The Boy Who Could Change the World. “One of the minor puzzles of American life is what question to ask people at parties and suchly to get to know them,” a nineteen-year-old Aaron Swartz wrote in 2006. “‘How ya doin’?’ Is of course mere formality, only the most troubled would answer honestly for anything but the positive. […] ‘What do you do?’
Is somewhat offensive.” Aaron walks through various other options—“Where are you from?” I propose instead that one ask “What have you been thinking about lately?” Like a lot of Aaron’s ideas, what makes his conversation-starter useful is that it brings out the best in others. Aaron was a programmer, activist, entrepreneur, community builder, and a dear friend of EFF. Many of Aaron’s writings have now been elegantly collected in The Boy Who Could Change the World: The Writings of Aaron Swartz. Today, on the third anniversary of his death, let’s take a moment to celebrate Aaron’s life by reflecting on a few of his words. “It’s the Outsiders Who Provide Nearly All of the Content”
Aaron Swartz. Aaron Hillel Swartz (November 8, 1986 – January 11, 2013) was an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, writer, political organizer and Internet hacktivist who was involved in the development of the web feed format RSS[3] and the Markdown publishing format,[4] the organization Creative Commons,[5] the website framework web.py[6] and the social news site, Reddit, in which he became a partner after its merger with his company, Infogami. [i] He committed suicide while under federal indictment for data-theft, a prosecution that was characterized by his family as being "the product of a criminal-justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach".[7] Swartz's work also focused on sociology, civic awareness and activism.[8][9] He helped launch the Progressive Change Campaign Committee in 2009 to learn more about effective online activism.
Swartz declined a plea bargain under which he would have served six months in federal prison. Life and works[edit] W3C[edit] Markdown[edit] Aaron Swartz. Full text of "Guerilla Open Access Manifesto" Guerilla Open Access Manifesto Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves. The world's entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the sciences? You'll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier. There are those struggling to change this.
The Life and Afterlife of Aaron Swartz. Years before he hanged himself in his Crown Heights apartment, the hacker, writer, and activist Aaron Swartz used to debate with his then-girlfriend Quinn Norton whether the Internet would mourn him if he died. It was Swartz’s stubborn belief that no one would notice or care if he died young, as he often thought he was fated to do. Like many young men of great promise and fluctuating moods, Swartz was an unstable compound of self-effacement and self-regard—among the most empowered, well-connected young people in America, yet convinced that his very existence was a burden to others, even those who loved him. There is a category of young person able to do things like contribute to the building of the Internet in their teens, or sell their tech start-ups for millions of dollars when they are 19, or rally a million opponents to a major piece of legislation when they are in their twenties.
By the time he was 17, Swartz had already secured a permanent legacy written in code. F2C2012: Aaron Swartz keynote - "How we stopped SOPA"