The problem is what has come to light since that post was made, it has come to light that Aaron was not being held accountable for his "actions", he was being used. He was being made into an example, he was being turned into a tool to help peoples careers. This is what is important and why we should have supported him.
At the time nobody knew what he was facing, we know now and I'm sure if everyone here could go back they would support him more. Go back to the thread, forget everything you know about the case and situation and read the link (the appeal page on Aaron's website) and then the comments in the thread and form an opinion. It won't match what you're saying here because what you're thinking about now (and holding edw519 to) was not known at the time.
That is what is wrong with saying, "just accept the consequences", when you have no damn idea what the consequences are.
If the people reading the story at the time were expected to act on the situation by donating, why is it wrong for them to act in the form of a comment? How can it be fair to say people should have donated based on their understanding of the situation but not be able to comment on the situation?
Every single person in that comment thread is just as guilty of wrong doing if edw519 is guilty of any, because they all formed an opinion around something they knew very little of. It just so happens that the opinion edw519 expressed is unfortunately one that is at odds with the reality of the situation.
That said, surely you can acknowledge that there's a difference between donating and posting a comment?
The point is every single person that acted on that post was doing it under exactly the same idea, "I have read about this situation and based on what I have read I believe x to be (true / false) and therefore I (support / don't support) Aaron" so when someone said "I believe that Aaron does not deserve to be bearing the burden here, I am donating $10 to his fund" they were making exactly the same assumptions as edw519 made when he said "I believe that Aaron is responsible for this situation and therefore should be responsible for the consequences".
The only difference is edw519 is on the wrong side of the outcome. Those that donated didn't know that Aaron was in some serious shit way beyond what anyone imagined, just like edw519 didn't know that Aaron was in some serious shit way beyond what he imagined.
If everyone took the line you're talking about, "I don't know the full story (because nobody ever can) so I'm not going to pass any judgement" Aaron would not have been the recipient of any donations, because Aaron could have been more in the wrong than edw519 thought! Maybe the prosecution had evidence that showed Aaron intended to rip people off, or commit a terrible crime? I don't want to be behind supporting that! I had better just ignore everything.
sigh. I never said that. I have no idea how you got from "comment publicly" to "pass judgement".
That is what is wrong with saying, "just accept the consequences",
when you have no damn idea what the consequences are.
Yes, exactly, with the caveat that I'm absolutely not putting Ed "at fault" for anything here -- I'm talking about comments like that one, in general.
Everybody judges things, we on HN perhaps most of all. That's fine, it's part of our nature. However, we really need to think it over before we declare our judgement in a comment on a public forum, especially when it's likely that we aren't fully aware of the situation we're judging.
> If that's the case then my comment will not have been particularly relevant, sorry about that.
Hey man, no worries. Glad we got it sorted.
Because this is unprecedented. People are still shocked at the excessive nature of the charges. No one expected it. To expect everything to be so severe would be paranoia.
In retrospect, I wish I'd made it, and I also wish I'd said "even though I consider Aaron in the wrong, I'm still donating $5 so he knows that other people know he's alive, and I encourage those who are on his side to donate as well." Lots of donations, even if small in amount, would have at least helped him not feel alone. Depression sucks.
See the PACER incident for how that can play out when it works. And I guess the JSTOR one for when it doesn't.
Let's just imagine -- completely hypothetically, of course -- that I recently wrote a crawler specifically designed to rescue client websites from a terrible DIY website service (which might or might not be Jimdo). Let's imagine it was tuned to load Jimdo-related assets (or the assets of a similar service), fix broken code, etc.; I'm pretty sure this would have been against Jimdo's rules (or the rules of a related service, if I had done such a thing, which, surely, I did not), but let's say I did it anyway because I think it's reprehensible that they don't provide a way for their customers to export their websites.
It's possible that I could have found myself on the pointy end of an expensive lawsuit over something like this. It's possible that I would have broken some laws that I am unaware of, had I done that -- and, had I done that, it would only weaken my case further to claim foreknowledge of the laws being broken. It's likely that there are laws which could be loosely enough interpreted to make me guilty of some form of "hacking". (And it would be most certainly utterly stupid to even consider leaving a comment like this under my regular username -- if, of course, I had done such a thing. Fortunately, as HN occasionally reminds me, I'm not competent enough to have done something like this.)
But there's no way I'd ever say that I did something "wrong", and there's no way I would have asked for Jimdo's permission to do something like that. I simply knew what the rules were, and I believed it was the rules, not I, that were wrong.
Guys, aaronsw was wicked smart, he was undoubtedly at least vaguely aware of there being a Federal law covering "computer crime". It's far easier to believe that he felt he was doing the right thing despite the law than to believe he was completely unaware.
Laws and rules are written by humans. Sometimes other humans don't agree with the rules as they are currently and try to make the world a better place. Sometimes they succeed. Sometimes they fail.
Everyone has to accept the consequences. Reality doesn't allow you not to. There's no way to 'log out' of the real world; the most you can do is kill yourself, and then your suicide becomes the consequence.
Whenever someone says "accept the consequences" they mean "accept the consequences in silence", as opposed to accepting them under vocal protest and attempting to challenge them. When the consequences are unjust, accepting them in silence is acquiescing to the injustice, which only serves to perpetuate it.
Merely accepting the consequences is inevitable; accepting the consequences in silence is a choice, and it is not always the best choice.
~Ed
Sounds like Ed was a bit harsh on someone who was going through allot of trouble. The comment was excessively cruel. Not to mention it was the top comment, which must of added large dosage of salt on an already wounded soul.
So he(Ed) rightfully deserves any criticism thrown at him.
It's such a tool bag comment, Ed should apologize. Your defending such a vitriolic comment, sorry but you sound like scum.
(2) the facts as we know then today were not readily apparent back then (even to those that were actively seeking those facts)
(3) Ed has a longstanding history of compassion and care
(4) mistakes were made, but there is nobody to apologise to.
Can we please stop the mobbing? Thanks.
I was also surprised that it was the most-upvoted comment of the thread. And it also wasn't the only harsh comment in that thread. So if anyone deserves criticism, it's the Hacker News community for not showing a more compassionate side. I'd rather say it was the responsibility of the community as a whole rather than a single person.
It makes no sense to discuss if anything would be different if the HN community had responded differently to this story, but in general, giving an unsupportive collective response to someone who is down is probably not the best idea.
This is a general problem, not just for HN. The internet in the aggregate suffers from excessive binary thinking.
Everything has to be black and white, without room for colour or even shades of gray. So discussions tend to create their middle ground not by proportional movements but by jerks to +100 and -100. The more polarized the subject the stronger these reactions will be. Anything involving politics, a brush with the law, religion and so on will create those responses with a high degree of predictability.
Those who feel otherwise do not understand the U.S. Federal legal system. I would like to think Ed understood this when he wrote his original comment; I remember reading his comment at the time, and the only impression I got was that Aaron "dun goofed" and needed to skip to the part where he gets his light sentence. But that was under my assumption that even failing a jury trial with a strict judge couldn't result in more than a couple of years in prison.
> If the feds get their way you'll know exactly where to find him for the next 35 years.
I'm asking if people actually knew facts, not some tin-foil hat speculation (even if the tin-foil hat was right on the money).
See for example another comment from him at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529809
Edit:
There was nothing tinfoil about it. The indictment was publicly available, and a cursory search of news.google.com also brings up articles like this one
http://techland.time.com/2011/07/19/reddit-co-founder-aaron-...
Using upper limits only for theoretically possible court sentences is the same tactic the RIAA/MPAA uses to characterize copyright infringement damages, and it's just as much of a propaganda tactic in support of aaronsw as it is in support of those clowns.
That sounds like plenty 'major' for me. Have you been in prison? I have been in 'lock-up' for about 6 hours for the terrible crime of driving a foreign car in the Netherlands. I can tell you I did not enjoy it one little bit and the prospect of doing that 6 to 8 months would change me in ways that I would prefer not to think about. Jail is not funny, and multiple months are horrible, forget about years.
I've been in a submerged metal tube for some number of months. In many respects it's a worse environment than prison (though I can at least vouch for my fellow "inmates").
No email, no internet, no sleep, the stupid periscope watch with hydraulic oil dripping on your face.
Of course, I chose to do that. I would think that aaronsw knew that some nominal prison term would be a possibility of the choices he made, but I can only speak for myself.
I think a big difference with prison is that prison is not voluntary.
I tried to note that, but to be more clear: If you voluntarily take actions, over a long period of time, that involve the possibility of prison as a direct consequence of those actions, then I don't think you get to act completely surprised or indignant.
It's the reason I didn't complain too much (then or now) about my "plight"; as you say, I chose to be there.
Can we just say it's a good a lesson to us all?
I understand what the OP must be going through now; it'd make anybody feel miserable.
I'm pretty sure that it is.
Geez, I didn't know I just as capable of hurting people. I learned some new on HN. Of course even the dumbest person in the world know this.
What matters is that those comments were hurting someone who was only looking for help. There is a big difference between someone who responds to comments and someone who attacking someone's call for help.
"Do you know if the person you just blamed and insulted is stable and can handle it?"
If you know someone is asking for help, why would you berate them. Please get a clue and increase your social IQ.
He was asking for help, is this the type of rude comment you make when someone ask for it.
Severity wasn't conveyed, what does everything have to be explicitly spelled out for you in order to understand.
Focusing on Ed is counter-productive. What should be the topic is the harmful, negative and alienating tone that HN comments adopt. The upvotes that such comments garner show that they are not individual actions, but rather the result of community incentives.
I'd like to hear suggestions of how to cultivate useful, supportive, productive comment threads. That is, of course, if the community decides it wants to change, rather than just heaping scorn on a single instance of a systematic problem.
You say this as if it was the fault of the poster. Why did HN in general not upvote another, more positive comment? WTF kind of witch hunt is this even? I don't like the comment either, but cut it out, all of you.
And now we see the consequences of our society's sexism.
Nobody tells women to "man up".
Fuck sexism though.
Well, the difference between "woman up" and "man up" is that, for men, showing emotion is a sign of weakness, so "man up" means "don't show emotion". That's a very dangerous thing to tell people who have serious emotional problems.
I think there is a strong taboo against men appearing out of control of themselves or their situation. But that's not really gendered: when women appear out of control, we label them "crazy bitches".
Exactly. This applied to Aaron asking for help he badly needed for his legal fund. This did not apply to Larry or Cory. They may have been sad or angry, but they were not personally scared, threatened, unable to fund their own legal defenses, etc., so they did not violate the taboo. Their posts were more along the lines of a father mourning a lost son. Emotion is expected there.
Which is why berating someone with gendered terms is pretty futile, it encourages people to clam up and compartmentalize unhealthily.
And this is why I hate the term "patriarchy" in this context: It implies men always get the best of it, there are no downsides for males, and therefore we should be dismissive of male problems.
I know this isn't what academic feminists think. It is, however, what a disturbing number of people who call themselves feminists out in the real world apparently believe.
Feminism benefits men as well. Patriarchy DOES exist to the detriment to men, your anger is misapplied.
It depends on how it's applied, doesn't it?
> Patriarchy DOES exist to the detriment to men
Thank you for restating my point.
> your anger is misapplied.
How? I don't understand how my anger is misapplied here.
Destroying systems of entrenched privilege may not be viewed as beneficial by all men that cling to these systems, no. But equality does provide for a healthier system, if one appreciates women healthy in mind and body.
Harping on straw "Feminists" won't improve our situation.
As I stated, it does by lessening strict gender roles.
But that's also true of looking at gender equality from the male perspective, yet whenever someone attempts that the old MRA strawman stereotypes get thrown around.
Generally, it's because MRAs tend to find gains for women zero-sum. There are issues with regards to divorce, child support, and custody that can be discussed, but all these can be addressed as a feminist and do not require "masculinism" as some sort of a counter. There is a difference between discussion of gender and the movement's adherents.
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/br...
Like I said, there's no need to craft Straw Feminists from whole cloth. Make your points without these fabrications.
I'm not lying and your need to claim I am damages your case.
An example from Reddit, which is very much the non-academic Real World I've been talking about:
ImaLamer:
> As someone who was raped by a woman, while drinking, something you've put full responsibility on her for in other comments, you quickly dismissed my feelings and the impact this has in my life. It was not statistically significant for you to care. So much so you took it as an opportunity to further bash men as a class.
Saganomics:
> Well ladies and gentleman, that's what Men's Rights thinks. There you have it.
http://www.reddit.com/r/sex/comments/168bwu/you_guys_may_hav...
The claim of ImaLamer's post being edited afterwords is difficult to take seriously: Edited posts are marked with an asterisk, which is not present on ImaLamer's post. Also, Saganomics' post happened long after the very brief window when you can edit without an asterisk appearing.
Seeing as they did not state what you claim that they did, you still lack for example.
The stereotypical MRA does.
> There are issues with regards to divorce, child support, and custody that can be discussed, but all these can be addressed as a feminist and do not require "masculinism" as some sort of a counter.
Your experience might be different than mine. In my experience, any mention of the idea that men can be raped by women, for example, gets shouted down by 'feminists' (you can take that label as you will) as 'hijacking' the 'real' discussion, which is solely about men raping women. Men being raped by men is, at best, a side-show to that discussion. Women being raped by women is similarly absent as a topic.
Mentioning they exist is not the same as harping on them.
And this points out an asymmetry: Whenever a man focuses on the male perspective of gender equality, people drag out the 'MRA' stereotype. While the stereotypical MRA exists, that stereotype is no more relevant to the issue than the stereotypical straw feminist is relevant to the female perspective of gender equality. Yet, online, in the real world outside of the academy, that MRA stereotype is in constant use.
> Destroying systems of entrenched privilege may not be viewed as beneficial by all men that cling to these systems
And this is an example. It states that gender equality from the female perspective is automatically equivalent to "Destroying systems of entrenched privilege", which is a courtesy not given to the male perspective on the same concepts.
This asymmetry is divisive and serves to perpetuate the pointless hatred that keeps equality from being realized.
Maybe you missed my general sentiment: Fuck sexism though. I think you and I are talking at cross purposes.
"Aaron should man up, take responsibility for his actions, and pay his own bills."
This sounds a lot like "screw you, what you did is wrong, and you should quit whining about it."
"man up" clearly implies that Ed Weissman feels that going up against the massive US justice system to allow people without university affiliation or piles of cash to read publicly funded scientific research is an immature act.
As someone who has been blocked in the past from doing research because of lack of funds to pay the journals, this attitude disgusts me.
EDIT: Let me be absolutely clear that I am not implying that Ed had any blame in what happened or anything ridiculous like that. What I find objectionable in his commentary is his cavalier attitude towards the heavyhanded prosecution of those trying to make publicly funded research publicly available. This suggests a very elitist attitude towards the distribution of valuable public research.