As for the dripping with egotism bit, that is an interesting problem. I probably would have sounded like that too at his age, but back in the pre-Web era there was no way for anyone to read what most 20 year olds wrote. Now that people can start publishing so much younger, we'll have to learn to be more tolerant of various flaws of youth.
Maybe he needs someone with more life experience who is experienced at writing for the web to advise him on how not to "drip" his egotism quite so much while still communicating his point. Maybe even someone with a past business relationship with Aaron who he might respect.
Not to name names or anything. :)
I wonder what Swartz will be like when he's 40.
this is like the movie idiocracy where luke wilson gets called "faggy" because he has a command of the english language.
i think pg defends him so (puts him into yc, puts him in reddit etc..) because aaron has a good balance of intelligence and doing things well. he's a good weapon for anything intellectual.
(From http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html)
I wonder what the reddit guys think of aaronsw.
Submitted for evidence.
"And what did he talk about? A screwup by a restaurant he went to. And how the host worked hard, overhard even, to pacify him about it."
...
"Cooling out marks is how institutions persuade people to accept things they think are wrong. The con-man convinces you getting stolen from is OK. Your job convinces you it's OK that they're corrupt. The restaurant persuades you it's OK that they're incompetent."
So, if someone at a restaurant makes some kind of mistake, and the host works hard to make it right, it is important to not forgive them and go on holding a grudge, because that would just make you "the mark". I think that's the moral he's putting forth here.
And furthermore, you should hold the same kind of grudges against inanimate entities, like "the economy".
"Did the economy cheat you, fire you, stick you in some crappy job with a crabby boss? Listen, the motivational speaker explains, it's not the economy's fault."
So, remember, the Economy is out to get you! I don't even know what this means. Corporate CEOs, sure. Congress and the President, sure. Illegal immigrants, I suppose you could argue a case there if you really wanted to. But anthropomorphizing the economy seems a little off, to me.
Obviously, Aaron is a guy with high intelligence and substantial skill. He played a part in a successful company at a very early age, has contributed some highly praised source code to the open source community, and is still ambitious, idealistic and involved in a lot of things. But reading his blog makes me think he's also a little wacky.
But, as pg pointed out, thank God I didn't have a blog that the entire world could read when I was in my early 20s!
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/decenttodo
How to write software that people want is something Aaron knows about and he expresses himself well on that topic.
a) Somebody anonymously and publicly calls you names in plausible-seeming ways that others will read.
b) Somebody publicly claims to be better than everybody, including you the reader. Everybody reads him.
It's pretty clear that a is more damaging. Even if it goes out to fewer people. It is fallacious to reason that it's not so bad because it is hurting one person rather than many. On the one hand generality dilutes criticism. On the other the effects of libel can be greatly non-linear in who reads them, and when.
I don't think his projects are bad or anything, but his writing just drips of egotism that makes him a great target for attack.