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.
