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A focus on the prosecutor helps distract attention from the question of whether and how Swartz was mistreated by being made a (somewhat artificial) "tech celebr

by dasht 14y ago

A focus on the prosecutor helps distract attention from the question of whether and how Swartz was mistreated by being made a (somewhat artificial) "tech celebrity" at a very young age only to become a kind of semi-outcast in some tech circles just a few years later.

sociotech 14y ago
Bingo. I've been trying not to say petty things out of respect for recently departed people and his family, with whom I sympathize for this terrible, terrible thing. But the radical loss of perspective here is just jarring, and the case is big enough now that it's hard to refrain from trying to put things into perspective. I am aware of the full history, having been a programmer with significant open-source and other contributions through the 90s and early 2000s. Aaron is being totally misremembered. Of those who knew of him before his death - and he was not a "celebrity" or "famous" or considered "brilliant" or a "genius" by technologists - most knew him as a blogger. He was actually a very good writer, even from a young age. He wrote with clarity and purpose, and he had many interests. His technical output was not major. To pull a random name out of a hat, his contributions were less than someone like Craig McClanahan and far less than someone like Brian Behlendorf. Basically, Aaron got a chance with Y Combinator, which he parlayed into a merger with Reddit's parent company, mostly through personal connections. Aaron didn't get end up getting along with Alexis or Steve, who considered him immature, dramatic, and unreliable. Reddit was shortly rewritten entirely, and web.py was too buggy to make any further contribution to Reddit. Aaron was fired from Reddit's acquirer because he didn't bother doing anything after the payout. He then floated around, wrote a few minor libraries and some more interesting blog posts, and then became a very good activist worthy of deeper respect on that front. He wasn't actually a tech celebrity before his death. He didn't "invent RSS." He didn't singlehandedly "defeat SOPA." His work on RSS 1.0, a version of RSS that was never significant itself, was mostly of interest to the semantic-web people, who have themselves have never made much of an impact, although the work is interesting to some. I didn't know Aaron personally, but I do think his volatile relationships with others and his desire to be famous within this community were a source of extreme anxiety for him, though probably more so in the past than recently. But his professional life was, perhaps understandably, extremely frustrating for reasons that had nothing to do with his criminal case. That's not an attack. Most people don't make major technical contributions. But I wish people would see this case for what it is - a volatile activist who pulled a stunt that spiraled out of control.
- dasht 14y ago
  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. http://www.basiscraft.com/misc/2013/01/using-aaron-swartz.html http://www.basiscraft.com/misc/2013/01/using-aaron-swartz.ht...
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    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.
    - homosaur 14y ago
      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?
  - sociotech 14y ago
    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.

by dasht 14y ago

sociotech 14y ago

Bingo. I've been trying not to say petty things out of respect for recently departed people and his family, with whom I sympathize for this terrible, terrible thing. But the radical loss of perspective here is just jarring, and the case is big enough now that it's hard to refrain from trying to put things into perspective. I am aware of the full history, having been a programmer with significant open-source and other contributions through the 90s and early 2000s. Aaron is being totally misremembered. Of those who knew of him before his death - and he was not a "celebrity" or "famous" or considered "brilliant" or a "genius" by technologists - most knew him as a blogger. He was actually a very good writer, even from a young age. He wrote with clarity and purpose, and he had many interests. His technical output was not major. To pull a random name out of a hat, his contributions were less than someone like Craig McClanahan and far less than someone like Brian Behlendorf. Basically, Aaron got a chance with Y Combinator, which he parlayed into a merger with Reddit's parent company, mostly through personal connections. Aaron didn't get end up getting along with Alexis or Steve, who considered him immature, dramatic, and unreliable. Reddit was shortly rewritten entirely, and web.py was too buggy to make any further contribution to Reddit. Aaron was fired from Reddit's acquirer because he didn't bother doing anything after the payout. He then floated around, wrote a few minor libraries and some more interesting blog posts, and then became a very good activist worthy of deeper respect on that front. He wasn't actually a tech celebrity before his death. He didn't "invent RSS." He didn't singlehandedly "defeat SOPA." His work on RSS 1.0, a version of RSS that was never significant itself, was mostly of interest to the semantic-web people, who have themselves have never made much of an impact, although the work is interesting to some. I didn't know Aaron personally, but I do think his volatile relationships with others and his desire to be famous within this community were a source of extreme anxiety for him, though probably more so in the past than recently. But his professional life was, perhaps understandably, extremely frustrating for reasons that had nothing to do with his criminal case. That's not an attack. Most people don't make major technical contributions. But I wish people would see this case for what it is - a volatile activist who pulled a stunt that spiraled out of control.

dasht 14y ago
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. http://www.basiscraft.com/misc/2013/01/using-aaron-swartz.html http://www.basiscraft.com/misc/2013/01/using-aaron-swartz.ht...
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  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.
  - homosaur 14y ago
    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?
- sociotech 14y ago
  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.