Comments

1
You need to edit out the President's race from this article. It implies that his blackness has something to do with Swartz's suicide and makes this article and publication appear incredibly racist.
3
Wonderful and amen! We can do better as a country.
4
@wtaf. The author of this article is black, so I'm guessing he isn't intending racism here. I think the fact that President Obama is black is something to be celebrated. He brought diversity to the office and that is great. The point the author is making is that Obama's promises to change some very dangerous policies did not happen. And Aaron Swartz was one of many who have paid a terrible price.
7
This is why the people of Seattle are so clueless. Idiotic reviews like this one. Aaron Swartz was a flaky young man who was unable to deal with real life because his parents were too lenient to teach him anything about real life. If anyone caused him to take his life it was the enabling "friends" and relatives who coddled him.

He had almost nothing to do with Reddit (easily discovered with a couple of clicks on a search engine)yet made a small fortune from his 6-7 months working on it after Paul Graham merged his failed start-up (Infogami - ever heard of it - of course not) into a company with Reddit at Y Combinator. He did do some coding on a version of RSS as a teen - of course it isn't the RSS that anyone uses - and he did manage to strike up friendships with some influential people over the years. A talented coder with little drive or ambition he floated from project to project over the years rarely finishing anything and leaving lots of burned bridges in his wake. He also dealt with depression that a lot of smart people who are enabled as youths suffer from as adults.

Now Swartz's being enabled as a dead person by filmmakers, writers and political hacks. Not to help himself, that ship has long since sailed. No, to help people this filmmaker. To help people raise money. To help Lawrence "I taught at Stanford so I must be smart" Lessig, probably the biggest carnival huckster alive today. (Recently raised millions from concerned progressives to give to political hacks. That's what I call a reverse Robin Hood. Taking from the poor and giving to folks who drive Ferraris and Lamborginis.) His name is also being used to prevent any meaningful conversation regarding artist compensation to boot.

This doc is what is called a hagiography. Myth making of the worst kind. It is also dangerous because it doesn't even touch on the truth about suicidal depression which is the truly sad part about Aaron Swartz. Had the young man been surrounded by truth tellers who truly cared about him instead of clueless enablers with agendas he might still be alive. And if he was alive he might have actually achieved his possibly unlimited potential.


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