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Never forgive MIT
by danharaj 8y ago
Never forgive MIT
- mymythisisthis 8y agoLet's not forget Popcorn Sutton as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glQjCKAI4gA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glQjCKAI4gA he shared a similar fate. Kindred spirits.
- ryanmercer 8y agoI'm not defending the government (since controlled buys are entrapment in my book and should be illegal) with Popcorn but there's a pretty big difference here. Aaron Swartz = a very questionable "breaking and entering" charge and some computer "crimes". Otherwise, publicly, an extremely upstanding member of society. Popcorn Sutton = very very very openly an illegal distiller, and seller, of untested/unreglated alcohol that he self-documented via video and distributed the video as well as a self-published manual. Had multiple arrests and convictions over the years for the alcohol production, drug charges, assault with a deadly weapon. He was then arrested for trying to sell to an undercover officer while illegally possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. Popcorn illegally distilled alcohol for at LEAST 35 years.
- Kinnard 8y agoSo he did things that were illegal but not wrong?
- malcolmgreaves 8y agoMorally wrong to sell untested and unregulated drugs. Alcohol kills. To me, doesn't sound like this guy was at all on the same level of soft law breaking as Mr. Schwartz. Do you believe this distiller's actions to be just and moral? Are you opposed to laws or something?
- Kinnard 8y agoI am an anarchist actually: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist I do not believe it is wrong to sell "drugs" without government intervention
- ryanmercer 8y agoPopcorn? Popcorn sold potentially dangerous alcohol, drugs, almost certainly was guilty of tax evasion spanning multiple decades, was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon. Bootleggers aren't 'innocent'. They're extremely territorial up to the point of property destruction and even murder. They evade alcohol taxation, they often don't report the income from their sales (because, well, duh they don't want more attention). In some instances they are often involved in narcotic/meth/marijuana/heroin trafficking, sometimes have gang affiliations, have murdered law enforcement officers, etc. Popcorn was convicted, and served time, for some of those offenses decades before his last arrest and continued to carry on with his illegal activity. If you think selling potentially toxic alcohol, tax evasion, drug dealing and violent assault are absolutely 'wrong'. Those are the things we KNOW he did. His last arrest, in my opinion the alcohol charge should have been dropped as entrapment, but he was a felon in possession of a firearm which is a crime (and a sensible one, given his prior conviction of assault with a deadly weapon) and he should have been fully on the hook for that. It's unfortunate he felt the need to take his life but his case is in no way similar to that of Aaron Swartz. Aaron made a bad decision and did a largely digital crime, Popcorn was overtly a career criminal.
- Kinnard 8y agoNot equating the two. I don't know Popcorns case in detail but if the assault you listed was in self-defense every thing you list is illegal but not wrong. All alcohol is toxic. Exchange and consumption are consensual, that's what matters.
- roywiggins 8y ago> All alcohol is toxic all alcohol is toxic but sometimes your alcohol is actually accidentally methanol and then you die now, not later https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-33224514 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-33224514
- fulafel 8y agoThere was also a headline today about a tomato rice-related death toll in India... (https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-india-46573273 https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-india-46573273) As long as you ignest methanol with enough ethanol mixed in, it's not lethal. You would have to separately capture the small amount of stuff coming out before the "heads" to make deadly methanol. Soundslike this could happen only if you make an industrial quantity batch, and are completely reckless about the basics.
- jstanley 8y agoIt's not just MIT. The prosecutors are really the ones to blame.
- RKearney 8y agoAnd let’s not forget he killed himself before any kind of sentence was given. For all we know he could have been found innocent. And he physically broke into an IDF at MIT to do this.
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago> And let’s not forget he killed himself before any kind of sentence was given. For all we know he could have been found innocent. He was hounded to death by a prosecutor. The fact that the prosecutor lied to him is hardly a defense.
- ryanlol 8y agoIt's shocking how many people on HN seem to assume that Swartz was an idiot. He had good legal representation and it couldn't have been as easy to mislead him as people here keep suggesting.
- PhasmaFelis 8y agoSo, what, he killed himself to cynically manipulate public opinion?
- ryanlol 8y agoI simply don't find it very realistic that he killed himself over the possibility of spending 6 months in prison.
- PhasmaFelis 8y agoHe was threatened with prison and then he killed himself. I doubt it was the only factor, but you'll need some sort of compelling evidence to argue that it wasn't the main factor.
- ashelmire 8y agoMIT and Carmen Ortiz share responsibility for the death of Aaron Schwartz. Threatening the guy with life in prison for downloading academic journals? It's absurd. Never forgive either, let it haunt them wherever they go.
- oh_sigh 8y agoCome on...what they did was shitty, but Aaron killed himself because he was depressed and suffered frequently from suicidal ideation, literally for years before he even stepped foot into MIT.
- 1000units 8y agoHe killed himself because he was threatened with life in prison. He may have been particularly vulnerable to these threats, but that only makes them worse. If they had just called him mean names, maybe you'd have a point.
- oh_sigh 8y agoNo, he killed himself because he was depressed and had suicidal thoughts. > Swartz declined a plea bargain under which he would have served six months in federal prison. Two days after the prosecution rejected a counter-offer by Swartz, he was found dead in his Brooklyn apartment, where he had hanged himself.[15][16] So, he was facing potentially 6 months in prison. He rejected that, and then killed himself.
- 1000units 8y agoWhy do none of the words "plea", "bargain", "six", or "months" appear anywhere in [15] and [16]?
- oh_sigh 8y agoI don't know, but it is reported on elsewhere, for example: https://www.boston.com/uncategorized/noprimarytagmatch/2013/01/14/mit-hacking-case-lawyer-says-aaron-swartz-was-offered-plea-deal-of-six-months-behind-bars https://www.boston.com/uncategorized/noprimarytagmatch/2013/...
- y-c-o-m-b 8y agoWho at MIT? We need to start attaching responsibility to actual individuals and not just the organizations they belong to.
- danharaj 8y agoIndividuals can't do things like this without an organization.
- mLuby 8y agoIf an organization murders someone, who serves the punishment? You can't put an organization in prison, though you could shut it down for a period of years. Or you assign guilt to specific people and put them in prison. We've got to get better at "piercing the corporate veil."
- claudiawerner 8y agoThere's somewhat of a breakdown between responsibility and criminal liability, and you've jumped from one to the other. The original comment was talking about responsibility, and in this sense, an organisation's internal practices, accepted behaviours etc. all share significantly in the responsibility. Often responsibility really is impersonal. On the other hand, the substance of your comment points to the fact that criminal law is served on an individual basis, and perhaps that's a good thing. It is, however, ignorant at best if we stop discussion completely at the point where an individual is put in prison for something they did on behalf of the organisation, or due to organisation policy etc. since part of the justice system is deterrence, the organisation itself should be factored into that calculation. Various mafias are also organisations, but that's a much easier case than this - shut down a mafia by taking the heads of the organisation. That works because it's not "just business". But in the case of MIT I have a strong feeling that if there is such a systemic issue as other commenters are hinting towards, it won't be so easy to be rid of it by putting the person in top position in prison. Such a person is the appearance, not the essence.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- joemi 8y agoAlso never forget what depression does to a person.
- coldtea 8y agoMillions suffer with depression and don't kill themselves. No reason to whitewash an organization that didn't support its supposed principles.