he literally broke into databases and stole the entire contents of all scientific journals with intention to release it all
Fwiw his legal defense rested on evidence that he intended to do a meta-analysis of climate change data to see if it was being suppressed compared to other subjects. But that could have easily been a cover. It’s not like he hadn’t made data public before either.
Either way, I would have followed Aaron to the ends of cyberspace. RIP, comrade
I believe he was everything that made reddit a success in its earlier years. Things like the massive anti-SOPA campaign absolutely would not happen today, it was clearly driven by him.
Early relationships with moderators, the real community that reddit had back then, the fostering of relationships and so on.. All Swartz in my opinion. Certainly some missteps with the free speech absolutism that led to reddit's early pedo controversies, but he was a half lib half ancap with real beliefs that were clearly connected to when the internet was COOL and run by pirates. 🏴☠️ He would have continued down that path.
Reddit would be completely fucking different today.
It's kind of wild to think of what Reddit might have become if he radicalised over the years and the reddit CEO became a tankie or some shit.
The site would have continued on a trajectory of very tech stuff I think, with a big focus on open source. Reddit wouldn't have gone closed. Reddit wouldn't have bent the knee on piracy issues. It would have got very heavily involved in social justice movements as well. This would have trended it towards loud and proud support of BLM, and within that massive radicalisations could have occurred. Antiwork coup by liberals would have been supported by admins rather than largely ignored. Admins would probably still have a communicative relationship with moderators instead of the Kafka-esque opaque rules and radio silence.
I suspect they would have shut down Reddit if it started heading in that direction. Or it would have just become another Slashdot, maybe with a more explicitly "left" bent.
I feel like retribution would have come no matter what. It's wild that he was suicided, but I guarantee if he had not flown that close to the sun that early, some other less dramatic shit would have gone down down the line. There is just no scenario where reddit blooms into a tankie site without getting coup'd or made irrelevant somehow. He's just one guy.
Honestly best case scenario here would be that he starts a podcast or something
Fwiw his legal defense rested on evidence that he intended to do a meta-analysis of climate change data to see if it was being suppressed compared to other subjects. But that could have easily been a cover. It’s not like he hadn’t made data public before either.
Either way, I would have followed Aaron to the ends of cyberspace. RIP, comrade
I believe he was everything that made reddit a success in its earlier years. Things like the massive anti-SOPA campaign absolutely would not happen today, it was clearly driven by him.
Early relationships with moderators, the real community that reddit had back then, the fostering of relationships and so on.. All Swartz in my opinion. Certainly some missteps with the free speech absolutism that led to reddit's early pedo controversies, but he was a half lib half ancap with real beliefs that were clearly connected to when the internet was COOL and run by pirates. 🏴☠️ He would have continued down that path.
Reddit would be completely fucking different today.
Damn. Just realized, was Aaron Schwartz the seed of all my current political views? Shit
It's kind of wild to think of what Reddit might have become if he radicalised over the years and the reddit CEO became a tankie or some shit.
The site would have continued on a trajectory of very tech stuff I think, with a big focus on open source. Reddit wouldn't have gone closed. Reddit wouldn't have bent the knee on piracy issues. It would have got very heavily involved in social justice movements as well. This would have trended it towards loud and proud support of BLM, and within that massive radicalisations could have occurred. Antiwork coup by liberals would have been supported by admins rather than largely ignored. Admins would probably still have a communicative relationship with moderators instead of the Kafka-esque opaque rules and radio silence.
I suspect they would have shut down Reddit if it started heading in that direction. Or it would have just become another Slashdot, maybe with a more explicitly "left" bent.
Or it becomes marginalized and instead of having to build Hexber, we'll just stick around at Reddit: the internet's tankie homepage.
Still would have been full of pedophiles, though.
Oh definitely. No undoing that early mistake.
I feel like retribution would have come no matter what. It's wild that he was suicided, but I guarantee if he had not flown that close to the sun that early, some other less dramatic shit would have gone down down the line. There is just no scenario where reddit blooms into a tankie site without getting coup'd or made irrelevant somehow. He's just one guy.
Honestly best case scenario here would be that he starts a podcast or something
Also MarkDown.