THE BOY WHO COULD CHANGE THE WORLD: THE WRITINGS OF AARON SWARTZ by Aaron Swartz The New Press

[Rayzer]

Rayzer wrote:
> coderman wrote:
>> https://newrepublic.com/article/126674/reading-everything-aaron-swartz-wrote
>> '''
>> ... In a way, Aaron is a cautionary tale for unschooling. One of the
>> lessons that school teaches is that the people who make the rules
>> don’t really have to follow them. It’s something even the most
>> rebellious students learn one way or another, but Aaron looked up a
>> different set of rules and hacked his way out of school instead. On
>> one hand Aaron was happy with his choice and felt more engaged and
>> happier with online peers, on the other he absorbed a dangerous lesson
>> about navigating bureaucratic systems. Plenty of legal scholars and
>> technology experts thought Aaron had kept on the right side of the
>> letter of the law, but the criminal justice system is resistant to the
>> kind of hacking he tended to practice. I don’t know if he considered
>> fleeing the country, but I doubt it. Maybe if he had lived to see
>> Edward Snowden make dodging extradition look good, things would have
>> been different.
>>
>> I was surprised when I saw the security footage of Aaron entering the
>> MIT building, his bike helmet held half-heartedly in front of his
>> face, his telltale hair poking out the sides. I had read the
>> Manifesto, but I didn’t think it really reflected Aaron’s intentions.
>> I was worried about what could happen to him, but not that worried. I
>> figured he had enough institutional support to keep his punishment to
>> a slap on the wrist. Mostly I was angry that he hadn’t taken what he
>> was doing seriously enough; with a team and a little bit of planning,
>> there’s no reason the authorities should have been able to tie Aaron
>> to the action. But covert ops wasn’t one of his strengths, and he
>> never got the chance to learn.
>>
>> If I’m part of the we that counted on Aaron, then I’m also part of the
>> we that failed him. I thought his connections and credibility and
>> reputation would keep him safe, and maybe he did too. Maybe we
>> convinced him that a boy like him could change the world, or at least
>> always hack an escape route. But there’s no individual who can’t be
>> picked off if they cross the wrong line, or just the wrong prosecutor.
>> '''
>>
>>
> “A revolutionary is a dead man on furlough.” ~V.I Lenin
>

Ps. "Don't mourn, organize" ~Joel Hägglund (Joe Hill)

"Goodbye Bill (Bill Haywood, IWW president): I die like a true rebel.
Don't waste any time mourning, organize! It is a hundred miles from here
to Wyoming. Could you arrange to have my body hauled to the state line
to be buried? I don't want to be found dead in Utah."

-- 
RR

"You might want to ask an expert about that - I just fiddled around
with mine until it worked..."


-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 836 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/attachments/20151231/0d1cee12/attachment-0003.sig>