7 ms·

"Aaron should man up, take responsibility for his actions, and pay his own bills." ~Ed Sounds like Ed was a bit harsh on someone who was going through allot o

"Aaron should man up, take responsibility for his actions, and pay his own bills." ~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.

jacquesm 14y ago
(1) hindsight is 20-20 (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.
- geoka9 14y ago
  > Can we please stop the mobbing? Thanks. 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.
  - jacquesm 14y ago
    > Can we just say it's a good a lesson to us all? I'm pretty sure that it is.
    - irollboozers 14y ago
      How do we make sure we remember all the lessons in this? Are these just growing pains of the internet as a whole, or are we fated to relapse the next time it happens again?
- JohnsonB 14y ago
  The feds going after a 20-something idealistic activist, who we all knew was completely harmless, and hadn't committed a real crime? That can't be anything other than a severe and cruel abuse of power. I'm sorry but enough information was known at the time to conclude what was going on.
  - RegEx 14y ago
    What information? I'd legitimately appreciate links/sources of the situation's severity other than hindsight.
    - cstejerean 14y ago
      It didn't help that the people trying to shed light on the severity of the situation were met with comments like http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529716 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529716
      - RegEx 14y ago
        That comment was in reply to > 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).
        cstejerean 14y ago
        tptacek didn't appear to question Aaron facing 35 years in jail, he was simply stating that actually "spending" that time in jail is unlikely. See for example another comment from him at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529809 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-swartz-indicted-for-data-theft-could-face-35-years-in-prison/ http://techland.time.com/2011/07/19/reddit-co-founder-aaron-...
- tmoertel 14y ago
  Hindsight is not merely 20-20 but prevents us from seeing the past as it truly appeared. Because we cannot unknow what we now know, the mind's eye is an unreliable witness.
- marvin 14y ago
  I really respect Ed Weissman's contributions and knowledge, so this is not meant as any type of personal attack. But I was thinking back when I read this comment four months ago that it seemed unusually harsh for someone who was facing 35 years in prison for something that _might_ deserve a slap on the wrist. So it's not all hindsight. 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.
  - jacquesm 14y ago
    > So if anyone deserves criticism, it's the Hacker News community for not showing a more compassionate side. 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.
  - mpyne 14y ago
    Aaron was never, even in our most paranoid fantasies revealed true with this case, in danger of actually spending 35 years in prison for this case. 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.
- thosegivenmuch 14y ago
  and this time he didn't. really. Mobbing and calling out bullshit are not necessarily the same thing.
- doe88 14y ago
  Exactly we should not mobbing on to Ed. We all make harsh comments sometimes at one point or another. We should only try to keep all this as a remainder that sometimes it's better not to make a comment than a comment too negative when it's made on a person and that it may affect him personally.
saraid216 14y ago
And you'd never say something like that yourself, amirite?
RegEx 14y ago
And you sound like a drama queen. The severity was not conveyed. According to HN users in this thread, it couldn't be for whatever reasons. We didn't know the extent of the trouble. Sure, he was rude, and I don't like it when people are rude, but some people in this thread are making it sound like he pulled the fucking trigger. Give it a rest.
- django34211 14y ago
  Why don't you "man up" and acknowledge, the comment was not only very distasteful, but extremely vitriolic and damaging for someone who was asking for help. 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.
  - RegEx 14y ago
    You're too emotional to ration with. I hope you stop displacing anger in every which way.
    - thosegivenmuch 14y ago
      Wow, thats a useful comment, given you have no idea what the op's state of mind actually is and for the record its "reason with" not "ration with"
- thosegivenmuch 14y ago
  Give it a rest yourself. He publicly heaped scorn on Aaron collecting money to defend himself. Not really a stretch to say he contributed to someones isolation. And saying "he pulled the fucking trigger" is grotesque.
baak 14y ago
You're just as capable of hurting people. Maybe you just pushed someone over the edge by calling them scum. Tomorrow, will I get to call you names and talk about how your comment was excessively cruel and vitriolic? Do you know if the person you just blamed and insulted is stable and can handle it?
- django34211 14y ago
  Your logic makes no sense. 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.
  - baak 14y ago
    No. The difference between your comment and his is hindsight. Well, that and that his comment had some thought behind it. You are just as nasty with your commments and have absolutely no shame because you're anonymous.
    - fermule 14y ago
      You don't get it. It is rude to say such things when some is asking for help. Use your brain and think about it for one second.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
neumann_alfred 14y ago
Not to mention it was the top comment 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.
roguecoder 14y ago
Ed commented in the general tone of HN. His comment was unexceptional, except that later events called it out as such. 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.

jacquesm 14y ago

(1) hindsight is 20-20 (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.

geoka9 14y ago
> Can we please stop the mobbing? Thanks. 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.
- jacquesm 14y ago
  > Can we just say it's a good a lesson to us all? I'm pretty sure that it is.
  - irollboozers 14y ago
    How do we make sure we remember all the lessons in this? Are these just growing pains of the internet as a whole, or are we fated to relapse the next time it happens again?
JohnsonB 14y ago
The feds going after a 20-something idealistic activist, who we all knew was completely harmless, and hadn't committed a real crime? That can't be anything other than a severe and cruel abuse of power. I'm sorry but enough information was known at the time to conclude what was going on.
- RegEx 14y ago
  What information? I'd legitimately appreciate links/sources of the situation's severity other than hindsight.
  - cstejerean 14y ago
    It didn't help that the people trying to shed light on the severity of the situation were met with comments like http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529716 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529716
    - RegEx 14y ago
      That comment was in reply to > 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).
      - cstejerean 14y ago
        tptacek didn't appear to question Aaron facing 35 years in jail, he was simply stating that actually "spending" that time in jail is unlikely. See for example another comment from him at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529809 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-swartz-indicted-for-data-theft-could-face-35-years-in-prison/ http://techland.time.com/2011/07/19/reddit-co-founder-aaron-...
tmoertel 14y ago
Hindsight is not merely 20-20 but prevents us from seeing the past as it truly appeared. Because we cannot unknow what we now know, the mind's eye is an unreliable witness.
marvin 14y ago
I really respect Ed Weissman's contributions and knowledge, so this is not meant as any type of personal attack. But I was thinking back when I read this comment four months ago that it seemed unusually harsh for someone who was facing 35 years in prison for something that _might_ deserve a slap on the wrist. So it's not all hindsight. 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.
- jacquesm 14y ago
  > So if anyone deserves criticism, it's the Hacker News community for not showing a more compassionate side. 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.
- mpyne 14y ago
  Aaron was never, even in our most paranoid fantasies revealed true with this case, in danger of actually spending 35 years in prison for this case. 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.
thosegivenmuch 14y ago
and this time he didn't. really. Mobbing and calling out bullshit are not necessarily the same thing.
doe88 14y ago
Exactly we should not mobbing on to Ed. We all make harsh comments sometimes at one point or another. We should only try to keep all this as a remainder that sometimes it's better not to make a comment than a comment too negative when it's made on a person and that it may affect him personally.

saraid216 14y ago

And you'd never say something like that yourself, amirite?

RegEx 14y ago

And you sound like a drama queen. The severity was not conveyed. According to HN users in this thread, it couldn't be for whatever reasons. We didn't know the extent of the trouble. Sure, he was rude, and I don't like it when people are rude, but some people in this thread are making it sound like he pulled the fucking trigger. Give it a rest.

django34211 14y ago
Why don't you "man up" and acknowledge, the comment was not only very distasteful, but extremely vitriolic and damaging for someone who was asking for help. 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.
- RegEx 14y ago
  You're too emotional to ration with. I hope you stop displacing anger in every which way.
  - thosegivenmuch 14y ago
    Wow, thats a useful comment, given you have no idea what the op's state of mind actually is and for the record its "reason with" not "ration with"
thosegivenmuch 14y ago
Give it a rest yourself. He publicly heaped scorn on Aaron collecting money to defend himself. Not really a stretch to say he contributed to someones isolation. And saying "he pulled the fucking trigger" is grotesque.

baak 14y ago

You're just as capable of hurting people. Maybe you just pushed someone over the edge by calling them scum. Tomorrow, will I get to call you names and talk about how your comment was excessively cruel and vitriolic? Do you know if the person you just blamed and insulted is stable and can handle it?

django34211 14y ago
Your logic makes no sense. 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.
- baak 14y ago
  No. The difference between your comment and his is hindsight. Well, that and that his comment had some thought behind it. You are just as nasty with your commments and have absolutely no shame because you're anonymous.
  - fermule 14y ago
    You don't get it. It is rude to say such things when some is asking for help. Use your brain and think about it for one second.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

neumann_alfred 14y ago

Not to mention it was the top comment 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.

roguecoder 14y ago

Ed commented in the general tone of HN. His comment was unexceptional, except that later events called it out as such. 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.