It's very harsh but I find fault with some of the adults who made him a "celebrity" in the first place. Here's a link to the (yes, harsh) piece I wrote about that.
It's significant, in my view, that Swartz "came to fame" right as the first "dot com" bubble was cresting. Hype was ridiculously excessive, back then. Looking back at what his celebrity "friends" were saying about him back then, it's painfully obvious that even back then his achievements (which were quite respectable) were greatly exaggerated and that the story he was a new prodigy was a myth self-servingly spread by a few powerful people trading in on the caché of having access to him. To the young boy.
It's horrifying to me, at least, to contemplate what that roller coaster ride did to his sense of self and his own understanding of his identity.
I just read this linked article and think it is excellent and very thoughtful. It is much more human than any of Lessig or Doctorow's self-serving comments, and it fits with my recollection of the history.
I mean, people are right that all of this is separate from calls for plea-bargaining reform. I'm all for that. I'm not sure this kind of offense is the worst example of the lot, but I'm all for it. (Decades for drug possession is worse. Life imprisonment, [in facilities that are not at all, shall we say, minimum-security] for child-porn traded on IRC is probably worse, at least when it doesn't make child abuse more likely.) But it should all be reformed. That's a big task, of course, but that doesn't mean people shouldn't try.
I don't even mind if people use this case to help with that. But it's easy to grow weary of all the manipulation and distortion and hypocrisy by the people that your link discusses.
Yes, when you're young people make all sorts of hype about your minor accomplishments.
Isn't that what VC-istan and acq-hire welfare checks are for, though? To make phony celebrities then tear them down? With a few notable and impressive exceptions, that whole machine stopped doing technology some time ago. Most of these "startups" (at least in NYC, which may be a different scene) are hare-brained marketing experiments and treat engineers poorly.
Isn't that what the entirety of US pop culture is for? We lionize young people for small accomplishments constantly only to tear them down when they cannot meet our expectations from Lindsay Lohan to now Manti T'eo... It seems to be a larger problem of this celebrity driven bullcrap. Remember when Valleywag was a thing?
It's significant, in my view, that Swartz "came to fame" right as the first "dot com" bubble was cresting. Hype was ridiculously excessive, back then. Looking back at what his celebrity "friends" were saying about him back then, it's painfully obvious that even back then his achievements (which were quite respectable) were greatly exaggerated and that the story he was a new prodigy was a myth self-servingly spread by a few powerful people trading in on the caché of having access to him. To the young boy.
It's horrifying to me, at least, to contemplate what that roller coaster ride did to his sense of self and his own understanding of his identity.
http://www.basiscraft.com/misc/2013/01/using-aaron-swartz.ht...