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Reading this I kept shaking my head and thinking "what a sad little boy/man." Everything about his life makes me cringe: the awkward adolescent photos, his grav

Reading this I kept shaking my head and thinking "what a sad little boy/man." Everything about his life makes me cringe: the awkward adolescent photos, his gravitation towards adult "friends," his dependence on a largely analytical basis for relationships and connections, the endless dissatisfaction and detachment, the fruitless big dreams, the inability to focus and work on one objective, the recklessness, the grueling self-analysis and self-exposition, the anger and the impotence... I think, from reading this, that Aaron was a person with something missing inside of him. To compensate, he tried to change everything around him - everything but himself. People like that have poor odds in life. When the world resists their efforts and they are forced to acknowledge the limits of their agency, their big dreams of quick change come crashing down. They can find themselves with little to retreat to in the aftermath.

stretchwithme 14y ago
I'm sure a lot of this is true, but some of it seems like you're casting him in a much more negative light than is fair. He did accomplish some things. I don't think he had something missing inside of him. I think he had some mistaken beliefs but probably would have figured those out eventually if he hadn't taken such a radical step.
etherael 14y ago
It sounds like you're disappointed in him for not succumbing to aspects of the modern world which could fairly be described as diseases. I understand this is a widespread and basically normal opinion, but I don't understand how people can hold it without being aware of how subjective and ridiculous it is. It would be like going back to the time of Galileo and Giordano Bruno and commenting how sad it was that they couldn't just make nice with the powers that be and toe the line like everyone around them, and how much more fulfilled and happy they would have been if that were the case. The world needed changing then, and it needs it now. To ignore this is to totally miss the point of this entire episode.
- corporalagumbo 14y ago
  Disappointed? Huh? What are you talking about? Aaron was unhappy his entire life. He behaved recklessly, attracted criminal prosecution, and capped it all of by killing himself. Do you find that noble? I don't. I think he failed: failed to see the world realistically, failed to direct his thoughts and energies in a constructive manner, and failed to achieve much of anything. He puffed himself up and charged into something that didn't budge, and then he lost control. That's not noble to me at all. Just sad. As for: >aspects of the modern world which could fairly be described as diseases. Can you elaborate? (And do you mean that these aspects behave similarly to pathological infections in organisms or to epidemiological dynamics among populations?) And >Galileo Bad comparison. Galileo was explicitly ordered by the Catholic Church not to "hold or defend" the Copernican system. I.e. the dominant social power of that time and place decided they didn't like the concept, and they suppressed efforts to discuss and spread it. When Galileo edged around the constraint, they clamped down even harder. It was a clear cut case of a social power deciding to restrict free speech to prevent an idea from even being thought about. In contrast, there is no dominant social power in modern times. No one is in even a remotely comparable position in 2013 to suppress ideas. You and I are free to discuss copyright liberation or whatever we want. Aaron was free to write blogs, tracts, hand out pamphlets, send letters to politicians, make websites, etc etc etc. No one suppressed him in any of those activities. It is only when he crossed the line into illegal behaviour that he was prosecuted - according to open, democratically-developed laws and prosecutorial guidelines - all subject to normal processes of democratic oversight. >The world needed changing then, and it needs it now. Dangerous language in my opinion. Nothing "needs" anything. Deciding that the world "needs" changing means you set up a very rigid condition for success. And this is what I think happened with Aaron: inevitably people who think the world needs changing run into roadblocks, which their rigidity does not prepare them for. Then, failing to make the changes they believe are necessary, they fail to meet their rigid victory condition - and because of its rigidity, they fail, in their own opinion, absolutely. Which is devastating, and in Aaron's case, seems to have pushed him past his limits. A healthier perspective is that the world might be better with some tweaks - but it will probably never be perfect, and you should accept that you might not be able to do everything you want - and so on and so on. Aaron could have done with a bit of that perspective I reckon. How about you? As far as I'm concerned, all of Aaron's convictions and all of the bickering about the technicalities of the case are red herrings here. The fact that so many people haven't stopped to think harder about all this, and have instead jumped on the instant rage bandwagon is one of, if not THE real issue, I think. It speaks to a real trend of snap-judgement reactionary groupthink, which seems to be prevalent in contemporary internet culture. The angry people yelling about democracy and shouting dissidents down are the real danger to open society.
benwikler 14y ago
"he tried to change everything around him - everything but himself." Read his last big piece of writing: the series Raw Nerve, which he called "a series of pieces about getting better at life." He was trying to change himself. And he was making headway. And then not. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/rawnerve http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/rawnerve

stretchwithme 14y ago

I'm sure a lot of this is true, but some of it seems like you're casting him in a much more negative light than is fair. He did accomplish some things. I don't think he had something missing inside of him. I think he had some mistaken beliefs but probably would have figured those out eventually if he hadn't taken such a radical step.

etherael 14y ago

It sounds like you're disappointed in him for not succumbing to aspects of the modern world which could fairly be described as diseases. I understand this is a widespread and basically normal opinion, but I don't understand how people can hold it without being aware of how subjective and ridiculous it is. It would be like going back to the time of Galileo and Giordano Bruno and commenting how sad it was that they couldn't just make nice with the powers that be and toe the line like everyone around them, and how much more fulfilled and happy they would have been if that were the case. The world needed changing then, and it needs it now. To ignore this is to totally miss the point of this entire episode.

corporalagumbo 14y ago
Disappointed? Huh? What are you talking about? Aaron was unhappy his entire life. He behaved recklessly, attracted criminal prosecution, and capped it all of by killing himself. Do you find that noble? I don't. I think he failed: failed to see the world realistically, failed to direct his thoughts and energies in a constructive manner, and failed to achieve much of anything. He puffed himself up and charged into something that didn't budge, and then he lost control. That's not noble to me at all. Just sad. As for: >aspects of the modern world which could fairly be described as diseases. Can you elaborate? (And do you mean that these aspects behave similarly to pathological infections in organisms or to epidemiological dynamics among populations?) And >Galileo Bad comparison. Galileo was explicitly ordered by the Catholic Church not to "hold or defend" the Copernican system. I.e. the dominant social power of that time and place decided they didn't like the concept, and they suppressed efforts to discuss and spread it. When Galileo edged around the constraint, they clamped down even harder. It was a clear cut case of a social power deciding to restrict free speech to prevent an idea from even being thought about. In contrast, there is no dominant social power in modern times. No one is in even a remotely comparable position in 2013 to suppress ideas. You and I are free to discuss copyright liberation or whatever we want. Aaron was free to write blogs, tracts, hand out pamphlets, send letters to politicians, make websites, etc etc etc. No one suppressed him in any of those activities. It is only when he crossed the line into illegal behaviour that he was prosecuted - according to open, democratically-developed laws and prosecutorial guidelines - all subject to normal processes of democratic oversight. >The world needed changing then, and it needs it now. Dangerous language in my opinion. Nothing "needs" anything. Deciding that the world "needs" changing means you set up a very rigid condition for success. And this is what I think happened with Aaron: inevitably people who think the world needs changing run into roadblocks, which their rigidity does not prepare them for. Then, failing to make the changes they believe are necessary, they fail to meet their rigid victory condition - and because of its rigidity, they fail, in their own opinion, absolutely. Which is devastating, and in Aaron's case, seems to have pushed him past his limits. A healthier perspective is that the world might be better with some tweaks - but it will probably never be perfect, and you should accept that you might not be able to do everything you want - and so on and so on. Aaron could have done with a bit of that perspective I reckon. How about you? As far as I'm concerned, all of Aaron's convictions and all of the bickering about the technicalities of the case are red herrings here. The fact that so many people haven't stopped to think harder about all this, and have instead jumped on the instant rage bandwagon is one of, if not THE real issue, I think. It speaks to a real trend of snap-judgement reactionary groupthink, which seems to be prevalent in contemporary internet culture. The angry people yelling about democracy and shouting dissidents down are the real danger to open society.

benwikler 14y ago

"he tried to change everything around him - everything but himself." Read his last big piece of writing: the series Raw Nerve, which he called "a series of pieces about getting better at life." He was trying to change himself. And he was making headway. And then not. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/rawnerve http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/rawnerve