Ask HN: Please stop tearing each other up.
6 comments
I think the Techcrunch article (top for much of today) is unhelpful. There's a vast gulf between aaronsw asking for help with the costs of a predictable, if improbable, legal defense that several people (including myself) felt he brought upon himself, and the implicit (via hindsight) suggestion that aaronsw was asking for the help needed to stave off suicidal behavior.
I think it's most unfair to conflate a person's legal and psychological problems as this headline does, and equally unfair to single out a contemporary critical comment from a HN participant as if that participant's skepticism about the merits of Aaronsw's hacktivism were made with an understanding of his psychological fragility. Both the original comment and this story make the mistake of assuming the worst about their subject, but there's a wide qualitative difference between peer-peer commentary on a message board and pseudo-objective commentary on a commercial news site.
As someone with a few suicidal episodes of my own, I can easily see how the stress of Aaronsw's socio-legal situation could have been a contributing factor to his suicide. However, the suicidal impulse is very often an irrational one and attempting to analyze it rationally often misses the mark completely and ends with projecting one's own views onto the dead person - doubly so where the stressors are political rather than personal and the person's death is widely viewed as an episode of martyrdom.
People are not machines, and policy issues (administrative, legislative and judicial) do not operate in mechanistic fashion. It would be a more tractable and perhaps even a better world if people were as clear and consistent as computers, but they're not. Often, we end up attacking each other as a poor proxy for attacking a problem.
I think it's most unfair to conflate a person's legal and psychological problems as this headline does, and equally unfair to single out a contemporary critical comment from a HN participant as if that participant's skepticism about the merits of Aaronsw's hacktivism were made with an understanding of his psychological fragility. Both the original comment and this story make the mistake of assuming the worst about their subject, but there's a wide qualitative difference between peer-peer commentary on a message board and pseudo-objective commentary on a commercial news site.
As someone with a few suicidal episodes of my own, I can easily see how the stress of Aaronsw's socio-legal situation could have been a contributing factor to his suicide. However, the suicidal impulse is very often an irrational one and attempting to analyze it rationally often misses the mark completely and ends with projecting one's own views onto the dead person - doubly so where the stressors are political rather than personal and the person's death is widely viewed as an episode of martyrdom.
People are not machines, and policy issues (administrative, legislative and judicial) do not operate in mechanistic fashion. It would be a more tractable and perhaps even a better world if people were as clear and consistent as computers, but they're not. Often, we end up attacking each other as a poor proxy for attacking a problem.
a predictable, if improbable, legal defense
Reading this later, it sounds as if I'm critiquing his defense case. What I meant to say was that while there was a low probability of a major prosecution, it was predictable that such a thing might happen. I haven't read any of the defense briefs and have no opinion on what his legal defense would have been.
Reading this later, it sounds as if I'm critiquing his defense case. What I meant to say was that while there was a low probability of a major prosecution, it was predictable that such a thing might happen. I haven't read any of the defense briefs and have no opinion on what his legal defense would have been.
I'd like folks to stop posting every conceivable article written on it. I've cut back my visits since it happened as the home page is dominated by Aaron's stories.
What rift are you speaking of?
[deleted]
Out of respect for this request, I have posted an article (confession: my own blog post) which has nothing to do with Aaron Swartz or suicide. Unfortunately, my writings are generally of little to no interest to people here and I have no talent for finding stuff that would be of interest. But my experience is that getting people to talk about something else is generally the best way to move on. So if you wish to support this request, please post something on another topic, which has more hope of drawing interest than anything I ever post.
Can we please all stop this before there is no turning back? I understand the need to grieve, this is for sure not an easy time for any of us but the amount of hate-mongering that is happening right now is really beyond the pale. Please stop. Really.
edit: those flagging this: You really have to wonder what it is that you're trying to achieve here.