn on each other.
After researching founders for my interviews I can tell you that it's easy to make anyone look bad based on old posts. It's much harder to stay focused on what's important.
It seems significant to me. There are a lot of users on HN whose default move is to criticize whatever story just made the main page. Maybe that's not the best default position.
Paul Graham also mentioned somewhere that he's been collecting examples of "middlebrow dismissal" as a common kind of default response, in an attempt to understand/combat the phenomenon.
Like a commenter upthread mentioned, I think it's a combination of that and people upvoting names they recognize or that the community knows as/sees as "voices of" the community. They just take their word for it given past posts, rather than having it occur to them that maybe this topic isn't actually their forte. Additionally, someone taking the time to write out rebuttals just to be downvoted and "told off" with pointless and degrading one-sentence rebuttals is pretty pathetic.
My interpretation is that a lot of users are willing to cast a judgement with only a small percentage of the information available. This is why so many opinions on this topic, in hindsight look, shall we say, awkward ... to say the least.
The real value, for me in HN, is on topics where real discussions take place and other users are able to produce more information on topics, not so much where highly rated, articulate power users grace us with their opinions.
Michael Arrington has written his share of trollish articles, but this is just mean spirited. I have a hard time remembering anything so hypocritical and hindsight-biased written after someone's death.
I will do my best to avoid reading anything written by Arrington from now on.
"unable to appeal openly to us for the financial help he needed to fund his defense, at least without risking the ire of a district court judge."
Considering the outcome... Does anyone know an example of what judges do when defendants appeal openly for financial help? Was this really good legal advice?
I suspect - but this pure conjecture on my part, IADNAL and so on - that this may have something to do with prejudicing a potential jury. Any jury member that knows about a case before being sworn in is automatically disqualified. Giving potentially nationwide attention to your case by running a funding drive in your name would pollute any potential jury.
Again, please don't put too much weight on this, it is purely speculative but it is the best I've been able to come up with so far.
A quote on this subject: "One of the most important reasons for not selecting a member of the panel to sit on the jury is prior knowledge of the case."
I think he should have risked pissing off the judge and getting the word out, but hindsight is 20/20. Its sad this is the way our justice system works, feels like a modern day witch trial.
...unless you're on the other end of it, facing a media-friendly opponent who uses the public spotlight to demonize you before you face off in court...
That's the way hackers work and speak - and that sort of frankness is one of the major reasons that HN remains outstanding in terms of signal vs noise. We don't escape everything with weasel words and second-guess the way it's going to be interpreted. Commenters say what they think. Voters agree or disagree.
Yes, it comes back to haunt people. Yes, people are wrong on here every single day. But that's the nature of the discourse, and it will be a sad day if HNers start to worry about voicing their opinion because it could be taken the wrong way.
And, to pre-empt what I know will come, NO-ONE ever has all the facts. Ever. If we needed all the facts before we formed an opinion then we would have none.
To the HN elite (edw519 and tptacek): good on you for commenting on almost every thread, it's gotten you the most 'karma' possible.
Unfortunately, it means that when you jump into a new thread and contravene your other clearly-stated positions, it's a rather transparent attempt to get more attention.
You're not part of Aaron's family, you're not related, and your own words were pretty clear as to what you thought about the guy: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529484.
For the love of all things good, can people who didn't care in the first place about Aaron or his cause stop their fake sympathy now that he is dead? I didn't do anything for him either, but not going to cry any crocodile tears to show everyone how politically aware and smart I am.
I don't think this post should be here-- it's turning a tragedy into a witch hunt. I don't think this level of negativity and mob mentality is appropriate for HN.
And the witch hunt continues. This is all very reminiscent of the furore around the prank call nurse who committed suicide in the UK, with people calling for the unfortunate DJs to be charged with murder. I would have expected a more rational, dispassionate response from this crowd.
I'm convinced there has to be something bigger than that trial. Trying to rationally explain a suicide by pointing fingers at prosecutor might relief a bit of guilt for some but it's IMO naive. As far as I'm concerned, Aaron committed suicide because he didn't want to live on this planet anymore. He tried so hard to change things, to make the world better. And he actually succeeded, but that probably wasn't enough for a brilliant mind like his. Could it be that he was disgusted at how indifferent people were? By people, I mean most people, not just the governments or some particular entities.
I'm not sure why I'm commenting here, I expect it'll just be shouting into the void given the nature of this thread. However, there are some things that rub me the wrong way about all this, so maybe I'll try to make a few points.
One thing that's been bugging me is how, to be blunt, intellectually lazy so many people seem to have been about this whole thing, especially the case against Aaron. Everyone is looking for the easy answer, the soundbite that wraps the whole thing in a bow. I thought that HN was a bit smarter than that, that's a sucker's game, it's a game for tabloids and cable news, not a way for smart people to approach complex problems. And this is a complex problem with no easy answer. The case against Aaron was complex. The law involved was complex. And the application of the law was also complex. It's not as easy as "he was innocent!" or "he was guilty!", because even if either one were easily established in the "court of public opinion" then that's really only the starting point of several much more difficult questions.
I think it's probably fair to say that guilty or not the prosecution was overzealous, as the sorts of punishments he faced was all out of proportion to what one would expect for a white collar crime, even one potentially involving thousands of dollars of losses.
In the same vein people have been reacting to this tragedy by trying to find scapegoats. Whether that's the prosecutor, or edw519, or MIT, or whomever. I don't think I need to spend time addressing why that sort of behavior is a bad idea.
Going back and looking at the comments in the older thread about Aaron's legal troubles I've spotted a few instances of several trouble behaviors that I've noticed have become more and more common. One, the idea that "rich" people are less deserving of sympathy because of their wealth. I've seen this in the rise of the "99%" mentality and other phenomena. Personally I don't think there is any amount of wealth that renders an individual's pain and suffering unworthy of caring about. Two, the idea that punishment is reasonable after being charged but before being sentenced, or infliction of pain and suffering in general as a response to crimes. You see this sort of thing in support for torture, support for poor conditions in jail, sympathetic depictions of police brutality in fiction, public approval of widespread sexual assault in prisons, etc. And you also see it in the idea that there's nothing wrong with a trial being a punishing, life-altering, resource draining experience.
I think these sorts of things are antithetical to the ideals of liberty, equality, justice, rehabilitation, etc. that we should desire our societies rest upon, rather than base instincts like jealousy, revenge, punishment, retribution, schadenfreude, etc.
I don't think this saga bears much, if any, similarity to a fight between absolute heroes and absolute villains. I think that even in as much as the prosecutor was overzealous it's as much a systemic problem of the way that computer and IP related "crimes" are perceived and handled by the criminal justice system as it is to be due to any ill-will or villainy on her part.
I'd much rather we, HN and the tech community in general, were taking the time to talk through the details of the case more carefully, discussing the details of the relevant law (and whether it's well grounded, meaningful, useful, and generally well applied), and bigger issues such as IP issues, computer security issues, problems with our criminal justice system in general, etc. than looked for quick-fix easy answers and tried to fit this story into a simplistic mold. I wonder what sort of discussion Aaron would have preferred take place.
Reading Aaron's article "Fix the machine, not the person" http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/nummi indicates to me that the public discussion he'd like to have seen (and very sadly never got the chance to) is as you indicate - whether the law is actually appropriate in this and similar cases, and how to change its overall structure as opposed to punishing those who appear blame-worthy on the surface. As he writes, "It wasn’t the workers who were the problem; it was the system."
I am suddenly reminded of a Thoreau quote that Aaron's friend Laurence Lessig used in the opening of his book, Republic, Lost - "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." I think a lot of people admire Aaron for being one of the latter.
Exactly. In a few sentences, edw519 took apart Aaron's whole life and claimed to know enough to write off his plea for help. I think a good first step would be for Ed to apologize and stop trying to defend his rude comment from 4 months ago.
Oh, please. What is this, a witch hunt? Or maybe some good old-fashioned lynching? Hang the prosecutor on one tree, and Ed in the other tree? Or maybe we should rename HN 4chan, because the general maturity level does not seem very different. How many of those valiant defenders of Aaron put a dime in his defense fund?
Clearly, plenty of people agreed with Ed at the time, enough that it was the highest-rating comment. Similarly, plenty of people (at least in the US) agree with tough-on-crime policies. Singling out people, name-and-shame, etc is something only relevant in so far that the actions of an individual deviate, in a bad way, from community norms. This is not the case here.
I remember wanting to contribute, but didn't after finding out he was the co-founder of a successful startup.
I also remember, half a year ago, looking at his comment history that seemingly appeared as if he was fine, thinking "How is this guy taking it? If it was me I am not sure I'll be able to handle the pressure".
I realise now he was only human, like us, and everyone needs other's support in their darkest times, but it's too late.
The principle of free information transmission must extend to its advocates: if you advocate that information must be free and you engage in civil disobedience, then you ought to expose your finances to the world when requesting support for a legal defense fund. Exposing one's finances at such a time demonstrates adherence to principle, and it blunts skepticism.
On the other hand, the comments on this post (120 days ago) is quite supportive of Aaron and criticizes the govt for its harsh indictment.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4528083
A few months ago, edw519 made a comment that many here feel was inappropriate given that we now know more facts, and given that Aaron committed suicide. So the lesson people take away is: "Be careful about what you say to people, even on HN: your words may have a real effect, and being dismissive or mean to people may just haunt you later".
This is a good lesson, in general. But what I love is the irony - the way people are sending out this message is by being dismissive and mean to edw519! If (God forbid) something ever happened to edw519, and someone in 4 months posted this thread, the same people condemning edw519 will b IN EXACTLY THE SAME SHOES as they think he is now. How are the people posting so blind to this?
Note: edw519 is a great person and member of this community. Despite the lesson that I believe can be learned from this post, I absolutely DO NOT think he did anything wrong, and thinking otherwise is clearly because things look different in hindsight, especially given more information. Seriously edw519 - consider this another person who is sure you did absolutely nothing wrong.
It does kind of suck to look back and realize that his own people turned their back on him, though. Not very hacker of us, sadly. I remember reading that article originally, and obviously looking back I wish I had taken some kind of action. Didn't have to be money, I'm sure, but something would have been better than basically rejecting his plea for help in a condescending tone.
Ugh. I wish I'd seen that thread originally, but I was on my first vacation in years, and not reading HN for some reason.
I couldn't give him much money, but it sounds like just talking to him about the case would have helped, and I doubt even people who thought he did the wrong thing or should have gone to jail to continue his protest would have begrudged him that.
When you say that a person who committed suicide "asked for help", it makes it sound like he reached out for emotional support in a time of desperation.
While that might have been partially what Aaron was doing, I think the headline leads you to picture a horrifying scenario in which the young man's death might have been avoided, if only the community had been more encouraging or sympathetic. Instead, you find that he was asking for financial support, and there's of course no reason to believe that sending him money could have altered the tortured course that ended with him taking his own life.
It may seem like a trivial point but in my opinion it completely warps this whole conversation. For example, suppose someone shares with you that they have been terribly depressed and contemplating suicide. In this case, I agree, telling them to "man up" is pretty bad form. But that is not exactly what happened here.
There were nasty comments about Aaron in that HN post, which got nasty replies.
There were nasty comments about Ed in this thread, which got nasty replies.
There were nasty comments about Michael in the linked post, which got nasty replies.
We can say the most criticizing things in a way that is not nasty, how? but putting question marks instead of exclamation points. By talking about facts and not opinions. By being aware that the persona we are taking about is also a person, by always thinking what if I was on the other end of that comment.
Is there any drawback in being nicer? I can't think of any.
Is there any benefit for being nasty? I can't think of any either.
I didn't think much of Aaron Swartz while he was alive. Most of his writings seemed self-absorbed to me. I had difficulty understanding how someone with his politics could be a mac fanboy. People I think highly of (Chris Webber, John Sullivan) thought highly of him so I was induced to give him some benefit of the doubt on those grounds, but I certainly couldn't understand what they saw in him.
I assumed he was a millionaire with enormous resources that he was using to thumb his nose at powerful people. I felt that if I had the resources (I assumed that) Aaron had, I would use them differently.
I saw the thread about Aaron's campaign fund and I didn't post, but I did read it.
And I read Edward's comment and I agreed with it.
I knew very little about Aaron's case. But the way that fund was being put together seemed underhanded to me, like he wanted to take people's money without really acknowledging it. Is he a millionaire or not? I wondered, and if not, why doesn't he come out with it and explain what happened?
Of course now I know of the existence, from Lawence Lessig, of the bizarre Kafkaesque muzzle the judge had on Aaron, but how could anyone who wasn't very closely familiar with Aaron and his case know about that?
There's a sort of sick serendipity in this for me. Just last week I read Kafka's The Trial. The word "Kafkaesque" keeps getting thrown around but it's stunning---stupefying to me, how many parallels there are between that book and Aaron's case.
In Kafka, after the protagonist is arrested he's immediately released. The police even escort him to work and tell him to go about his life. At first he thinks that's an great thing that he wasn't hauled off in custody, but as the trial grinds on he comes to realize that being forced to live every day as the facsimile of a free man being required to do what free men are inclined to do while carrying the additional burden of dealing with his trial, is itself torture.
If anyone remembers the bruhaha around Dmitry Sklyarov, or before that DVD John or Kevin Mitnick knows that this community rallies around men sitting in jail while the authorities try to come up with a crime to charge them with. There's no doubt in my mind that if the prosecution had hauled Aaron off to jail "for downloading some PDFs" the reaction would have been swift and boisterous.
I've learned a great deal about this country's "justice" system over the past two days, and mostly I've learned about the special sort of hell it put Aaron in, and I've come to realize that I was complicit in its work through my ignorance and indifference.
And all I can say about that is I feel a little bit sick. And that it won't ever happen again.
If anything "Tech Crunch" is the troll of the day.
Is it really such a shock people might inhibit their opinions after someone has just killed himself. No one expected it to get to this, Aaron probably wasn't completely innocent, And Our judicial system seems to have failed him.
Trying to polarize it into some "You're either with Aaron" or "you're against him" just means falling deeper into this cesspool of a thread.
Wrong or not, Ed's comment was very cold-hearted, uncompassionate, pretentious, egoistic even sexist. That said, I see a lot of this in IT/tech word in general and it makes me sad to work in this field.
HN is the big brother you worship, your hero, the coolest guy you know. Then one night you find him drunk and coked up sleeping in the backyard in a pool of piss and vomit.
It's an accurate reflection of a subset of visitors of Hacker News. That subset are those that post here. I don't think they like what the reflection shows, so it might be a good learning experience.
I think it's petty to think as such. Aaron Swartz has been a major topic of discussion on the HN Front Page for a couple of days now, hence it could very well have been instantly submitted to HN by some over-zealous HN reader as well. (Do remember that a sizable number of new users have joined since the initial news about Aaron's death.)
Just in this case, I'd suggest giving them the benefit of doubt.
I actually tried to submit it before "martinoma" but was told that I was submitting too often. It's hard to say if TC really did submit its own story - throwaway accounts are quite common nowadays.
Admittedly, I did decide to submit quickly so that I (might) reap the upvotes--HN has been transfixed by Aaron Swartz, and reasonably so, and I thought that people might like a reminder of how the community reacted a few months ago.
I wonder if it might not be better to not award karma for submissions which are upvoted. It's possible/probable that most stories of value would get submitted anyway, and it would discourage the mad rush to submit.
