I don't know anything about the guy other than having used Infogami (underrated) and followed early Reddit, but Swartz was always a brilliant but troubled guy. He was very intelligent but also just a kid, figuring things out in his own life while the tech world figured itself out. What happened to him was a tragedy, but Swartz engaged in illegal activity and found out his opponent was a lot more committed and effective than he anticipated. Unless he became Mandela in prison that wasn't an effective strategy.
In his essay, Swartz strongly supported the Joker’s policy platform. Although the Joker presents himself to the world as a deranged and murderous clown, Swartz claimed that the Joker is actually “homo economicus,” a supremely rational actor, the character who best understands both the problems facing Gotham City and the best solutions to those problems. Batman might have had better gear and Harvey Dent might have had the public’s sympathy—but the Joker understood game theory, the best weapon of all.
Though the Joker’s methods—such as burning large piles of money and blowing up hospitals—might have been controversial, the logic behind them was sound. “And the crazy thing is that it works!” Swartz enthused. Not only did the Joker end up ridding the city of organized crime, he convinced Gotham’s residents to re-evaluate their world and their roles in it. “The movie concludes by emphasizing that Batman must become the villain,” Swartz wrote, “but as usual it never stops to notice that the Joker is actually the hero.”
This is absurd (at least how it is portrayed by the author). In Nolan's movie the Joker is never portrayed as anything but a contradictory psycopath who engages in torture killings and according to his own words has no plans. He's a "dog chasing cars", even if that behavior was still rational. What solution did the Joker have again? The author closes with it, as though it's profound, but it's really just a screwed up view of justice that isn't even supported by the movie.
In his working paper, Swartz described his new plan for the future of activism. Rather than form a political action group focused on one single issue or tactic, Swartz proposed that organizers should assemble groups of people supremely competent in certain relevant disciplines — investigators, activists, lawyers, lobbyists, policy experts, political strategists, journalists, and publicists — who could combine their efforts and advocate effectively for any issue, big or small. Swartz envisioned a flexible, intelligent, multifaceted task force that would learn from its mistakes and refine its tactics accordingly: a team of specialists that, cumulatively, worked as generalists.
From a practical standpoint, this is interesting, though it sounds ripe for abuse and mob justice. How different is it from Wikileaks or even Anonymous? Isn't the problem with such a system is everyone always thinks they are the good guys?
Just please stop with the psychohistory and hagiography. Stop trying to say what Swartz was thinking (the author does this throughout). You don't know. If you want to compete with reality you have to be realistic. Stop using his persona to support vague notions of how the world works.
> From a practical standpoint, this is interesting, though it sounds ripe for abuse and mob justice. How different is it from Wikileaks or even Anonymous? Isn't the problem with such a system is everyone always thinks they are the good guys?
I'm wary of such universal teams which abstract away their own raison d'être. This is what gave us the modern - how I like to call them - toilet paper companies, i.e. companies which couldn't give a rat's ass about what they're making, as long as it is profitable (and that would gladly switch from building medical devices to making toilet paper if that had better ROI - hence the name). I can't deny such focus on gaming the structure is effective - much like MBAs with abstract knowledge of how to run a money-making machine are effective at doing just that - to the detriment of all customers, who actually care about the products.
A PoliSci professor just released a political theory book called "Marx's Inferno" (the thesis is that Marx structured Capital like Dante's journey through hell in The Divine Comedy). It's very coherent with the thoughts you're voicing here. It's also a re-visit of Marx's theories in general.
One of my interpretations: if the invisible hand of the market describes the powerful ability of markets to turn self-interested actors into producing general welfare improvements by competing: cutting costs, producing innovation, etc.
Then, the invisible hand of the market must obviously have the same impact on good outliers. If you are trying to do something evil beyond what the market will bear, you're out of luck. If you're trying to do something good beyond what the market will bear, though, you're just as out of luck.
He goes very in depth into the fact that expressing our desires via revealed preferences in exchange/commerce removes a lot of our ability to voice what is exactly what we want.
I have never understood the raising up of Aaron Swartz to demi-god status by this community. It is tragic that he took his own life and I fully expect to be downvoted here for expressing this opinion as it is a thing you can't say here (http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html).
You can't deny that he took a persomal risk for the greater good, namely the free dissemination of public knowledge. And that's basically the definition of heroic.
Sci-Hub did a better job of making knowledge available
What he did was inconsequential and then he preferred to quit rather than face the consequences (to which he would probably get support from the whole internet)
A.S. looks like more than a prankster who never got told that actions have consequences and an idealist that was too naive for his own good.
Saying that he merely "quit", like he just walked out of the room or something, extremely trivializes depression and suicide. Also, the consequences in this case were disproportionate to the crime, with JSTOR listing inflated damages, and the prosecutor wanting to make an examples of him.
Lastly your whole comment is framed as a personal attack. You say "inconsequential" even though we have no clue what he was planning to do since he was made to delete the files, and you say "prankster" like was just trolling MIT and JSTOR. I recommend instead that you instead try to read a little about him, he accomplished much more then you gave him credit for.
I'm assuming you're thinking is that he was going to distribute them. While his Guerilla Open Access Manifesto [0] might support that, it's just one possibility. Or he might have analyzed the papers for personal research, as he did in the past:
> A few years ago, he downloaded a significant portion of the articles on the Westlaw legal-research database in order to analyze their sources of funding, in the hope of determining whether economic interests affected their conclusions. He gave the data to a Stanford law student, and she published an article in the Stanford Law Review based on his findings. [1]
I thought JSTOR didn't want to press charges once the data was deleted? I believe they were firmer about that than MIT which took a somewhat hands-off approach.
No one here doubts that he was well-meaning and good at heart. He was just very young, extremely naive, and seemingly incapable of seeing what he did from another perspective, which lead to the whole tragedy. I would call the whole thing a cautionary tale.
The tragedy was not caused by what you call his inability to see other perspectives. Monocausal explanations are usually wrong, and yours is no exception. Vindictive prosecution played a big role, inaction by MIT played a big role, the unforgiving nature of the plea-bargain justice system played a big role too, just to mention three causal factors.
To dismiss the entire catastrophe as a "cautionary tale" is heartless. People who stand up to the powers that be know damn well that it is likely they'll have to suffer the consequences. Aaron was fully aware of this, despite your claims of his naivety. This is a cautionary tale only if the lesson to be learned is: never stand up to power. For shame.
I think 'standing up to power' is something that is justified under extreme circumstances, but we're talking about copyright laws in a democracy here, not about saving people's life in a dictatorship.
You may not like the existing copyright laws or the justice system. And I fully understand it, as I don't like parts of them either. But that doesn't give you the right to break the law. A society where people break laws just because they disagree with them simply can't work.
Civil disobedience is a critical part of a functioning democracy. Defying unjust laws raises awareness of how unjust they are, and if the public is persuaded that the law is wrong then sometimes the laws will end up getting overturned. In the worst case the conscientious objector ends up getting crushed by the system. So when activists break laws they don't do so willy-nilly, because the stakes are so high.
Your claim that laws must always be obeyed in a democracy is gross. Are enslaved people supposed to follow the laws in a democracy that say they cannot fight for their freedom? Are we to condemn black people who organized sit-ins to protest apartheid? Are you not aware that practically all rights we enjoy today are the result of activists who risked their life to fight for these rights? Think for a second about the implications of blind obedience to the law, and the ugly historical record thereof!
We're talking about copyright laws. Not about slavery, apartheid, or anything even close to it. There is no one's life at stake and there is no urgency. If you want to change copyright laws, you are free to use the democratic process and raise awareness to it in a legal way.
He was fighting against unjust laws and policies on the use of academic research and trial data. Better sharing in those fields could definitely save lives.
The individual is morally responsible for all their actions, regardless of the legal system in place. The individual has no moral obligation to follow unjust laws, and in some situations a moral obligation exists to break unjust laws and to risk getting punished for it. Under no circumstance does "I was only following the law" or "I was just following orders" work as a moral defense.
I agree. His story is tragic, but why was he considered so profoundly enlightened? I have read almost everything published about him and failed to be grasped in the same way.
You're much more likely to get downvoted for expressing that you expect to be downvoted. It shows lack of faith in the community you're participating in. If you believe what you're saying and express it in the most civil way you can, please do just that.
While your first statement is true what has faith in the community has to do with it? Maybe OP just knows this community and that is enough reason not to "have faith" in it?
From what I've observed, the HN community values civil and substantive discussion. This relies, in part, on assuming good faith on behalf of the participants. Expressing that you believe that others won't evaluate comments fairly degrades this good faith.
It's an intellectual cop out. If you think you will be down voted, you should consider how you can rephrase what you're saying so you aren't. I'm not saying to change what you say, just how you say it.
"I'm going to get down voted for saying this" is the HN equivalent "I don't mean to be a jerk, but [says jerk things]".
I think at least part of the problem with saying that you expect to get downvoted is the inevitable meta-discussion that follows, with people citing the guidelines (wherein you will find the word "bait" to describe this, which to me seems unfair in many instances) and then others arguing the toss for the hundredth time.
Just to be a complete hypocrite: I personally don't think it's unreasonable to express a likely contrarian viewpoint and apologise in advance for that - but hey, I'm British, and some of us were brought up to be polite.
I personally don't think it's unreasonable to express a likely contrarian viewpoint and apologise in advance for that
Given the wide range of opinions expressed on HN, you can reasonably assume any opinion you express will be contrary to some of them. Expressing the expectation of downvotes is not apologizing in advance. "It may not be a popular opinion, but ", or "I'm sorry, but I've never understood..." are two alternatives. I'm sure there are better ones.
It's also important to consider whether it's worth expressing what you want to say if you also feel you need to apologize for it. Over half of pieter1976's initial comment is about the downvotes, including a Paul Graham reference justifying expressing a contrary opinion. The referenced essay specifically discusses this:
When you find something you can't say, what do you do with it? My advice is, don't say it. Or at least, pick your battles.
...
The most important thing is to be able to think what you want, not to say what you want. And if you feel you have to say everything you think, it may inhibit you from thinking improper thoughts. I think it's better to follow the opposite policy. Draw a sharp line between your thoughts and your speech.
Is ignoring community guidelines worth expressing the opinion "I have never understood the raising up of Aaron Swartz to demi-god status by this community"?
> I personally don't think it's unreasonable to express a likely contrarian viewpoint and apologise in advance for that
Neither do I! There is a subtle but important difference between "pardon me if I'm missing something, but..." or "from the other comments on this thread it seems X is a widely-held view; I can't, however, seem to get my head around Y aspect of X" and advertising one's expectations of being down voted.
The former makes an effort to make sense of the views one disagrees with. That shows respect for the speaker. The latter dismisses it off the cuff.
If you're expressing a contrarian view, express it. If you want to apologise for it, do so politely. Better yet, incorporate why you think others will disagree into your response. Preemptively complaining, without offering any reasoning, is petulant.
It's ironic that your comment was downvoted; because everything you said is exactly why it was. It's not that your idea is a bad theory or negative; people downvoted it because they didn't agree with it.
Upvoted you, because the people who downvoted you unfortunately proved your point. :(
I personally would love it if downvotes required an explanation. Such would be a great way to separate the "your comment was out of line for legitimate reason" type of downvote vs. the "I'm downvoting you because you're wrong and I'm not even going to say why" type of downvote.
You can learn something from the former type of downvote; the later sort of downvote is completely useless.
You're correct. A good bit of my karma comes from doing exactly that. Plus, they almost universally hate comments about downvotes. So, two reasons to simply write a civil counterpoint that doesn't use that word at all.
He was young, showed great promise, was clearly ahead of his age, everybody who knew him found him to be a genuinely nice and caring person...
Is it really that surprising that people are genuinely upset he took his own life after being harassed by the US government? This is a community that tends to dislike extreme prosecution, copyright laws and generally agrees with Aaron's ideology.
And on another note: Can HN not care about a guy without people saying we're "raising him to demi-god status"? With how often that accusation is thrown around, you'd think we have enough to sell our demi-god surplus to cults in need of more.
PS: The "I'll be downvoted for my contrarian idea but ..." stuff is for reddit, not here, tbh.
>everybody who knew him found him to be a genuinely nice and caring person...
Whilst that may be true, I've not read about a lot of tragic deaths where everyone who knew the person thought they were a prick.
The point being raised is "Do we really think his theories had unusual insight/value or is his work being viewed through the lens of his death being tragic?". It seems like an entirely valid question to ask.
In terms of "the joker being a rational actor who achieved his goals". Well personally I think he's misinterpreted the film/characters, but I know i'm not an expert on such things so the most I can say is that I'll take his view with a pretty chunky pinch of salt.
I found it frustrating that famous technologists and thought-leaders had stories and praises for him after he died, which were not seen while he was alive, fighting prosecution, and needing their support. From an archived Wikipedia page, you see few statements of support: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aaron_Swartz&oldi... Aaron was private about his difficulties with the case, but it was not at all a secret... I think many people -especially those with influence in the open data space- were aware of it and doing nothing.
I agree with every paragraph, that comment bothered me too.
But I also take issue with that false placement of him, that is again expressed in that OP title: "Aaron Swartz’s Theory on How to Save the World". That is not serious and is also in a way of disrespecting him.
It is remotly similar when Obama got its Nobel Price. I think it was done with good intentions, but was completely misplaced.
Uncharitably throwing misplaced attributed at a deceased person, because it goes well with the intention of selling a book is not human, but kind of perverse.
But he didn't really show great promise. He dropped out of high school. He dropped out of college. (At least according to the article... I didn't know him.) He didn't hold jobs. He broke laws, even if for arguably good reasons. He didn't get the legal help he needed. He didn't get the psych help he needed. And his life ended in tragedy.
He may have been a great guy. He may have been nice and caring. But he is not a great role model, no matter how much people wish he could have been.
Probably biased because I knew Aaron[1] but if you've read his fundamental belief on schools[2], which he held very early, it is not a big surprise that he didn't finish the process.
He didn't fit in that mold, as many didn't here. His mind didn't fit in the rule following process at all, which honestly IS what showed his great promise. He was capable of more and brave enough to try.
While I don't like post humous articles that use someone else to push your ideas, someone who can't speak for themselves anymore, this comment just made me sad.
Are you kidding? Wasn't he one of the developers of the RSS protocol? Plus he was starting companies and giving lecture before most of us finished college.
I for one judge people on their accomplishments, not whether he finished school or not.
> But he didn't really show great promise. He dropped out of high school. He dropped out of college.
He may have many flaws, but that's the one thing you can't say about him. Watch this part of Internet's Own Boy: https://youtu.be/aePSFMLzBBM?t=12m50s
To narrate that part of the video, as a school kid he goes to Washington to listen to Lawrence Lessig challenging the Copyright Laws in the Supreme Court. The video shows him saying that he's doing this because it's such an important case. How many school kids are interested in that kind of thing?
And among other things, he participated (at a very young age) in the RSS specification, and was part of the team which wrote Reddit (PG calls him co-founder).
Many of us (especially here on HN) were aware of his accomplishments way before he took his own life. He's not someone who became a hero after or due to his tragic death.
> everybody who knew him found him to be a genuinely nice and caring person...
You're rewriting history. Read up a bit about Reddit early days etc
He's raised up to demi-god status because he checks some boxes in the same way Turing does, and as with Turing, people believe the "history" they want to believe to fit their own views. Personally, I find it distasteful to use people like this, and it belittles everyone elses lives and contributions.
The thing I like most about Aaron's writing is that he was relentlessly introspective. But this definitely rubbed some people the wrong way. There were many who dismissed his articles as navel-gazing when they were originally posted.
> everybody who knew him found him to be a genuinely nice and caring person...
That is a demonstrably false statement, as you admit. No one is loved by everyone. No one is hated by everyone. No one is "evil", and no one is a "saint".
This ridiculous habit some people have of putting people in two boxes (good, bad) is just so stupid. People do good things, and do bad things. Everyone does some amount of good, and some amount of bad. People aren't good or evil.
> PS: The "I'll be downvoted for my contrarian idea but ..." stuff is for reddit, not here, tbh.
BTW, have you noticed that people saying that do not get downvoted as much? Such a complain works well, in spite of HN's official policy against it. People keep saying it because it works ;-)
>BTW, have you noticed that people saying that do not get downvoted as much?
No? My impression is that people saying it get down-voted more.
Indeed I've occasionally down-voted people just for saying it, because it usually reads to me like "I know HN most readers are too stupid to understand my opinions, but..."
The difficult but necessary thing is to describe his real public influence and legacy without hurting those close to him.
His ideas had always much less weight then his persona that was created by others and to some degree by him. There is no reason to judge him for that, because we all strive for significance and nobody is perfect. But I agree we should stop to further support that bumptious memory of him.
In the end, he was also a victim of dynamics that where not in his influence. There was people who wanted to make an example of him, because he (like many others) wanted to set information free.
I liked him because he was good looking in a JFK kind of sense. His confident charisma was pleasant and comforting, his words never misplaced. I miss him.
And there is the problem. He is being treated as a symbol, rather than a fellow human being who walked the planet with the rest of us and had his own demons.
I don't see how is that relevant. Why should we care about his brother having an identity crisis? It's sad, but even the brother complains about being overshadowed by his dead brother, not about his brother being made into icon.
He is estimated by many people for his multiple significant contributions that he started at a young age. He also made mistakes and a very big one (committing suicide).
You say you don't understand why people estimate him. What's the point in saying that ? Who cares ?
Are you asking the arguments justifying why people seam to estimate him so much ?
Are you calling back into question the arguments justifying that he is estimated ? Them give us your arguments.
That you don't understand that Aaron is estimated could have many explanations. You could be stupid. You could discard or ignore data points. Your "measuring stick" could be bogus or too subjective. Some people may glorify him as semi-god because they are themselves stupid or want to piggy bag their reputation with the one of Aaron. Or maybe Aaron was just an impostor as you might be inferring.
My feeling is that "ignorance" is overrated these days. A comment that just say "I don't understand X" has very low pertinence value and, in my opinion, should not be upvoted on hacker news.
Please reformulate the point you would like to make and present your arguments. Only arguments are really relevant. I downvoted you for the reasons above.
I totally agree with you: sad that he gave up on life, but what did _he_ really do? Sort of sit on the periphery of reddit? Complain and act entitled? The saddest thing is perhaps that folks 'worship'ing him contribute more than he did, day after day.
Keywords: public goods, cooperation, destructive agents, cycles
Abstract: "Understanding the emergence of cooperation is a central issue in evolutionary game theory. The hardest setup for the attainment of cooperation in a population of individuals is the Public Goods game in which cooperative agents generate a common good at their own expenses, while defectors "free-ride" this good. Eventually this causes the exhaustion of the good, a situation which is bad for everybody. Previous results have shown that introducing reputation, allowing for volunteer participation, punishing defectors, rewarding cooperators or structuring agents, can enhance cooperation. Here we present a model which shows how the introduction of rare, malicious agents -that we term jokers- performing just destructive actions on the other agents induce bursts of cooperation. The appearance of jokers promotes a rock-paper-scissors dynamics, where jokers outbeat defectors and cooperators outperform jokers, which are subsequently invaded by defectors. Thus, paradoxically, the existence of destructive agents acting indiscriminately promotes cooperation."
I've been thinking about this subject of "cooperation" for the last couple of days (also thanks in part to some links which made it to the front page of HN), and I have something to say about this:
> Eventually this causes the exhaustion of the good, a situation which is bad for everybody. (...) where jokers outbeat defectors and cooperators outperform jokers, which are subsequently invaded by defectors. Thus, paradoxically, the existence of destructive agents acting indiscriminately promotes cooperation."
I'd day that this culture of cooperation for defeating "jokers "doesn't apply to all cultures. It certainly doesn't apply to mine (somewhere in SE-Europe, on the fringe of the Balkans), where a realistic similar scenario would look somth like this:
> Joker does his bad stuff, he shares some of his spoils with his relatives and very close acquaintances (god-fathers, god-sons etc.). These latter people are also part of the community that supposedly should cooperate in annihilating the Joker. Is fair to say that they won't. You've now got a fractured community, with some of its members (the Joker's friends and relatives) having no interest in "cooperation", and more importantly having the economical and power-related means of silencing the part of the community that would want to seek justice (because when you do bad stuff you usually do it in order to increase your economical and power-standing among your community). The Joker becomes an example for other people who see that doing nasty stuff supposedly pays off if you've got enough people by your side. Rinse and repeat.
Aaron Swartz's theory is easier to implement where the Joker is an external element of the community, think immigrants, Jews in early 20-th century Europe, Armenians in late-Ottoman times etc, and I'd say that he's right, those communities actually got a lot more cohesive in chasing out the foreign Joker-like actor(s).
I think the point of the "Joker" archetype (as opposed to the "defector" archetype) is that the Joker's actions are purely malicious, not self-interested. In other words, nobody benefits, not even the Joker. In the movie this includes actions like burning money and blowing up hospitals; in real life, it could include actions like nuclear terrorism, destroying holy sites, genetically engineering plagues for the extinction of humanity, blowing up buildings, wanton destruction of famous landmarks, etc.
The idea is that when faced with an enemy whose actions are bad for everyone, all the people who previously had been engaging in conduct that was bad for everyone else but good for themselves will be forced to cooperate, lest the world burn to the ground.
> The idea is that when faced with an enemy whose actions are bad for everyone
I think this only happens in works of fiction (movies and the like). In real life even things like "terrorism, destroying holy sites, genetically engineering plagues for the extinction of humanity, blowing up buildings, wanton destruction of famous landmarks" have benefits for some members of those communities (ok, maybe not "nuclear terrorism", which is a big no-no for everybody). The recent acts of terrorism in Western Europe have only managed to increase the fracture between the Muslim part of the community (which has been around these parts of the world for some 3 generations) and the rest of the people.
The ability to short markets makes it very easy to profit off of mass destruction. Blowing up hospitals and even nuclear terrorism could be profitable with well-placed short positions.
>The recent acts of terrorism in Western Europe have only managed to increase the fracture between the Muslim part of the community (which has been around these parts of the world for some 3 generations) and the rest of the people.
Daesh have gone pretty far into the Joker realm, I'd say.
Keywords: Evolutionary game theory; Social dilemma; Free-rider problem; Agent based simulation; Social vaccine
Abstract
"Although there is much support for the punishment system as a sophisticated approach to resolving social dilemmas, more than a few researchers have also pointed out the limitations of such an approach. Second-order free riding is a serious issue facing the punishment system. Various pioneering works have suggested that an anti-social behavior or noise stemming from a mutation may, surprisingly, be helpful for avoiding second-order freeloaders. In this work, we show through mathematical analysis and an agent-based simulation of a model extending the meta-norms game that the coercive introduction of a small number of non-cooperators can maintain a cooperative regime robustly. This paradoxical idea was inspired by the effect of a vaccine, which is a weakened pathogen injected into a human body to create antibodies and ward off infection by that pathogen. Our expectation is that the coercive introduction of a few defectors, i.e., a social vaccine, will help maintain a highly cooperative regime because it will ensure that the punishment system works."
Abstract:
"The emergence and promotion of cooperation are two of the main issues in evolutionary game theory, as cooperation is amenable to exploitation by defectors, which take advantage of cooperative individuals at no cost, dooming them to extinction. It has been recently shown that the existence of purely destructive agents (termed jokers) acting on the common enterprises (public goods games) can induce stable limit cycles among cooperation, defection, and destruction when infinite populations are considered. These cycles allow for time lapses in which cooperators represent a relevant fraction of the population, providing a mechanism for the emergence of cooperative states in nature and human societies. Here we study analytically and through agent-based simulations the dynamics generated by jokers in finite populations for several selection rules. Cycles appear in all cases studied, thus showing that the joker dynamics generically yields a robust cyclic behavior not restricted to infinite populations. We also compute the average time in which the population consists mostly of just one strategy and compare the results with numerical simulations."
Are there any historical examples of "a joker"? The sole example cited by the article is Nazi Germany which forced the US and the USSR to work together for a short time. That doesn't to me seem to be a real example of a "joker" however, that's just the enemy of my enemy being my friend kind of thing. Hitler wasn't just fucking things up for the sake of it, but had a very specific world he was trying to create. The Joker wanted chaos, or if he wanted anything else, doesn't tip his hand, being an unreliable source of information. How many different ways did he get those scars?
I'm just asking because scholarly articles about the actions of fictional psychopaths seem a bit much. Especially when we are talking about applying it to entire groups of people (nations) without some good examples. Note, this is also different than Swartz's or the author's suggestion - that this cooperation was intended. That's not implied by the movie, nor the joker of the article. This is the first paragraph:
In the recent Hollywood movie The Dark Knight (2008) the
comic character known as the Joker jeopardizes a whole society spreading chaos and destruction with no aim of benefit at it.
That's not Nazi Germany (the sixth paragraph or so and example). Hitler may have had a fucked up sense of societal benefit, but that was his goal, not wanton destruction (at least until he went completely crazy).
I'd say nature is the best example. Natural hazards with immediate and predictable effects are much like the joker. It hurts producers and freeloaders equally, and everyone sees them coming.
The dutch 'polder' politics seem like a very fine example of this. I imagine predators are another example. As are very periodic floods or droughts.
I'd expect such characters to get written out of the histories fairly quickly. The point of a "joker" is that they're purely destructive and don't work in anyone's self-interest, not even their own; thus, they're eventually defeated and have nobody that cares about them enough to keep their memory alive.
But thinking about a few examples: Julian Assange is a modern-day joker, with Wikileaks indiscriminately publishing damaging info about many different institutions (several of which would otherwise be at odds with each other). Leon Czolgosz, the anarchist who assassinated William Mckinley, who ironically spurred both cooperation among anarchists and cooperation against anarchists. Heck, the traditional description of Satan very much is the in line with the joker archetype, which makes me wonder if his depiction in religion is a composite of various joker-like characters that people have faced but not wanted to remember.
How do you make something like air quality a private good? My point is that it seems like there are many times when I don't see how you could apply the solution of private property.
I haven't read it in detail, but here's the gist from Mises Institute articles that touch on air pollution [1]:
> In sum, no one has a right to clean air, but one does have a right to not have his air invaded by pollutants generated by an aggressor.
Also see this quote [2]:
> There is, first of all, this stark empirical fact: Government ownership, even socialism, has proved to be no solution to the problem of pollution. Even the most starry-eyed proponents of government planning concede that the poisoning of Lake Baikal in the Soviet Union is a monument to heedless industrial pollution of a valuable natural resource. But there is far more to the problem than that. Note, for example, the two crucial areas in which pollution has become an important problem: the air and the waterways, particularly the rivers. But these are precisely two of the vital areas in society in which private property has not been permitted to function.
Agree or disagree, this is the typical libertarian response to externalities as far as I know. There's probably more to it w.r.t to public goods as "naturally given", and when something turns into private property, if you are look further into the literature.
EDIT: I'm assuming the question is in good faith. To understand libertarian thought in general and their views on property rights and how contracts organically occur, refer to a primer book by someone like Rothbard. It has nothing to do with denying the social domain of humanity.
LOL, let me personally draw up a contract with every commuter on the neighboring highway to demand compensation for invading my rights. I'm sure we'll come to an amicable and just agreement.
Somehow, libertarians get through life without ever becoming aware of the existence of transaction costs. I don't know how they do it.
A toll road that somehow measures the emissions of the passing vehicles and charges them proportional to their particulate matter content. Maybe someday...
I believe your argument is that libertarians frame adjusting for externalities as defending rights?
If so, then doing so still requires cooperation. I was responding to a comment which seemed to claim that private property was an alternative to social cooperation.
I'm no lawyer, but I would think if you provided sufficient evidence that someone was causing irregular levels of pollution at your private property you'd likely be able to sue them.
If you owned your home prior to them building the plant, I'd imagine you probably can. (Again, not a lawyer.) However, I was thinking more along the lines of your neighbor installing a coal furnace next door and turning your house black.
The economic definition of a public good is something that cannot be effectively owned.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_goodIn economics, a public good is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous in that individuals cannot be effectively excluded from use and where use by one individual does not reduce availability to others.[1] Gravelle and Rees: "The defining characteristic of a public good is that consumption of it by one individual does not actually or potentially reduce the amount available to be consumed by another individual." Public goods include fresh air, knowledge, official statistics, national security, common language(s), flood control systems, lighthouses, and street lighting.
> The economic definition of a public good is something that cannot be effectively owned.
While I am aware the definition of a public good, your definition is not appropriate because flood control systems, lighthouses, and street lighting can be owned.
The problem the root comment touches is excessive use and for all of the above examples that are scarce (fresh air, common language, flood control systems, lighthouses, street lighting) there can be excessive use to the detriment of others and it can be avoided if these items are private property.
For others (the non-scarce - knowledge, language) you cannot take away the rights for others to use it. So there is no real sense in claiming it a public good because there is really nothing.
Finally, official statistics and national security depend too much on the definition to say to which category the belong.
OK but what if reputation is unreliable, untrustworthy? Reputation exists on a continuum. A destructive agent could damage the reputation assessment by being completely cooperative with some people and capricious with others. The resulting mixed reputation doesn't make you convincingly a destructive agent.
Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for
themselves. The world's entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries
in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of
private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the
sciences? You'll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier.
Aaron Swartz seemed to not know how the world actually worked. It isn't a bunch of rational actors that love tech and information. Quite the opposite. One can't save the world without first diving deep into how it works. One then realizes there's stuff they can and can't change on top of lots of biases and trends in responses. Then, one builds on those elements of human nature to focus on the things they can change.
He didn't do that. Instead, he focused on what can't be changed by committing an illegal act with hope it would be meaningful to society or courts. The result was that he killed himself after that failed catastrophically. We might learn a great deal from Aaron Swarts but not how to change the world. He's the least qualified to tell us about that because it appears he never understood it to begin with.
Instead, we can just learn from and remember the good things he did that his mind was uniquely capable of doing. He has quite a resume of that. This approach is honest and gives him due credit.
Funny, under the excuse that they're "[d]iving deep into how it works", tons of people do absolutely nothing other than become wealthy and give their kids as many breaks as possible, while giving excuses to not acting in any way.
I hear it often called "being a realist". I consider it a pretty evil self-reassuring meme of our times. We're ready to believe we can go to Mars and live forever, but anyone fighting "Human Nature" (read: our current economical and political arrangement) is a fool.
"Don't be naive, we've figured human nature out. It wants malls and 60 hour work-weeks!"
Re become wealthy. I was thinking of Andrew Carnegie when trying for an example of young man who understood the world, got people, and changed it. For himself as you said. That's incidental, though, as s the methods are neutral to the end goal.
Re being realist. It means you need to understand the context you operate in before you can change it. All the successful people did. Most failures that werent just bad luck didnt. The very example you gave about work weeks was improved by realists in various businesses who wanted it and could execute it within a sustainable model.
We have very different views of progress I guess. When I think of people who changed the world, my mind doesn't automatically jump to Elon Musk or Andrew Carnegie.
I think of hard-won victories like Canada instituting Universal Health Care (starting in the less-known province of Saskatchewan), or people marching for Civil Rights and Labor Rights, all the while experts told them those things were unattainable and unrealistic. I think many people in those movements understood the system, just not in the way that the system approved of being understood.
Martin Luther King Jr. has a great line about this:
> First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I think the equivalent to that "white moderate" today is the person who thinks that anyone rocking the boat and making demands today, like Swartz, is "naive". They wisely and patiently wait for a benevolent billionaire to save the day instead. The fact that they, too, benefit from the status quo and find the current situation very tolerable is a mere coincidence.
I hope, since you freely imply that the absent Swartz was naive, that you have no problem with me calling you naive as well.
--
edit: I too enjoy discussing things, but as soon as the conversation branches out it gets a bit messy.
I just want to say that it's a deliberate mistake to judge past movements from their white-washed idealized educational versions. It disconnects them from the messy reality of activism, and from their current-day representatives.
Replies below are saying basically "The Civil Rights leaders acted decisively and with wisdom, compared with this haphazard unorganized random act today". At the time, this is how this was portrayed by detractors:
People calling his movement all over the place, erratic, etc. It's fascinating. Many, many people telling him and his ilk they were unrealistic and jumping the gun with ineffective direct action. A complete erasure of the dynamics MLK had with Malcolm X (good cop, bad cop). The FBI also conspired to try to get him to commit suicide, by blackmailing him (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_lette...).
If the future Swartz was aiming for ever becomes reality, he will be remembered as a pioneer.
This is a very interesting thread and I personally think that you are both right. The big problem is that any of these things that need fixed are really complicated. The most successful approaches have to have a multi-prong plan.
You do partially need to be a realist. You aren't going to be able to convince all people to ride a bicycle because it is good for the environment. You also need to be pragmatic. Take a targeted approach to go after the low hanging fruit, get the biggest bang for your buck. However, there are times when you will have to break free from the status quo and that won't be easy. Sometimes people have to be dragged kicking and screaming into a new future, but this is so hard. People like MLK understood that it was possible and put in the work (and was willing to pay the many costs) to force change.
Very few causes have the leader with a simple plan and the charisma to inspire others and the fortitude to see it through no matter the cost. Take a look at how quickly Occupy Wall Street faded into nothing. People will always fear change and getting them to become a more selfless actor is no trivial matter.
An important thing to consider is people cant act on abstractions. They need specifics that are easy to understand and act on. MLK's was to pass legislation banning discrimination. To this day, I still havent seen a plan of action when someone pushes Occupy.
In this case, they need pre-packaged solution ready to go to lawmakers second popular support shows up. Here's a subset of what r a alists might do in this topic:
1. All taxpayer-funded research goes into public domain. All existing copyrights for such research goes into public domain.
2. Since it matters to academics, the articles can be published in specific journals for visibility or prestige. However, they must provide online access to them for a flat, cheap rate applied monthly or annually. That's for unlimited articles.
3. Private research can be copywritte to generate revenue for authors. Might put a limit on what they can charge or for how long.
All that codified into a law called Taxpayers Get Their Research Act. Has a website, premade letters, and so on. Low friction. One or more celebrities reference it in the media promoting it. Make sure personas for major demographics justifying it from their viewpoints. Swarms of people start emailing or writting letters that might lead to some or all of it passing. Optionally rich people throwing cash at lobbyists for the same bill.
That is how realists go for open access. Personally, I do my part by digging up linkz to key, paywalled papers from Wayback machine or other odd sources. Then send it to people that might use it.
> An important thing to consider is people cant act on abstractions
> "they need pre-packaged solution ready to go to lawmakers second popular support shows up"
Again, I don't know how to describe this other than ahistorical. I would say people actually love acting on abstractions, like the pursuit of liberty or happiness, trusting they can figure out details as they go along. It's certainly the advice given to most startup founders ("hash things out a little so they make sense, figure the rest out as you go along, for you can't predict everything"). I just wrapped up Hamilton's biography not long ago, and the process was certainly nothing like people buying into a solid policy proposal.
Aaron Swartz doesn't need to be a one-man-revolution. He can do some radical inspiring acts, and then let Lawrence Lessig hash out some technical implementation details. This is how things actually work. You don't just inspire "popular" support, like the people are some thing to be manipulated for votes. The technocrats and administrators are just as vulnerable and in need of inspiration and new possibilities.
Dividing the world neatly into idealists and realists is like that quote "conservative at 20? heartless. liberal at 40? clueless." Sounds like an even assessment to both parts, but it's actually conservative propaganda saying that one is the tough true conclusion.
Same with a history of world progress that pretends that the only people ever worth following presented unchallenged, obvious avenues for change that everyone sensible agreed upon at once. Things that seem sensible now, like women voting, were not only met by vitriol by misogynists, but also with "lack of realism" by moderates.
I think he did need to be a one-man-revolution, at least somewhat.
From the article:
“Because he moved from thing to thing fairly rapidly, that actually ended up imposing a cost, so that people were wary about starting a really big project with him because they worried he wouldn’t stick around,” said Ben Wikler. “That was a reasonable concern to have.”
Human nature is fickle. If he didn't focus, then why would any followers. When everything is most important, nothing is. This is true in business, activism and most things in life. Things need time to bake, be refined, find what resonates, find easier paths, etc. This is why I still believe you need to be part realist, part pramatist and part rebel and likely at different ratios through the project's life.
"If he didn't focus, then why would any followers. When everything is most important, nothing is. This is true in business, activism and most things in life"
Same problem I had according to many. Still have to less of a degree. The trick to pulling it off successfully requires quite a bit of money that's recurring. It was Edison's: stay on all kinds of projects long enough to make significant advance in each with lab or production workers that would take it the rest of the way. The generalists need specialists committed to the long term that build on their ideas.
Now, we're talking about I.P. law specifically. That's not going to change without large amounts of money going into lobbying (same way it was created) or huge swaths of people focusing their energy on their representatives with intention to vote for the opponent if no action occurs. These options were available to him and people he knew. He didn't try them. Instead, he did some speeches and a one-off act that could never cause a large movement in the U.S. that would counter I.P. law. Most people simply wouldn't sympathize with combo of topic and his [criminal] actions enough for it to make those waves.
I agree with you. Plus his biggest challenge was/is how to make people care. Everyone has an iPhone and Netflix and a flat screen, so they think "how again is this situation so bad for me?", because to them it is pretty freaking awesome. How do you convince non tech people that Google is bad for them? That Facebook (that they spend 2 hours a day on) is really bad for them from a monopoly/privacy/etc. perspective? Most people could give a crap about security and privacy and competition as long as they get to do the things they want.
(I do think we need major IP reform but I think we need other things more....)
Good points. I've made an attempt at Facebook that you might find useful. Really tricky because one must assume a lay audience and appeal to those in high school. I welcome feedback on these especially in form of examples for my Gossip model that map to actual Facebook events.
I think the following saying (from Andrew Lewis, not me) captures it very simply. "If you aren't paying for a service, it is because you are the product not the customer." We are the product FB (et. al.) sells, we are not its customer. There is always a price to be paid, sometimes it is not money.
I liked that and tried it on lots of laypersons for a few months. Almost none of them understood it without a lot kf explanation. It's no good if we're going for impact. Might do as a supplement.
Re ahistorical. So, lets do it opposite if you know history better than me. You're implying major reform happened with bright, risk-taking people who focused on stuff nobody cared about without activity to bring in supporters outside tgat person's sphere and activity that consisted of sole person doing an act most people would find questionable. Because I think that (Aaron's) aporoach is ahistorical for creating social change.
Nah, I agree with the prior movements. Both you cited were won within the political system with legislation following. You didnt see the healthcare people stealing medical supplies out of hospitals and giving them out to all in need. That would be closer to Swartz failed move. Would have also failed.
Swartz was naive because he thought that act would get a specific, positive response. Most people who understood the world predicted a different, negative response. The latter happened because we're right.
If you want heros in this category, start sending praise to and lobbying for the librarians and people who fought court cases over first sale doctrine. Plus the academics that kept free copies on their own sites or avoided publishing in paywalls. If renegade, that would be SciHub lady who freed up tons of scientific knowledge, put it online, and avoided jail time since she knew how establishment would react.
These people achieved numerous wins for the cause. Swartz was naive, failed, and killed himself. I'd rather have another SciHub, librarian win, or lobbyist-funded law to free up publications rather than another B&E and limited leak.
>>I think the equivalent to that "white moderate" today is the person who thinks that anyone rocking the boat and making demands today, like Swartz, is "naive".
I disagree. There wasn't anything naive about the Civil Rights Movement. Its leaders possessed a deep understanding of the society in which they lived. They organized and led large groups of people over a period of fifteen years (with a background of at least another one hundred years to lean on), protested nonviolently even when faced with the threat of violence from those in power, had constructive dialogues with civil leaders, and eventually managed to get their way.
In contrast, Swartz broke into a computer cabinet at a university and downloaded a bunch of academic journals, an act he viewed as a form of protest, but was actually burglary and theft. He was treated extremely harshly and unfairly, but that's because he acted alone with no support or context (unlike, say, Rosa Parks).
It's easy to describe the black civil rights movement as one that simply broke laws too. Lots of people in the black civil rights movement broke laws (many of those laws being unjust) and many people at the time dismissed them as rowdy criminals.
I think your perception is being colored by the fact that the black civil rights movement is perceived to have "won" (never mind that the economic equality they were fighting for still has not been achieved), while Aaron is perceived to have lost.
But I think Aaron was wise. I think "intellectual property" is economically harmful to society and is an instrument that the powerful use to abuse the masses.
You claim too that Aaron acted alone with no context, but that is false. There is a long history of people questioning intellectual property laws and he acted in solidarity with that movement. It so happens that this group of people do not physically organize and so you may believe there is no movement, but you'd be wrong.
Aaron's actions in my opinion come from a position of great wisdom about certain things in the world. I'm not even sure it could be called naivety that he didn't see the harassment coming, though truthfully I don't know much about his circumstances.
Of course people in the civil rights movement broke laws. The difference is that they did so in a public and organized way. Aaron, on the other hand, broke into the computer closet at MIT as a lone individual. Therefore he was persecuted.
Keep in mind that during the 50s and 60s, half the country (mostly the northern half), as well as the federal government, supported the civil rights movement. The same can't be said about intellectual property today. In fact there is no such thing as the Intellectual Property Movement. Which is why Aaron was perceived to have acted alone, despite the fact that many people agreed with his views.
I can't speak for what enraged_camel is thinking about. What pops into my mind is how you have the feds coming down on you in all locations. With states, you might just dodge the ones that are corrupt enough to consider your actions crimes. Keep a distance or sneak through them. If it's federal, you're screwed wherever you go with likely worse sentence on top of it. The federal cases also bring better-trained cops and equipment to the situation than many local jurisdictions.
During the civil rights movement, the federal government was on the side of blacks. It was the state governments that resisted things like desegregation (which the Supreme Court had found to be unconstitutional in Brown vs. Board of Education) and allowing blacks to register to vote.
Having the federal government on your side is very important. The reason is simple: it has the power to enforce its will. For example, when the governor of Arkansas ordered the National Guard to prevent nine black students to attend Little Rock Central High School, President Eisenhower countermanded the order and told them to return to their barracks, then deployed elements of the 101st Airborne Division to protect the black students while they attended the school for an entire year.
In contrast, Aaron Swartz had the federal government against him. He was indicted by a federal grand jury on four felony charges, which were later increased to thirteen. Unlike with the civil rights movement, he had broken federal law, and could not turn to a superior authority for justice.
"Of course people in the civil rights movement broke laws. The difference is that they did so in a public and organized way. Aaron, on the other hand, broke into the computer closet at MIT as a lone individual. Therefore he was persecuted."
", half the country (mostly the northern half), as well as the federal government, supported the civil rights movement. The same can't be said about intellectual property today."
These are tremendously good points everyone should remember when evaluating whether to promote or reject Aaron's path. I just made a similar one. The guy was a lone warrior fighting a battle hardly anyone cares about in a way much of the country would want him prosecuted for. They'd say something like, "I understand this stuff matters to him or maybe me but we can't just let college kids go around doing B&E's and other crimes to make political points." They then might wonder how far that could go for various causes before being sure they wanted him arrested.
A big issue I have in the I.P. side is formulating strategies to get people to care about it. They especially need to know the I.P. holders, esp patent trolls or CompSci paywalls, largely aren't earning the monopolies in terms of benefits provided. They're just robbing others claiming they're taking what's owed. It's a trick subject if the audience is laypersons, esp unlimited copying part.
The argument about "the Joker being the hero" reminds me of a Borges short story, "Three versions of Judas."
In the story, Borges recounts a (fictional) theologian's slow realization that, in the New Testament story, it was Judas rather than Jesus who made the greatest sacrifice. Following this argument, this theologian eventually comes to the conclusion that Judas was the incarnation of God, not Jesus. Without Judas, he argues, the redemption of Man could not have occurred.
Unsurprisingly, the Church doesn't like this version of the story and Borges' fictional theologian dies in anonymity.
>Unsurprisingly, the Church doesn't like this version of the story and Borges' fictional theologian dies in anonymity.
A diversion: Judas is the representation of one of the great dividers in Christianity. To forgive Judas is to deny free will. One of the things that one could take away from the gospels is that choices were made a consequences occurred. If it hadn't been Judas it would have been Peter, and so on. Judas was not acting as an agent.
Catholics believe in free will and they believe in punishment (penance, purgatory, etc.). Luther, and many protestant sects, do not believe in free will as such. Either is there is no free will, or if there is, forgiveness more or less wipes it out.
The reason I mention this is that I can really see the influence of protestant thinking in Western society. The tendency to look at all actors as part of a larger "system" rather than individuals with agency that may or may not deserve punishment or reward based strictly on their merit. I find that interesting given this discussion. There's acknowledgment of dealing with individual choices, but as part of creating an optimal systemic outcome.
EDIT: This is also one of the reasons studying literature is an important effort. It gives us something of a window into a cultural world view. Here I'm reminded of the Iliad. Our tendency today is to admire Hector, but the Greeks would not have. He was part of a city and that city had sinned. There are no individuals. Fatalism is strong in Greek literature. It doesn't matter how good or bad a person you are.
Actually modern developments technically allow bot activism. If a legal bot can resolve your legal case, or (legalrobot for instance) can review your contract, why not to give bots power to represent your points and tirelessly petition?
141 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 221 ms ] threadNot sure if I'm right.
EDIT: anyway I don't really agree with those theories, I would not base my political science out of comics, but I found the similarity odd.
In his essay, Swartz strongly supported the Joker’s policy platform. Although the Joker presents himself to the world as a deranged and murderous clown, Swartz claimed that the Joker is actually “homo economicus,” a supremely rational actor, the character who best understands both the problems facing Gotham City and the best solutions to those problems. Batman might have had better gear and Harvey Dent might have had the public’s sympathy—but the Joker understood game theory, the best weapon of all.
Though the Joker’s methods—such as burning large piles of money and blowing up hospitals—might have been controversial, the logic behind them was sound. “And the crazy thing is that it works!” Swartz enthused. Not only did the Joker end up ridding the city of organized crime, he convinced Gotham’s residents to re-evaluate their world and their roles in it. “The movie concludes by emphasizing that Batman must become the villain,” Swartz wrote, “but as usual it never stops to notice that the Joker is actually the hero.”
This is absurd (at least how it is portrayed by the author). In Nolan's movie the Joker is never portrayed as anything but a contradictory psycopath who engages in torture killings and according to his own words has no plans. He's a "dog chasing cars", even if that behavior was still rational. What solution did the Joker have again? The author closes with it, as though it's profound, but it's really just a screwed up view of justice that isn't even supported by the movie.
In his working paper, Swartz described his new plan for the future of activism. Rather than form a political action group focused on one single issue or tactic, Swartz proposed that organizers should assemble groups of people supremely competent in certain relevant disciplines — investigators, activists, lawyers, lobbyists, policy experts, political strategists, journalists, and publicists — who could combine their efforts and advocate effectively for any issue, big or small. Swartz envisioned a flexible, intelligent, multifaceted task force that would learn from its mistakes and refine its tactics accordingly: a team of specialists that, cumulatively, worked as generalists.
From a practical standpoint, this is interesting, though it sounds ripe for abuse and mob justice. How different is it from Wikileaks or even Anonymous? Isn't the problem with such a system is everyone always thinks they are the good guys?
Just please stop with the psychohistory and hagiography. Stop trying to say what Swartz was thinking (the author does this throughout). You don't know. If you want to compete with reality you have to be realistic. Stop using his persona to support vague notions of how the world works.
I'm wary of such universal teams which abstract away their own raison d'être. This is what gave us the modern - how I like to call them - toilet paper companies, i.e. companies which couldn't give a rat's ass about what they're making, as long as it is profitable (and that would gladly switch from building medical devices to making toilet paper if that had better ROI - hence the name). I can't deny such focus on gaming the structure is effective - much like MBAs with abstract knowledge of how to run a money-making machine are effective at doing just that - to the detriment of all customers, who actually care about the products.
One of my interpretations: if the invisible hand of the market describes the powerful ability of markets to turn self-interested actors into producing general welfare improvements by competing: cutting costs, producing innovation, etc.
Then, the invisible hand of the market must obviously have the same impact on good outliers. If you are trying to do something evil beyond what the market will bear, you're out of luck. If you're trying to do something good beyond what the market will bear, though, you're just as out of luck.
He goes very in depth into the fact that expressing our desires via revealed preferences in exchange/commerce removes a lot of our ability to voice what is exactly what we want.
What he did was inconsequential and then he preferred to quit rather than face the consequences (to which he would probably get support from the whole internet)
A.S. looks like more than a prankster who never got told that actions have consequences and an idealist that was too naive for his own good.
Lastly your whole comment is framed as a personal attack. You say "inconsequential" even though we have no clue what he was planning to do since he was made to delete the files, and you say "prankster" like was just trolling MIT and JSTOR. I recommend instead that you instead try to read a little about him, he accomplished much more then you gave him credit for.
True, I had considered this angle but I ended up not adding it to the comment. But I recognize the importance of those factors
> the consequences in this case were disproportionate to the crime, with JSTOR listing inflated damages
No contest on the inflated damages, which is part of most legal cases unfortunately, but he could have gotten the best lawyers to this case.
> even though we have no clue what he was planning to do
Scraping files is an action on itself that gives several suggestions on what he was going to do with them.
> and you say "prankster" like was just trolling MIT and JSTOR
Well he was at least doing that.
> A few years ago, he downloaded a significant portion of the articles on the Westlaw legal-research database in order to analyze their sources of funding, in the hope of determining whether economic interests affected their conclusions. He gave the data to a Stanford law student, and she published an article in the Stanford Law Review based on his findings. [1]
[0]: https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamj...
[1]: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/03/11/requiem-for-a-d...
To dismiss the entire catastrophe as a "cautionary tale" is heartless. People who stand up to the powers that be know damn well that it is likely they'll have to suffer the consequences. Aaron was fully aware of this, despite your claims of his naivety. This is a cautionary tale only if the lesson to be learned is: never stand up to power. For shame.
You may not like the existing copyright laws or the justice system. And I fully understand it, as I don't like parts of them either. But that doesn't give you the right to break the law. A society where people break laws just because they disagree with them simply can't work.
Your claim that laws must always be obeyed in a democracy is gross. Are enslaved people supposed to follow the laws in a democracy that say they cannot fight for their freedom? Are we to condemn black people who organized sit-ins to protest apartheid? Are you not aware that practically all rights we enjoy today are the result of activists who risked their life to fight for these rights? Think for a second about the implications of blind obedience to the law, and the ugly historical record thereof!
"I'm going to get down voted for saying this" is the HN equivalent "I don't mean to be a jerk, but [says jerk things]".
Just to be a complete hypocrite: I personally don't think it's unreasonable to express a likely contrarian viewpoint and apologise in advance for that - but hey, I'm British, and some of us were brought up to be polite.
Given the wide range of opinions expressed on HN, you can reasonably assume any opinion you express will be contrary to some of them. Expressing the expectation of downvotes is not apologizing in advance. "It may not be a popular opinion, but ", or "I'm sorry, but I've never understood..." are two alternatives. I'm sure there are better ones.
It's also important to consider whether it's worth expressing what you want to say if you also feel you need to apologize for it. Over half of pieter1976's initial comment is about the downvotes, including a Paul Graham reference justifying expressing a contrary opinion. The referenced essay specifically discusses this:
When you find something you can't say, what do you do with it? My advice is, don't say it. Or at least, pick your battles.
...
The most important thing is to be able to think what you want, not to say what you want. And if you feel you have to say everything you think, it may inhibit you from thinking improper thoughts. I think it's better to follow the opposite policy. Draw a sharp line between your thoughts and your speech.
Is ignoring community guidelines worth expressing the opinion "I have never understood the raising up of Aaron Swartz to demi-god status by this community"?
Neither do I! There is a subtle but important difference between "pardon me if I'm missing something, but..." or "from the other comments on this thread it seems X is a widely-held view; I can't, however, seem to get my head around Y aspect of X" and advertising one's expectations of being down voted.
The former makes an effort to make sense of the views one disagrees with. That shows respect for the speaker. The latter dismisses it off the cuff.
If you're expressing a contrarian view, express it. If you want to apologise for it, do so politely. Better yet, incorporate why you think others will disagree into your response. Preemptively complaining, without offering any reasoning, is petulant.
They don't. The majority of people will downvote the comment because they disagree with it.
There is no way to disagree with the groupthink, without expecting to be downvoted.
It comes down to, its more effective to lead a conversation than to just dispute and disagree. Its true on the internet; its true in person.
I personally would love it if downvotes required an explanation. Such would be a great way to separate the "your comment was out of line for legitimate reason" type of downvote vs. the "I'm downvoting you because you're wrong and I'm not even going to say why" type of downvote.
You can learn something from the former type of downvote; the later sort of downvote is completely useless.
Then expect to be downvoted without explicitly posting that expectation. Nothing good will come of it.
Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downvote you or proclaim that you expect to get downvoted.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
You may not agree with it (which is fine), but it's largely accepted by the community.
The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.
Is it really that surprising that people are genuinely upset he took his own life after being harassed by the US government? This is a community that tends to dislike extreme prosecution, copyright laws and generally agrees with Aaron's ideology.
And on another note: Can HN not care about a guy without people saying we're "raising him to demi-god status"? With how often that accusation is thrown around, you'd think we have enough to sell our demi-god surplus to cults in need of more.
PS: The "I'll be downvoted for my contrarian idea but ..." stuff is for reddit, not here, tbh.
Whilst that may be true, I've not read about a lot of tragic deaths where everyone who knew the person thought they were a prick.
The point being raised is "Do we really think his theories had unusual insight/value or is his work being viewed through the lens of his death being tragic?". It seems like an entirely valid question to ask.
In terms of "the joker being a rational actor who achieved his goals". Well personally I think he's misinterpreted the film/characters, but I know i'm not an expert on such things so the most I can say is that I'll take his view with a pretty chunky pinch of salt.
But I also take issue with that false placement of him, that is again expressed in that OP title: "Aaron Swartz’s Theory on How to Save the World". That is not serious and is also in a way of disrespecting him.
It is remotly similar when Obama got its Nobel Price. I think it was done with good intentions, but was completely misplaced.
Uncharitably throwing misplaced attributed at a deceased person, because it goes well with the intention of selling a book is not human, but kind of perverse.
He may have been a great guy. He may have been nice and caring. But he is not a great role model, no matter how much people wish he could have been.
He didn't fit in that mold, as many didn't here. His mind didn't fit in the rule following process at all, which honestly IS what showed his great promise. He was capable of more and brave enough to try.
While I don't like post humous articles that use someone else to push your ideas, someone who can't speak for themselves anymore, this comment just made me sad.
[1] Same high school, a few years older. [2] https://newrepublic.com/article/127317/school
I for one judge people on their accomplishments, not whether he finished school or not.
He may have many flaws, but that's the one thing you can't say about him. Watch this part of Internet's Own Boy: https://youtu.be/aePSFMLzBBM?t=12m50s
To narrate that part of the video, as a school kid he goes to Washington to listen to Lawrence Lessig challenging the Copyright Laws in the Supreme Court. The video shows him saying that he's doing this because it's such an important case. How many school kids are interested in that kind of thing? And among other things, he participated (at a very young age) in the RSS specification, and was part of the team which wrote Reddit (PG calls him co-founder).
Many of us (especially here on HN) were aware of his accomplishments way before he took his own life. He's not someone who became a hero after or due to his tragic death.
You're rewriting history. Read up a bit about Reddit early days etc
He's raised up to demi-god status because he checks some boxes in the same way Turing does, and as with Turing, people believe the "history" they want to believe to fit their own views. Personally, I find it distasteful to use people like this, and it belittles everyone elses lives and contributions.
The thing I like most about Aaron's writing is that he was relentlessly introspective. But this definitely rubbed some people the wrong way. There were many who dismissed his articles as navel-gazing when they were originally posted.
That is a demonstrably false statement, as you admit. No one is loved by everyone. No one is hated by everyone. No one is "evil", and no one is a "saint".
This ridiculous habit some people have of putting people in two boxes (good, bad) is just so stupid. People do good things, and do bad things. Everyone does some amount of good, and some amount of bad. People aren't good or evil.
BTW, have you noticed that people saying that do not get downvoted as much? Such a complain works well, in spite of HN's official policy against it. People keep saying it because it works ;-)
No? My impression is that people saying it get down-voted more.
Indeed I've occasionally down-voted people just for saying it, because it usually reads to me like "I know HN most readers are too stupid to understand my opinions, but..."
His ideas had always much less weight then his persona that was created by others and to some degree by him. There is no reason to judge him for that, because we all strive for significance and nobody is perfect. But I agree we should stop to further support that bumptious memory of him.
In the end, he was also a victim of dynamics that where not in his influence. There was people who wanted to make an example of him, because he (like many others) wanted to set information free.
I liked him because he was good looking in a JFK kind of sense. His confident charisma was pleasant and comforting, his words never misplaced. I miss him.
Every time he's mentioned, someone feel the overwhelming need to pop up and share their "unpopular but realistic opinion".
I think that is embarrassing.
One does not detract from or rule out the other.
Step out of line and she can be your demon too. Or mine.
You say you don't understand why people estimate him. What's the point in saying that ? Who cares ?
Are you asking the arguments justifying why people seam to estimate him so much ?
Are you calling back into question the arguments justifying that he is estimated ? Them give us your arguments.
That you don't understand that Aaron is estimated could have many explanations. You could be stupid. You could discard or ignore data points. Your "measuring stick" could be bogus or too subjective. Some people may glorify him as semi-god because they are themselves stupid or want to piggy bag their reputation with the one of Aaron. Or maybe Aaron was just an impostor as you might be inferring.
My feeling is that "ignorance" is overrated these days. A comment that just say "I don't understand X" has very low pertinence value and, in my opinion, should not be upvoted on hacker news.
Please reformulate the point you would like to make and present your arguments. Only arguments are really relevant. I downvoted you for the reasons above.
arXiv:1103.3257: The Joker effect: cooperation driven by destructive agents (2011)
https://arxiv.org/abs/1103.3257
Keywords: public goods, cooperation, destructive agents, cycles
Abstract: "Understanding the emergence of cooperation is a central issue in evolutionary game theory. The hardest setup for the attainment of cooperation in a population of individuals is the Public Goods game in which cooperative agents generate a common good at their own expenses, while defectors "free-ride" this good. Eventually this causes the exhaustion of the good, a situation which is bad for everybody. Previous results have shown that introducing reputation, allowing for volunteer participation, punishing defectors, rewarding cooperators or structuring agents, can enhance cooperation. Here we present a model which shows how the introduction of rare, malicious agents -that we term jokers- performing just destructive actions on the other agents induce bursts of cooperation. The appearance of jokers promotes a rock-paper-scissors dynamics, where jokers outbeat defectors and cooperators outperform jokers, which are subsequently invaded by defectors. Thus, paradoxically, the existence of destructive agents acting indiscriminately promotes cooperation."
original publication: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022519311...
> Eventually this causes the exhaustion of the good, a situation which is bad for everybody. (...) where jokers outbeat defectors and cooperators outperform jokers, which are subsequently invaded by defectors. Thus, paradoxically, the existence of destructive agents acting indiscriminately promotes cooperation."
I'd day that this culture of cooperation for defeating "jokers "doesn't apply to all cultures. It certainly doesn't apply to mine (somewhere in SE-Europe, on the fringe of the Balkans), where a realistic similar scenario would look somth like this:
> Joker does his bad stuff, he shares some of his spoils with his relatives and very close acquaintances (god-fathers, god-sons etc.). These latter people are also part of the community that supposedly should cooperate in annihilating the Joker. Is fair to say that they won't. You've now got a fractured community, with some of its members (the Joker's friends and relatives) having no interest in "cooperation", and more importantly having the economical and power-related means of silencing the part of the community that would want to seek justice (because when you do bad stuff you usually do it in order to increase your economical and power-standing among your community). The Joker becomes an example for other people who see that doing nasty stuff supposedly pays off if you've got enough people by your side. Rinse and repeat.
Aaron Swartz's theory is easier to implement where the Joker is an external element of the community, think immigrants, Jews in early 20-th century Europe, Armenians in late-Ottoman times etc, and I'd say that he's right, those communities actually got a lot more cohesive in chasing out the foreign Joker-like actor(s).
The idea is that when faced with an enemy whose actions are bad for everyone, all the people who previously had been engaging in conduct that was bad for everyone else but good for themselves will be forced to cooperate, lest the world burn to the ground.
I think this only happens in works of fiction (movies and the like). In real life even things like "terrorism, destroying holy sites, genetically engineering plagues for the extinction of humanity, blowing up buildings, wanton destruction of famous landmarks" have benefits for some members of those communities (ok, maybe not "nuclear terrorism", which is a big no-no for everybody). The recent acts of terrorism in Western Europe have only managed to increase the fracture between the Muslim part of the community (which has been around these parts of the world for some 3 generations) and the rest of the people.
Daesh have gone pretty far into the Joker realm, I'd say.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Aurora_shooting
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physa.2015.08.053 ( Under a Creative Commons )
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437115...
Keywords: Evolutionary game theory; Social dilemma; Free-rider problem; Agent based simulation; Social vaccine
Abstract
"Although there is much support for the punishment system as a sophisticated approach to resolving social dilemmas, more than a few researchers have also pointed out the limitations of such an approach. Second-order free riding is a serious issue facing the punishment system. Various pioneering works have suggested that an anti-social behavior or noise stemming from a mutation may, surprisingly, be helpful for avoiding second-order freeloaders. In this work, we show through mathematical analysis and an agent-based simulation of a model extending the meta-norms game that the coercive introduction of a small number of non-cooperators can maintain a cooperative regime robustly. This paradoxical idea was inspired by the effect of a vaccine, which is a weakened pathogen injected into a human body to create antibodies and ward off infection by that pathogen. Our expectation is that the coercive introduction of a few defectors, i.e., a social vaccine, will help maintain a highly cooperative regime because it will ensure that the punishment system works."
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3707691
https://arxiv.org/abs/1210.7085
Abstract: "The emergence and promotion of cooperation are two of the main issues in evolutionary game theory, as cooperation is amenable to exploitation by defectors, which take advantage of cooperative individuals at no cost, dooming them to extinction. It has been recently shown that the existence of purely destructive agents (termed jokers) acting on the common enterprises (public goods games) can induce stable limit cycles among cooperation, defection, and destruction when infinite populations are considered. These cycles allow for time lapses in which cooperators represent a relevant fraction of the population, providing a mechanism for the emergence of cooperative states in nature and human societies. Here we study analytically and through agent-based simulations the dynamics generated by jokers in finite populations for several selection rules. Cycles appear in all cases studied, thus showing that the joker dynamics generically yields a robust cyclic behavior not restricted to infinite populations. We also compute the average time in which the population consists mostly of just one strategy and compare the results with numerical simulations."
I'm just asking because scholarly articles about the actions of fictional psychopaths seem a bit much. Especially when we are talking about applying it to entire groups of people (nations) without some good examples. Note, this is also different than Swartz's or the author's suggestion - that this cooperation was intended. That's not implied by the movie, nor the joker of the article. This is the first paragraph:
In the recent Hollywood movie The Dark Knight (2008) the comic character known as the Joker jeopardizes a whole society spreading chaos and destruction with no aim of benefit at it.
That's not Nazi Germany (the sixth paragraph or so and example). Hitler may have had a fucked up sense of societal benefit, but that was his goal, not wanton destruction (at least until he went completely crazy).
The dutch 'polder' politics seem like a very fine example of this. I imagine predators are another example. As are very periodic floods or droughts.
But thinking about a few examples: Julian Assange is a modern-day joker, with Wikileaks indiscriminately publishing damaging info about many different institutions (several of which would otherwise be at odds with each other). Leon Czolgosz, the anarchist who assassinated William Mckinley, who ironically spurred both cooperation among anarchists and cooperation against anarchists. Heck, the traditional description of Satan very much is the in line with the joker archetype, which makes me wonder if his depiction in religion is a composite of various joker-like characters that people have faced but not wanted to remember.
There's a lot of libertarian literature as to why private property is preferable to "public goods" in many instances.
> In sum, no one has a right to clean air, but one does have a right to not have his air invaded by pollutants generated by an aggressor.
Also see this quote [2]:
> There is, first of all, this stark empirical fact: Government ownership, even socialism, has proved to be no solution to the problem of pollution. Even the most starry-eyed proponents of government planning concede that the poisoning of Lake Baikal in the Soviet Union is a monument to heedless industrial pollution of a valuable natural resource. But there is far more to the problem than that. Note, for example, the two crucial areas in which pollution has become an important problem: the air and the waterways, particularly the rivers. But these are precisely two of the vital areas in society in which private property has not been permitted to function.
Agree or disagree, this is the typical libertarian response to externalities as far as I know. There's probably more to it w.r.t to public goods as "naturally given", and when something turns into private property, if you are look further into the literature.
1: https://mises.org/library/law-property-rights-and-air-pollut...
2: https://mises.org/library/libertarian-manifesto-pollution
EDIT: I'm assuming the question is in good faith. To understand libertarian thought in general and their views on property rights and how contracts organically occur, refer to a primer book by someone like Rothbard. It has nothing to do with denying the social domain of humanity.
Somehow, libertarians get through life without ever becoming aware of the existence of transaction costs. I don't know how they do it.
Just like the other 95% of people: complete economic illiteracy.
If so, then doing so still requires cooperation. I was responding to a comment which seemed to claim that private property was an alternative to social cooperation.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good In economics, a public good is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous in that individuals cannot be effectively excluded from use and where use by one individual does not reduce availability to others.[1] Gravelle and Rees: "The defining characteristic of a public good is that consumption of it by one individual does not actually or potentially reduce the amount available to be consumed by another individual." Public goods include fresh air, knowledge, official statistics, national security, common language(s), flood control systems, lighthouses, and street lighting.
While I am aware the definition of a public good, your definition is not appropriate because flood control systems, lighthouses, and street lighting can be owned.
The problem the root comment touches is excessive use and for all of the above examples that are scarce (fresh air, common language, flood control systems, lighthouses, street lighting) there can be excessive use to the detriment of others and it can be avoided if these items are private property.
For others (the non-scarce - knowledge, language) you cannot take away the rights for others to use it. So there is no real sense in claiming it a public good because there is really nothing.
Finally, official statistics and national security depend too much on the definition to say to which category the belong.
Quotes from Aaron Swartz:
Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves. The world's entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the sciences? You'll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier.
From:https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamj...
He didn't do that. Instead, he focused on what can't be changed by committing an illegal act with hope it would be meaningful to society or courts. The result was that he killed himself after that failed catastrophically. We might learn a great deal from Aaron Swarts but not how to change the world. He's the least qualified to tell us about that because it appears he never understood it to begin with.
Instead, we can just learn from and remember the good things he did that his mind was uniquely capable of doing. He has quite a resume of that. This approach is honest and gives him due credit.
I hear it often called "being a realist". I consider it a pretty evil self-reassuring meme of our times. We're ready to believe we can go to Mars and live forever, but anyone fighting "Human Nature" (read: our current economical and political arrangement) is a fool.
"Don't be naive, we've figured human nature out. It wants malls and 60 hour work-weeks!"
Re being realist. It means you need to understand the context you operate in before you can change it. All the successful people did. Most failures that werent just bad luck didnt. The very example you gave about work weeks was improved by realists in various businesses who wanted it and could execute it within a sustainable model.
I think of hard-won victories like Canada instituting Universal Health Care (starting in the less-known province of Saskatchewan), or people marching for Civil Rights and Labor Rights, all the while experts told them those things were unattainable and unrealistic. I think many people in those movements understood the system, just not in the way that the system approved of being understood.
Martin Luther King Jr. has a great line about this:
> First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I think the equivalent to that "white moderate" today is the person who thinks that anyone rocking the boat and making demands today, like Swartz, is "naive". They wisely and patiently wait for a benevolent billionaire to save the day instead. The fact that they, too, benefit from the status quo and find the current situation very tolerable is a mere coincidence.
I hope, since you freely imply that the absent Swartz was naive, that you have no problem with me calling you naive as well.
--
edit: I too enjoy discussing things, but as soon as the conversation branches out it gets a bit messy.
I just want to say that it's a deliberate mistake to judge past movements from their white-washed idealized educational versions. It disconnects them from the messy reality of activism, and from their current-day representatives.
Replies below are saying basically "The Civil Rights leaders acted decisively and with wisdom, compared with this haphazard unorganized random act today". At the time, this is how this was portrayed by detractors:
https://storage.synaptic.att.com/rest/objects/4a08bf2ea31f2e...
You are welcome to look through MLK Jr.'s correspondence too:
http://www.thekingcenter.org/genre/correspondence
People calling his movement all over the place, erratic, etc. It's fascinating. Many, many people telling him and his ilk they were unrealistic and jumping the gun with ineffective direct action. A complete erasure of the dynamics MLK had with Malcolm X (good cop, bad cop). The FBI also conspired to try to get him to commit suicide, by blackmailing him (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_lette...).
If the future Swartz was aiming for ever becomes reality, he will be remembered as a pioneer.
You do partially need to be a realist. You aren't going to be able to convince all people to ride a bicycle because it is good for the environment. You also need to be pragmatic. Take a targeted approach to go after the low hanging fruit, get the biggest bang for your buck. However, there are times when you will have to break free from the status quo and that won't be easy. Sometimes people have to be dragged kicking and screaming into a new future, but this is so hard. People like MLK understood that it was possible and put in the work (and was willing to pay the many costs) to force change.
Very few causes have the leader with a simple plan and the charisma to inspire others and the fortitude to see it through no matter the cost. Take a look at how quickly Occupy Wall Street faded into nothing. People will always fear change and getting them to become a more selfless actor is no trivial matter.
In this case, they need pre-packaged solution ready to go to lawmakers second popular support shows up. Here's a subset of what r a alists might do in this topic:
1. All taxpayer-funded research goes into public domain. All existing copyrights for such research goes into public domain.
2. Since it matters to academics, the articles can be published in specific journals for visibility or prestige. However, they must provide online access to them for a flat, cheap rate applied monthly or annually. That's for unlimited articles.
3. Private research can be copywritte to generate revenue for authors. Might put a limit on what they can charge or for how long.
All that codified into a law called Taxpayers Get Their Research Act. Has a website, premade letters, and so on. Low friction. One or more celebrities reference it in the media promoting it. Make sure personas for major demographics justifying it from their viewpoints. Swarms of people start emailing or writting letters that might lead to some or all of it passing. Optionally rich people throwing cash at lobbyists for the same bill.
That is how realists go for open access. Personally, I do my part by digging up linkz to key, paywalled papers from Wayback machine or other odd sources. Then send it to people that might use it.
> "they need pre-packaged solution ready to go to lawmakers second popular support shows up"
Again, I don't know how to describe this other than ahistorical. I would say people actually love acting on abstractions, like the pursuit of liberty or happiness, trusting they can figure out details as they go along. It's certainly the advice given to most startup founders ("hash things out a little so they make sense, figure the rest out as you go along, for you can't predict everything"). I just wrapped up Hamilton's biography not long ago, and the process was certainly nothing like people buying into a solid policy proposal.
Aaron Swartz doesn't need to be a one-man-revolution. He can do some radical inspiring acts, and then let Lawrence Lessig hash out some technical implementation details. This is how things actually work. You don't just inspire "popular" support, like the people are some thing to be manipulated for votes. The technocrats and administrators are just as vulnerable and in need of inspiration and new possibilities.
Dividing the world neatly into idealists and realists is like that quote "conservative at 20? heartless. liberal at 40? clueless." Sounds like an even assessment to both parts, but it's actually conservative propaganda saying that one is the tough true conclusion.
Same with a history of world progress that pretends that the only people ever worth following presented unchallenged, obvious avenues for change that everyone sensible agreed upon at once. Things that seem sensible now, like women voting, were not only met by vitriol by misogynists, but also with "lack of realism" by moderates.
From the article: “Because he moved from thing to thing fairly rapidly, that actually ended up imposing a cost, so that people were wary about starting a really big project with him because they worried he wouldn’t stick around,” said Ben Wikler. “That was a reasonable concern to have.”
Human nature is fickle. If he didn't focus, then why would any followers. When everything is most important, nothing is. This is true in business, activism and most things in life. Things need time to bake, be refined, find what resonates, find easier paths, etc. This is why I still believe you need to be part realist, part pramatist and part rebel and likely at different ratios through the project's life.
Same problem I had according to many. Still have to less of a degree. The trick to pulling it off successfully requires quite a bit of money that's recurring. It was Edison's: stay on all kinds of projects long enough to make significant advance in each with lab or production workers that would take it the rest of the way. The generalists need specialists committed to the long term that build on their ideas.
Now, we're talking about I.P. law specifically. That's not going to change without large amounts of money going into lobbying (same way it was created) or huge swaths of people focusing their energy on their representatives with intention to vote for the opponent if no action occurs. These options were available to him and people he knew. He didn't try them. Instead, he did some speeches and a one-off act that could never cause a large movement in the U.S. that would counter I.P. law. Most people simply wouldn't sympathize with combo of topic and his [criminal] actions enough for it to make those waves.
(I do think we need major IP reform but I think we need other things more....)
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/04/ephemeral_app...
Swartz was naive because he thought that act would get a specific, positive response. Most people who understood the world predicted a different, negative response. The latter happened because we're right.
If you want heros in this category, start sending praise to and lobbying for the librarians and people who fought court cases over first sale doctrine. Plus the academics that kept free copies on their own sites or avoided publishing in paywalls. If renegade, that would be SciHub lady who freed up tons of scientific knowledge, put it online, and avoided jail time since she knew how establishment would react.
These people achieved numerous wins for the cause. Swartz was naive, failed, and killed himself. I'd rather have another SciHub, librarian win, or lobbyist-funded law to free up publications rather than another B&E and limited leak.
I disagree. There wasn't anything naive about the Civil Rights Movement. Its leaders possessed a deep understanding of the society in which they lived. They organized and led large groups of people over a period of fifteen years (with a background of at least another one hundred years to lean on), protested nonviolently even when faced with the threat of violence from those in power, had constructive dialogues with civil leaders, and eventually managed to get their way.
In contrast, Swartz broke into a computer cabinet at a university and downloaded a bunch of academic journals, an act he viewed as a form of protest, but was actually burglary and theft. He was treated extremely harshly and unfairly, but that's because he acted alone with no support or context (unlike, say, Rosa Parks).
I think your perception is being colored by the fact that the black civil rights movement is perceived to have "won" (never mind that the economic equality they were fighting for still has not been achieved), while Aaron is perceived to have lost.
But I think Aaron was wise. I think "intellectual property" is economically harmful to society and is an instrument that the powerful use to abuse the masses.
You claim too that Aaron acted alone with no context, but that is false. There is a long history of people questioning intellectual property laws and he acted in solidarity with that movement. It so happens that this group of people do not physically organize and so you may believe there is no movement, but you'd be wrong.
Aaron's actions in my opinion come from a position of great wisdom about certain things in the world. I'm not even sure it could be called naivety that he didn't see the harassment coming, though truthfully I don't know much about his circumstances.
Keep in mind that during the 50s and 60s, half the country (mostly the northern half), as well as the federal government, supported the civil rights movement. The same can't be said about intellectual property today. In fact there is no such thing as the Intellectual Property Movement. Which is why Aaron was perceived to have acted alone, despite the fact that many people agreed with his views.
They also understood that they'd likely be arrested and prosecuted. And many were.
Having the federal government on your side is very important. The reason is simple: it has the power to enforce its will. For example, when the governor of Arkansas ordered the National Guard to prevent nine black students to attend Little Rock Central High School, President Eisenhower countermanded the order and told them to return to their barracks, then deployed elements of the 101st Airborne Division to protect the black students while they attended the school for an entire year.
In contrast, Aaron Swartz had the federal government against him. He was indicted by a federal grand jury on four felony charges, which were later increased to thirteen. Unlike with the civil rights movement, he had broken federal law, and could not turn to a superior authority for justice.
", half the country (mostly the northern half), as well as the federal government, supported the civil rights movement. The same can't be said about intellectual property today."
These are tremendously good points everyone should remember when evaluating whether to promote or reject Aaron's path. I just made a similar one. The guy was a lone warrior fighting a battle hardly anyone cares about in a way much of the country would want him prosecuted for. They'd say something like, "I understand this stuff matters to him or maybe me but we can't just let college kids go around doing B&E's and other crimes to make political points." They then might wonder how far that could go for various causes before being sure they wanted him arrested.
A big issue I have in the I.P. side is formulating strategies to get people to care about it. They especially need to know the I.P. holders, esp patent trolls or CompSci paywalls, largely aren't earning the monopolies in terms of benefits provided. They're just robbing others claiming they're taking what's owed. It's a trick subject if the audience is laypersons, esp unlimited copying part.
In the story, Borges recounts a (fictional) theologian's slow realization that, in the New Testament story, it was Judas rather than Jesus who made the greatest sacrifice. Following this argument, this theologian eventually comes to the conclusion that Judas was the incarnation of God, not Jesus. Without Judas, he argues, the redemption of Man could not have occurred.
Unsurprisingly, the Church doesn't like this version of the story and Borges' fictional theologian dies in anonymity.
A diversion: Judas is the representation of one of the great dividers in Christianity. To forgive Judas is to deny free will. One of the things that one could take away from the gospels is that choices were made a consequences occurred. If it hadn't been Judas it would have been Peter, and so on. Judas was not acting as an agent.
Catholics believe in free will and they believe in punishment (penance, purgatory, etc.). Luther, and many protestant sects, do not believe in free will as such. Either is there is no free will, or if there is, forgiveness more or less wipes it out.
The reason I mention this is that I can really see the influence of protestant thinking in Western society. The tendency to look at all actors as part of a larger "system" rather than individuals with agency that may or may not deserve punishment or reward based strictly on their merit. I find that interesting given this discussion. There's acknowledgment of dealing with individual choices, but as part of creating an optimal systemic outcome.
EDIT: This is also one of the reasons studying literature is an important effort. It gives us something of a window into a cultural world view. Here I'm reminded of the Iliad. Our tendency today is to admire Hector, but the Greeks would not have. He was part of a city and that city had sinned. There are no individuals. Fatalism is strong in Greek literature. It doesn't matter how good or bad a person you are.
BTW, homo economicus is the single most dangerous concept that has come out of the "science" of economics.