= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Will_Sawin comments on Self-skepticism: the first principle of rationality - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (105)
Some of which are quite dangerous. Either the JSTOR or PACER incidents could have killed any associated small nonprofit with legal bills. (JSTOR's annual revenue is something like 53x that of SIAI.)
As fun as it is to watch Swartz's activities (from a safe distance), I would not want such antics conducted on a website I enjoy reading and would like to see continue.
What are the JSTOR and PACER incidents?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#Controversies
I don't think it's fair - I think it's a bit motivated - to mention these as mysterious controversies and antics, without also mentioning that his actions could reasonably be interpreted as heroic. I was applauding when I read the JSTOR incident, and only wish he'd gotten away with downloading the whole thing and distributing it.
I agree they were heroic and good things, and I was disgusted when I looked into JSTOR's financial filings (not that I was happy with the WMF either).
But there's a difference between admiring the first penguin off the ice and noting that this is a good thing to do, and wanting to be that penguin or near enough that penguin that one might fall off as well. And this is especially true for organizations.
Even if so, one should still at least mention, in a debate on character, that the controversy in question just happened to be about an attempted heroic good deed.